MISSION TIDINGS

GIFTS RECEIVED FOR MISSIONS IN JULY 1982

CLASSIS EAST SOURCE AMOUNT

Franklin Lakes Pentecost Coll. $1179.00

CLASSIS MID WEST

Friend in Michigan Gift 150.00

St. Catharines Pentecost Coll. 1838.65

Friend in Lynwood Gift 200.00

Kalamazoo Mission Night 552.50

Kalamazoo Donation 120.00

Kalamazoo Pentecost Coll. 1122.00

CLASSIS WEST

Waupun Pentecost Coll. 355.00

In Sheboygan Collection Gift 200.00

Friend in Waupun Gift 50.00

CLASSIS FAR WEST

Sunnyside Pentecost Coll. 1036.00

Lethbridge Pentecost Coll. 2153.26

Lynden Pentecost Coll. 669.15

TOTAL: $9625.56

Herewith we want to acknowledge you all for your generous support for the Mission. May the Lord bless you and your gifts.

We hope that all things are well on the mission fields, that the kingdom of the Lord may be built up, over the length and breath of the earth.

At present we haven’t much time, and we hope to visit the country of Haiti. Pray that the Lord may direct all things.

In behalf of the Mission Board.

American General Mission Fund Netherlands Reformed Congregations of United States and Canada

John Spaans, Treasurer

2376 Shadow Lane, N.E.

Grand Rapids, Michigan 49505

Phone: (616) 364-8379

LITERALLY AND FIGURATIVELY

It was during the second world war that one weekday I had to preach in a village in the Bom-melse Waard.

An aged friend, who had obtained knowledge of God and divine things, was also lodged in the same home where I was. We had met each other various time before, and this time she asked if she might travel with us since she had so many old age infirmities that it was impossible for her to travel alone. Since there was still room in our automobile, this was soon decided. On our return trip home that evening, one of the occupants of our automobile asked an aged, proved child of God, what kind of a woman she was. This occupant was given the peculiar answer that she was a woman who had nothing left but a store with empty boxes.

That was literally true. For many years, she had nothing left but a little store through which she could support herself in the way of God’s providence.

It was during the war. Much had been taken away, and what was left, had been sold. Thus it was with many stores. So many empty boxes were seen lying around. But this other friend meant it figuratively. This woman, who for many years already has rejoiced before the throne, was endowed with many gifts of grace. She was well versed in the Word of God. She was poor by worldly standards, but spiritually rich in God.

She had experienced a time in her life that inwardly she had a store filled with boxes. Then she had much freedom to speak about the ways of God. Then it was truly a relating of her rich life’s experience. But now in her old age, she had become poverty stricken within herself.

Empty boxes. God’s Spirit had emptied and exposed that woman and it really was a delight to listen to her. Although she had lost much, by grace she had saved everything. Although she was empty in herself, she had value in her soul of the fulness which is in God.

During her conversations, I have often thought she was like Naomi; I went out full, and the Lord hath brought me home again empty.

God’s ways with His chosen here upon earth is so different than that they had imagined. We ever wish to build greater barns, enlarge our stores; become the man and the woman. But God, in His wise counsel, has disposed it differently.

God maintains His justice and fulfils His justice in the salvation of His elect, and there it is experienced, “Riches profit not in the day of wrath, but righteousness delivereth from death.” All that which is our own must perish. We ourselves must perish so that Christ shall become all and in all.

God takes care of His honor, and God does not obtain this honor as long as we still have a full store. When we still possess much, God comes short.

It is a deep way for our nature, and a grievous experience for our flesh and blood to be broken down, but it is God-glorifying to be exercised through such ways.

The poor are even hated by their friends. If the store is empty, we do not receive many more visitors. But then, yea then, the people may experience—

“Though I poor and needy be,
God thinks of me constantly.”

Thus it becomes a wonder that there is still a friend that loves at all times and who sticketh closer than a brother. If they can no more take care of themselves, do they die in despair? Do they die of want? O no, then God takes care of them. Then the Holy Spirit takes care of them, but not in such a way that they can open up a new store and are able to help themselves like formerly. No, everything becomes different. They have learned how they can waste and squander everything, but now they receive so much that they are kept from despair and remain bound to God.

They need Him constantly. At one time it is somewhat more plentiful than the other, but now they begin to experience that they must live of one man’s earnings. “Thy Maker is Thy husband; the Lord of Hosts is His name, and the Holy One of Israel is thy Redeemer.”

“Thou givest glory, truth and grace,
E’en in death’s vale, Thou failest never.”

They receive nothing more in their hands, but may now understand:

“And Thy store of lovingkindness
Which has ever been of old.”

Before that Christ ascended from earth to heaven, He had spread His pierced hands blessingly over His disciples. By the application of God’s Spirit, they may and must believe that they are included in that. Beneath those hands they are safe. Yea, they are engraved in those hands, and those high and thick walls which are in their life, are ever before that God Who has loved them with an everlasting love. It is now a continuous lesson which must be learned: “By grace are ye saved.” The fulness of God has value only for an emptied sinner. All my fountains shall be within you. But the dear Holy Spirit is necessary to make use of that for them; evermore dependent in themselves and upon the three Persons in the divine essence—the drawing love of the Father, the redeeming love of the Son and the applying ministry and work of the Holy Spirit.

The discovery of those fountains is continuously necessary. The need of those fountains to be brought to that Fountain of bliss and salvation:

“With the abundance of Thy house
We shall be satisfied.
From rivers of unfailing joy
Our thirst shall be supplied.”

Psalter 94:3

And now here ever emptier in self, because the more they may receive, the greater their need becomes. We would think it to be the opposite, but that is not so. The more revelation, the greater the emptiness and need.

One day the time shall arrive when they awake they shall be satisfied with God’s image. In heaven, they shall no more hunger and thirst. The Lamb shall lead them unto living fountains of water, and God shall wipe away all their tears from their eyes.

That is now the prospect for all those who, in themselves, are emptied and worn out. It is not a perhaps, but a guarantee of certainty that it shall be to their benefit, and it all lies firm in a Triune God.

It is so necessary to know something of this personally and experimentally on this side of the grave. There are so many people in our days who are satisfied with things which shall fall away in the hour of death, and which shall be taken away from them in the day of eternity. The Bible tells us they are rich and increased in goods and have need of nothing, but also they know not how wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked they are. Always upon the mountains but never in the abyss; always rich and never spiritually poor; always full and never empty; always glorying and never sighing. What an awakening it shall be when it becomes eternity. It is terrible to enter eternity with an open conscience, but to enter into death with a quiet conscience is even more dreadful. To have reckoned firmly and surely upon heaven, and then not to be able. What a disappointment it will be to have shunned, despised and mocked the revealed preaching here in this life, and then to be deceived forever. O, may the Lord preserve us from that terrible self deceit. Then it would be more blessed to lie with Mordecai at the gate of the King until the end of our life, and with Lazarus at the gate of the rich man, surrounded by dogs. May God, by regenerating grace, make us sinners, and by discovering grace, poor and lost sinners to be sought and saved by Christ. May He send the spirit of judgment and burning to lose all and to gain Christ and to receive only out of Him grace for grace. Constantly empty, but also constantly filled again in order that they shall—

“Thy matchless goodness and Thy grace
Thy people shall commemorate.
And all Thy truth and righteousness
My joyful song shall celebrate.”

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