“I am the Lord. I change not”

Make no mistake. We are engaged in a solemn and holy war for the truth, honor and glory of God. This war for the Word (and against the word) has been raging since the beginning of time. Jesus confessed to Pilate that He is a King, The King of Truth. Those on the side of Truth listen to Him. They are soldiers who seek to bring every thought captive to Him.

It is part and parcel of the unchanging character of Scripture that it provokes some to opposition and others to submission. The Word of God is unchanging in its divisive character. God’s Word is a separating word. As such, those who believe it are duty bound to defend it against all attacks, without and within the covenant community. It is simply a fact of life and history that the church’s greatest threats have arisen from within.

The book of Hebrews tells us that we are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses. The author “uses the dramatic imagery of an athletic contest in which the competitors down in the arena are surrounded by the crowded tiers of an amphitheater . . . (the) author pictures himself and his readers as competitors who, as they contend for the faith in the arena of life, are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, namely, those champions of faith and perseverance of earlier generations . . . (these) have triumphantly completed their course, and we who are now contestants in the arena should be inspired by their example to give of our utmost in the struggle.” (P.E. Hughes, Commentary on Hebrews).

I am inspired by those who have gone before us in the battle of the Word and honor and glory of God.

Inspired by Phinehas: Numbers 25:1–13

Inspired by the Levites: Exodus 32:25–29

and God’s commendation of them: Dt. 33:8–9

Inspired by Micaiah: 2 Chron. 18:1–13, 22–27

Inspired by Ezekiel’s commission: Ezek. 2:1–8

Inspired by our Lord Jesus Christ: Jn. 2:12–17

Inspired by St. Paul and his conviction about an unchanging Word: Gal. 1:8–9

Inspired by Jude: v. 3

Inspired by John: Rev. 22:18–21

Inspired by Athanasius in his struggle against Arianism by Augustine against Palagianism by Luther against Romanism by Calvin against syncretism and by the fathers of Dordt against Arminianism

Now we are engaged once again in battle: this time against humanism, spear-headed by relativism, with feminism in the lead. And the greatest foe of these evils, that which they dread the most, is an unchanging Word from God.

Many fail to see the critical nature of our struggle, a struggle to which Christ himself calls us. J. Gresham Machen was involved in a painfully similar struggle against modernism in the Presbyterian Church. He wrote:

“The plain man in the church has difficulty understanding (the nature of the struggle); he does not yet appreciate the real gravity of the issue. He does not see that it makes very little difference how much or how little of the creeds of the church the modernist preacher affirms, or how much or how little of the biblical teaching from which the creeds are derived. He might affirm every jot and tittle of the Westminster Confession, for example, and yet be separated by a great gulf from the Reformed faith. It is not that part is denied and the rest is affirmed; but all is denied, because all is affirmed merely as useful or symbolic and not as true.” . . . “A thing that is useful may be useful for some and not for others, but a thing that is true remains true for all people and beyond the end of time.” [What Is Faith-pp. 34–35]

Now we find ourselves becoming a church that echoes Pilate‘s pitiful plaint: “What is truth?”, when all the while the truth was standing in front of him. Yes, the truth is in our hands and it is above all, as our confession says: “it is unlawful for anyone, through an apostle, to teach otherwise than we are now taught in the Holy Scriptures: nay, though it were an angel from heaven, as the apostle Paul says. For since it is forbidden to add unto or take away anything from the Word of God, it does thereby evidently appear that the doctrine thereof is most perfect and complete in all respects. Neither may we consider any writings of men . . . of equal value with those divine scriptures, nor ought we to consider custom, or the great multitude, or antiquity, or succession of times and persons, or councils, decrees or statutes, as of equal value with the truth of God, since the truth is above all . . . therefore we reject with all our hearts whatsoever does not agree with this infallible rule . . .”

Despite the clarity of our confession regarding the clarity of Scripture and its teachings, more and more Scriptural teaching is being classified as “unclear.” Now it’s Creation. Why not Resurrection, as well?

“Anyone who denies the authority of Scripture at one point has denied it at all points. If we assert that we can set aside the six-day creation doctrine, we have asserted our supremacy over Scripture. Our mind and our convenience now have a higher authority than the Bible, so that we have denied its authority totally and asserted our authority instead. If we claim the right at any point to set aside Scripture, we have established ourselves as the highest authority at every point. Clearly, therefore, the question of authority is at stake in Genesis 1: God or man? Whose word is authoritative and final?” (R.J. Rushdoony, Mythology of Science).

