A Brief Analysis
The undersigned has been entangled in the Michigan court system for some time in a lawsuit that had been lodged by former members of the Reformed Protestant Churches (RPC). As of July 15, 2026, the lawsuit that Brandon and Alana Oostra filed against me, Reverend Langerak, and Mr. Dillon Altena has been dismissed by the courts. I have looked forward for some time now to examine critically the events that took place toward the end of my first year in the ministry up to the present day. I am free to speak liberally on this case now that it is closed, and I have a lot to say. I intend to do so over the next couple months, the Lord willing.
The issues in First Reformed Protestant Church were over many things, including church discipline, church membership, and the preaching. But all the issues ultimately came back to the covenant and the antithesis. I maintain that the struggle at First was over the covenant, specifically, the antithesis. The triune God is the covenant God; therefore, all doctrinal controversy ultimately has to do with the covenant. If the covenant is God’s relationship of friendship and fellowship with his elect people in Christ, then the flipside of that is that God’s people have no friendship or fellowship with the world. Further, God puts his church in a position of spiritual warfare and hostility against the world, which manifests itself in the life of the child of God who wars against the sinful world, lies, deceit, the false church, friends and family who have forsaken the truth, and the devil. In the end many from First rejected the covenant and the antithesis and went out from us because they were not of us. I have written and preached extensively on the doctrine of the antithesis, and this series is not intended to be an apology for that doctrine. The doctrine of the antithesis is scriptural and creedal, as I have often demonstrated.
My interest is not so much the doctrine of the antithesis now, but I am interested in how the events that took place in First and the subsequent lawsuit relate with the coming of the antichrist and his kingdom. The apostle in 2 Thessalonians 2:7 says, “The mystery of iniquity doth already work.” He means by “work” that the energy or power of the antichristian kingdom already was operating then when the Holy Spirit authored these words. That power was also operating at Babel, in Egypt, in Babylon, at the cross, and in the constant rise of powerful rulers throughout the new dispensation. Throughout history men have arisen from the world of men in order to subject to themselves nations and kingdoms. It was the same power that operated during the COVID-19 shutdown when the government attempted to close churches in the name of the god of man’s health, with, I might add, astounding success.
It is the power that is working now in the fierce and seemingly unstoppable ecumenical movement of Christianity today to join all things together in an unholy alliance under the banner of the antichrist. According to the broader church world, the Protestant Reformed Churches included, everyone is a true believer as long as he says “I believe in Christ,” doctrine and confession be damned.
Hear Rev. Herman Hoeksema on the matter:
Is not obliteration of all distinction and amalgamation of the church and the world characteristic of all that the devil does today? Are we not told it matters not what form of doctrine we embrace, if only we will all be brothers?1
This movement we decry with all our might. But our voice is falling on deaf ears. “If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead” (Luke 16:31). Striking are Christ’s words in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. To raise from the dead is a work ascribed to God. He is the God who calls those things that be not and raises the dead. God could raise one from the dead, and unbelief still would not believe. Instead, the Reformed Protestant Churches are labeled and slandered as mentally insane, bigots, and extremists.
The same power of the mystery of iniquity that has been working all throughout history has revealed itself in another way—in an attempt to silence the church of Jesus Christ by hauling her before the civil courts and to put her in subjection to the will and wisdom of man, to strangle the freedom of the church to preach the word, and to neuter the minister’s message on behalf of the sensibilities of the hearers. Should this lawsuit have succeeded, there no longer would be the freedom to preach the truth that all flesh is grass and that salvation is of the Lord. No longer would the minister in the pulpit be able to apply the word in general as well as in particular. Should this lawsuit have succeeded, it would have been the end of the church on earth.
The question comes down to this: “May the church judge and preach against sin in her midst?” The church of Jesus Christ must hold in her hand the word of God and judge all things in light of that word. She must judge churches, confessions, doctrine, decisions, words, actions, behavior, and people. To judge all things certainly includes judging sin. “He that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man” (1 Cor. 2:15).
