[AI translation] In the chapter of the Bible from which I've just taken the basic verse, a great battle is described: the camp of the Lord clashes with its ancient enemy, the Philistines. God stands beside his sinful people, who are showing signs of serious repentance, and helps them through the battle, so that the Lord and his people have a miraculous victory over the enemy. The victorious armies were still pursuing the remnant of the defeated enemy when the prophet Samuel sought a great stone and set it up along the road as an everlasting reminder of God's glorious deliverance. He called it the Eben-Hazer, or the stone of salvation, because he said, "The Lord has helped us until now." To those who pass by, let this be a reminder of God's gracious help and an encouragement to continue the journey.Now, as we commemorate the fifteenth anniversary of our Parish of Pasaréti, the pilgrimage of our lives passes by such invisible landmarks. A decade and a half is not a long time in the life of a parish, but it is an opportunity to take a few moments to look back over the road we have travelled, to take stock of our situation and to look ahead to the road ahead. Our fifteen-year-old boundary stone bears the same encouraging inscription. First and foremost, it encourages us to give great and humble thanks. How is it particularly evident that the Lord has helped us so far? I don't want to list them, because I would run out of time, but I will just sketch them out in broad strokes.
If we only think of our mere existence, we can already see a great testimony of the Lord's gracious help. A decade and a half is not a long time, but the last fifteen years are! It is the condensation of centuries of events, the painful period of the passing of a whole world and the birth of another, full of suffering and hope. A time of judgement, full of ruins, and of efforts to rise from the ruins! Is it not reason enough to be grateful that we have survived this time, that we are here at all? Is it not the Lord's special grace and care that is demonstrated as a tangible reality in the mere fact that we are alive? We could all tell stories fit for a novel about how many times our lives have hung by a thread and what a series of divine miracles have ensured our survival. Oh, that we could see with great, great gratitude the glowing letters on the boundary stone that read, "So far the Lord has helped us!
Yes, the fact that we are here is cause for thanksgiving, but the fact that we are a church, that we are here as the church of Christ, is even more cause for thanksgiving! Those few of us who have seen and lived through the development of this congregation, the germs of awakening life, the touching zeal, the prayerful striving for new and new plans and ideas, the joy and promise of a blossoming spring, the first flame of love, the devotion of a handful of believers gathered in the house on Gábor Áron Street; - who saw the rubbish heap where this church once stood, and then the walls that were rapidly being built. Those of us who heard our little bell ring for the first time, who heard the new organ, who saw the collapsed walls, who saw this building bleed from nine gaping wounds, and who saw these wounds and many others heal again - we can truly testify from the fullness of our hearts that the Lord has helped us so far!
But even if not all of us have seen these things, all of us who are here must know that we are the people of God, whom he has chosen and gathered together into fraternal fellowship with his holy Son and with one another. We are the church. This means that we are sweet brothers and sisters, we belong together, we are sons adopted by grace for the merit of Christ's death. We have a Father, Who loves us all equally, we have a Saviour, Who has equally put away the sins of us all. Our home is the world, for it too is under the providential power of our Father. Our home is the Church, because our Saviour is its Head and Sustainer. Our home is heaven as our rich inheritance. It is for the acceptance and living of all this in faith that this congregation was founded and has been in existence for fifteen years! That is why our God has preached his Word, oh, how many times! That is why He has invited us to His table, O with such renewed love! And when we think that there have been people who have received in this church the assurance of the forgiveness of their sins, who have breathed here for the first time the renewing power of eternal life, there are others who have felt in this church the love of Christ reaching out to them through human hearts: with great gratitude we can testify that in the last fifteen years Someone has been here, we have heard His word, felt the touch of His blessed hand, the warmth of His heart, the mysterious work of His Holy Spirit! Yes, it is true that so far the Lord has helped us! Blessed be His holy name!
Yes, He has helped, He has given His help, He has showered His grace, abundantly! It is true. But that help must also be accepted, that grace must also be enjoyed by us! And how have we accepted it? How have we lived it? He has kept us alive, but have we understood why, for what purpose? Just for the mere existence?! No! We know from the Bible that every living soul is created to serve the Lord. The greatest dignity and freedom of our being is to serve the Lord, to serve His glory, to do His will. Not that God needs our service, for what can we do that He cannot do more gloriously and mightily? And yet, behold, He does not want to do it without us! God does not want to be a God for Himself! He wants to live for us, and He wants us to live not for ourselves, but for Him! He wants to love us so that we love Him. He wants to be our Lord so that we serve Him! To live in service to Him, in a family community of love with Him: that would be the meaning of our existence. This is why He keeps us alive, why He has kept us alive, why He has helped us through storms, until today.
