Category: The Ministry

Eulogy & Gospel; In Memoriam Hilda Mae TeVelde

As we begin the service we note that this service was all planned out by Hilda after Cal died. She decided that all the final arrangements would too difficult for her children given everything else they would be responsible for at her death, so she planned the Memorial service. Upon completion of all the details, she sighed and said to her daughter, Amie …

“It’s going to be such a lovely service, too bad I won’t be there to enjoy it.”

It is my prayer that you will agree with Hilda about the service.


We turn then to the eulogy. Eulogy literally means “Good word.” Christians have always had eulogies at these services because we believe that each life is created as the image of God and as created in the image of God we want to praise that image that was reflected in the deceased. The eulogy is not an attempt to “preach someone into heaven,” rather the purpose of the eulogy is to glorify God for His handiwork in the life of the person being spoken of. The eulogy is to glorify God.

And so we speak of Hilda Mae TeVelde and we thank the Lord Christ for her life. We thank the Lord Christ for how impressed Himself upon her character. Hilda was born and Baptized in a Christian home in the Dutch Reformed tradition with many of the old world traditions part of her upbringing. She was catechized very early and made confession of faith. All of that old world tradition … all of that catechism became part of Hilda’s character.

She excelled in what Christian women of her time and generation excelled at. She lived in a time when the Biblical roles of men and women as found in Scripture were much more embraced… especially as in the conservative Dutch Christian community. As such she embraced the blessing of being a faithful wife and mother as she had embraced before that being a faithful daughter and sister. Eventually with the passing of time Hilda was a faithful Grandmother and Aunt.

Her family was central to her life. A visit to her home demonstrates that. Every occasion when Jane and I would enter into her home I would sit at the table to visit with her and right behind me were photos piled upon photos of primarily her family, but also of many friends and their children. In our conversations I would learn about her recent DeVries or TeVelde family reunion. I think it might have been in these conversations where I learned about the incredible life span the Dutch often have. Hilda would regale us with stories about her nieces and nephews and grand-nieces and grand-nephews… about sisters and sisters-in-laws and brothers and brothers-in-laws and cousins and other assorted family members. My mind could not recall all the names. She loved her family, and this is a characteristic of the godly woman as we find her in the Bible.

She loved and married Cal TeVelde and made a home with Cal and with the children who would soon follow. Perhaps the highest praise of her then could be that of wife and mother, Aunt and Grandmother. She loved y’all deeply. She would commonly ask me to pray for this or that family member during our visits.

Consistent with all this Hilda cooking was legendary. At the various and sundry covered dish dinners at the Church Hilda’s dishes were often the first to be mysteriously emptied. Now, generally speaking the Dutch of her generation knew how to navigate a kitchen and Hilda was a reflection of that.

Hilda loved her gardening year in and year out. During some of our visits she would get as riled as she could about the pesky varmints who were eating her produce. Some men in the Church put up a fence one year but the varmints only found that obstacle humorous. Still, Hilda got a lot of produce out of her garden and would be routinely canning or freezing this or that vegetable. Her fondness of gardening stayed with her to the very end as on her porch this year she had some beans, tomatoes, peppers and squash growing.

As we mentioned earlier though, it was Hilda’s Christian faith that defined who she was. That was seen in her children while little observing their Mom during the evenings sitting alone in the living room reading. Since most of the family life happened in the kitchen or the family room they found that odd but when they became a little older they realized that the book she was reading was her Bible. Hilda routinely stole away from the hubbub of a busy family life to find solace with the Lord.

You see, like all Christians, Hilda’s identity was wrapped up with her Christianity. Like all Christians her Christian faith was not merely an accessory – something one could take off and put on like a piece of clothing but her Christian faith was just who she was.

She grew up in a Christian home being taught the Christian faith. I have found myself wondering over the course of the past few days how many times Hilda might have heard the Heidelberg Catechism or a sermon on the Heidelberg catechism during her life. You see, when she grew up and well into her adult years and aged years she would hear a sermon on that Catechism every Lord’s Day. This was what she was taught and it is what she believed as a Christian.