The specific issue was whether the church may say that, by their actions in Iowa, Brandon and Alana Oostra sinned against God and the eighth commandment. During the disbandment of Sovereign Reformed Protestant Church, was it sin to agree to and take money from the church’s general fund to pay Alana’s school teaching contract for the remainder of the year? The committee to oversee the disbandment of Sovereign was made up of three men. Two voted to pay out Alana’s contract for the rest of the year. One registered a negative vote. The two men who voted for it were themselves compromised, one being her father-in-law and the other being her husband.
Brandon and Alana Oostra stole from God’s kingdom under the appearance of right and abused and wasted God’s gifts.
Regarding stealing and the abuse and waste of God’s gifts, Lord’s Day 42 of the Heidelberg Catechism says,
Q. 110. What doth God forbid in the eighth commandment?
A. God forbids not only those thefts and robberies which are punishable by the magistrate; but He comprehends under the name of theft all wicked tricks and devices whereby we design to appropriate to ourselves the goods which belong to our neighbor, whether it be by force, or under the appearance of right, as by unjust weights, ells, measures, fraudulent merchandise, false coins, usury, or by any other way forbidden by God; as also all covetousness, all abuse and waste of His gifts. (Confessions and Church Order, 132, emphasis added)
Sovereign Reformed Protestant Church in Northwest Iowa had disbanded. Thus there was no longer a Reformed Protestant church there. The task of the three-man committee was to disburse the funds and deal with any of the church’s assets.
Because there was no church, there was no Reformed Protestant school there either. An objector might say, “But there was a school still.” This fact is debatable, but the important point is that the character of the school was not Reformed Protestant. For the sake of fulfilling a contract to teach one student of one former family of the RPC, Alana and her husband remained in Iowa when their calling was to move and to join themselves to a true church. Further, the student whom she taught was the son of an officebearer who had been rightly deposed, in concurrence with Second Reformed Protestant Church. Brandon and Alana took funds that had been given to God’s kingdom and used those funds for something other than God’s kingdom. They abused and wasted God’s gifts, in the wording of the Catechism, for the funding of private tutoring of an unbeliever and his unbelieving family.
That evaluation in light of God’s word and the Reformed confessions was under fire for being defamatory. In the Oostras’ minds and all their proponents’ minds, the church may not judge sin unless or until the civil magistrate first judges the matter. The church may not judge crimes, as that belongs to the civil magistrate, but the Oostras and their proponents know full well that the situation had to do with sin and church membership, not criminal activity. That the matter was about accused criminal activity is in essence the position of Mr. Henry Kamps. However, the church is not interested in trying to judge criminal matters, and the situation was not about criminal matters. It was about sin.
The study report that Henry submitted to the council of First was the work of the devil. His document proceeded right out of the bowels of hell. He attempted to maneuver and position his same arguments in different ways. He put himself in such a position that the only way out for him was to repudiate his own documents, which in the end he refused to do. He kicked Christ out of the office of elder and went to Egypt for counsel and claimed that the magistrate must first say that an action is a crime before the church may judge sin either by discipline or in the preaching. To judge before that exposes one to the charge of defamation.2
This argument is horribly faulty. An example is the sin of murder, in mind now, aborting an unborn child. In the state of Michigan, abortion with no maximum gestational period is legal. A woman can decide at thirty-nine weeks that she would like to abort, nay rather, murder her unborn child. She sets up her appointment. She heads to the clinic. And the so-called doctors there proceed to tear that baby’s limbs off one by one, then crush his or her skull, and finally discard the dismembered child in the hazard-waste bin. That is perfectly legal in Michigan.
Do you know what the church says about that? “That is murder! That is a terrible sin against the sixth commandment.” If a member of First church were to obtain a legal abortion in the state of Michigan, she would be under discipline by the consistory in short order for that sin.
But Brandon, Alana, and company would have you believe that before the church may judge sin, the magistrate must first judge it as a crime. And in the example of abortion, the magistrate never would so judge. In fact, he would uphold the rights of that mother to choose for herself. The position of Henry Kamps and Brandon and Alana Oostra leads to the end of all church discipline and puts judgment in the hands of the civil government. Their position ends the pulpit’s God-given right to call out sin in the congregation, and in the world too for that matter.
