Rev. E. van het Loo (1)

Too late!

"Too late, sir!"

A railway employee gave the news about the train, which had left the station earlier, to a minister who came hurrying onto the railway platform. He had wanted to travel home that afternoon, but he had first stopped at a bookseller. Now he had missed the train, for he was too late.

The railway man asked, "Why are you so startled by this, sir? for your color is changing."

"It resounded in my soul: 'Too late, forever too late!'" was the reply. Then the minister began to speak about these words: forever too late.

Soon more people gathered around and listened, because the last train for the day had left anyway. The minister showed that we all have to die, that neither rich nor poor, neither wise nor foolish escapes death, but that many have to leave this earth unprepared. He pointed out how immoral and irresponsible it was to neglect our greatest need, as well as the necessity of a preparation for our coming death. Moreover, he laid out what this preparation for the coming eternity consists in according to the doctrine of Holy Scripture. And what is that? True repentance, the exercise of saving faith, and a walking upon the way of sanctification.

Afterwards, he went into town again and traveled home by train the next morning.

This incident happened in the life of Rev. E. van het Loo and was related many years later by his son. He writes that it took place in the Netherlands, on a day in the fall some time in the late 1800s. Evidently, Rev. Van het Loo had the needs of fellow travelers to eternity bound upon his heart. Evidently as well, he received from the Lord liberty to warn and testify with a loving heart when the opportunity arose. And what was the outcome? His son tells us further.

Three months later, the minister happened to come into the same railroad station. He had hardly arrived when someone approached him and said, "Shall I get a ticket for you, sir? Where do you want to go? Which class do you want to takeâ€" second or third?"

"That is not necessary, thank you. I will do it myself," was the reply.

"Ah, sir," said the man, "please let me do this for you."

"Well, go ahead. I want to go to H____ in second class."

When the man handed the ticket to Rev. Van het Loo, he wanted neither money nor thanks for it. Instead he said, "I am so thankful to you for what you spoke to me and others on the platform three months ago. Now I have neither liberty nor desire to work here any longer, for I also have to work on Sunday. I am planning to give up my job this month. Your words have made a deep, indelible impression on me. I am sincerely grateful to God and to you for the admonitions, counsel, and guidance that you gave me. In God's strength I hope to improve my life and first of all seek the Lord and do His service. May the Lord further bless you!"

With a tear in his eye the man said farewell, and the minister boarded the train which had meanwhile arrived.

Thus far goes the testimony of Rev. Van het Loo's son. We may observe that the Lord gave His servant to cast his bread upon the waters, and he was privileged to find it, not even after many days, but already after three months.

Who was this Rev. E. van het Loo? Why is he of special interest to us? This minister had a varied church path. He never served the Netherlands Reformed Congregations, and yet his preaching and death led to the beginning of our Franklin Lakes congregation, formerly meeting on Haledon Avenue, in Paterson, New Jersey. In a few articles, we want to trace something of the life and teaching of this servant of God and mention a few of the remarkable incidents that he experienced.

The early beginnings

Elbert van het Loo (or: van't Loo) was born in Beekbergen, the Netherlands, on November 24, 1833, a year before the Secession took place. We still have a congregation there; the old Rev. M. Hofman also came from that area. Although we would like to know more, little is known about Elbert's early life. According to Rev. H. Tanis (1871-1916), who published some of his sermons, when Rev. Van het Loo "reached the age of eighteen years old, he received a desire to serve and fear the Lord. A few years later he felt the desire to proclaim the gospel, which was also fulfilled when he was about thirty years old."

