People in ancient times were concerned about breaches—cracks, and openings in their city walls. These people knew that such breaches in their defenses had to be watched for all the time and, when detected, had to be promptly and properly repaired.

In the Old Testament Jehovah God a number of times spoke to His people concerning their spiritual waywardness and their faithlessness to Him as being a “breach” unto them. There were breaks in their loyalty to Him. God warned His people in Isaiah 30:12, 13:

Wherefore thus saith the Holy One of Israel, Because ye despise this word, and trust in oppression and perverseness, and rely thereon; therefore this iniquity shall be to you as a breach ready to fall, swelling out in a high wall, whose breaking cometh suddenly in an instant.

Over an over again Jehovah God urged His people to turn from their wandering ways unto Him, to build upon the foundations which He had laid for them, and to be faithful unto Him as their God. Then, said He, thou shalt be called “The repairer of the breach, The restorer of paths to dwell in” (Isaiah 58:12) with the clear implication that such action would receive the loving favor and blessing of God.

When I observe the church, my clear spiritual mother, which I serve as a minister—the Christian Reformed Church—I see a number of breaches which call for mending. I’m not referring to cracks in the organizational structure or the polity of the church (though there are no doubt matters which call for attention in those areas too). Rather from a pastor‘s point of view and experience, I’m referring to thoughts and ideas which I hear coming from our people, and sometimes even from our leaders, which indicate a crumbling of the distinctive Reformed faith. Foreign interpretations of Scripture and unreformed thinking among our people are serious breaches which need our prompt attention.

My concerns involve, of course, disputes which have received much attention in recent years, about the nature and the authority of Scripture, Biblical hermeneutics, and the cavalier manner in which highly questionable doctrinal stands are dealt with in the church, etc.

In this article my concerns are more “grass roots” oriented toward what I encounter daily as a pastor in the churches. When I entered the ministry, for example, I never dreamed that I’d have to defend the Biblical and Reformed teaching of infant baptism in Christian Reformed Churches. Yet the fact is that I have repeatedly and increaSingly had to do so.

Perhaps this observation reveals a weakness in my and my colleagues’ preaching and teaching. If so that weakness must be shored up. For I believe that most of our people are ill-informed about the covenant. They associate the covenant with an isolated ceremony when a child is baptized but fail to see that it relates to all of life, that it is centered in Jesus Christ, the Mediator of the covenant, and that for a Christian believer it is fundamental to everything he thinks, says and does.

When I see decreasing interest in Christian education among us, the evangelistic methods which many pursue, I’m reminded of God’s warning that there are breaches which need to be recognized and repaired.

Cod through Isaiah says that a generation would rise up which would build the old waste places and raise up the foundation of many generations (Isaiah 58:12). The Lord seems to indicate that for Judah there would come a day when the old, would be recovered among His people and that that would be good for them. A bond would be re-established with the past, and most importantly with the God of the past, and that would be wholesome.

Our Christian Reformed Church formerly had an identity which was unique in North America. We were known, and to a great extent we are still known, as an orthodox church, sound in doctrine, active in Kingdom endeavor, liberal in giving and sacrificing for the Lord. We had denominational loyalty. Our people were not afraid to say that they were Reformed believers, and more particularly, members of the Christian Reformed Church.

Today, many of us are afraid of the distinctiveness which the word “Reformed,” properly, connotes. Or, and this is equally irresponsible, too many of us don’t even know what being Reformed is. Contributing to that ignorance, is an unwillingness to become informed. “Who cares what our fathers in faith believed or what they understood the Scriptures to teach? We live in a new world with new and unique circumstances and problems. The Reformation took place 400 years ago; its principles are out of date in our world!” That’s what plenty of people today are thinking if not saying.

As a result, when we are bombarded by liberal, Arminian, and fundamentalist presses, by endless mass mailings, by “Christian” radio and television, and by travelling, “huckster” evangelists who woo with word and song, many of us can‘t distinguish the strange teachings from Biblical truth. And after that floodtide beats about so long, as it is doing on the North American continent today, we need not wonder why the masses of listeners even among our “Reformed” people find their denominational loyalty and identity eroding away. Soon people start wondering aloud: Why all of this fuss about being Reformed? Isn’t being Christian enough? Aren‘t we being altogether too narrow? And at the same time they start questioning about infant baptism, Christian education, tongue speaking, faith healing, interfaith worship, mixed marriages, the Four Spiritual Laws, the rapture, and the list could go on and on.

Reflecting on these trends in our church membership reminds me of what Asaph wrote in Psalm 80:

Thou broughtest a vine out of Egypt: Thou didst drive out the nations, and plantedst it. Thou preparedst room before it, And it took deep root, and filled the land . . . . Why hast thou broken down its walls, So that all they that pass by the way do pluck it? The boar out of the wood doth ravage it, and the wild beasts of the field feed on it (vv. 8, 9, 12, 13).

Asaph‘s prayer ought to be our prayer too:

Turn again we beseech thee, 0 God of hosts: Look down from heaven, and behold, and visit this vine, And the stock which thy right hand planted, And the branch that thou madest strong for thyself. . . . So shall we not go back from thee: Quicken thou us, and we will cali upon thy name. Tum us again, 0 Jehovah God of hosts; Cause thy face to shine, and we shall be saved (vv. 14, 15, 18, 19).

I know that a church cannot stand still; if she does she will become stagnant and die. I know that a Reformed church must press forward and constantly be reforming; otherwise she is no longer true to her call and purpose. But I also know that if the foundations are abandoned (that which we call in song: the “Faith of our Fathers”) and if breaches are left unrepaired, destruction will follow, for God’s blessing does not rest upon an unfaithful or a spiritually complacent people.

Our Lord has placed no greater challenge before us as a people and as a church than to live in the world in the fourth quarter of the 20th century as a covenant people, faithful to His ancient and eternal Word, not afraid or ashamed to be different for His Name’s sake. God promises us His Blessing and His Spirit to accomplish that task for Him if we will only heed His Word and follow His will. If we do this we too will be called “The repairer of the breach, The restorer of paths to dwell in” and we will be rewarded and blessed accordingly.