Stephen M. Schlissel has for some time been pastor of the independent Messiah’s Congregation, a mission church in Brooklyn, NY, which includes a goodly number of members who, like himself, are converts from Judaism. Drawn to the Reformed faith, he became a member and elder in the Jamaica, NY Queens CRC, and was an elder delegate to the last CRC synod. Recently Messiah’s Congregation was received into the denomination and he was received as an ordained pastor. Invited to speak at the 35th Anniversary meeting of the Reformed Fellowship, he brought something of a fresh perspective on the role of the fellowship. He compared it with that of Esther whom her uncle reminded was assigned a strategic place in a very critical time, saying, “who knows but that you have come to royal position for such a time as this?” (Esther 4:12).
After he was admitted to our ministry, one minister hardly knew whether to offer him congratulations or condolences. For himself, the speaker found it difficult to understand the reason for such uncertainty. If it was because the Word of God is under full-scale attack in the denomination today, he saw in that situation an infallible indicator that here the covenant of God was to be found, and the word of that covenant. That situation is somewhat like the threat that confronted the people of God in the 5th Century B.C., when they were under the intense and diabolical attack by a powerful madman named Haman, who had determined to exterminate them.
What Time Is It?
This time is like every other since that of the Garden of Eden. Wherever the covenant of God is, the word of God is. The Apostle Paul stated that the chief advantage of God’s covenant people was that they had been entrusted with the very words of God (Rom. 3:2), so that they were the bearers of the Word. The speaker saw his forefathers as deprived of this privilege through unbelief, urging that we not also lose it by doubt. The choice target of the devil has always been the Word of God and the people to whom it was entrusted, from Eden until today. All of the Scripture is the story of the triumph of the Word of God over all would-be perverters, distorters –in fact, over all its enemies. The speaker then traced the attacks of the devil on the Word of God since the seduction of our first parents, and the way the Lord, at each turn of the attacks, promised and brought deliverance when there seemed to be no hope, fulfilling His purpose according to His almighty plan. At every junction in the history of the covenant when it looks as if it is over, God says, “What’s the matter with you people? . . . This is My plan and My Word! Nothing can be victorious against Me! Believe in Me!” Look at Goliath, the living monster—at David—who sinned, at Solomon—who sinned—at the divided kingdom—at the captivity—Was there ever a time when the kingdom of God was easy, when progress was made without effort and blood?
Are these New Testament days of the church different from those of the Old? Certainly not! See how we find the devil on a rampage against the church the emperor of the mightiest empire on a rampage against the church, unbelieving Jews bringing confusion into the new covenant people, and everywhere false teachers who would pervert the Word and covenant of God. What’s new in this respect about the times in which we live? There’s nothing new about it!
God’s “Antithesis”
Through all this our Saviour says, “I will build my church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.” This is a time for battle and for faithfulness. To be faithful and to do battle requires that we maintain the antithesis (opposition between true and false, right and wrong, God and the devil). which is the foundation of God’s covenant dealings. God introduced “enmity” before He introduced the promise of the Savior (Gen. 3:15). putting a rift between the kingdom of darkness and the kingdom of light. Satan’s goal is to obscure and destroy this antithesis, as he tries to deny any distinction between covenant-keeper and covenant-breaker, between obedience to God and man’s insistence on managing his own life. The devil’s third temptation of our Lord was a plea for pluralism “There’s room in this world for both of us . . . Why can’t we live together?” “You have your kingdom . . . Just worship me and we’ll get along fine.” Relativists can’t understand why these Reformed people are so narrow-minded. They are willing to live with us conservatives. Why can’t we live with them? But in the battle between absolutism and relativity, compromise is always a victory for relativity. In a choice between health and illness, compromise equals illness. Those who advocate compromise in our church want us to give up the idea of absolute truth. They are always saying, “Do it my way.” When we refuse and say, “Do it my way,” we are the narrow-minded bigots who are splitting the church! The antithesis of God created in Genesis 3:15 requires truth, faithfulness and obedience, for the unity of the covenant people. Relativists always press for unity apart from truth. It has been observed that all the struggles in Dutch Reformed church history seem to have involved struggles against (1) human ideas opposed to Scripture and (2) hierarchy—as they do in our churches today. The Reformation was born out of opposition to these and we have been called by God to engage in the battle against them today. Today’s errors, stripped of their sophisticated language, still amount to the old “Has God said?” “Don’t be so sure . . . so dogmatic . . . so closed to the Spirit’s leading!” Charismatics are saying, “The Word of God is not complete!” and Liberals are saying “It isn’t quite true!” The Banner says, “It is not clear!” The Eastern Avenue Church says, “It’s not binding!” The synods say, “It’s not always relevant!” The attack is on and it is on the Word. “Thy Word is truth,” Jesus prays. Therefore every attack on it as truth . . . is an attack on Christ Himself and is of the Antichrist, of the father of lies, who seeks to seduce us away from the Word. The short-range goal of Satan is to reduce the Scripture to a kind of “apocrypha”—useful to read and for instruction, but not adequate to “confirm any point of faith or of