VISITING ONE A HUNDRED YEARS OLD

Part III

According to God’s eternal and infallible Word, we must learn that we must be reconciled to God as enemies, but we must also as ungodly sinners be justified. Through the Spirit we must learn, in what it consists and how it takes place. If Christ shall ever be formed in us, according to Gal. 4:19, we must first fall away with all our frames and experiences. Christ will not share with another. He is a complete Saviour. There is no place for us anymore, so that He shall have the highest place in, our heart and life. They saw no man save Jesus alone Matt. 17; for Christ is all and in all Col. 3:11. Glad with nothing, nor with anyone save with Him alone.

But also in our further life we must learn, “I will also leave in the midst of thee an afflicted and poor people, and they shall trust in the name of the Lord.” (Zeph. 3:12). And with all the grace we have received from heaven, in ourselves we remain objectionable and condemnable. Our natural existence, our corrupt nature, is and remains an enemy of God and of the way of free grace. Our flesh is not subject to the will of God and of the way of free grace. Our flesh is not subject to the will of God, neither indeed can be (Rom. 8:7). Oh, what a blessing it is that the Lord is so good, that we do not have to live out, what is often felt inwardly. For then we would be a disgrace upon earth. The poet of Ps. 66 sings of it:

Who safely holds our soul in life,
And steadfast makes our way.

God’s people remain poor and wretched in themselves, and they become so more and more. They must continually learn to look away from self, to despair of self; and learn only to look unto Jesus Christ, the Author and Finisher of our faith (Heb. 12:2). The poor commits himself unto Thee, Thou art the Helper of the fatherless. They do not have that grace of themselves. They remain deeply dependent upon preceding, accompanying, and following grace. We must learn it all from heaven and we find more and more in our life, not how wise, but how foolish we are, and of ourselves so insusceptible to learn what “grace” really is. Therefore we must continually become guilty before God and remain sinners before God. Those are such hard lessens for our proud and self-righteous nature. But what a privilege, to be instructed from heaven, as we read in Ps. 25: “Therefore He will teach sinners in the way.” He alone can do that, and He also does.

We are more often overcome, than overcoming in the spiritual strife. It is only by that world-conquering faith, if we may trample upon the necks of our enemies for moments. But once God’s people shall eternally have the upper hand over those that distress them. Here it has been only for moments, which Were very short, that they were more than conquerors through Him that loved them (Rom. 8:37), but soon it will be forever. Then the Devil will no more vex them, sin no more disturb them, and unbelief will no longer make their life bitter. Their old nature and their wretched character will no more ruin them, as they so often had to go their way here, bowed down (Rom. 7:24). Soon there will be no Devil, no world and no sin anymore for those delivered people of God. Then they shall be above all strife forever. What a change that will be for all those people, out of the wilderness of this life, into that Canaan of eternal rest; out of the church militant into the church triumphant; out of prison into eternal liberty; out of this vale of tears into an eternal uninterrupted joy and communion with a Triune God and the Lamb.

And the ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads. They shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away (Isa. 35:10).

Then there is no need of praying to be converted anymore, but forever giving thanks, that the Father has chosen them, that the Son has purchased and redeemed them and that the Holy Spirit has sealed them unto the day of their deliverance. Then no more sighing, but eternally singing of mercy and justice.

For you, poor worldling, who have your portion in this life, there is no other future, but soon to curse and blaspheme God eternally because of your pain and sorrow, where the worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. That it would become eternity for you, while there is yet time. The door is not yet shut forever. According to God’s own Word now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation. No one is too old, no one too hard, no one too wicked, but also no one too young to be converted. The greatest and most wicked sinner can still be converted. God’s Word gives many examples, nothing is too wonderful for the Lord. And that wonder is experienced, lived in, gone through by all those who were chosen from eternity unto eternal life, and who in the time of God’s good pleasure and upon the basis of Christ’s calling and redemption are born again and renewed by God the Holy Spirit. Rutherford wrote, that the Father sent His Son into the world to gather up the filth of society from the bottom of hell, to reconcile them to God in a way of justice and judgement and to bring them back again into His blessed communion. Alas, pious or wicked, by nature we have no interest in it, for we desire not the knowledge of God’s ways. In Adam our covenant head, we departed from God, with the intention never to return to God again.