The Catechism teaches the good news of Jesus Christ. It starts by reminding us that our only comfort in life and death is that we are not our own but belong body and soul and in life and death to our faithful savior Jesus Christ,who with His precious blood, hath fully satisfied for all my sins, and delivered me from all the power of the devil; and so preserves me that without the will of my heavenly Father, not a hair can fall from my head; yea, that all things must be subservient to my salvation, and therefore, by His Holy Spirit, He also assures me of eternal life, and makes me sincerely willing and ready, henceforth, to live unto Him.

Hilda then was taught throughout her whole life that there were three things one had to know in order to live and die in this comfort. This is the Christianity she embraced her whole life and that belief made her to be the person that she was.

Hilda knew, per the teaching of the Catechism, based as it was on Scripture, how great her sin and misery was. Christians embrace the truth that all have sinned and come short of God’s just standard. We know this because that is what the Bible teaches. We understand that without the forgiveness of Jesus Christ whatever goodness we can find in ourselves is as stained and filthy rags. Throughout her life Hilda, sitting under the teaching of her Catechism understood that apart from Christ the only word the Scripture teaches to men is that they are without hope because the just wrath of God abides on them because of their rebellion against God revealing itself in their self-centered living.

Hilda, embraced though that there was a solution to man’s sin problem. She, following that catechism knew and embraced that the only solution to her alienation from God and God’s wrath against her was by trusting Christ. Hilda embraced that Christ who knew no sin, and became sin for us that His people might become the righteousness of God in Christ. Hilda knew that in Christ Jesus there was no condemnation. Yes, sin does accuse but Christ dying in our place as our substitute – the just for the unjust – puts an end to the power of sin to accuse. Hilda, having sat in Christian churches her whole life knew and embraced for herself that her only hope was found in nothing less than Jesus and His righteousness. The catechism teaches that men, in order to escape God’s just judgment against sin must trust in Jesus Christ who alone is the way, the truth, and the life.

Well, we said that Hilda’s catechism taught her that there were three things she must know in order to live and die in the comfort of knowing that we belong to our faithful savior Jesus Christ. We said the first was we must know and embrace the truth of our sin and misery. Second we have said that we must know and embrace the truth that the solution for that sin and misery is the life, death, resurrection and ascension of the Lord Jesus Christ. The redemption and deliverance for all men pivots on knowing Christ. The third truth we must know in order to have Jesus Christ as our faithful savior is the matter of gratitude.

I remember once in church some years ago I was teaching the children’s sermon and I was trying to get the children to remember these three points of what we must know. The children were having trouble remembering

How Great our Sin and Misery
How Great our Deliverance
How Great our Gratitude.

As they were struggling to remember Hilda piped up and said … “Sin, Salvation, Service,” hoping to make the memory work for the children easier.

And Hilda lived out the service/gratitude part of the Catechism. The catechism teaches that the way we live out our gratitude to God for so great a salvation is to walk in faith, under the unction of the Spirit consistent with God’s Law. The catechism teaches that the Christian who loves Jesus Christ for the great deliverance He has secured by His death and resurrection walks in ever increasing though never perfect obedience to the ten commandments. Walking consistent with God’s law out of the joy of gratitude for being rescued from my sin and misery and not out of the motive fear that God’s going to get me, is the delight of the Christian. It was the delight of Hilda TeVelde.

If you are sitting here and do not know the three things that you must know in order to live and die in the comfort of belonging to Jesus Christ allow me to encourage you to have mercy upon your soul and to own the Jesus Christ whom Hilda is now in the presence of. The lacking of that in your life is too horrible to contemplate.

