Concluding Remarks
With this article I conclude my brief examination of the series of events regarding a lawsuit that took place at First Reformed Protestant Church. More could be said, and many more documents could be shared. I could demonstrate the deceit, lies, and manipulation that were on display during these events: the wickedness in meetings in attempting to muzzle the church with non-disclosure agreements; emails from Brandon and Alana Oostra’s attorney casting accusations for supposedly spreading court documents on the internet; the ridiculous charge that the church was involved in an AI-generated podcast; and the courtroom shenanigans that were employed. I could write on that; however, it would not be edifying. I have said what I needed to say. The lawsuit and its surrounding events were thoroughly antichristian, and the church experienced what the apostle says, that “the mystery of iniquity doth already work” (2 Thess. 2:7). We felt that operation of the kingdom of Satan pressing against the church and the kingdom of God. We do not battle flesh and blood but principalities, powers, rulers of the darkness of this world, and spiritual wickedness in high places. The church can forget that and think she is battling men with faces and personalities. But behind these men is something far more sinister.
Those who went out from us were not of us. If they had been of us, they would have remained with us. Like the rebel kingdom of the ten tribes who boldly declared, “We have no part in David” and left God’s kingdom, covenant, promise, and Christ, so also many have left the true church where the gospel came to them in great power and not with the enticing words of man’s wisdom. Like Israel, they set up a new worship to an idol god of their imaginations in Dan and Bethel. And that worship looks so similar to the true worship of God in Jerusalem. They have an order of worship, sermons, singing, praying, and collections, but all of it is a spiritual fraud. They made a god of their own hands who is like unto them who made it. They wanted a god who tolerated them in their sin, ungodliness, and carnality, especially as it came to friendly relations with unbelieving family members. He is not a covenant god or an antithetical god. He is a god who is not absolutely righteous; neither is he a consuming fire in his holiness.
During the reign of Hezekiah, the rebellious ten tribes were taken captive by the Assyrians from the north. The world came in and swallowed up that rebel kingdom. The ten tribes never returned to Canaan but were assimilated into that ungodly kingdom. Today you will not see any Assyrians coming down from the north upon those who left. But there will be a flood of worldliness and apostasy that will take place, and it will sweep them away. They declared, “We have no part in Christ” and left the church where Christ was heard. They wanted their families and friends. They would not condemn those families and friends for their toleration of the lie. The lie of salvation by the willing and efforts of man is not offensive to them. They can get together with people from many different denominations and churches. They can send their children to nominally Christian schools. All is well for them in the earth. “Whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it” (Matt. 16:25).
Our Souls Escaped
The rest of this article is a brief meditation on Psalm 124:7: “Our soul is escaped as a bird out of the snare of the fowlers: the snare is broken, and we are escaped.” This text became a kind of anthem for the Reformed Protestant Churches at the beginning of the reformation in 2021 and anytime it became so clear that God was delivering his church from men who had laid snares and traps in the churches. This psalm lives in the hearts of God’s people, and again we make this our confession. God has broken the snare, and as a bird we are escaped free! The psalm, especially the last three verses, is a doxology. It is an ascription of praise to the only good God.
What occasioned this triumphant note of praise? God did not give us as prey to the teeth of men who rose up against us and whose wrath was kindled against us. If the Lord had not been on our side, then they would have swallowed us up quickly and the waters would have gone over our souls. The snare that was so carefully laid by the foe has been broken by the Lord. The trap that was placed by the enemy is loosed, and we are free.
Our souls have escaped. The word “soul” in the text means the life of the child of God. And the psalmist compares that soul of the elect child of God to a little bird or a sparrow. In other places in scripture as well, the life of the child of God is compared to a small bird. Jeremiah cries out in Lamentations 3:52, “Mine enemies chased me sore, like a bird, without cause.” In Psalm 102:7 the child of God confesses, “I watch, and am as a sparrow alone upon the house top.”
What is the point of comparison between the soul and the bird? The sparrow is a winged creature, and belonging to it is the gift of flight. Belonging with flight is freedom and liberty. The bird may go wherever his wings take him. He is not hindered nor stopped. He flies from one place to the next. Nothing at all can hold him back.
That was man’s life in Adam before the fall. Man’s life and liberty was that he was free and at liberty to serve God. Man’s soul was like a little bird in the hand of his almighty creator. Man’s life was that he was in a covenant relationship with God in that original state of rectitude. Man’s whole life was directed toward the glory of God. Man desired and chose for God. He loved God with all his heart, mind, soul, and strength. God was his life. And man’s freedom was to serve his God and as king to consecrate the entire creation to the glory of God. Freedom for man was not to live however he wanted. It was not freedom for man to serve the lusts of the flesh. It was not freedom to be friends with and to live with the world. But true freedom is to serve God as the friend of the living God.