Many attempt to paint the Reformed Protestant Churches as wicked in this matter that took place in our churches. But that is only because they are so blinded by their hatred for Christ that they cannot see or think clearly. They use this issue as an opportunity to take a swipe at the Reformed Protestant Churches for being unloving and cruel. And with one sound these people deride the church of Jesus Christ for judging sin. They also charge that the Reformed Protestant Churches are Anabaptistic, haters of the authority that God has given to civil magistrates.
These charges are not the truth but vicious slanders. We love the magistrates and the civil government. We love the president, governors, representatives, and judges. We honor them, submit to them, and pray for them as God has placed them in authority over us. But the church always must take care that she is not infringed upon by the government. The government cannot and may not direct the church how to rule and to teach. The government may not tell the church what is to be her doctrine and how that doctrine is to be applied among the congregation. The church is obedient to the word of God and not to men.
Judge Karen Miedema of Ottawa County presided over the case. She stands as an ordained power of God and as God’s minister for good unto the Reformed Protestant Churches. God used her for the protection of the Reformed Protestant Churches and the preaching of the gospel. We confess that God would have used her for our good even if she had ruled against the church of Jesus Christ. We would still honor, submit, and pray for her.
In response to the undersigned’s motion to dismiss the case grounded on the first amendment of the United States Constitution, she judged that
Brandon and Alana cherry-pick short phrases from Rev. Ophoff’s service in support of their claim. While the Court must review the evidence in the light most favorable to the non-moving party, it need not view Rev. Ophoff’s statements throughout his sermon in a vacuum and must consider their context. Throughout his sermon on November 24, 2024, Rev. Ophoff stated plainly that the controversy in the church was not about a theft in the eyes of the magistrate, but in the eyes of God. According to his interpretation of First Reformed’s doctrine, funds that were reserved for the betterment of God’s Kingdom were, in essence, misappropriated for the benefit of those not a part of it, something he repeatedly referred to as “spiritual theft.” The truth or falsity of whether Brandon and Alana are “spiritual thieves” simply cannot be determined without interpretation of First Reformed’s church doctrine. Thus, Rev. Ophoff’s statements during his sermon are protected by the First Amendment and Brandon and Alana’s claims arising out of statements made during Rev. Ophoff’s “Stealing” sermon are barred by the Ecclesiastical Abstention Doctrine.3
Brandon and Alana Oostra are not only unrepentant thieves by stealing from God’s kingdom, but they are also unrepentant liars about what the church preached and taught. The judge herself noted that Brandon and Alana “cherry-pick[ed]” quotes to attempt to build their case against the church of Jesus Christ. It is not just them who bear this guilt, but also all who joined in and prodded on these two with this bastard child of a lawsuit bear that same guilt.
Henry Kamps and Gordon Schipper made part of the reason for their church’s existence (I say that deliberately, for it is a church where man rules) their view of the state over against the Reformed view.
The office bearers of the RPC hold to the error of the Anabaptists with respect to the State. They do not regard the authority of the State as the authority of God himself. This contradicts scripture, the Reformed creeds, and Church Order. Rom. 13:1-7, 2 Pet. 2:10, Jude 8, Belgic Confession Article 36, and CO article 30.4
This is one of their four reasons for a separate existence. They prop up their church’s existence with four toothpicks for grounds. But these grounds cannot hold the weight of charging the RPC as seditious, mutinous, and rebels against the state and therefore against God. None of the passages from scripture and the confessions they cite are applied, explained, or proved. The Reformed Protestant Churches hold to the sacred scriptures and the three forms of unity. The Reformed Protestant Churches hold to the Church Order, believing that all things in the church must be done decently and in good order. Henry and Gordon’s grounds are founded on the faulty assumption that for the church to be able to judge sin, the charges first must be validated by a civil officer. For the RPC to judge sin before the magistrate rules allegedly makes the RPC Anabaptistic. However, Henry Kamps, Gordon Schipper, and others with this position, in fact, rob Christ of his power and authority in his church and ascribe it to men. It explains why their church is a rabble of individuals, each doing what is right in his own eyes. Their church will never have sharp, distinctive preaching, and they will never discipline anyone either.
