REFORMED WITNESS
Volume XI, February 2003, Number 2
Fear For The Future
by Rev. John A Heys
From the January 1, 1970 issue of The Standard Bearer
See more articles by this author
Also in this issue: Holiday or Holy Day? - by Rev. J. A. Heys
Fear is here! And though we wanted it otherwise, we brought it with us into the new year.
Putting up a new calendar, calling the month by a different name and the year by another number does not take away the fears we had in the year that has gone by with startling swiftness.
In fact, the very fact that we have to call the year by a larger number simply means that we are a year closer to the day of our death. The thought of that death is what gives us fear and many an anxious moment. Did not the author of the epistle to the Hebrews write that Christ will "..deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage?"
We have not in the year gone by slowed down the process which brings us to the grave and to a confrontation with the God Whose we are and Whom we have not served with that diligence which is required. Nothing in the past has assured us that we will not meet head-on the antichrist, that man of sin, who will not allow us to buy or sell. We have not erected an iron curtain to block his approach to us and to our children., and though at times we look to the morrow because of some joy we expect to experience on that day, the joy is always overshadowed by what we know will follow.
In spite of the rosy picture that men try to paint, there is nothing to which men can point that will give true assurance. The unbeliever sees clearly enough that although we fought two wars to "end all wars," we have only produced an armament race with such dreadful weapons of destruction that the chills run down our backs with fear of what man is now able to do in a moment! And ironically enough, men fight their fellow men in our streets to call for an end to fighting the enemy and stranger in another land.
Although we do not suffer at the moment, there is the fear of a serious food and water shortage in the years ahead. The population explosion has many serious-minded planners for the future worried about what we will eat and drink in the days when these children born today beget their children. In our folly and unconcern we still continue to dig up our rich soil for housing projects and transport rich soil from fields to insure a nice green lawn. Meanwhile, for years we have poured tons and tons of filth and sewage and poison into our rivers and lakes, killed off our fish and made it necessary to go farther and farther away from the cities for some usable water for our drinking purposes.
We have been so eager to get rid of our pesky mosquitoes and to harvest bumper crops of food that we have resorted to powerful insecticides to kill our flies and bugs and beetles. In the process we have killed our birds which accounted for many other insects. We have destroyed the balance that God in wisdom placed in the creature world. These insecticides have also drained into our creeks and rivers and lakes to contaminate the fish which our filthy waters did not kill. We live in fear of cancer-forming or cancer-producing meats from fish and from other beasts. We have created a wonderful world of confusion and contradiction for ourselves and our children.
Then too, there is the ever spiraling cost-of-living to worry about, with another series of strikes to boost the cost of the objects we need and intend to buy. We cannot make ends meet, so we strike to get more money to spend. But the consumer is not one step ahead. He has not caught up yet with the wages he lost during the strike before the manufacturer raises his prices to make up for the higher wages he now has to pay his help because of this strike. So we end up with more money to spend for items that now cost more money to buy.
Psychiatrists, psychiatry, psychiatric hospitals and psychiatric counseling are all in ever-increasing demand. The trend is not away from these but toward more use of them. We cannot relax. Tensions mount. The problems increase without any actual solution.
The space program with its astronomical cost continues each year to demand a higher piece of the finances. We cannot afford it now; and we cannot afford to drop it. It is costing the money that ought to be put to use upon the inhabitants of the earth and not on the craters of the moon. We better first solve a few of our problems here below before we go so far away to create new problems there. But we cannot drop the whole program either. The sky used to be the limit of our spending, but now we have to raise the limit to Mars and some distant star. Yet we cannot back down after getting to the moon, because the consequences would be tragic for the economy. What an amount is invested in buildings and electronic equipment! What a vast number of men are employed in this whole program! If we were to drop it - and there is no sense, now that we have gone to the moon, to phase it out gradually or partially - what a terrific unemployment situation would be created! No, we have to go on till we are ruined.
More seriously still, there are those inroads into the church-world and those vicious and subtle attacks upon the faith and spiritual lives of our children. With all the amazing media of communication and instruction today the approach is subtle and appealing to our youth. Shall we not have fear for the future for them? They are exposed to so much more than we were when we were their ages. The pleasures and treasures of the world are so much closer to them and more easily available with automobiles, radio and television. They make more money quickly so as to be in a position to seek all these. Family life is disrupted so soon and in so many ways because of the complexity of our life.