Some Praise For The Prophet Of Leaky Dispensationalism

Years ago I did a deep dive on Dispensationalism. I read over the course of time;

“Prophecy & The Church” – O. T. Allis
“Wrongly Dividing the Truth” – John Gerstner
“The Incredible Scofield & His Book” – Joseph Canfield
“Life Of Edward Irving: Fore-Runner Of The Charismatic Movement” – Arnold Dallimore
“Understanding Dispensationalists” – Vern Poythress
“Pre-Wrath Rapture of the Church” – Marvin Rosenthal
“House Divided: The Break-Up of Dispensational Theology – Bahnsen & DeMar
“The Israel of God: Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow” – O. Palmer Robertson
“Dispensationalism: Rightly Dividing the People of God” – Keith Mathison

These are the ones I remember. I know there were other titles I can’t remember now. I also read many books arguing for Covenant theology in general.

Because of this study I’ve been adamantly opposed to Dispensationalism in all its expressions. Gerstner goes so far as to say it is heresy. Allis’ work is perhaps the most devastating to this “theology.”

It is because of this foursquare opposition to Dispensationalism in all of its varieties (even of the so called “leaky Dispensationalism variety”) that I find it difficult to join in with the legions of Baptists and others who are now mourning the death of John MacArthur.

That is not to say that I am not a little bit saddened. It is to say that my sorrow is not anywhere near where it was when Rushdoony, Bahnsen, Martyn Lloyd Jones, Van Til, Gordon Clark and others died.

As it pertains to MacArthur I respected his stand against Charismania and anti-nomianism (even though he fell into neo-nomianism in opposing anti-nomianism). I saluted MacArthur when he took on the Church growth movement and tore it apart. I saluted MacArthur when he refused to qualify his opposition to sodomy and other tough issues like the absolute requirement for a known Jesus Christ in order to be redeemed. These were issues that many other guys like Tim Keller or Billy Graham or Robert Schuller were constantly trying to nuance to death. To MacArthur’s credit he did not do that. I saluted MacArthur when he warned his Seminary students that it would be hard sledding in the ministry given all the opposition that they would have to spend their whole lives fighting. I could identify with that one. Of course, MacArthur stood against California Gov. Newsome during the Covid issue in Newsome attempt to keep the Churches closed. MacArthur was one of the few who did so. That perhaps, was MacArthur’s greatest moment.  In many respects John MacArthur was a man who could be admired because of these qualities.

I also admired him a wee bit because my Father-in-law admired him. Rev. Anthony Lombardi owned series after series of MacArthur’s taped sermons. I have that collection now sitting in my office. I don’t think I’ve ever listened to one. I always believed that I had better things to read or listen to, but my Baptist minister Father-in-law was smitten with John MacArthur. That stands to reason though since they were both Baptists and they were both Dispensationalists and they were both more than a little put off by the seeker sensitive movement.

For myself, I only ever read MacArthur’s book on Charismania and his two books on Lordship salvation issue. I thought Richard Gaffin’s book was better on the Charismania issue and I thought Mike Horton’s book was better on the antinomian issue. Also, several of the Puritans put faith in justification and faith in sanctification in a far superior way to MacArthur’s take. Still, that MacArthur was willing to take on the issues spoke in his favor, even if he didn’t get it completely correct.

Also, MacArthur clearly helped thousands upon thousands of people through his preaching, and writing. That is a good thing.

However, having said all that to honor him, I do pray that ministers who embrace leaky dispensationalism as did MacArthur did not will no longer be a presence in the Church today. I say this because I do not think Dispensationalism is a proper understanding of Biblical Christianity. I think the theology of that school is a hindrance to the furtherance of the  Christian faith.  It is sub-Christianity. If you read Allis and Gerstner they would say it is anti-Christianity.