The deepest reason for this lawsuit came down to hatred of the preaching in the Reformed Protestant Churches. We must not forget that in the preaching Christ is carrying out discipline. He is opening and shutting the kingdom of heaven by the preaching of the gospel. I preached for a year the truth that man is nothing and God is everything. The gospel must necessarily include man’s nothingness for salvation. To make man something for salvation is to deny that God is everything in salvation. If man is something in some way, then he does not need the gospel.
It is relatively easy for a man to say with his lips, “Yeah, yeah, I am an ungodly sinner.” But when the preaching pierces right to a man’s life and says, “This is how you are the ungodly sinner,” then man says, “I am not that bad.” That reaction came in the sermon I preached on 1 Corinthians 3 titled “The Carnal Church.”5 God came in the preaching and told the church how she was carnal. Henry Kamps’ refusal to shake my hand after that sermon represented his open defiance against the word of God. The word revealed and exposed him as nothing else could have done. The word revealed what had been hidden for months. He would not bow to the word that said that he was carnal.
Again the word came sharply in the exposition of the Heidelberg Catechism Lord’s Day 42 titled “No Stealing,” which defended the decision of First’s council and condemned the defense of Brandon and Alana that was circulating in the congregation. The word hardened men and women, so that they could not stand one more moment under the preaching.6
Men and women charged the preaching at First with having an emphasis on reprobation. They charged that the sermons were gospel-less and comfortless. I find this interesting. In every sermon I preached election in its proper place and the gospel that God justifies ungodly sinners. There is not one sermon I could look back on and say, “That needed more election or more gospel.” God was applying his word to their hearts but not for salvation. The gospel was not for them. Neither were they being assured of their calling and election by the preaching. The words that God made to ring in their ears were of reprobation! They were not being comforted because there was no comfort ordained of God for them!
Those who left First do not have Christ. They have themselves. They have their works, and they have their niceness. They have the fact that they are good people who live decent lives. And they have all their families and friends back too. That is the shocking part. They have the things of Egypt for which they desperately pined, coveted, and desired. They have names again in the world. Men speak well of them. But they will perish unless they repent and believe the gospel of Jesus Christ. And belonging to that turning from their sins, they will return to First Reformed Protestant Church, who as the church of Jesus Christ stands ready to receive with joy lost sinners.
The remainder of this article is a transcription of the sermon that the undersigned preached on January 12, 2025, in First Reformed Protestant Church.7 It has been edited lightly for readability, but the content remains the same as when it was preached. It is included in the opening article of this series because the word of the Lord as it came to First almost two years ago stands to this day. The word of the Lord stands and never falls. It rings true now as it did when it was preached. All who stand opposed to it must tremble and fear, for they oppose God himself in their wickedness, lies, and deceit.
The sermon came in the context of a “Pre-suit Retraction Demand” that was served to me—and thus to First church—on January 6, 2025. This was not entirely a surprise. In one of First’s prior council meetings, Henry Kamps had indicated that upholding the protests First had received against Brandon and Alana’s membership possibly would open First up to a defamation lawsuit. And Gordon Schipper had lodged a protest in August 2024, at the end of which he threatened First that if she did not do what was right in his eyes regarding the membership rescission, there would be a “mighty battle”—implying a lawsuit. On January 7, the day after I received the “Pre-suit Retraction Demand,” Schipper wrote to the council, “Brethren, I grieve that filing a lawsuit was found to be necessary by Brandon and Alana. But you were warned. You left them no other choice.”
If there is going to be a battle, let us do battle.
The church of Jesus Christ stands ready to do battle, but she will battle on a spiritual battleground with spiritual weapons. The church of Jesus Christ girds her loins about with the truth, puts on the breastplate of righteousness, shods her feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace, takes the shield of faith, puts on her head the helmet of salvation, and draws the sword of the Spirit. Thus Christ and his church came battling in the sermon titled “Awake to Help Me” on January 12, 2025.
God’s sovereign, eternal plan was carried out in the preaching of this sermon. God always does great things in the preaching. His word never returns to him void. It is quick and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword. It came hardening and saving. And men and women who hated it departed from it. The next day, on January 13, 2025, a schismatic group departed from the fellowship of Christ and his church. Ultimately, Jesus Christ booted these carnal men and women right out of his church.