And how much of this purpose of our life have we achieved? How far have we freed ourselves from the bondage of our desires, our passions, of living for ourselves? How much have we drawn near to Him, how much of our toil and labour have we burnt on His altar for His glory? Could He not say to us what the owner of that barren fig tree said to the vine-dresser: 'I have been looking for fruit on it for years and I cannot find any. Cut it down! Why does it occupy the place in vain? There is nothing more terrible, more poignant, than when one finds that the Lord has helped, but in vain! I didn't take advantage of him, he wasted his help on me! He saved me out of trouble, out of peril, kept me for years, decades, and all in vain! No fruit on the tree yet! Or is there? The kind He's looking for? But it would be good if we could tell Him now, truly, honestly: Thine, Lord, is the glory, the blush of our cheeks is ours!
Then He did His best to make us a church. And are we indeed? A family community united in love with Christ and with one another? A spiritual home, where open hearts meet, where we do not just formally call each other "dear brother", but where we really feel the warmth of a brotherly heart for each other? Not a collection of Reformed believers, but a congregation of believers in the same Saviour Christ? Not an organization cobbled together in one way or another, but a living organism: the body of Christ? Is that what we have become in fifteen years? Our congregation in Pasaré has a generally good reputation in the city and even in the country. But let us not be deceived by appearances! We would be willing very soon to accept as life that which is not life, that which is only called living but dead! We would be willing to accept with a certain evangelical summer citizenship that our church is what it is! For there is movement, there are people of living faith, there are meetings, there is sacrifice, there is fervour, but is that all that God has? Should not Christ have been much, much more visibly manifested among us in such a long time?
In the last fifteen years, if we count only Sunday mornings and afternoons, and not holidays and evangelism, our little bell has called us to worship 1,560 times. At least twice as many other times our Lord had something to say to us. Was there not something alarmingly wrong in so many preaching and listening to the Word that the Holy Spirit of God could not have poured out among us with a power that would have shaken even the sleepers to life, would have united our hearts, would have attracted and blessed our whole congregation? We have settled into an outdated and long-judged church life, and meanwhile the ranks of those in the pews are thinning, the flock is dwindling, we are not following the laggards, and those of us who are still here, fewer and fewer, not only do we not love one another as brothers and sisters, we do not even know one another! We live side by side! Yes, we have been helped by the Lord so far, but we have received and implemented very little of this gracious help. I can almost hear His word speaking into this introspection of ours now, "I know thy works, and thy labour and thy endurance, and that thou canst not suffer evil, and hast tempted them that call themselves apostles, when they are not, and hast found them liars; and hast borne thy burdens, and hast endured, and hast labored for my name's sake, and hast not wearied. But my sentence against thee is, that thou hast forsaken thy first love. Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the former works; but if thou wilt not, I will come quickly against thee, and will remove thy candlestick out of its place, if thou repent not." (Je l2,2-5)
He cannot be blinded by outward appearances! He knows us, He sees into our hearts! Therefore, there is no point in hiding our shortcomings, in fooling ourselves and each other with fine words, He knows our affairs! In fact, we ask Him to reveal it to us as ruthlessly as possible, so that our hearts may ache! His complaint against us is that we have forsaken first love. Right? Yes, it is true! We do not love Him at the very beginning of our love. He is not in the first place! So much has become so much more important to us than Christ and His cause! From the concerns of daily living to providing for our own comfort! Remember therefore from whence you have fallen! Has it fallen out of our church somewhere? Not in human judgment, but in the eyes of Christ, yes! It has fallen out of living fellowship with the Lord! Out of the fellowship of His love that binds us together. Repent, says the Lord. This does not mean to cast ashes on your head and repent bitterly, but something very specific: repent! The essence of repentance: a change of whole inner attitude, by giving the Lord his rightful place in our lives. Repent, and do what you have just done!
For those who take seriously what the Lord is saying to them, let me give you some concrete actions that we can do: pray regularly and persistently for our church, for our being formed into a church, for a more definite, more understandable, more Spirit-filled speaking of His Word! Let us pray for one of our brothers by name, knowing that He is praying for us! Let us study more seriously and regularly the will of God in His Word, the Bible! Let us follow up each week with a brother who has fallen behind! In the preaching of the Word, let us not see and criticize the personal spiritual production of the preacher, but let us seek God's personal, appealing message! And let us give ourselves to Him, making our strength available to Him, so that He may work through us in the world!
Look, even this is part of the warning: I will come against you quickly, and I will move your lampstand out of its place if you do not repent. So put out the flame! Would he not, we think? Well, if we don't repent, yes! If he doesn't reach his goal with us, yes! He does not need us, he is not dependent on us, we are not indispensable! If there is no light to carry, to hold up, this "candlestick", this parish, what is it for? It will not remain an ornament! "So far hath the Lord helped us", but if we do not open our hearts more to His gracious, renewing help, He may move our candlestick out of its place! May the gracious fact that the Lord has helped us so far encourage us now to confidently beseech Him with the words of this song:
Hear, Jesus Christ,
Thou thou thirsty one
And very bitter
Your poor sheep,
Listen with mercy
Your holy church,
which is afflicted.
Make haste, therefore, to us,
our gracious God,
Let us not lose sight of you,
our loving betrothed!
Do not forsake us and do not
Forget us:
Do not go far from us.
(Canto 388, verses 1 and 4)
Amen
Date: 8 February 1953.
Lesson
Jel 2,1-7