Then there is also the whole church picture to strike fear into the heart of the serious, concerned child of God. Mergers continue to be realized. The enemy of the child of God (who would remain distinct with the truth of God's Word) grows bigger and bigger, more powerful and still more powerful. The heretics become bolder and bolder. The church begins to look and to sound more and more like the world. It is NOT a case of the world looking like the church. The world is not trying to join the church, but it is the church that wants to look like the world that declares that God is dead. Once again it is the case of the "sons of God" seeing "the daughters of men that are fair", and that these sons of God "took them wives of all which they chose." There is not anything in Christianity that the world wants; but there is so much in the world that many in the church want.
Fear for the future there is, and fear for the future there must be. Only, let it be then the fear of the Lord. We cannot avoid seeing all the dangers in the world today. We are not blind to the trend all around us in the world today. We, because we believe the Word of God, can "see the day approaching," and we know that because man has set himself on a course of opposition to the living God, he is on a collision course with the Almighty. Dread disaster is just ahead for him. But then, seeing all this with the natural eye and by the natural intellect, let us by all means look also with the eye of faith. Let the fear of God be the fear which we have for the future. Then the mists will all roll away. Then we will see victory and a blessed future.
Let our fear for the future be the fear that looks back to Calvary, to the open and empty tomb, and to Christ seated at the right hand of God in heaven. Let the eye of faith be fixed on Christ, and our fear will not be one of terror and fright but of reverence and awe, of amazement and respect before the God of our salvation. We take all of our problems and cares into the new year; but let us by all means take Christ along with us into that year and into all the days of our lives here below. Let us walk in the new year in faith, even as we walked throughout the old in that fear of the Lord, which is faith and trust in Him as the God of our salvation.
The fear of the Lord, or if you will faith in the God of our salvation, is not going to change circumstances around about us. If all men in the world would suddenly receive the gift of faith from God, there would be a new society, a new outlook, a new world-and-life view, a new approach to the old problems and a new dedication and consecration. In the new Jerusalem we will not have the problems that we now have. There surely will be no fear of the criminal, nor fear for want of food and drink. Fear of war will be no more. Unemployment will be a forgotten word. No longer will we fear that the minds and hearts of our children will be corrupted. We shall have one gloriously large church, for the prayer of Christ that "they all may be one" will be fulfilled by God in the return of Christ and the destruction of all sinful flesh. But in this life there will be no such universal and total conversion. Instead we are to expect that the church will remain a little flock in the midst of a multitude that will continue their evil course, and be a threat to the lives of the children of God.
Besides, even in the life of the individual child of God there is no sudden removal of all his problems when he is converted. The converted drunkard, who has wasted his life and has a body full of aches and pains and permanent damage to his liver, heart, arteries, and entire digestive system is not going to be healed by his conversion and new walk of life. God is not going to lift the curse off the face of this earth because we now believe in Him. That curse will remain till the day of Christ.
But faith will give us a different goal in life, so that what now is such a dreadful loss and calamity and fills us with such fear and terror will be gone never to return and will not disturb us and as it did in times gone by. Death does not seem such a terrible woe to the believer because he sees it as his servant instead of his enemy. He sees it, not as the doorway to hell and its torments, but as the gateway to heaven and its glory. For by faith he sees victory over death and the grave in Christ. He fears God rather than death which God controls so perfectly.
Faith keeps him steadfast and unmovable in the mist of all the sorrows and disappointments that the flesh experiences in this life. Faith and its handmaid of hope keep the child of God anchored in Christ in the midst of all the storms, so that he is not driven upon the rocks of despair and ruin. Faith makes him sing:
Jehovah is my light,
And my salvation near;
Who shall my soul affright,
Or cause my heart to fear?
While God my strength, my life sustains
Secure from fear my soul remains.Indeed, have fear for the future. But let it be the fear of the Lord which brings a peace that passeth all understanding and assures that all is well, even though for the flesh things go bad. For faith sees that all things without any exception work together for good to those that fear God. For the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting upon those that fear Him (Psalm 103:17). If that mercy is ALWAYS upon us and was upon us from everlasting and will be everlastingly, what can or will harm us? Have fear for the future, is my counsel to you. Have the fear of faith that sees a glorious future in the day of Christ.
We are a year closer. May that fear of the Lord also be here and abide in us till that day arrives.