Awake to Help Me
Beloved congregation in our Lord Jesus Christ, in the context of Psalm 59:1–5, Saul is seeking to kill David. In 1 Samuel 19 Jonathan acts as a sort of mediator between Saul and David. And Saul takes an oath that he will not kill David. He says, “As the Lord liveth, I will not kill him.” And things appear to be fine between David and Saul. Later, David is in the court of Saul playing music for him, and in a fit of rage, Saul takes his javelin and tries to stick David to the wall with it. David flees out of Saul’s presence and into his home, and that is the setting of our psalm this morning. You have this picture in your mind of David as he flees away into his house and is shut in his home: As he is looking outside the window, he can see all Saul’s messengers—all Saul’s dogs, as we read in Psalm 59, all the workers of iniquity, bloody men. He looks out and sees those enemies surrounding him on all sides. He is besieged in his home as all the forces of the enemy come and seek to kill him and to take away his life. There David finds himself with no way out, no hope of himself, and no power in himself to deliver himself. Saul raises up his messengers—profane men—to come to persecute the church.
This petition is not only a petition of David, but this is the petition of the church who finds herself in the same position as David in this psalm. “Awake to help me; awake and visit all the heathen. Be not merciful to any wicked transgressor. Consume them in thy wrath. Arise in thy power. Destroy the wicked.” This is the prayer of the church as her existence is threatened and as the whole host of darkness surrounds the church.
Beloved, that is true for us as a congregation. What you are going to receive this morning when you walk out of church are documents that this congregation has received threatening to sue you—legal documents for calling sin sin. The pulpit may not call sin sin unless the world first says so, and men are going to take you and haul you before the courts for calling sin sin. You as a congregation might lose everything. That is a real possibility. You might lose money. You might lose your earthly possessions. I might lose my earthly possessions.
No more clearly than at this point in history has the power of antichrist and his antichristian kingdom been revealed in the world. Those who seek to persecute the church think they do God’s service to take and haul you before the worldly courts. They threaten to do that if you do not capitulate to man’s will and man’s wisdom—it is ungodly. The whore and the beast come together, and on that the antichrist will ride. If there is support for that in this congregation, know this: You are bringing about the antichrist. You are serving his kingdom. It is wicked.
Our psalm has much to say: Awake, O Lord, awake to help me. Awake to help us as thy church. And so we consider then this psalm this morning under that theme: “Awake to Help Me.” First, from whom? Who are these enemies that persecute and kill and seek to destroy the church? Second, by whom? Who is your help, who is your deliverer, who is your salvation? The one who has all power, the Lord of hosts. Third, unto what end? To the end of your eternal salvation and the utter destruction of the wicked. Be not merciful to them, to those wicked transgressors; awake to help me.
The psalmist piles on the verbs: deliver me from my enemies; defend me from those who rise up against me; deliver me from the workers of iniquity; save me from bloody men; help me; awake to visit all the heathen. Awake, O God, to help me. There are all these enemies, and notice, first, that David had such enemies; he had such foes. The church has foes; you have foes; David had foes. And those foes of David came from all sides. They encircled his house, so that for David there was no way out and no hope of himself. He says, “Lord, defend me. Make me inaccessibly high. Make me high above all who seek to destroy me and to take my life. Set me upon a rock. Let me not be dismayed at them.”
“They are adversaries,” David says. Enemies are adversaries. They are those who have a hatred of Christ and a hatred of the church. They have a hatred of the truth. There is no love of God in their hearts because God has set a distinction. And they have that hatred because God from all eternity said, “These are my people, and these I have determined to cast away out of my sight; on them I will have no mercy.” God sets that distinction between the elect and the reprobate, a distinction for all time and eternity.
And the result is warfare that God prosecutes and carries out. God brings his church into such a position that the church has no one else to turn unto. We do not have anything else but the word. We do not have anything else but the gospel. Oh, the mighty, they have their lawyers; they have their lawsuits; they have their earthly power; they have their money; they have their possessions; and they force all that into your destruction, the destruction of the church, the destruction of the officebearers, and the destruction of the ministers.