At the root of many of today’s attacks we find research, writings, pronouncements, and policies erected on the presupposition of epistemological neutrality and a bastardization of the common grace doctrine. These effectively (in man‘s imagination) subordinate the Word of God to sinful autonomous human reason and observation. The epistemology of unbelief is this: “Nothing is known unless man knows it.”

We have among us a frightening parallel to what occurred in the Machen case. The modernists in the Presbyterian church had been drinking deeply from the fountains of the world. Their grumblings originated, not exegetically, but from the extra-scriptural considerations which determined the way they then handled scripture. They were latitudinarian and anti–antithetical. They wanted, above all, to be “respectable,” respected, that is, by the world (cf. Luke 6:26).

The spirit of the modern world is far more sophisticated and subtle than in the days of Dordt and Westminster, even than in the 20’s. But if we stand back a bit, we will bear the same question being asked now that was asked in the garden of Eden and ever since: “Yea, hath God said?” This doubt was followed by denial: “You will not surely die.” Satan offered a word of possibility, a word of flux, a word of chance, against God’s certain Word.

     

Sinners will always choose a word of possibility over a word of absolute authority, even if it means death. “Rather to rule in hell than to serve in Heaven.” But, serve we must. And that according to God’s unchanging Word.

It must be understood that God and man do not run on a continuum. God is Creator; man is created. God is infinite, eternal, and unchangeable in all attributes; man is finite, temporal and changeable. Therefore, we are utterly dependent on Him for being, knowledge, and ethics. Adam and Eve were tempted to determine for themselves, not according to a Word of God, what was good and what was evil. God never permits man to make that determination. But that is what’s being attempted today. The effort amounts to the attempt to bring God down to our level of being, even though he remains “higher” on that scale. The infinite distance between God and man is being “bridged,” not in Christ alone, but in the minds of men through autonomous reason. A compromise here is the end of the faith in seed form.

In their efforts to make their own rules, the visionaries must pay lip service to the confessions. They talk about unity and peace, but they want it on their terms. “Let’s call a truce about women in office and the new Psalter and evolution,” The Banner says. But here is the proposed peace plan: “You say ‘Everything is black-and-white.’ We say, ‘All is grey.’ Since we have differing opinions, and no one can be sure who’s right, let’s compromise and say ‘All is grey’”!!

The Banner hasn’t always been so muddy on issues. Consider this: “Now if our contention [that the evolution-hypothesis is a part of an antitheistic theory of reality] is correct, then we must do away with every easy-going attitude. The evolutionist is then soldier in that great, that seemingly all–powerful army of antitheists that has from time immemorial sought to destroy the people ofGod. We must then prepare for a life and death struggle if not in the courts of the land then in the higher courts of human thought.” (The Banner, December 11, 1931)

Compare that to Editor Kuyvehoven’s posture today, running two weeks of Professor Van Leeuwen as John the Baptist preparing the hermeneutical way for three weeks of unopposed Professor Van Till (without so much as a hint that the man and his teachings were then under review by the Ad Hoc Committee of the Board of Trustees). May I say, is that what we are to regard as journalistic integrity? Should the official denominational news organ be promoting views and doctrines which are currently being reviewed as possibly heretical, without mentioning the possibility? How The Banner has fallen!

And is it a life and death struggle that we are engaged in for the minds ofmen, when evolutionary presuppositions which contradict Scripture are taught to be valid? Are we not then fighting on the wrong side? Has The Truth changed since 1931? If not, how do we account for these new norms?

Things are indeed complicated and subtle today. Churches used to argue (or even split) about what was true. Now we are arguing about “What is truth?” And we are hearing two radically different answers, evident in these characterizations:

Some, perhaps most, in the CRC desire to explicate, preach and live out the truth once for all delivered. Others seem to believe that truth is found in the search itself. We may (possibly over) simplify this—as a conflict between two factions, between those who believe truth is in the content, and those who believe truth is in the process (this is evident in our current obsession with style rather than substance—which concern often becomes evident when churches look for a new pastor).