Holiday or Holy Day?
by Rev. J. A. Heys
From the September 1, 1966 issue of The Standard Bearer
See more articles by this author
"The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath." Mark 2:27
But the Sabbath was not made so that man could have an holiday. It was made for man as he came forth from God's hands in righteousness and holiness. It was not made for sinful man to use in the way of his flesh. Yet the words of Jesus in the text quoted above are often used as an excuse for all kinds of deeds of the flesh. The Sabbath was made for the believer, the regenerated child of God, that he might have an holy day.
An holiday and an holy day have this in common, that they are both days set aside and made to be distinct from the other days of the week. The holiday is a day set aside by the proclamation of man and for man's earthly and fleshly satisfaction. It is a day when he gets off from his regular work and sweat of his brow(?) whereby he earns his daily bread. It is a day given to him by man so that he can pursue the satisfaction of the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. It is a day of rejoicing in carnal, material, earthly matters. It is a day wherein he can show to himself and to the world how much he belongs to the group of those that are lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God. A holiday has no spiritual content except that which we put into it.
An holy day is one set aside by God wherein we may perform spiritual work unhindered by the labor and toil of our natural lives. It is a day (and that is particularly true of the Sabbath as an holy day) given man that he may enter into and enjoy the things of God's kingdom. It is a day for intense and concentrated activity rather than idleness and sleep. In fact, let us not fail to take note of the fact that it is a DAY! It is an holy day. We may not make full use of the day. We may be satisfied to use the very smallest fraction of it and complain if we are required to make longer use of it. But that does not change the fact that IT IS an holy day. It is by God's decree and by God's command unto us. It is holy. Nothing in all the world can change that. All of our unholy practices on the day do not change it at all. All the bold and open desecration of it by the world does not take away from its holiness in the life of the regenerated child of God, but only serves to accentuate it in his life and mind.
Where do you stand as far as the Sabbath is concerned? Or better still, where are you found standing on the Sabbath?
How sincerely can we say with the psalmist, "I was glad when they said unto me, Let us go into the house of the Lord"? If we had to write a Psalm and express our true disposition of mind, would we not write "I was glad when it was all over, that I might return home"? Are we not like the little boy who was asked how he liked church, when he returned from his first church service, and replied, "The singing was good, but the commercial was too long"? Then when the service is over, are the whole long afternoon and evening made for man to use for earthly pursuits and the lusts of man?
Here is one commandment which by deeds, if we dare not say it with the lips, we consider outdated, not relevant to our times, old-fashioned and meant for another generation gone by. Although God with His finger cut the words also of this commandment into the granite to signify that which time would not wear away, man has succeeded, at least in his mind, to wear the granite smooth so that the fourth commandment is gone! It is not there for you and me to read anymore. The other nine are left, but they also are badly worn and in places hard to read.
Could it be that our eyes are going bad instead? Could it be that the pleasures and treasures of this world shine so brightly that our eyes are dazzled and cannot adjust themselves to focus upon God's law? Is it that we are so busy with the things of the flesh during the days from Monday through Saturday, and even late Saturday night until the wee hours of Sunday morning, that we cannot read the fine print not only of that law but that the words of God in the fourth commandment particularly seem to disappear though they actually stand there in bold relief? Well, before we begin to defend our eyesight and find fault with the law, let it be stated that God does not change. He is the same yesterday, today and forever according to Hebrews 13:8; Hebrews 1:12; Malachi 3:6, among many other passages. It is so often because we have our eyes on the world and the things of the world, which in I John 2:15-17 we are warned not to love, that we have(?) to travel and perform deeds on the Sabbath, lest these material things and our pursuit of them suffer.
No, during the week we do not have the time. During the week, it would cost us something of this earth's goods. So the Sabbath becomes the holiday that our flesh would not let us take during the week. The holy day becomes a few moments of hurried worship cut short for the sake of the flesh, and the day becomes for the greater part an holiday -- if indeed during the short service our minds were not already on what we intend to do for the flesh! Meanwhile God has not changed, Who declares, "Love ME! and show this on the Sabbath!"