That is what has been going on in this congregation. An antichristian, ungodly attack against the word of God. It is an attack that comes against the preaching on the antithesis. It is an attack that has come against rescinding of membership. It is an attack that has come for calling sin sin. It is an attack that has come because of the deposition of officebearers. It is an attack against the word. That is all you have. It is all I have. There is no hope outside that word.
All those adversaries who seek to consume and destroy the church have no love of God in their hearts. Who are those enemies? David describes them and characterizes them in many different ways, and simply for lack of time I cannot go through all the ways this morning. He says that they are rising up against him. What that means is that they are unrelenting in their opposition. They are fierce in their opposition. There are no bounds that they will not cross to destroy the church. And not only that but they also have the eminent superiority of power, so that they stand as if they have all the power in the world. They can do with you as they see fit and how they please. David says, “They rise up against me.”
He calls them workers of wickedness. First, they are not justified. They are not righteous in Christ by faith alone, but they are righteous in their own eyes. And second, their hearts are black. There is no fear of God in their eyes, and they work iniquity. All that protrudes forth from them is a black fountain of wickedness.
“They are bloody men,” says David. Quick to shed blood. Quick to take a life. They are cutthroat. They lie in wait for my soul. That tells you what those enemies are doing. There is a lot of that too in this congregation. There are those lying in wait, setting traps, making calculations, scheming, plotting, and devising. “If you do not rescind the decision to rescind membership”—this was back three months ago—“there is going to be a lawsuit for defamation.” And lo and behold, there is a threatening of a lawsuit for defamation. Scheming, plotting, laying traps for your soul. They are watching, waiting, calculating, manipulating, and maneuvering.
They make noises like a dog. A dog roams around at night. He eats trash in the streets. He snarls and snaps at you when you get too close. A dog is a profane thing in scripture.
These enemies belch out with their mouths. Swords are in their lips. When David says that they belch out with their mouths, he means that they gush forth slaughter. That is all they can ever do. They can only ever kill. They slaughter you with their words; they murder you; they kill you; they throw you down; and they gush hatred. They boast in all that work, so that in everything they do there is an air of smugness. They are filled with pride.
There are enemies of the church. There are enemies of David. Such enemies who surround the church teach a lie about God and about man and about salvation. That is always a threat to the church. There is that lie of man that says, “I am not nothing. The pulpit cannot make me nothing. Christ is not allowed to make me nothing. I will not be made nothing by the officebearers in the church, by Christ working through them.” Those are the enemies in the church—false brethren who like Saul swear profane oaths and then feign love for the brother and who the next moment are the quickest to take a knife and stab it in someone’s back—quick to shed blood.
Who else are those enemies who surround you? There are enemies not only within the church, but there are enemies also of the false church, of those who stand outside this congregation, surround it with all their eminent power, and who teach a lie. There is the whole world of the ungodly and all their entertainment, all their sins, and all their worldliness. There is the devil and his host who watch as murderers to ruin and to destroy the church. There is the whole host of the antichristian kingdom that fights against the kingdom of God and against his church.
Those enemies always have the church surrounded. And David says this: “They run and prepare themselves without my fault, and the mighty are gathered against me not for my transgression nor for my sin, O Lord.” And now the psalmist is not saying that he did not have sin or that he did not have a totally depraved nature. There are many psalms where David confesses and lays out his sin before God: “Oh, I am a sinner. Be merciful unto me, a sinner.” But he is saying here, “I have done no rebellion.” David says, “I have not deserved the cruel treatment of my enemies; I never deserved the cruel treatment of Saul.” And David appeals to God because he is under suspicion that his integrity is not true. He appeals to God and says, “God, my cause is thy cause, and thou knowest my heart.” Accusations continue to be thrown at the consistory and at the minister that they are unjust, unmerciful, cruel, deceitful, and liars. Not for our transgressions, O Lord, not for our sins. Thou knowest the integrity of our hearts. Thou knowest the love of God that thou hast given us. Thou knowest our cause is thy cause. Thou knowest that we love thy word.
Or this: “Reverend Ophoff and Reverend Langerak were deceivers when they had a phone call. They were liars when they had a phone call.” You were not there; you do not know what was said! Or this: “Reverend Ophoff lied.” Oh, beloved, I did lie. I hate that lie; I should never have lied. But to take that lie now and grab onto that lie is wicked. That matter was finished. The ungodly surround the church and the prophets. The Lord knows the truth. He knows the integrity of my heart. He knows my cause is his cause. He knows the consistory’s cause is his cause.