Now, of course, truth for the church involves process (history, time and providence under our sovereign God, even as the scriptures were compiled distributed, studied, systematized, and as God’s one plan will be lived out). But those who have succumbed to the lie of seeking truth in process have elevated history not as the realm of revelation and redemption, but as prior to and determinative of both revelation and redemption. Thus, they tend to view all scriptures as an accommodation-all scripture is necessarily culturally determined (i.e., the emphasis is more “God’s revelation was limited and determined by cultural considerations” than “God determined the cultures through which His revelation would be given”), and therefore relative, even subject to change. For Truth, you see, is behind, above or outside of Scripture, in history, especially in the future.

Thus, we have a regional home missionary who has no problem praying “Our Mother who art in heaven.” A careful reading of Bavinck would help him and others learn that there’s a difference between condescension and accommodation. There is a difference between the necessity ofGod revealing Himself anthropomorphically and God’s revelation being culturally determined. Man knows God truly without knowing Him exhaustively. We apprehend without comprehending Him.

God’s choosing the male pronoun to refer to Himself, and denominating Himself “Father” (for no creature may name God!) must be regarded as Pure Word of God, not to be tampered with, under penalty of death. Unless, of course, God can change. If He wasn’t “Mother” during the period of revelation, and it is appropriate to address Him as such now, He must have changed. If He hasn’t changed, i.e., if He was “Mother” back then, why didn‘t He say so? Accommodationists will be hard pressed to convince us that it was because the culture of the ancient East wasn’t ready for a female deity. (Consider Ashtaroth who was “the local manifestation of the mother-goddess celebrated throughout the ancient Semitic world.”)

Viewing revelation as an accommodation puts it in our hands, so to speak. It becomes anthropocentric, not simply anthropomorphic. Both God and man are seeking to find themselves in history. Thus we read in a publication of the “Committee for (really ‘against’) Women in the CRC” about this “struggling” God, altogether impotent, not ruling history but wimpishly being ruled by it, pitifully unable to effectively and adequately reveal “Him”self.

Changing sexist language did not come easy for me. Due to pee r pressure, I first began altering people—words. You know, “chair person,” “mail carrier,” and no more generic “he.” These terms still provoke laughter, and they felt awkward to me as well. When some more radical women suggested addressing God as “She,” I laughed some more.

But God finally caught up with me. I had just heard that our pastor had once again failed to recruit any women to preach at our church during his vacation. Driving home that night, I was screaming and crying (with the car windows up, of course!). It was unfair that God would never understand what it meant to be a woman. How could he help but be on the “men’s side?”

God broke into my rage with the thought, “But I’m not on their side. I’m not ‘one of them.’ I’m at least as angry over this situation as you are.”

What? God was not “He?” Slowly I began to explore my previous perception of God as male. It is hard to describe the depth of freedom I felt as I experimentally called God “She.” Over time I gained a new vision of God and myself.

(NO DOUBT!) That is the issue! Changing the way we talk about God and God’s people will change  us. And change is hard. The NCC inclusive Language Lectionary . . . has changed traditional biblical language. These changes are causing incredible controversy. As we ponder the pros and cons of speaking inclusively, let’s be open to what the Spirit may be saying to the Church today.

What the Spirit is saying where? Certainly this is not a Scriptural argument. The Spirit says nothing to the church that is not already in His Word. If it’s true, it isn’t new, and if it’s new, it isn’t true. The original temptation suggested that freedom was to be found in liberating one’s self from the awful determinative Word of God. But such ‘freedom’ always equals death.

The Arminian controversy sought freedom from God’s decrees; a refuge was imagined in having God somehow made dependent on man‘s will. The argument was that freedom for man required a measure of independence, even a little. But the Synod of Dordt said: “God alone is absolutely free.” B.B. Warfield noted long ago that it is not predestination as such that bothers man, but rather predestination by someone other than himself, particularly God. The attributes of God don’t go away when denied-they’re relocated in man.

The woman’s issue is part of a world view which sees not decrees and laws and God as ultimate for man, but “potentiality” itself. Freedom is not found in Psalm 1 or 119 (“I walk at liberty because I keep your precepts”). Rather, these feminists view the law as a spring board to freedom. You leap to freedom from the Word, you don’t find it in the Word.

Thus the character of the Word of God as propositional, eternal, unchanging, and normative, is changed. Now the Word is where man encounters God as man becomes—it is the medium for existential confrontation—it merely provokes man to become. It is a mystical tool, and/or a collection of principles.

But this new view is really just the old Greek view of flux, revivified and dressed up in biblical language. Heraclitus lives!

