An Important Message for the New Year

We are privileged to stand upon the threshold of a new year. What it will bring forth is known only unto the Lord.

In the past year many things have taken place: Dear ones were taken away, some were visited with sickness, and others with many different types of afflictions. We must confess that the Lord has visited us with many callings. We have heard of earthquakes, tornadoes, fires, wars, floods and many devastating destructions. Alas, we can see through these judgments of the Lord that there is no breaking with sin; on the contrary, sin is greatly on the increase. Yet, the mercies of the Lord are still great, in spite of all our national, church, family, and individual sins.

Friends, it is very important that we as office-bearers blow the trumpet with a clear sound because the days wherein we live are very evil. I hope that the Lord will make us faithful and enable us to write this serious and important message in the beginning of this New Year 1988. May it be a blessing to us and to our children.

“Break up your fallow ground: for it is time to seek the Lord, till He come and rain righteousness upon you.”

In the first place, this is a serious message. Hosea the prophet was inspired to write this serious message of the Lord to the Northern kingdom approximately 200 years after the division of Israel. In this 200 years since Israel was divided because of its backsliding the Lord had sent many prophets. Elijah, Elisha and Amos were sent and finally the prophet Hosea came with this serious call to repentance: “break up your fallow ground.” The year 1988 is also a very dark time similar to the days of Hosea the prophet in which we and our children are called to repent. We read in James 2:9b, “The judge standeth before the door.”

What a blessing that the Lord still calls to us to repent before the Judge comes! May these callings of the Lord be sanctified unto our never-dying souls.

Repentance is a great grace; it brings a person to where he will never come by nature, although it does not diminish man’s responsibility for all his thoughts, words and deeds. We were created willing and able to serve the Lord with our whole heart. Through our deep fall, it is definitely our own fault that we are not able in and of ourselves to think a good thought or to bring forth a good deed. Never use that thought as an excuse. Our inability is our own fault. It is our unwillingness that stands in the way, but it does not alter God’s just command to walk in the ways of the Lord and to serve Him only. If we were led by the light of the Holy Spirit, to come to the place that we couldn’t make any more excuses, we would have to cry out, “Oh God, be merciful to me a sinner.”

The Lord clearly calls to us in this evil day to “break up your fallow ground.” We read in Isaiah 21:11,12, “Watchman what of the night? Watchman what of the night?” The prophet honestly answers that “the morning cometh, and also the night.” The prophet speaks here of only a short morning in which the message calls to us, break up the fallow gound, before the endless night of God’s judgment will come upon all that remain unconverted. That night will never be followed by the morning, but by endless destruction to all eternity.

1988 is still the short morning that the Lord calls out as in Proverbs 8:1-5: “Doth not wisdom cry? and understanding put forth her voice? She standeth in the top of high places by the way in the places of the paths. She crieth at the gates, at the entry of the city, at the coming in at the doors. Unto you, O men, I call; and my voice is to the sons of man. Oh, ye simple, understand wisdom; and, ye fools, be of an understanding heart.”

Secondly, this is a great privilege. It is time to seek the Lord. Time is a precious thing. The Lord tells us in our text that there is still time to seek Him. For many, that time is already past, and who knows how soon that time will come for us and our children. The message that came unto Israel of old was, “Break up your fallow ground; for it is time to seek the Lord.” That word comes unto young and old, rich and poor, high and low, converted and unconverted.

This message came in a time when the church was in great backsliding, and our time is much the same. World conformity is great. Proverbs 23:10 says, “Remove not the old landmarks.” Stay with the old paths, with the law and with the prophets. The law and the gospel is still proclaimed in our day. The Lord says, “It is time to seek the Lord.” The Lord reveals the day of grace in this message of salvation. The Lord still follows us and our children with His Word because that full number is not yet brought in.

Young and old, hear the message of Jeremiah, “O earth, earth, earth hear the word of the Lord.” Again we were privileged to commemorate the Advent, the coming of the great Messiah in the flesh.

We read in Matthew 5:6, “Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled.” The preaching of the coming Messiah is such a blessing for that hungering and thirsting people. People of the Lord, concerned as well as the established, may you by the grace of Cod experience in Advent something of that hungering and thirsting, of that missing and longing. May you under the preaching of the Dayspring from on high, feel that your heart burned within you, that you received an expectation; may you feel that you could say, “Give me Jesus ere I die,” and that the Lord could give the testimony of you, “For I know that ye seek Jesus.”

Oh, what a wonder that it is still time to seek the Lord! Troubled soul, you feared so many times, that time would be cut off and you would never see “the living child.” You were not a stranger of expectation, but you saw death on every side and experienced assaults from the enemy of your soul within and without. How Zacharias feared to die dumb without seeing a deliverance! How the promise can be tried! What a privilege that we still may seek the Lord: “It is still the time of grace.”

Thirdly, there is a precious promise: “till He come and rain righteousness upon you.” The last part of our text speaks to a people that by grace may repent, because it is only by grace that they are drawn by the Lord to seek Him in that precious time that the Lord will “rain righteousness upon you.” There is a people who by grace learn what the prophet Isaiah saith, “and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags” (Isaiah 64:6), and what Matthew says in chapter 5:20: “For I say unto you, that except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.”

There is a people that love to hear the preaching of the way of salvation outside of themselves, and that by moments may hear the preaching of John the Baptist, “Behold the Lamb of God.” They love to hear Christ preached in all His preciousness, as the Promised One of the Father. On Christmas, God with us; on Easter, God for us; and on Pentecost, God in us. What a wonder if we may be led by the Holy Spirit, where we read in Zechariah 13:1, “In that day there shall be a fountain opened to the house of David and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem for sin and for uncleaness.” What a wonder if we may experience something of the meaning of His names “Jesus” and “Christ”: Jesus (Savior) for lost sinners and Christ (Anointed) appointed and qualified, appointed by the Father and qualified by the Holy Spirit to be Prophet, Priest and King. As Prophet He must teach us, because we know nothing as we ought to know; He must teach us of our sins and of the righteousness of God. As that only High Priest only He can bring reconciliation by the price of His blood; He brought in that everlasting righteousness of which our text speaks and will “rain righteousness upon you.” Christ not only purchased salvation for His people but also glorified the holy attributes of His Father, and through the application of the Holy Spirit, He has salvation for His people.

There is a people that love to hear the preaching of the way of salvation outside of themselves.

What Christ has wrought He also upholds, though they may fear many times that their way is hidden from the Lord. Many times it remains a great question for that people, does the Lord know of them? Was it truly begun by Him? It is a point they long to know, “Am I His or am I not?” So many times faith is tried. How important it is to them to be led into the kingship of Christ, that they may behold His displayed banner, on which the captain of their salvation has written, “I will love them freely.” May they hear His words, “All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth” (Matthew 28:18b). Christ as King goes before His people.

What a fullness lies in the natures of Christ! In His divine and human nature, God manifest in the flesh, that eternal wonder can never be fathomed—also not in the states of Christ—His humiliation and exaltation.

May the Lord in this year bring many to true conversion, and that there might be among His people a growing in the knowledge of the Lord.

Rev. J. Spaans is pastor of the Netherlands Reformed Congregation of Norwich, Ontario.

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