Remember, it was MacArthur who boldly told his legion of followers that “We lose down here. Get over it.” This pessimism is a direct result of MacArthur’s leaky Dispensationalism. As long as the clergy believe that the Church and the Christian faith will be defeated in space and time history that defeat will become a self-fulfilled prophecy. The Church doesn’t need more clergy like MacArthur who not only believes this but who still think that the eschatological clock is tied to modern Israel and that we have an obligation to support Israel and is still looking for the Temple in Jerusalem to be rebuilt. These characteristics of Dispensationalism need to be eternally put to rest.

So John MacArthur served his generation and now has been gathered to his fathers. We praise him for his strengths while not ignoring his weaknesses.

 

God’s Remarkable Providence – #1

All of those who are Christians, I think, have times and events in our lives that when we look back on them we clearly see the hand of God orchestrating and superintending. It is good that we remember these because they remind us of the goodness of the Lord Christ and because they serve as encouragements when we face other tight situations.

In the Psalms we see this kind of thing often. In the Psalms this is called “recital theology.” These are texts where the Psalmist is reciting some greatness of God in the past often in order to give him hope for the future.

Psalm 136 is one such example where the Psalmist practices recital theology. He remembers God’s previous provision to the end of being confident in God for the future;

to him who struck down the firstborn of Egypt
His love endures forever.
11 and brought Israel out from among them
His love endures forever.
12 with a mighty hand and outstretched arm;
His love endures forever.

13 to him who divided the Red Sea[a] asunder
His love endures forever.
14 and brought Israel through the midst of it,
His love endures forever.
15 but swept Pharaoh and his army into the Red Sea;
His love endures forever.

16 to him who led his people through the wilderness;
His love endures forever.

I have tried to teach from the pulpit that we should all have our own recital theology. We should all have the ability to remember God’s past goodness and provision so that we never despair of the Lord Christ’s ability to deliver us from present trials.

As such, I’d like to do a series of these where we (and sometimes just I, before Jane came along) saw the Spirit of God provide in ways I could never have expected or anticipated at the time.

The first one I like to recall is when we took up our first ministerial charge.

The year was 1988. I had been finished with Seminary since December of 1987. I had sent out a few sending resumes looking to see if I could find some interest but to no avail. I was operating without any institutional support and so I did not have a natural network or structure to work within. Further, I was still doing a good deal of reading as I was moving from Arminianism to a Reformed understanding.

I was still working part time at United Airlines (about 30 hours a week) but it was clear that something had to change. We were living in a really nasty situation (a hovel that we shared with mice, palmetto bugs, termites, and bees — depending on the time of year). It was, as you can imagine, very inexpensive (150.00 dollars a month) but it was the kind of place one lives in when one is scraping buy in Seminary. It was not the kind of place where one settles in for long term.

Laura-Jane had been born in July of 1986. She had experienced more than one bout of getting stung up by bees while sleeping. However, by 1988 we learned that Jane was with child with Anna and fitting four in this living situation was something we could have done if we had to but certainly not ideal.

The quarters we were living in, there in South Carolina had only one room that was air conditioned (and SC can get oppressively hot in the summer) and that air conditioned room was due to the kindness of the Church we were attending at the time. They saw Jane’s condition when she was pregnant with Laura and bought us a small unit and installed it in our bedroom. We were very thankful for that kindness of that small church.

Similarly, in the winter time we had one small heater in the house that could not heat the whole house and we had to keep a portable kerosene heater running to keep whatever other room in the house we were occupying warm.

This was our situation in 1988. We knew we had to change things but we were, by all observations seemingly stuck.

The God’s providence and provision descended upon us. A chap who was a couple years ahead of me in Seminary and who I had known just a wee bit was pastoring a church in rural South Carolina about 45 minutes from where we lived. I had lost touch with him and didn’t even know what had become of him after he graduated Seminary. Come to find out he had been filling the pulpit at a PCA country church in Longtown, SC. That Church had been a vibrant church before experiencing a church split before my friend arrived and so it was experiencing hard times. My friend, who was affiliated with the PCA, had some trouble getting fully ordained in the PCA (that’s a story in itself but is ancillary to this story) and was told he could not fill the pulpit of this small rural church until the PCA ordained him. The refusal of his ordination was political and he was not happy with the PCA and the Church as well was not pleased with the PCA. The Church believed that the man was capable and orthodox and that the Presbytery was being a further hindrance to their ability, as a Church, to get back on track after a devastating split.