David cries out, “Awake to help me from unprincipled, ungodly men. Help me.” David surely was going to lose his life at the hands of his enemies, and David was completely powerless and helpless as they surrounded his home. He utters this petition. Christ is the reality here, and David as the type pleads this petition for the cause of Christ’s church. There Christ stands in his intercessory prayer pleading the cause of this church before the face of God: “Awake to help me, for they rise up against me. They belch out with their mouths. Swords are in their lips. For who, say they, doth hear? Awake.”
And what is the meaning of that word “awake”? “Awake to help me.” Does that mean that the Lord is slumbering? The Lord does not see what is going on here? The Lord does not see the wickedness and all the enemies that surround the church? Does he not see that the wicked prosper? Does he not see the power that the wicked have? Does he not know? Does he not understand? Does he not have urgency in delivering his church from such wickedness? Does he not know the plight of the church? Awake as a slumbering man and arise to help us?
“Behold,” the text says, “look about.” See them with the same haste that the wicked have to destroy the church. Come and save us with that same haste and that same fervor. David calls God to be his witness. He is speaking as if God’s eyes are shut. He is speaking from the view of the believer who sees the wicked prosper. It appears as if God allows that wickedness to go on in the world. By faith David says, “And behold.” He utters this prayer of faith: “I know that thou art always watching. I know that thou art sovereign. I know that what thou art sending is good for me.”
The church utters this petition as she suffers in the world in a hopeless and powerless situation. How are you going to be delivered from such wickedness and from all the ungodly forces of darkness? Does God not see the way of the church in the world? Is there no urgency to deliver us? Awake to help me, and thou, therefore, O Lord God of hosts, the God of Israel, awake to visit all the heathen. Awake, Jehovah, the I am that I am, the God who never slumbers, the God who never sleeps, the God who is infinite activity and infinite energy from eternity to eternity, who never decreases, who never increases, the God of the covenant, the God who dwells in himself an ever-blessed triune life. Jehovah defends his covenant and rises in defense of his own name and his own covenant, his kingdom, his people, and his church. He is the God of the promise who has sworn by himself, for he could swear by no greater. He says, “I will save my people. They shall never be overthrown by their enemies because Christ, my anointed, accomplished the victory. He paid for all the sins of my people. He earned for them everlasting righteousness.”
Awake, Jehovah, God of hosts. The God of hosts is God’s name as he is sovereign over all things. His sovereignty is a comfort that every event and detail in the circumstance and life of the church is controlled and determined by him. All the universe, all the reins of power, and all creatures are in his hands. They are all as instruments—soldiers in his army—accomplishing and realizing his eternal purpose in the world, which is the glory of his own name.
And he is the God of Israel and of election. He is the God who chose you in Christ, loved you in Christ from all eternity, and determined you to be one in your head, Jesus Christ. He sent Jesus Christ to the cross for your salvation. God chooses his elect people in love, and he damns the reprobate according to his own determination, will, and good pleasure without either ever having done any works. That is the God of Israel—Israel according to election. The God of reprobation says, “I will not be merciful to any wicked transgressor. I will consume wicked transgressors in my wrath. I will destroy them out of the earth.”
“Awake to visit the heathen,” says the psalmist. It was not just the apostate church that was after David but also all the nations of the world. When he says “visit all the nations of the world,” he means “judge them.” Judge the nations, the church’s enemies, all the ungodly, all the host of darkness, and all that opposition that has fought against the kingdom of God since the very beginning. And judge the opposition that has come against the church all history long. Judge the devil who came into the garden, at whose instigation man by his own will fell into sin. Judge the whole ungodly world against whom Enoch and Noah sharply preached; Egypt who treated Israel cruelly and whom God judged by drowning in the Red Sea; the Canaanites who opposed and fought against the Israelites as they entered the land of Canaan.