the Christian religion.” “That is their position in a nutshell!” The Bible is profitable and ought to be read, but “is far from having any binding authority!” That was precisely the sin of the Pharisees who opposed Jesus Christ. That is exactly the status to which they relegate the Scriptures, in deference to human tradition. That is exactly how some Christian Reformed ministers, churches and synods use the Scriptures. When the Scriptures are displaced as our standard to determine what is true, our standard becomes reason, culture, the latest liberation movement—Discerning readers of The Banner see these presuppositions in operation in virtually every issue, so that our denominational weekly appears to become “a Reformed version of the Donahue show” where “everything is open to discussion.” A Banner article recently cited a Southern Baptist convention report that the higher one’s level of education the less apt he was to appeal to Scripture as inerrant. Instead of seeing this as revealing the corrupting influence of American higher education and showing the need of Christian education, the article cited it with the evident purpose to encourage the remaining ignorami in the CRC who believe in the Bible’s inerrancy to “get smart” and realize that the Scripture is not inerrant. We encounter “a seemingly endless barrage of that kind of poppycock”—of cowardly attacks on our heritage. Let these men come out and say where they stand. If you are going to be a heretic, be a bold one! Christ said that those who are “neither hot nor cold” will be spit out. They will not say that they believe in evolution, for example, but adopt the tactics of the 80’s, practice guerilla warfare, and, like snipers, pick off the next generation of Christians. Seeking to be “relevant,” they commit what Professor Murray called “the capital sin of our generation” when they take their starting point in the world rather than the Word. Whether on women’s lib, or alcoholism, or abortion, or egalitarianism, they let the world set their agenda. And then they delude themselves into thinking that hauling in a load of Biblical citations proves their fidelity to the Bible, forgetting that Satan is adept at citing it. The question, however, is, “Do you believe the Word of God?”
What Must We Do in such a Time as This?
1. We must (like a respectable and long established business institution) not change our principles or faith, but we must become more aggressive. We must clean our own house. Is not a part of our current predicament traceable to our own sins –our own inactivity and lack of interest? Do we love our confession, the Lord’s covenant, and the Lord Himself with heart and soul, mind and strength? Or is ours a mere intellectual and perhaps arrogant tradition? Have we been trying with hearty enthusiasm to communicate to our younger people the beauty of our Faith? The speaker suggested that his young congregation in Brooklyn needs the benefit of our gray hairs, but we need young people who have caught the enthusiasm for the Lord and His Word from us. Our Reformed churches have often failed to communicate a passion and excitement for God’s truth. “We’ve always done it that way” is a totally inadequate substitute for “What does the Bible say?” Are we more committed to our connections than our convictions? The enviable bond of love in our churches must move us to practice the Lord’s discipline, not to neglect it. Our fellowship with those of like mind must not be a substitute for our testimony to those who are not of that mind. Where were the expressions of the widespread criticisms of Banner policy at our last synod? The speaker called for much more vigorous protest against what is happening to the denomination, instead of defeatism concerning it. Until we have done everything that we can do to change what is wrong, we have no right to “throw in the towel.”
1. Our testimony must be much more than merely negative. We must come out much more positively for what we believe, envision and support.
2. The speaker suggested the need for a division of labor, with individuals selecting objectives for their special efforts, and united sharing of information and strategic planning on the part of those who are committed to the Bible and confessions as true. He urged the need of action, letter-writing and, if continued official blasphemy makes it necessary, picketing the denominational building. 3. We must pray—perhaps have prayer meetings with special prayers for the denomination, teaching our children to pray for the salvation of the CR Church. 4. Pick your fights carefully. We can’t concentrate all efforts on every issue, but need to select the most urgent—The drive for non-sexist language in the Heidelberg Catechism, he saw as a “do or die” issue that compels us to fight. “In that proposed abomination,” he saw “every satanic presupposition . . . evolutionary ethics, continuing revelation, egalitarianism, obliteration of God-created distinctives, salvation by equality rather than blood and grace, denial of headship, hence, the denial of the covenant . . . 5. Among the speaker’s suggestions for the Outlook were included announcements, increasing subscriptions, a more attractive format and illustrations, satirical cartoons to show how ridiculous some of these things are, continuing hard–hitting articles, naming names, accepting advertising, including stirring stories of great heroes of the faith, seizure of every opportunity to serve by all who share this fellowship of faith, insisting on an accounting to consistories by every church agency we support—“no answer, no bucks”—establishing faithful discipline in the local church and restoration of preaching the reality of judgment and salvation—as Jonathan Edwards did. Use God’s Word faithfully and He will deliver Learn the appeal and confidence of Christ in, “It is written!” Perhaps we as a fellowship were raised up for such a time as this to speak for all God has commanded and stand against the assemblies of infidelity in the confidence that God still says, “I have appointed you to stand. They shall fight . . . but they shall not prevail against thee, for I am with thee . . . to deliver thee.” “Let us believe in God.” PDJ