Before he left that congregation the Elders at Longtown Presbyterian asked him to recommend a name for them to phone in order to secure pulpit supply. For reasons that to this day amaze me, he recommended me and gave them my phone contact. The reason this amazed me is that I didn’t really know John that well. We had had a few interactions over the course of time but we were more acquaintances than friends. I was amazed (and remain amazed almost forty years later) that he gave the Elders my name and that he would recommend me.

Well, the Elders phoned me in September of 1988 and asked me to come fill their pulpit one week. I did so. At that point they asked me to come the following Sunday and I did. Pretty soon I was out at Longtown SC filling the pulpit weekly and doing visitations with the Elders in various homes.

By March or so, they asked me to consider coming to live out in Longtown. I told them that really wasn’t financially feasible. A few weeks later they said they wanted to make it financially feasible by purchasing and bringing a brand new double wide trailer and sitting it on a portion of the 80 acres the Church owned. They also said they wanted to add a substantial front porch so we could entertain folks on the porch.

There was just one hitch in all this and it disappointed me that I had to admit it to them. The hitch was that I was still figuring matters out in terms of being Reformed vs. being Arminian. I had grown up Wesleyan and my experience, before moving to South Carolina, was all Reformed churches were liberal. Now while in Seminary, I learned that was not true but that didn’t mean that I wasn’t still struggling to get my head around Reformed theology. I mean, I had taken the required classes in Seminary. I had done the reading required. I did well in the classes but I still was not convinced. In point of fact I was not convinced of either Arminianism or Reformed theology at that point.

And I had to tell them that. I had to tell them that I couldn’t try to be ordained in the PCA because I just was not there yet. I thought that would be the end of their pursuit. It wasn’t. The Elders said to me when I told them this, “Look, we’ve been listening to your preaching now for a few months. We are confident that you are headed in a direction you don’t even realize yet. If you promise to keep studying and reading on this subject, we would still like to consider you to come. You don’t need to worry about denominational issues because we are leaving the PCA. Our departure from the PCA has nothing to do with you. We are leaving whether you come or not.”

So, seeing this as God’s open door we showed up in our new home about a month after Anna was born in 1989 and we stayed there for over six years. I kept my job at United and commuted the 45 minute drive and worked as a tentmaker for those six years. I continued to keep up my reading and eventually God convinced me that Reformed theology alone was consistent with His revelation of Himself. Before we left Longtown Presbyterian we even had our three children baptized in the context of infant Baptism (though they were all toddlers at the time).

The new home was glorious, compared to where we had been living. The children had all kinds of room to run and play. Eventually the Church put up a playhouse for the children and a out building for storage for us. All of this Lord Christ dropped in our laps in the most unexpected manner possible. His provision came out of nowhere. It was not the first time and it would not be the last but it is one of those times where the impact of it remains beyond my ability to reckon.

The church also paid us a small stipend weekly while we were there. Remember, they had just gone through a split themselves and so there was not a lot of money for a salary. Some of those first few Sundays, I remember we would have only 9 people in the service — most of them widows. The group that split off built a PCUSA chapel just down the road about 5 miles. We would eventually build up to about 25 people on any given Sunday before the door closed at Longtown and the Lord Christ brought us to Michigan. Longtown, Presbyterian is still open today. They are again now part of the PCA. I know very little about how all that came about but I rejoice to know that the Church continues to glorify God where it is at.

And almost 40 years later I marvel at God’s hand of provision for Jane and I and the children (Anthony came along in 1990). Those years at Longtown were a challenge but we never doubted that tiny congregation and community loved us. It was hard on us when the time came, because United Airlines was closing its operation in Columbia, SC, we had to leave that congregation and that place.