To “deliver” us from the certainty and finality of God’s unchanging Word in Scripture, we hear visionaries appeal to revelation before enscripturation. “A final word is anathema! We want a possible word.” Thus Howard Van Till finds a sound exegesis of Gen. 1–11 to be destructive of “true” science which requires OPENNESS (but see Cornelius Van Til, Doctrine of Scripture p. 5]. The faculty at Calvin College are offended when people use the Bible to shackle “academic freedom” which requires OPENNESS. The Banner rejects much dogmatism, seeing it is contrary to the spirit of OPENNESS. Home Missions has visions that may be aided by continuing revelations, or at least signs and wonders-so they have conferences that call for OPENNESS.

All the struggles we face today can and must be seen in the light of this hatred of a final and unchangeable Word of God and a willingness, if not a lust, to cash it in for a few thrills and some possibilities. Sure, everyone pays lip service to the Word and confessions. But listen to this from Ezekiel: “Son of man, my people come to you as they usually do, and sit before you to listen to your words, but they do not put them into practice. With their mouths they express devotion, but their hearts are greedy . . . indeed, to them you are nothing more than one who sings love songs with a beautiful voice and plays an instrument well, for they hear your words but do not put them into practice” (33:30–32, and cf. Jer. 36:17, 18, 21–25).

Why do they call Christ “Lord, Lord,” yet they do not do what He says? Not everyone who says “Lord, Lord” will enter the kingdom. Mere listening causes no pain. But doing often does.

We have teachers and ministers who want the name, but won’t play the game according to the rules. This is their version of interpreting the unchangeable Word: 1. God says, “no women rule.” 2. God says women altogether equal. 3. They can’t both be worn (it’s the Word of God) 4. They can’t both be unchangeably correct (they’re contradictory). 5. Therefore, one gives way to the other in time. The new rules for interpreting the Word—the Word, plus the time, plus the culture plus synthesis, equals truth.

I Tim. 2:12–14 is supposedly neutralized by Gal. 3:28 POPPYCOCK! The issue in Galatians was justification—how is a man made right with God? Paul answers, “Not by works of the law. Same for women as for men. Justification is by faith alone.” The issue in Timothy was how the church ought to conduct its official affairs. “Women may not rule.” No contradiction.

If you can change the Word at one point, man, you can change it at all points. Truth is a unit. God’s Word is one. The Reformed faith is an organic system of truth. God’s Word is too clear for some. But they’re not as honest as a UCC minister who was written up in a Canadian newspaper:

“As churches struggle with the issue of equality of the sexes, Christians have to look beyond the Bible to reason and experience for guidance, [Rt. Rev. Robert Smith] said Thursday during a church service in this southern Ontario city [Brantford].

He said the Bible is clear with respect to the status of women. “There is no possibility of misunderstanding.” He said Wesley taught there are four ways to “understand God’s Word for our times: Scripture, church tradition, reason and personal experience.

“While scripture and tradition demean women, reason and experience underscore the equality of sexes,” he said.

Here’s a guy who comes right out and lets you know where he stands! He doesn’t like what the Bible says on certain points, so he believes he can safely ignore it, if he hides behind reason, etc.

Any change in our responsibility to obey a word from God is contingent upon another word from God that explains, modifies, suspends, or rescinds the first command. This occurs in Scripture, usually when there is a change in circumstances which formed, at least in part, the reason for the command, e.g., Levitical sacrifices (but Hebrews explains the change). When the propriety of silence and submission of women in the church is linked by the Holy Spirit to creation, as it is in 1 Tim. 2, is is impossible to justify any modification as long as creation exists.

With one possible exception—if God reveals a new word. That’s why they’re “listening to hear what the Spirit may be saying to the church today.”

When push comes to shove, we see an ever-widening embrace of other revelation (be it in nature or private spirits) by feminists and other humanists. Evolution serves their purpose very nicely. The force of Paul’s argument in 1 Tim. 2:12 (based on a historical Adam and Eve) disappears.

We must realize that we are not faced with merely different preferences: “I’ll have vanilla, you have chocolate.” No. We’re not looking at the same menu—why, we’re not even in the same restaurant! But they still expect us to pay the check! There are two very different kingdoms being constructed by and in the same denomination. They are not compatible. One has to leave the Christian Reformed Church.

Abraham Kuyper rightly said,  Satan knows that he can undermine the structure of the church by slyly re moving just one fundamental doctrine at a time, and he frequently loosens a large foundation stone gradually, chiseling it away bit by bit. That is why tolerance for the sake of peace may be dangerous . . . .

