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Part V

The Father has found a ransom. The Son has brought about the atonement, and God the Holy Spirit, comes to work out the atonement and to confirm it. Then, what a privilege it is to be favored to share personally in the fruit by the application of the Spirit, and to delight ourselves in that sanctified knowledge.

Who, yea, who shall be able to fathom and comprehend that wonder! It passes all knowledge. Those people are, with the whole world, condemnable before God. There is no merit or worthiness in any creature; no foreseen faith or good works are considered by God.

It is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy. From the beginning to the end it is “Sovereignty”. Read Rom. 9:11–14. For the children, being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works but of him that calleth, it was told her (Rebekeh) the elder shall serve the younger, as it is written, “Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.” What shall we say then, “Is there unrighteousness with God?” God forbid. God loves His people from eternity. He loves them freely. He loves them to the end. Where God’s grace falls, it falls freely, and the wonder shall become ever greater. That wondering shall never end, where they all, by the Holy Spirit, are shown what they are and remain in themselves: cursed, condemnable, reprehensible, unclean and so miserable that it cannot be expressed in words, but God’s eye has been cast upon them from eternity, and He has chosen them to His honor and glory. God’s sovereignty comes constantly to the fore. God chooses the one and passes by the other. The one is raised up out of the depth of his fall and brought back in a way of justice and righteousness into the blessed communion with God, and the other sinks down deeper and deeper in his lost and damnable state, by and by to sink away in outer darkness where shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

The one is drawn up out of the mire of sin, and out of that horrible pit, and is set upon a rock, and the other sinks ever deeper, and it is all, all their own fault. But the first glories and exalts in free grace. The one is struck down upon the battlefield of free grace to surrender to God and to kneel at His feet, while the other continues and proceeds, either in wickedness or in selfrighteousness, by and by to be cast away by God, and to remain forever beneath God’s wrath.

The one may yield to God, and the other continues to harden himself in his enmity, without ever becoming truly humbled.

Ah, how eternally free and sovereign God is. As the great Potter, He makes the one vessel to honor and the other to dishonor. Who can stay His hand and say unto Him, “What doest Thou?” But according to God’s testimony, He does all these things so that we should fear before Him. Eccl. 3:14.

Samuel was among them that called upon His Name, and his sons walked not in his way, I Sam. 8:3. But his grandson, Heman, the poet of Ps. 88, had fourteen sons who were permitted to sing in the temple to the honor of God.

Ahaz was one of the most wicked kings of Judah, and his son which came out of his loins was one of the most God-fearing kings which ever were in Jerusalem. Many prayers had been sent up to God by Samuel, but it may be assumed not one sigh for Hezekiah. Thus, see the sovereignty of God shine forth in election and rejection. The Lord Jesus said in Matt. 11:25, 26: “I thank Thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes. Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Thy sight.” Should we then confuse and conceal the doctrine of predestination? Should we then be afraid to testify of it because many revile and slander that doctrine? Far be it from us.

But that doctrine does not remove the responsibility from man. May God preserve us from ever playing with the doctrine of the sovereignty of God as the Antinomians do. That practice is wicked and abominable. It remains unchangeable what we read in Deut. 29:29, ‘The secret things belong unto the Lord our God: but those things which are revealed belong to us and to our children.” If a person is lost, it shall only be his own fault. God has created us good and after His likeness, but we did not like to retain God in our knowledge. Wilfully and voluntarily man has rent himself loose from God; hence the full responsibility rests upon him. By virtue of creation, God is free from all men. He frees Himself from all men, by the Gospel which comes to us. Christ Himself said, “Ye will not come to Me that ye might have life,” John 5:40. We will not have anything to bring in when by and by man shall be placed before the Judge of heaven and earth. Man shall be unable to answer one of a thousand questions. Man shall stand speechless, and his damnation shall be just, as well for his denial of Christ as for his rejection of Christ, Who has been set forth and preached as the only Name given under heaven unto salvation.

But on the other hand, all those that shall be saved shall never be able to ascribe it to something that was or is in them. It shall always remain as we read in Eph. 2:8, “For by grace are ye saved.” Above the gates of heaven it is written: “And there shall in no wise enter into it anything that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination or maketh a He; but they which are written in the Lamb’s book of life.” Rev. 21:27.