Most of those folks we ministered to their in Longtown almost 40 years ago have gone to be with Christ. I think if Jane and I just showed up today for worship at Longtown Presbyterian no one would recognize us because the congregation is a different congregation than the one we served. I think there might be one or two who might recognize us, but on the whole we could slip in and out on a given Sunday just being visitors in the area who decided to visit one random Sunday.

However, these many years later I remain amazed at how the Lord Christ opened up a situation that I could not have foreseen in a million years. I am amazed at His work not only in providing a home for the McAtee family but also in distinctly placing us in the ministry. All of this is part of my recital theology and I return to it over and over again when I am in a sticky wicket that I have no idea how I am going to get out of.

And then six years later, when we moved to Michigan the Lord Christ did it all over again.

But that is a different chapter in my recital theology and is for another time.

Advice On People’s Advice Concerning “Manliness”

Recently, there have been a spate of books written on what it means to be a man. Also there have been the requisite blog posts to the same end. Some of it is quite good (Rev. Zach Garris’ book Masculine Christianity for example) while others are questionable at best.

Yesterday, I came across a typical bite sized X post on the subject of manliness from someone who is getting a great deal of press these days that has stuck in my craw because I think it is nonsense and can do a great deal of damage.

Here is the advice I came across from some genius on the subject of manliness;

The best of men learn how to thrive in moments of intense opposition and adversity. This is the “it” factor. 4th and long. Bottom of the 9th, 2 outs. “Manliness loves…the position of being embattled and alone against the world.”

The first sentence and the last sentence do not necessarily coincide and are not really the same thing. It can be true that the best of men learn how to thrive in moments of intense opposition and adversity while not being true that “manliness loves… the position of being embattled and alone against the world.”

Also, it is facile to compare being “embattled and alone against the world” with 4th and long and bottom of the 9th, 2 outs. When we think of embattled and alone against the world we think of the martyrs of the faith. That is a bit more consequential and trying then needing to make a first down or get a winning hit. Embattled and alone against the world is Polycarp being burnt at the stake. Embattled and alone against the world is fighting with the Confederacy after Richmond fell. Embattled and alone against the world is Pilgrim in Vanity Fair.

I wonder if someone who is dishing out this kind of advice has ever really themselves been “embattled and alone against the world.” I don’t think someone who has genuinely been “embattled and alone against the world” would use such trivial comparisons to the sportsball world.

It’s easy to toss around this kind of advice when not embattled and alone against the world. Much more difficult to live it out when one is in the vice grip of being embattled and alone.

Now if it had been said that love for greater realities moves one to accept their duty — no matter how difficult — I would have been satisfied with the statement. However, no man loves the position of being embattled and alone. Scripture teaches that we can learn to be content in all things but being content is different than loving being embattled and alone.

I reckon the reason I have taken such exception to this quote is because in many respects my ministry has been one of being embattled and alone. I have some experience here. Now, my being embattled and being alone is nothing to be compared with the saints who have gone before such as are listed in Hebrews 11;

 others who were tortured, refusing to be released so that they might gain an even better resurrection.

The idea that manliness “loves” this being embattled and alone turns manliness into a masochistic ideal. Now, manliness does endure such but to endure something because of one’s priorities is different than loving being embattled and alone.

Paul can write to Timothy saying;

Thou therefore endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.

4 No man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life; that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier.

Timothy is counseled to endure hardness, just as Paul himself endured hardness. But love it, in the sense of being delighted in the hardness itself? Only a masochist would speak that way.

Manliness accepts the responsibility that one is called to. Manliness endures hardness out of love for Christ or for family or for the Church. But manliness does not love the being embattled and aloneness just as realities in themselves. That is not manliness and anyone telling you that it is has never been embattled and alone for sustained periods of time. They have never had to fight knowing that they wouldn’t win in the short term. They have never had to endure solitary confinement. They have never faced being the lone voice of sanity among peers that can damage them professionally for disagreeing as the lone voice. They have never had to endure being ground down year after year. They just are not being rational, choosing instead to embrace some kind of romantic nonsense about what it means to be a man.