One step toward giving in will lead to a next step and will not God visit us with blindness if we deliberately darken the truth he has graciously entrusted to us? How shall we justify ourselves if we permit even a little of the truth to be laid aside? Is that ours to do?. . . When peace is injurious to the truth, peace must give way. Peace with God is of greater value than peace with men.” (The Practice of Godliness, p. 50–52)

We have a war on our hands and it won’t go away—a cancer that cries to be cut out. A new orthodoxy is emerging, and if not put to death, it will emerge triumphant in the CRC—the orthodoxy of egalitarianism, hermeneutical elasticism and humanism.

While the troublers among us are bored of being accepted by us as orthodox, they do not therewith lose their desire to be accepted. Not at all. They (like faithless Israel and Judah in Ezekiel 16) are lifting their skirts at the highway, hoping to catch a ride with those moving away from true Biblical orthodoxy. Fundamentalist Dr. John Whitcomb has described this as “the new evangelicalism,” “a desperate desire to be accepted, not so much by the Lord, as by others prominent in the visible church, who deviate to some extent from the teachings of the Word as we understand it. In the interest of being accepted, the new evangelical attitude is willing to sacrifice truth on the altar of ecumenical expediency.” (The Biblical Evangelist, p. 1, 4/1/88)

The visionaries in Grand Rapids are like bored girls who can’t wait to get out of a small town for no other reason than that it’s small. They’re trying every way to make an ‘escape,’ with this twist. They haven‘t the guts to really leave because their daddy pays the bills. So, they stay at home and bring their lovers into our town and our home, in the hope that we‘ll get used to ‘em, and that we’ll get tired of arguing. Eventually they expect to convince us (they really do) to foresake this stuffy, limited and boring village called ‘orthodox junction’ and follow them with their lovers to Broadway.

That is where we are-at a crossroads. The siren song calls us from the narrow, particular, well-defined and precise, to the broad, the general, the sweeping. The flow is from distinct to blurred. The drift toward indistinctiveness was seen in the recently adopted Contemporary Testimony—It’s not so much that it contained anything particularly harmful, as that it contains nothing particularly helpful. A statement of the great theologian William Shedd is most pertinent in this regard:

“When/he popular feeling of a period is becoming less correct and healthy, nothing in the way of means does so much towards a change and restoration as strict accuracy, which is the same as strict  orthodoxy, in the popular creed.” (History ofDoctrine p. 268)

This is true. Yet we find ourselves running—or floating in the very opposite direction. Like Jonah we have been called to preach against the specific sins of our generation to our generation, but we have taken a ship called ‘vague’ in the direction away from our calling.

This is, in the last analysis, not just a matter of a new evangelicalism, a new reformation, or a new hermeneutic—it is the world in the grip of an idea—time vs. eternity. Man vs. God, Man’s word vs. God’s Word. The questions are “Who is God?” and “How do you know?”

We have already answered those questions in our confessions (which serve the function ofskin: to keep in what you want in, and to keep out what you want out). Scripture is unchanging in its character precisely because its Author is unchanging. Here we must stand.

I am afraid the Christian Reformed Church has contracted “Ecclesiastical AIDS”: Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome. We seem not to have the will to fight those who have invaded the body, be they ever so insidius, calculating, dishonest, arrogant, or destructive. Above all we want comfort, not truth, and we want to be “polite.” We are politely dying. Along with the loss of the will to fight many have lost the will to live. Where my brothers and sisters, is your Dutch blood, and why dear friends, is it not boiling?

I offer a 12 point program (one for each tribe!). We do not need to leave, but we dare not promote decay. We must fight, as the cloud of witnesses cheer us on.