But also note about the bird in scripture its helplessness. The bird depends upon God each and every moment of its existence. Does not Jesus speak thus in Matthew 6:25–26?
25. I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?
26. Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?
The little bird depends entirely upon God. God as a Father to his creation feeds his creatures with his own hand. The bird does not sow, reap, or gather into barns, but the bird depends every moment on the daily provision of the living God. So the idea of the bird applied to the life of man means too that he depends upon God. And man has no resistance or strength against his foes. There is the element of folly in the bird too, that “a bird hasteth to the snare, and knoweth not that it is for his life” (Prov. 7:23).
The fowler is a bird-catcher. He lays traps or snares. He is the determined predator of the bird. He calculates, devises, and plots how he might catch the bird. Having his plan, he sets the trap. He places on that trap something enticing for the bird. He puts bait in the trap to lure the bird down from its liberty and into the snare. The fowler waits until the bird gets in nice and close and then springs upon it the net! The fowler’s goal is the life and destruction of the bird. He wants to chew that bird between his teeth. He wants to inflict pain upon the bird. And the engaged snare takes away the glorious liberty and freedom of the bird, so that the bird is in bondage and enslaved in the trap.
Our souls are compared to the bird. Man was created a glorious creature. He was made in God’s image in a covenant relationship. But a fowler came. The fowler had seen God’s creation of man on the sixth day. He had seen the glorious position that man had been given, and for envy the fowler took with him a third of the angels from heaven, and he entered into the garden in the form of a serpent. He told the woman, “You can be as God, knowing good and evil.” The stratagem of the fowler was devised. The trap was set. The lure was placed to tempt man into the trap and away from God. All man had to do was eat of that forbidden tree, and he would be God. That is the lie that stands behind all false doctrine. That is the lie that stands behind the working of the mystery of iniquity in the world. Man can be God! God is not God, but man and his works, actions, will, and desire is God! So man took and ate, and his eyes were opened, and he saw that he was naked. That root sin of Adam must come to expression in all its terrible reality in the human race until finally the man of sin will appear and sit in God’s temple and claim to be God. That power of the antichristian kingdom is always working, and it says, “Man is god.”
Satan is the fowler who cast his net over the whole human race and drew man into the love of sin and hatred of God. Man brought upon himself death and destruction by his sin. He is trapped! He is caught! The fowler came seeking Adam’s life and with wild success. Man is bound in that snare. He is in bondage and enslaved to sin because God said, “In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die” (Gen. 2:17). The wages of man’s sin is death. And man is enslaved because he is guilty. He is not free to serve God, but man is in bondage to sin and the devil.
These snares are the stratagems and devices of ungodly men who seek the ruin and destruction of the church. The psalm speaks of “men” rising up against us. “They” had swallowed us up quick. “Their” wrath was kindled. The church was not given to “their” teeth (Ps. 124:2–3, 6). The church has ungodly men as her enemies. There are those who desire to keep us in bondage to the law. They would have us be slaves to the bondage of another gospel, which is no gospel. They would have us be prey to their teeth and would return us to the bondage of keeping the law for righteousness and for a blessing instead of the glorious liberty that we have as God’s sons and daughters. Our reasonable service would not be true thankfulness and freedom but fear and terror of the living God.
Once already, God has cut a hole in the net of the snare of the Protestant Reformed theology of works-righteousness. It is a net and snare that has captured many and in which many will perish. The lie of the Protestant Reformed Churches is that man is God in salvation. For man to experience the forgiveness of sins, he must repent. For man to be saved, there is that which he must do. For a blessing man must obey the law. Such was the snare. And it came with an allurement that appealed to the flesh: Man is active in the matter of the experience of salvation, and man does have a vital role in salvation. Man can be as God, knowing good and evil! There is a place somewhere for man in salvation.
More snares have men laid. Another snare that came to trap the church was the appeal to man’s desire to have a name and a place in the world. “We can be friends with the world and friends with God. We do not have to be so harsh and judgmental. We can play nice with friends and family who have departed the faith. There really is not that large a divide between us. We cannot say that they belong to a false church. All these people that you keep condemning for holding to false doctrine are good people with nice families.” A snare! And the fowler would have the church caught in it to flood her with worldly relationships and carnal peace.
And this trap was laid also: The church must be quiet about sin. “Do not say to us that we are living in rebellion against God’s law unless or until the magistrate rules. Do not tell us how carnal and wicked we are and of our hopeless condition. And if you do, then we will make you pay for that.” John the Baptist was beheaded for telling Herod and Herodias that they were living in sin. John condemned Herod, saying that it was unlawful for him to take his living brother’s wife for himself. (There in this recorded section of scripture is the clear condemnation of divorce and remarriage.) It is unlawful for a man to take another living man’s wife. And John the Baptist condemned the sin. But Herodias could do nothing against John. So at a party a plot was laid by her and her daughter. Herodias’ daughter danced for Herod, and it pleased him. He promised to give her anything she wanted, up to half the kingdom. And she plotted with her mother for the head of John the Baptist on a charger. For condemning the sin of adultery in that marriage, John the Baptist was killed. The plots of men against the church are no different in essence. They will take the church and bring her before the government to answer for her preaching and condemnation of sin. Brandon and Alana Oostra, Henry Kamps, Gordon Schipper, and the rest had their snares and traps. They sprung those snares on the church. They held the souls of God’s people in their hands and were ready to put them as prey to their teeth.