And what of the others around this man who loves being embattled and alone? What of his wife and children? Is there no awareness that the man who is embattled and alone has no put his wife and children in the positions of being embattled and alone also? This is not to say that a man must do this if the issue warrants it but if a man chooses not only for himself but for his wife and children to be embattled and alone is it really sane to love that when he sees how much it hurts his wife and children to be embattled and alone — and that even if they agree with whatever the cause is that has them all embattled and alone?

Just to be clear, I do agree that manliness learns how to thrive when the chips are down. My beef is using silly sports analogies for something so serious and my beef is with the idea that real men love being embattled and alone. I suppose real men who are masochistic love being embattled and alone.

Anyway … be careful of the advice that is being thrown around out there in Christian corners. More than a little of this advice is not well thought out.

 

 

Funeral Sermon

Question 1: What is thy only comfort in life and death?

Answer: That I with body and soul, both in life and death,1 am not my own,2 but belong unto my faithful Savior Jesus Christ;3 who, with His precious blood,4 hath fully satisfied for all my sins,5 and delivered me from all the power of the devil;6 and so preserves me7 that without the will of my heavenly Father, not a hair can fall from my head;8 yea, that all things must be subservient to my salvation,9 and therefore, by His Holy Spirit, He also assures me of eternal life,10 and makes me sincerely willing and ready, henceforth, to live unto Him.11

Biblical Christianity recognizes and affirms along with St. Paul in I Corinthians 6 that we, both individually and collectively are not your own. We understand, confess and affirm that we have been bought with a price – that price being the precious blood of Jesus Christ which paid for our sin. There are several implications to that, the most immediate one being that we are to glorify God as the Apostle writes. And that is why we are here. We are to glorify God even when adversity, trials, and heartaches by His providence cross our paths. In doing so we are acknowledging and bowing before He who is the creator of life and death and the creator of eternal life. In gathering here we are glorifying God by acknowledging and affirming that the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh, blessed be the name of the Lord.

However, the idea that we are not our own also has the implication that as the God of the Bible owns us He therefore owns everything that we have. We are never owners in the full sense of that word but only stewards operating under God’s ownership. This means that the children God gives His covenant people are God’s children before they are our children. We are not our own, as the Scripture teaches, and because we are not our own it is the assertion and affirmation of Biblical Christianity through the centuries that our children belong to Christ just as we, the parents belong to Christ. So, before any child bears the family’s surname, that child first bears the name “Christian.”

There is no middle ground on this. Children, like adults, either are of their Father the Devil or they belong to Christ. The Christian faith affirms that the Children of believers have God’s claim of ownership upon them.

This means we understand, affirm, and confess that as the children of Christians belong to God should they die while under our covenant headship the conviction is that those children have been gathered into the arms of their savior, who while on earth went out of His way to command His disciples, to “forbid not the children to come unto me for such is the Kingdom of heaven.” If it is not the children of covenant parents who are gathered unto Jesus upon an untimely death then there are no children who are gathered unto the Kingdom of God and His Christ.

Our Father King David expressed this conviction when, following the death of his newborn child could say;

“I shall go to him, but he will not return to me.” II Sam 12:23

In the midst of the great grief surrounding his son’s death our Father David affirmed that His child was not His own and that His child had been gathered to his Fathers by God the Father. This is the mindset of all Biblical Christians who mourn over the untimely death of their babies, toddlers, and children.
From this we embrace the truth of Scripture when it teaches that our times are in God’s hand (Ps. 31:15). God owns His people and the children of His people and it is the case for all of us that

“whether we live, we live unto the Lord; and whether we die, we die unto the Lord: whether we live therefore, or die, we are the Lord’s. For to this end Christ both died, and rose, and revived, that He might be Lord both of the dead and living.” (Romans 14:7-9)

As God of the Bible own us and our children it is for Him to sovereignly administer our time and times. Scripture explicitly affirms this when the Psalmist speaks.

    all the days ordained for me were written in your book
    before one of them came to be.