Nor do God’s people want any honor; even though God gives them glory and honor. An aged departed preacher said at times when the life of God became lively in his heart: “Lord, I have nothing to give Thee, but gladly would I give Thee all.” They would gladly give Him all worship and thanksgiving. There are so many times that they walk without feeling, without desires, without impression over the earth. Are they agreed with that? O no, far from it. They condemn themselves so often because they cannot condemn themselves aright. There are moments that it grieves their heart, that they thus live to the dishonor of God. At the bottom of their heart lies the longing and the desire to do everything to the glory of God.

Because they observe the opposite so often during their life, therefore there are also moments in their life, that with Solomon, they hate their life, hate their labor, and must agree with that king, with that child of the Lord, “For see his days are sorrow, and his travail grief: yea, his heart taketh not rest in the night. This is also vanity.” Even Paul had to cry out in Rom. 7 when he wrote about the practice of sanctification, “O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” It was grace that he could add to it, “I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

And because Christ was his only foundation, he had a desire to depart and to be with Christ, Phil. 1:23. God’s people look forward to the day of redemption in which God shall be all and in all, and in which they shall also show forth His praise perfectly and undisturbed.

It is only the divine nature of which God’s people have become partakers, II Peter 1:4, which loves God and His virtues, but also looks forward to and longs for the full communion and enjoyment of a Triune God. What a great grace it is to be favored with that assured faith and confidence before the gates of death!

It is uncommon among God’s people to travel with such cheerfulness to eternity, and to take the step in that frame of mind. Verily, it is a special favor. We may, indeed, become jealous of that.

The Rev. E.L. Meinders, the pastor of our South Holland, Illinois congregation, who died in 1904, once said to a dear friend, “During the years of my ministry I have seen but very few of god’s people depart joyfully.”

Of course, we must also consider that when a child of the Lord dies in the dark, in an unconscious condition, it is not always under the displeasure of God. The Lord gives no account of His matters; also in such cases. “All things come alike to all: there is one event to the righteous and the wicked.” Some during their life have given an ample testimony so that at the end of their life they have nothing more to say.

The Lord has His wise purposes with everything. It also happens that in the last part of their life, God’s children must still learn lessons of which they had no knowledge before. Above all--they are all wrought upon by the Spirit in such a way that God and He only, shall receive the honor of everything.

And further, by nature, death is for man: the wages of sin, Rom. 6:23, and the king of terrors. Death has not been created by God, but we have brought death into the world. For God’s people, it is the last enemy that shall be destroyed, and most of God’s people think and look upon it with fear and terror. How they may be plagued and tormented with death during their life. How death may frighten and oppress them. When Christ, as Surety, came in contact with death and wrestled with death in the garden of Gethsemane, His blood became as great drops of blood which fell down upon the earth. Yea, there He has cried out, “My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death.” Upon the cross, Christ cried out, “It is finished.” and He not only bruised satan’s head and satisfied God’s justice, but He also abolished death and swallowed up death in victory. Yea, when Christ abolished death, He also changed death for His people into blessing. Christ abolished death and brought life and immortality to light, II Tim. 1:10. That was also the reason why the glorified Christ manifested Himself to John on Patmos, as having the keys of hell and of death in His hand, Rev. 1:18.

When now through the application of Christ’s merits, death is no longer death, then that death which by nature is our enemy, has become our best friend.

Then we say with Paul in I Cor. 15:15, “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Thus, only through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Alas, alas, to most people in our days, death does no longer mean anything. Men have become so hard that many go to meet death without fear. Dead is dead, that is the way many live. O how terrible when our consciences are seared shut, and we by and by, shall become acquainted with the reality of eternity, but then forever too late.

On the other hand, in the churches and among the religious multitudes, it is as it once was with Agag, the king of the Amorites. “Surely the bitterness of death is past,” I Sam. 15:31. The slogan is that everyone is saved in his own religion. They are all preached into heaven. With the Catholics many go for sometime into purgatory, but with the Lutherans and Protestant churches, it is easier. What a deceit! Among the so-called professors of the truth--no, I must change that because where is the truth preached and presented as it is in Christ Jesus? “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge,” Hos. 4:6.

All sorts of old errors, which have been condemned and banished by the Church of the Reformation, are covertly and much more openly introduced and accepted as truth. Those things in the Bible which they cannot understand are no longer believed; the reconciliation with God has been loosed from Christ. The order of salvation is no longer understood, and the free will of man is placed in the foreground.

Election and regeneration, man’s state of death must not be spoken of because it takes away man’s courage. Just urge the people, they say, with all that is in you to believe; the people must believe that they are christians, and must assume that by and by they shall have a place in heaven.

(to be continued)

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