All that opposition to God culminated at the cross of our Lord, where the whole host of darkness surrounded him, including the worldly government and the religious men of that day. Men sneered at him. They snarled at him. They encircled him. They spit upon him. They pushed a crown of thorns into his head. They gave him gall and vinegar to drink. And in their opposition they took hold of God’s anointed and crucified the Lord of glory. They crucified the Lord of glory according to God’s counsel. Man thought he had a victory, but at that cross God crushed all your enemies. In principle he crushed the whole power of darkness that stands against you. He saved you at that cross. That blood was powerful and effectual to wash away all your sins, and by faith you have Christ’s victory.
And that is what you wait for as a church. You wait for God in the final day. He will visit the heathen. You see then a prayer for the final judgment. In the final judgment God will come again to judge the nations. He will judge the nations in that great day of the Lord. He will visit the heathen. All the plots, scheming, and devices will finally be laid bare. I can make this my personal confession: “I cannot wait for that day.” And my prayer is that you too cannot wait for that day when all the consciences will be opened before men and when the cause of this church will be known to have been the cause of the Son of God. He will visit the heathen.
God puts the church in such a narrow place that you might learn not to trust in yourself or to look to man but to look to Jehovah, the God of Israel, the God of hosts. “And be not merciful to any wicked transgressor.” It is a prayer for the salvation of the church and the destruction of the wicked.
And God laughs them to scorn. God in his power and might will cast down all the plots, planning, devices, schemes, and calculations of the wicked. He laughs at them. He holds them in derision. And that was the resurrection. The enemies killed Christ—God killed Christ for your salvation, and God used wicked men to do it. In that cross he was merciful to you, and he punished Christ for your sins. All your sins were imputed to him. And Christ died. Then what did God do? He raised up Christ from the dead. He laughed the wicked to scorn: “You thought you would kill my anointed? You believed you had thwarted my promise and my plan? You think you have cast down my covenant and my word?” Three days later Christ arose from the dead, and soon after he would ascend into heaven.
Why then do you fear as a church? Why do you fear the ungodly? Why do you fear the wicked? Why do you fear their plans and their calculations? Why do you fear the wicked who write about you, who slander you, who create narratives about you, and who lie about you? In the greatest wickedness that was ever committed on the earth, God laughed the wicked to scorn. He held them in derision. He will hold the enemies of his church in derision too. He will laugh them to scorn.
The enemies will never succeed. Know that if you stand against the church, you will never succeed. You will never exalt yourself over the church, but the Lord of hosts will laugh you to scorn and hold you in derision, for he is the God of Jacob. And you as a church rest securely in him, high above on that rock that God has given to you: The glorious gospel of grace is that God has fulfilled his promise in Jehovah-salvation. Jesus has saved you from your sins and accomplished all righteousness, the very righteousness of God, which is the righteousness by faith.
God will have no mercy on the wicked. When he finally appears, there will be for the wicked only a fearful looking for of that day, for their end is certain. There is no peace or comfort as they are harried about all this life, and God testifies to their consciences, “You are ungodly, and I am consuming you in my wrath, and you perish all the day long.” They feel the fierce wrath of a holy God against sin. In one fell swoop by the almighty power of God, all the church’s foes shall be vanquished. The judge will finally appear; the salvation of the church will be perfectly realized; the covenant will be perfected; the kingdom finally will be come; and all idle thoughts, words, plots, devices shall come to light.
I want that day. My prayer is that you want that day. A day of vindication because in this life, very rarely will you ever have it as a church. And it is comfort then for you and for me. You know the church’s end; I know my end; you know your end. Your life here does not depend upon the minister, the officebearers, you, your works, or your activities. It depends upon Christ. It depends upon his word and upon the glorious gospel, which is the power of God unto your salvation.
And you stand before him boldly then and utter this petition: “Awake to help me. Save thy church. Destroy the wicked in thy wrath. Scatter thy enemies. Consume them in thy wrath. And I will sing of thy mercy; I will sing of thy power; I will rejoice and be glad, for thou art my defense. Thou art my refuge in the day of trouble.”
At the end of the verse, David ends with selah, a divine rest, a divine pause. Stand in silence and see the Lord of hosts work. See the God of Israel accomplish your salvation and preserve you. Stand still and see the salvation of our Lord. Amen.
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