We are not interested in becoming legalistic. Do not bring up that accusation. But we are emphatic when we say that our Sabbath conduct reveals the measure of our love for God. We are stressing the point that a child of God is pictured in Psalm 27:4 (and then a New Testament child as well as an Old Testament child of God), when the psalmist says, "One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to enquire in His temple." How strange even those words sound. We sing it, O yes, in our services of divine worship we sing:
My one request has been
And still this prayer I raise,
That I may dwell within
God's house through all my days,
Jehovah's beauty to admire,
And in His temple to inquire.But do we mean it and do we live that way? Does our action and attitude on the Sabbath as well as during the week show this? Without treating the text itself but using it to bring out the point expressed in our theme above, there are elements here that need stressing. The psalmist speaks of ONE request; and that means that all the desires which he has are controlled by that desire. He SEEKS after it, or as the Psalter versification, he still prays this. He comes to the living God with this prayer. That is how sincere he is and how much he means it. You can tell people that, O, yes, we are glad that we can go to church. We are thankful for the preaching of the Word. We are ready to defend our doctrine, and clamor perhaps for practical preaching, provided it does not find fault with our Sabbath conduct. But the test is whether we tell God these things in prayer and sincerely thank Him and ask Him for these. We support it financially and are liberal givers. But are we moral supporters of that preaching and of activities on the Sabbath that show that it is not an holiday for us but an holy day? If we love God, the keeping of the fourth commandment is not difficult at all. For that reason we said that our Sabbath conduct (what we allow and what we disallow, where we go and from what we will stay away) reveals the measure of our love to God.
Are we a peculiar people, or are we more and more becoming a worldly people? Are we a royal priesthood of God, or are we in the service of the kingdom of darkness on the Sabbath? Is our rest a peculiar rest of a peculiar people? Or does this word even have an unpleasant sound in our ears? We do not want to be a different and distinct people. We do not want the world to see that we are different from them and that we are pilgrims and strangers here below. So their holiday crowds more and more into our holy day in our hearts and lives.
All this of course belongs to the development of sin. But it also belongs therefore to the evils that make it necessary for the days to be shortened, lest even the elect of God would be deceived. James tells us, "Whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all. For he that said, Do not commit adultery, said also, Do not kill. Now if thou commit no adultery, yet if thou kill, thou art become a transgressor of the law." Apply that here! The same God Who said, "Thou shaft not kill," said also, "Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy." If now thou do not kill but make the Sabbath an holiday, thou art become a transgressor of the law. If in murder you show no love toward God, in Sabbath desecration you surely also show no love to Him. If we love Him, the day is not long enough to fill it with service and praise to Him. Therefore, once again we said that we can test the measure of our love to Him by observing ourselves on the Sabbath. Holiday or holy day, what is it in our lives? Well, in that measure you do not or do love God. In all those moments when it becomes an holiday for us, God is not in that day for us; and we are not performing a work of love.
Who is sufficient for all these things? How that law shows us that we can never, no never be saved by our works and that none of us is ready to enter into the kingdom. It shows also why we enter the kingdom through death, when God takes away all that flesh with its lusts and sin. The old man of sin does not enter the kingdom; death brings an awful and sudden end to his holiday. But the new man of Christ enters, for he is the one who has this one desire and seeks after it.
It is only because God has prepared the rest that remaineth for the children of God that we will enter into that rest. It is not of our manufacture. It is not that we deserve it, and the whole idea of the law is not to show us how we can become worthy of entering into that rest. No law ever shows the sinner how to make himself righteous. The law God gave to Adam in paradise taught him how to retain his righteousness. The law still serves that purpose today. Because God made Him to be sin for us, Who knew no sin, and made us to be righteous in Him, the law shows us how to walk to be righteous. But the law will never show the sinner how to get rid of his guilt and to make himself righteous before God. The cross does that. The gospel points to the Restgiver and the rest which He prepared. But the law serves to show us how sinful we are and in need of that Saviour. The law shows us that it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God Who showeth mercy.
As the vine bears fruit on the branches and living branches will always bear fruit from the root, so the regenerated and engrafted child of God will keep the law and have an holy day while the world celebrates its weekly holiday. It is the fear of the Lord that makes the difference between the child of God's Sabbath and the Sabbath of the world. Examine your life then, and examine your Sabbath. Listen to the psalmist whose heart was renewed to love God: "A day in Thy courts is better than a thousand [elsewhere]. I had rather be a doorkeeper in house of my God, than to dwell in the tents of wickedness." (Psalm 84:10)
This is the alternative on the Sabbath by all means: it is either dwelling in God's house or in the tents of wickedness. In the tents of wickedness you can have a holiday for a little while until the judgment day. In His fear you have an holy day of joy that grows in its blessedness even when you are but a doorkeeper in this life.
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