By nature it is with us just like with the younger son in Luke 15, who took his journey into a far country, thus it also is with man, continually fleeing farther from God. Our heart is filled and occupied with an eternal enmity against God and there is no thought or intention to ever return again. It is really a terrible thing to write, but still it is the complete truth, by nature man desires nothing else, but to go to hell. The Bible says in Isa. 28:15, we have made a covenant with death, and with hell we are at agreement. Oh, what a thought, and that of man who once was created perfect, adorned with the image of God.

May you still learn to realize, that the time shall come, that you will have to do with God; for one day you will be summoned before a Holy and righteous God, that everyone may receive the things done in his body (2 Cor. 5:10). Alas, many live as if there were no God, no death and eternity coming. The thoughts thereof disappear more and more. There is almost no respect or reverence for anything anymore. The man of sin is revealing himself more and more, sinking away in sin and provoking the Highest Majesty of God. Everything is crying for the judgment of destruction and perdition. In general it is: let us eat, drink and be merry. God’s Word, God’s law and God’s day, have no meaning anymore. And it is hardly realized anymore that we have a soul created for eternity. There is almost no outward knowledge anymore that it will soon be eternity; and that God will demand His image back again from man. He cannot answer one of a thousand. That man is responsible for his fall, and for his life, makes no impression upon man anymore, not even among those who were brought up under the truth.

Children whom I have baptized, who are now grown-up married men and women, do not even read God’s Word anymore at mealtime. We are declining back into heathendom, yea, worse than a heathendom, because they still have an outward knowledge of God, even though they are strangers of God and His Word. Oh, that you would still have some realization of the responsibility that rests upon you, and if you continue upon this fatal path of the wicked sinners, soon you will be speechless before that fearful Judge, whose eyes are as a flame of fire. Then it will be too late, forever too late. Then there will be no more time to be converted. At that time the longsuffering and forbearance of God shall be ended; when the time of grace is passed and the door closed, never to be opened again. It shall irrevocably remain closed, and then forever, to which there will be no end. It will be an eternal sinking-away under the anger and wrath of a God, who revengeth and is furious.

Oh, my poor fellow-traveler, to eternity, may the Lord out of free and sovereign grace give you, what I wish for you, but cannot give: Before the decree bring forth, before the day pass as chaff, before the fierce anger of the Lord comes upon you, before the day of the Lord’s anger comes upon you (Zeph. 2:2). An unconverted person can still be converted. The Lord still stands and waits to be gracious. Oh, how sad it is to go on in our own chosen way, which will end in eternal death.

Truly, young men and maidens, men and women, it shall be a hell in hell when we soon will open our eyes in hell and then to have lived under so many callings, warnings and admonitions.

MERCY

Hope in God! One half of the professing world hope in themselves. Because they do their duty, are just and upright men, walk circumspectly, are charitable in their minds, and feel a disposition to do good to their fellow-creatures; this is what they hope in, not in the mercy of God. Such characters as these know no need of the mercy of God, they have never been afraid of their deplorable and wretched state as sinners by nature, and therefore their hope is the hope of the hypocrite, and it will perish when they come into storms. But the hope which props up the Lord’s people brings them to hang upon the promises, and to expect the precious truths of God to be communicated. It is a grace of the Holy Ghost.

May God bless you with a spirit of prayer and of supplication. Cease from man whose breath is in his nostrils. Tell the Lord your distresses, burdens, and griefs, for He alone can help and deliver; He will never turn a deaf ear to the cry of His afflicted people; He will prove a prayer-hearing and answering God. This is the gift of God, the gift of the Holy Ghost.

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