But wonder of wonders, behold! The snare is broken! We are escaped!
Someone broke it. The believer and the church did not do it. We did not work or effect it. As far as we were concerned, our situation was hopeless. Deliverance for us came from without ourselves. This comes out in the grammar of the text. The verb “escaped” is a passive verb that indicates that the subject, the bird, is being acted upon.
And by what? Or better, by whom? Jesus Christ is in the text in the word “broken.” How was the guilt of sin as it was imputed to us in Adam taken away? How were the dominion and pollution of sin as ruling powers over us broken? Our help is in the name of Jesus Christ, the only name of salvation. The answer is that God sent Christ, who came in our flesh and died on the tree of the cross. Jesus Christ loved his church. He loved all that the Father had given to him. Through his perfect work he accomplished all righteousness, and by the sacrifice of himself that he once offered on the cross, he took away the cause of our death, namely, our guilt. He came to a miserable people who hated and rejected him as the man of sorrows, and through his work he justified his ungodly people. Having justified them, he renews them in the same image from glory to glory. He broke the snare, so that we ungodly sinners are justified before the sight of God. And restored to our souls is the liberty and freedom to serve God in love and delight.
The breaking of the snare and the escaping free at the cross of Jesus Christ is also the church’s victory over all her enemies. Now is the prince of this world cast out. All the enemies that come against the church cannot prevail against her. Their traps are never successful. They cannot have any victory but must all come to defeat. Christ has already gotten the victory, and this is the victory, even our faith, for we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.
The church has the victory even when God sends evil and sin in the life of his church in his providential care, so that the church must suffer for righteousness’ sake, lose her possessions, become nothing in the earth, and finally be killed by her enemies. Though the church is small, weak, and helpless, she has a living Lord who rules over her in his grace and over the wicked with a rod of iron. That rod of iron is Christ’s dominion, authority, and sheer power over the creation, Satan and his hosts, wicked men, and the whole world. Christ’s dominion over the world stands in service of his rule of grace over his church.
How agitated and disquieted we can become when things seem to be going all wrong for the church. We would like our circumstances to be different, but instead we are plagued by our enemies. But the whole world is in God’s hand, and he upholds, directs, and governs all things. He is the one who made the heavens and the earth. He works all things in this earth for the salvation of his church. He is in the heavens, and he does whatsoever he pleases. In his omnipotent power, he carries out his eternal purpose.
The church fell into a cunning trap laid by ungodly and wicked men. She was ensnared, and it seemed that she was doomed to destruction. Her cause appeared hopeless in the world. She had no power against the seemingly inexhaustible resources and power of men. God came and simply broke their trap in one fell swoop. And he spoke, “No, I will still have my church here, and I will still have my gospel preached. I have more yet who must be gathered in.” The measures concocted by wicked men were broken. Their schemes were confounded. Their devices were disappointed. The Lord laughs them to scorn and holds them in derision. The Lord is for us, and so we sing with the psalmist:
1. Now Israel may say, and that in truth,
If that the Lord had not our right maintained,
If that the Lord had not with us remained,
When cruel men against us rose to strive,
We surely had been swallowed up alive.2. Yea, when their wrath against us fiercely rose,
The swelling tide had o’er us spread its wave,
The raging stream had then become our grave,
The surging flood, in proudly swelling roll,
Most surely then had overwhelmed our soul.3. Blest be the Lord Who made us not their prey;
As from the snare a bird escapeth free,
Their net is rent and so escaped are we;
Our only help is in Jehovah’s Name,
Who made the earth and all the heavenly frame.1
The church can do nothing but praise God for his deliverance and salvation. Notice in Psalm 124:8 that it is not just my help. He is my help; he is your help. But he is “our” help. The church is speaking with one voice and in one triumphant song of praise.
By “help” the Lord shows his beloved church that salvation is not of her. Her deliverance from her enemies is not in her power. And even when the world persecutes and kills the church, nothing can take her out of Christ. He powerfully will preserve his church into eternal glory. His stretched-out arm and almighty hand have gotten him the victory. The church is protected under the almighty, sovereign care of the triune God. We then fearlessly will proclaim the truth and despise all the stratagems and plots of Satan and his host. Our help is in the name of Jehovah who made the heavens and the earth.
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