Our times are in God’s hands and for His elect those times may be counted long so that we are graybeards when we die, or those times may be counted short but long or brief all the days ordained for any of us … all the days ordained by God for Stephen Elliot Cave were written in God’s book before one of them came to be.

Now this ownership that God claims upon His people and their seed is an ownership that is based upon the finished work of Jesus Christ dying on the cross in order to pay the penalty of our rebellion against His character and His gracious Law-Word. God owns His people because in and with the death of Jesus Christ the just and perfect wrath of God against sin and sinners was turned away that we who trust in Jesus Christ may have peace with God and entry into the family of God.

Of course you have to know and understand that God’s people were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain lifestyle received by tradition from your fathers; but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.

This was the basis of Stephen’s being owned by God. Stephen’s being owned by God was not based on his innocence as a Baby. Scripture teaches that even newborns have a sin nature. Stephen’s being owned by God was and is anchored to the reality that He was conceived by covenant parents who themselves are owned by God and all of them together Stephen and His parents owned because of the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.

This is the hope of the Gospel. This is the comfort for those of us who grieve with Jared and Kathryn in the covenant community. These are the truths upon which the anchor of our faith must hold should we be able to navigate such depths of sorrow.

If God be for us, who can be against us?

To Jared and Kathryn and the rest of the family, allow me to remind you that your heavenly Father has not forgotten you. Allow me as the minister of Christ to remind you again of how much our heavenly Father loves you for the sake of Jesus Christ. And while I would never presume to tell you or anybody going through adversity the whys of your trials I do have the authority as the minister of Christ to tell you that nothing can separate you from the love of God. I do have the authority to tell you that He will never leave you nor forsake you. I do have the authority to remind you that as weary and heavy laden you are invited to come unto Christ for His burden is easy and His yoke is light.

In times and events like these we must say with the disciples; “Where else would we go save to you for you alone have the words of eternal life.”

Allow me to round off here with a more personal word to those who are feeling like all this has sucked their lungs right out from them. The Scripture teaches in Hosea 6

“Come, let us return to the Lord.
He has torn us to pieces
    but he will heal us;
he has injured us
    but he will bind up our wounds.

From many of our Christian fore-fathers have drawn out the principle that teaches that whom God would heal He first wounds. God has wounded you … has wounded us, but He will heal us and we will be all the more pliable in His hands for His wounding and consequent healing. We will be all the more fit for the master’s use having endured this and then been healed from it.

This is what scripture is getting at when it teaches;

11 Now no discipline seems to be joyful for the present, but painful; nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.

And so you and we have been wounded by the hand of God. It is painful. It is not easy. Being pruned never is comfortable. But shall we not, by faith, long to find some balm that this wounding has been from the Father’s hand – a Father who loves us for the sake Jesus Christ, and that these wounds – these afflictions which we bear now will yield the peaceable fruit of righteousness not to mention they are also working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory?

How else can I understand all this heartache if I am to believe Lord’s Day #1 which teaches “that all things must be subservient to my salvation?”

With all that in mind let us as God’s people stand and together make the good confession;

I believe in God the Father, Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth;

And in Jesus Christ, his only begotten Son, our Lord,
Who was conceived by the Holy Ghost,
born of the Virgin Mary,
Suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, dead, and buried.
He descended into hell;
The third day he rose again from the dead;
He ascended into heaven, and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty;
From thence he shall come to judge the living and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Ghost;
I believe in the holy catholic church, the communion of saints;
The forgiveness of sin;
The resurrection of the body:
And the life everlasting. Amen.

Prayer