The Past, the Present, and the Future

Some time ago, when the Lord brought Toplady’s Hymn, ˜Rock of Ages, to our mind during difficult circumstances, we not only felt the precious and powerful communion with Christ, the Rock of Ages, but also an intimate connection to this minister, who is before the throne of God and of the Lamb. Once again, we do not worship saints or expect support from them but only from Christ, the Rock of Ages. Christ was the Rock of Ages for His afflicted and tried people for the year 2015 (2016). He is that also now for 2016 (2017), and He remains the Rock of Ages to the end of the world. Thus, we do not put emphasis on the unchristian “here and now” but on Christ, the Rock of Ages.

A glance back

It can be a trap for office bearers to strive for a greater number of members and baptized members than in the previous year without really wanting to know whether the Lord has extended His kingdom among us. The disciples in Jesus’ time were also so centered on an earthly kingdom that Christ rebuked them and pointed out to them that His kingdom was not of this world.

We are not only convinced that Christ must be the focal point but also that He can never become valuable to us as long as we do not fall before Him as mortally guilty sinners. Then we may exult about Christ’s beauty, but as long as we remain strangers of our own filthiness, deformity, and lost condition, we deceive ourselves for eternity.

On the other hand, we want to emphasize that there are many younger people who feel themselves bound to God’s Word and the preaching based thereon and also express this in various ways—young people who deal with vital matters seriously and feel the necessity to be converted by God—young people whom we follow to see whether it has pleased the Lord to glorify His work in them.

Warm blanket

Each minister and office bearer must search himself as to whether the sound balance of law and gospel was preserved in preaching and pastoral work.

These days there is talk of a “warm blanket.” People feel it as a warm blanket when they receive personal attention and are only pointed to Jesus. They claim they feel themselves freed—as they call it—from the suffocating atmosphere in which they have been living.

Now it is to be desired that both children at home, as well as (baptized) members in every congregation, would feel the presence of a warm blanket. On the one hand, people only want to hear about Jesus and not about the balanced preaching of law and gospel. However, they will never receive the burning heart like the travelers on the way to Emmaus if they do not first experience that all their own hope has perished (Luke 24:21).

On the other hand, if the criticism should be correct because the pastoral care is cool, distant, lacking attention, then these, alas, are reasons for the “warm blanket feeling” to be lacking, and people seek it in circles where they feel more at home. Let us remember that every soul is one that is destined for eternity. Our young people yearn for understanding and attention. They can wear masks of indifference and unfeelingness, but they hanker after other persons with whom they can identify: persons who practice the doctrine that they teach, persons who are upright and honest and who are humble of spirit because of a life with Christ; persons who do not look down from a tower of “Phariseeism” but who from the valley of meekness seek the welfare of their poor soul.

Our youth are not worse than in earlier days, but they live in a time of technical developments in which they are totally immersed. As office bearers we ought not to distance ourselves from the world our youth lives in but, as much as possible, lovingly point out the great dangers and shape their consciences according to God’s Word. Our youth does not need a reproving finger but folded hands. Our youth has no need of weighty words but of upright compassion.

Rocks

When we office bearers mainly talk about the dark time, the damnable state in Adam, and that almost no people are being converted anymore, then we ourselves are the reason criticism is expressed. It may seem as if we have such a clear insight into the sad situation, but when the true need of our youth in this dark time is not felt, and we have no love for Christ as the basis of our love to our (baptized) members, then our words are nothing but clichés and standard expressions. When we as office bearers suspiciously raise our eyebrows when hearing about members or baptized members speaking about Jesus and salvation, we ask ourselves whom we would suspect. We ought to be on guard for two dangerous rocks:

1. The rock of barren, dead orthodoxy

The first we will mention is the rock of barren, dead orthodoxy. We know that those belonging to this group do not mark themselves as such, but if, as long as you take this position, you do not need Christ, the Rock of Ages, and do not commend Him to others, then you cannot describe your sad condition any differently. You can lean on your religion, supposed experience, imagined seriousness, and pretended poverty, but if you have never become a lost sinner before God, you lack the publican’s frame and petition for mercy. If you do not take and find a timely refuge to Christ, the Rock of Ages, as a lost sinner, you will be smashed to pieces against this rock.

2. The rock of glorying in Christ without ground

Secondly, we mention the rock of glorying in Christ without ever having been grafted into Him by grace and without knowing oneself as a weary, burdened sinner. In our days we are inundated with a superficial ministry which is totally without life and power A dead, studied presentation of the doctrine concerning salvation in Christ is oftentimes arranged mathematically, just like the two color squares on a checker board. Each utterance and quotation of a text is to be compared to a skillful and well-prepared move of the checker on the checker board, but it is where the heart is not touched in prayer and preaching, nor the inner strife is described; where the endearing and heart-refreshing gospel is not preached under the ministration of God’s Spirit; where the flock of such shepherds—whom Christ calls thieves and murderers (John 10:1)—are not fed.

On the basis of God’s Word, we teach that the gospel comes to each hearer with the command to repent and believe (Canons.II,5). We absolutely do not teach that the gospel or the offer of grace is the same as God’s promise, which is promised to every hearer and on which he may plead.

Do remember that the soul experimental lessons of various truths, such as the misery of man and God’s mercy in Christ, the old and the new man, the wounded soul and the balm of Christ’s blood, are only learned in the oven of tribulation. A minister or office bearer who is thus exercised by God’s Spirit speaks scripturally and experimentally and according to the heart of Jerusalem. This alone gives warmth and causes others to become jealous and to also want to become partakers of the life that is from Christ. It cannot be otherwise than that those who are instructed by God’s Spirit in this manner will continually need this instruction. Calvin rightly says, “Those who teach others must still daily be instructed themselves.”

Therefore, we have need of spiritual leaders who need instruction by Christ and by experience begin to understand the contents of Toplady’s hymn:

Rock of Ages, cleft for me,
Let me hide myself in Thee;
Let the water and the blood,
From Thy wounded side which flowed,
Be of sin the double cure,
Save from wrath and make me pure.

Rev. J. Roos, Barneveld, the Netherlands

(An excerpted article from Mount Zion, January 2016)

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