Regional Synod of Canada - Reformed Church in America

Pioneer Christian Monthly

Date - Oct/87

Contributor - Henry Van Essen

Title - Reformation

Topic - Reformation

Your prophets have seen for you false and deceptive visions; they have not exposed your iniquity to restore your fortunes, but have seen for you oracles false and misleading. Lamentations 2:14

Every time the words and prophecies of Jeremiah come before me I wonder how he would have fared these days. For he does the only thing which can help the people of Judah: he faithfully passes on to them God's Word. And God's Word reveals the true condition of His covenant people. But these people completely reject the Word which the Lord God speaks through Jeremiah. They have other prophets who speak much more to their liking. Jeremiah exposes, cuts with the sword of the Spirit into their way of life and into their way of thinking. But the preachers favoured by the people paint positive pictures of the future and encourage the people to think positively. Jeremiah is considered a prophet of doom, a pessimist, and a collaborator with the enemy, one who takes the heart out of the people, one whose voice should be silenced for good of all.

But all Jeremiah wants is the complete restoration of the fortunes of Judah. He does not want all the warfare, the hunger, the pain for God's people, neither does their Covenant God. Yet there can be no restoration without a basic change of the people in their relationship with the Lord God. The way the people are going now will perish; they will end up being like chaff which the wind drives away. The only possibility is that the people are confronted with the truth according to God's law-word, so that they may repent and seek mercy and forgiveness. It is only by gratefully embracing the saving work of the Lord Jesus Christ that the Church is kept from being blown adrift. The Letters of the Lord Jesus, the Head of the Church, to the seven churches in Asia (Revelation 2 and 3) make that very clear. What is needed for a positive life of victory and peace and justice is total reformation of God's people.

During this time of the year some may wonder whether it is still proper to reflect on the Reformation of the Church of Jesus Christ as it took place in the 1500's. We are said to live in the ecumenical age where people of various kinds of backgrounds are heard to say that there really is no difference between denominations. But that is not the question. The question is whether the prophets which we select to speak to us expose our iniquity or whether they present us with false and deceptive visions. The question, furthermore, is whether we really want to hear the truth about ourselves, about our churches, about our society. In Jerusalem they only wanted to hear positive messages of comfort and hope. They refused to consider the truth of God's Word through Jeremiah. Destruction of Jerusalem and captivity was the final result.

Today we live in the same kind of environment as the Jews in the time of Jeremiah. It is the time in which people are quite easily satisfied with their own life before the Lord God. Scripture tells us again and again that "the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately corrupt; who can understand it?" Therefore "I the LORD search the mind and try the heart, to give to every human being according to his ways, according to the fruit of his doings." (Jeremiah 17:9, 10) For that reason the reformation of the church is an absolute necessity which remains until the Lord Jesus returns. As God's people we shall not seek to follow our Saviour until we loathe our own ways.

May the Lord spare us from prophets which see for us false and deceptive visions and who do not expose our iniquities. Only then shall the Church of Jesus Christ continue to be reformed and thus conformed to His image. Only then shall God's people be a blessing to the world, light and salt and yeast.

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