In July 1953, at the height of the controversy in 1953, Rev. Herman Hoeksema traveled to the Northwest Iowa area to give a lecture in Hull entitled “The Situation at First Church.” The audience was hostile; and in response to one of the questioners, Herman Hoeksema promised to preach a sermon on the Philippian jailor the following Sunday.

What follows this introduction is a transcript of that sermon. The sermon is magnificent. It is the finest exegesis of Acts 16:30–31 anywhere that I have found. The sermon is a strenuous and moving defense of the Reformed faith and that in a hostile environment by a man who was worn down by the care of the churches. A Reformed believer thrills with the message. It is one of the sermons where I learned what it means to be Reformed.

This sermon is printed in Sword and Shield not only because it was an important part of the history of 1953, but also because the sermon was an important part of the controversy that led to the formation of the Reformed Protestant Churches. A doctrinal controversy was taking place in the Protestant Reformed Churches, though most people were asleep as the thieves and robbers came before Christ.

When the controversy exactly started is hard to say. We can go back at least to 2015 and the sermons of Rev. David Overway. But the subtle shift toward the doctrine of his sermons started probably shortly after 1953. The controversy came to a head in 2015–18. In 2018 it seemed that everyone was finally paying attention, and the Protestant Reformed synod made its decision. It was a bad one.

Just how bad the decision was Rev. K. Koole made clear in his wretched Standard Bearer articles regarding the Philippian jailor passage.¹ You could drive a freight-train load of heresy through the synodical decision, and Reverend Koole drove a huge Arminian train through it. His articles were a wholesale rejection of Hoeksema’s exegesis of Acts 16:30–31 in 1953 and with it Hoeksema’s theology that he was defending in that sermon. By rejecting Hoeksema’s exegesis, Reverend Koole was also siding with Rev. Hubert De Wolf and his theology of man’s activities performed before one can experience the blessings of God.

Reverend Koole was out of the closet. Others came out after him.

It was Koole’s articles that made clear to any Reformed men left in the Protestant Reformed Churches that her 2018 synodical decision was thoroughly corrupt and that she was hell-bent on bringing in the theology of De Wolf. It was those articles regarding the text that Hoeksema preached on in 1953 that in 2018 galvanized opposition to Reverend Koole’s Arminian doctrine. How history repeats itself.