In one of his last sermons, Rev. Van het Loo writes about the beginning of God's work in a chosen vessel, and even though he does not write this about himself specifically, we may believe that he was no stranger to that work. "The elect of the Father, for whom Christ has merited life, are by nature, as all other people, dead in sins and trespasses and estranged from the life of God. They are by nature children of Satan, as all other people, bound under the curse of the law, and under the sentence of eternal death. They miss by nature God's favor and the true life of the soul; and they do not know and do not desire that true life, but remain careless in the midst of death, separated from God under the most dreadful prospect to plunge down into eternal death. And this would surely be their lot, if God had not from eternity had mercy upon them, and if He had not chosen them in Christ unto life eternal."

That life was merited by Christ for His people, and He it is who grants that spiritual and eternal life. "By regenerating grace He grants them the beginning of an eternal, new, and incorruptible life…. By regeneration of the Holy Spirit, or incorporation of faith in Him, He communicates new life unto them. Their eyes are opened to know God, and themselves, and Jesus Christ in an entirely different way than formerly. Now they see themselves as entirely guilty, worthy of condemnation, unclean, and helpless before the holy and righteous God. They learn to agree with God's justice and to supplicate their Judge for grace, from the deepest bottom of their heart. They are enabled to learn to know Jesus Christ as the Way, the Truth, and the Life, to flee unto Him, and to receive Him by faith granted of God."

Such a life of grace does not remain hidden but becomes manifest in the fruits. They are now united with Christ, created in Him, and they live unto God. "Their will is inclined and their affections regulated unto a new life. Their desires and emotions are also renewed. Now they seek no longer their happiness and delight in sin and in the world, but in God and His service. The spiritual life of their souls manifests itself in their conversation and walk and newness of life. And this life is active in the knowledge and love of God, and ends in death in that eternal, perfect life in heaven."

In which particular ways Rev. Van het Loo experimentally learned these matters, we cannot teil, but that the Lord taught him these things is plain. That was also the inward testimony of God's children who heard him over the course of the years; his preaching commended itself unto their consciences, and their hearts melted together. That people is one in their speaking, one in their love, one in their missing, one in their desires, because the same Spirit leads them.

Forever too late?

Too lateâ€"this was the subject which prompted Rev. Van het Loo's serious exhortation on the railway platform. The same seriousness, the same urgency, the same love for sinners is evident in his sermons. Let him exhort you even now from one of his applications; after more than a century his words have not lost their value.

"Oh, poor, wretched fellow traveler to eternity, who does not yet know any need for God and lives as if there is no God, here you may imagine that you are able to live outside of and without God, but how will you do when death shall knock at your door? How shall you then do without God, when you will go to eternity without hope or with a false hope? Oh, would that the Lord impress it into your hearts by His Holy Spirit before it will be too late for you, forever too late. Now it is still not too late for any one of us. Now we are all still in the present time of grace and the possibility to be saved.

"It has been preached to you now, my hearers! You are all poor and needy, yes, poor, naked, and blind, although you do not see it nor believe it. It has been preached to you now as well, that God's mercy in Christ wants to glorify itself also in body and soul for time and eternity, by hearing, receiving, and saving the worst, the unworthiest, and most condemnable sinner.

"Oh, may it please God to open the soul's eyes of you all for your misery, sin, and guilt. Oh, before it is forever too late, may you learn to call unto God, to be made truly calling by the power of the Holy Spirit.

"Oh, I pray you for the salvation of your souls, do seek the Lord while He is still to be found, call upon Him while He is near, before the door of grace shall be closed forever. Now the door of grace is still open, uncovered souls; it is not yet too late for you. Oh, do hear it, Jesus did not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.

"He has died for the wicked; He justifies the unjust by His merits. Blessed is he who can plead on His merits; he shall surely find an answer. Consider it great grace when all help is cut off with you, and nothing is left. Where there is nothing good remaining in us, then the salvation and deliverance of our Lord is near. 'For He shall deliver the needy when he crieth; the poor also, and him that hath no helper.'"

Reader, shall it be too late for you?

[For this and the following articles we are indebted to various books, several friends in the East, as well as to Rev. G. Bieze, all who supplied valuable information. AHV]

â€" to be continued â€"

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