1. Cancel the Banner (It doesn’t measure up to Phil. 4:8). That is the mosquito which carries the virus (2 weeks of Van Leeuwen followed by 3 of Howard Van Till with no rebuttal’s feminist poem ridiculing the godly opposition to women’s ordination/calling those “simple minded” who believe that God regards homosexuality as an unqualified abomination/promoting birth control/hinting at more occasions for abortion than the life of the mother/and on and on and on. The latest: A column by a pastor from the Crystal Cathedral!). 2. Expand and improve Christian Renewal and the Outlook. Absolutely get them into the hands of all consistory members. I have heard of and from consistory members who hadn’t heard of H. Van Till until 3 1/2 weeks ago! In articles, let’s aim at providing more names, dates, and witnesses so that the factuality of our concerns will be self-evident, thus accelerating self-consciousness. 3. Provide solid and simple expositions of our confession (esp. 2731) to all consistory members. Make clear to them their holy obligations on particular issues of moment. 4. Compel your consistories to take stands on issues in writing. Don’t accept doubletalk. Exercise your confessional rights as a congregant. Require biblical justification for important decisions and policies. Watch the form of subscription and keep it fresh in everyone’s minds. 5. Plan and strategize (like Joshua). Do it before and at classes and synod. Provide an agenda for concerned elders. Have a speakers bureau (like the Committee for Women—what a sexist name!). And have many conferences. 6. Watch boards and agencies and get written answers to specific questions. Home Missions is especially manipulative and avoids adequate accountability (I am not referring to missionaries). Calvin Seminary lies through its teeth and has a manifest feminist agenda. Sit on these guys. 7. Engage an investigative reporter to chronicle the near demise of our denomination –expose the politicking. We need someone gifted with guts, integrity, a fair mind, and diligent hands.

8. Explore alternatives to Calvin College. Even better, let’s clean house there and at the seminary, as the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod did (see Anatomy of an Explosion by Kurt Marquart, Baker Books, 1977). John Whitcomb commented,

The Missouri Synod Lutherans exercised . . . stringent discipline in their main seminary ( Concordia, in St. Louis, Missouri), dismissing every non-fundamentalist teacher and instructing all students who were sympathetic to them to leave within one week. That was one of the most drastic successful examples of institutional church discipline I am aware of in the history of the church.

The theologically radical groups, students as well as faculty, all left and started their own seminary called Seminex-seminary in exile-in another part of the city. They actually marched out under banners as if they were Moses and the children of Israel leaving Egypt, and they gained great sympathy in the media. Nevertheless, in twenty years, their school, having no solid doctrinal position, finally collapsed.

In the meantime, Concordia Seminary under the Missouri Synod Lutheran Church, quickly regained its size, and the rest of the evangelical world noted with amazement how these Lutherans handled the new evangelical invasion of their main training center. I do not for a moment suggest that the Missouri Synod Lutheran denomination is free from all theological problems, only that they provided a lesson in how to handle cancer in the ecclesiastical body by drastic, determined surgery, before the whole system is destroyed.

9. Ordain qualified men from Westminster, Reformed, and MidAmerica. A 5th year at Calvin is unbiblical and cannot be made a requirement for sacred office. At first some might call ’em “adjunct-ordainees.” No matter. Ordain qualified holy men even if we need to gather an ordination council from beyond single-classis boundaries. 10. Quota is acceptable only when there is heartfelt and justified confidence in the integrity of an agency. It is foolish to pay for the knife that would stab us. Forget about being “good little quota payers” or forget the CRC. Defend and defund. 11. Repent. Not of conservatism, per se, but of an unwillingness to examine yourselves and practices in light of the Word alone; and of timidity and self-interest which permitted things to get this bad, this gangrenous relativism to have spread so far; of a lack of zeal in sharing with others your confessional treasure, thus giving opportunity to the enemy to get a foot in the door. 12. Pray in the spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. (1 Chron. 5:18–22).

We are in the arena. Many have gone before. The battle is tough and will get tougher. God is able. We are surrounded by a great cloud ofwitnesses. Is the spirit of Phinehas among us? Has the zeal of the Levites been passed down with the covenant? Is Micaiah in the audience today? Many are saying this battle is over. I call two witnesses from the pages ofScripture “Joshua and Caleb, What say ye?”

“The land we passed through and explored, even this Christian Reformed Church, is exceedingly good. If the Lord is pleased with us, he will lead us into that land, a land flowing with the milk of the Word, and the honey of a heritage of confessional truth and many faithful sheep. Only do not rebel against the Lord. And do not be afraid of the relativists, because we will swallow them up Their protection is gone, but the Lord is with us. Do not be afraid of them. We should go and take possession, for we can certainly do it” (Nu. 14:7–9/13:30).

That is from the Word, which, like our God, changes not.

 Steve M. Schlissel is the pastor of Messiah’s CRC, Brooklyn, N.Y. This address was presented to the Concerned CRC Members’’ Conference at South Holland, Ill. April 30, 1988.