It is with great joy for the deliverance of God that in this issue of Sword and Shield we commemorate the three-year anniversary of the signing of the Act of Separation and Reformation that led to the formation of Second Reformed Protestant Church.

It is good to look back in thankful gratitude for a moment and to praise God for what he alone has done.

The occasion for the Act of Separation and Reforma- tion was the gracious providence of God in love for his church, whereby he raised up a majority of men within the consistory of Crete Protestant Reformed Church who were offended by by the t gospel of salvation by Christ alone and apart from man’s works.

The congregation of Crete Protestant Reformed Church was witness to the promised manifestation of Genesis 3:15, where God said, “I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed.”

God brought enmity between believers and unbeliev- ers at Crete church through the faithful, gospel preaching of Rev. Nathan Langerak. Slowly but surely, members were leaving Crete church and citing different reasons for their departures. Some claimed that the tone of the preaching was not warm enough; others said that the preaching was too doctrinal; and still others said that they wanted to sit in a church where their friends and families from other denominations could sit without being offended. There were two specific truths that came from the pulpit of Crete Protestant Reformed Church that infuriated both the congregation and many of the officebearers. First, they hated to hear that their works were filthy rags before God and were of no use toward the believer’s being regarded as righteous in God’s sight. Sec- ond, they despised the preaching of the antithesis, that God will have his people dwell in safety alone, living in the world but not being of the world.

In January 2021 God once again raised up new office- bearers. In one significant way that new consistory was different from any consistory that had preceded it. For the first time at Crete Protestant Reformed Church, God made the majority of the watchmen to be those who were so offended by the gospel they heard from week to week that they were determined to stop at nothing short of silencing that truth.

Prior to 2021 God had already begun placing men in the consistory of Crete who hated the preaching of justification by faith alone. Later it became clear that those men were lying in wait for enough support in the consistory to be able to oust that truth from the church. Those men knew that the preaching was blameless and that they would need another way to silence the truth. One of those men verbally predicted that the deposition of Rev. Andrew Lanning in January 2021 would be “the way they could get to Reverend Langerak.”

As promised by scripture, God brought spiritual enmity, which was manifested in a growing division among the members of Crete church. The majority of elders knew that the way to bring peace and unity to a mixed multitude was to remove the “rock of offence.”

In February 2021 the consistory made a motion to try to accomplish that purpose. The motion was very wicked in that it was devoid of scripture, the creeds, or any bib- lical principle. That was not due to lack of time or effort on the part of the elders.

The men who hated the preaching had been slander- ing Reverend Langerak and his preaching since they had gained the majority in the consistory a few months ear- lier. Never once did they do this with scripture or the creeds. Instead, they made unsubstantiated accusations against him and piously pretended to be offended that division had come into Crete church, which division was supposedly rendering the preaching ineffectual.

At the consistory’s February 11, 2021, meeting, the following motion was passed:

Article 12: Motion made and supported to require Rev. Langerak to resign as a contributing editor of the Sword & Shield and discontinue writing for and promoting the publication.

Grounds:

a. Rev. Langerak continues writing in and promoting the Sword & Shield as a co-editor with Andy Lanning, a deposed minister of the PRC who continues to live in the sin of schism.

b. Rev. Langerak’s participation has caused and continues to cause unrest and division in our congregation.

Even as the motion was being formulated, the feeling among the elders was that a motion of that magnitude should really have some kind of reference to doctrine or to Christ or to preaching or at least to a Bible verse or two!

In a last, desperate attempt to grasp at something remotely spiritual to justify the carnal motion, there was an amendment motion to elide ground b. and to replace it with a ground that spoke of the effectiveness of the preaching. That was an attempt by the elders to make a slanderous but apparently spiritual claim that the preaching in Crete church had become ineffective. Some of the men of the consistory thought that they could hang their spiritual hats on this supposed ineffectiveness of the preaching. After all, who would blame an elder for demanding effective preaching in his congregation? Surely, this would sound much more spiritual than the mere fact that a division had come into the midst of Crete church. One of the elders moved the following amendment:

Motion made and supported to elide ground b. and replace it with, “For the sake of the effectiveness of the preaching in our congregation.”

Motion to elide failed. Motion as originally moved carried. Andy Birkett recorded a negative vote.

God did not allow that amendment to pass because God himself had made the preaching effective, and all of the elders knew it.

The elders of Crete were ruling by their own means, and God would not suffer his truth to be slandered by their attempts to justify their wickedness. Instead, God would cause them to bear witness against themselves in their unspiritual motion with its unspiritual grounds.

After some of the protests to that motion had been treated and Reverend Langerak had refused to comply with the consistory’s unspiritual and wicked demands, the consistory then made another motion to suspend Reverend Langerak from his God-appointed office on the basis of his disobedience to the consistory’s demands.

At the time of the motion to suspend, there was still hope that some of the men of the consistory—who had previously voted against the motion to demand subjection to the consistory’s will to require Reverend Langerak to stop writing in Sword and Shield—might have been given the wisdom to see the unrighteousness of their demand and to refrain from voting in favor of suspending Reverend Langerak.

Another reason for hope was that the week prior to the vote to suspend, the consistory of Crete church had approved the publication of a twenty-four-page document detailing the history of “what occurred in our churches leading up to Synod 2018 and what occurred at Synod 2018. Also to give instruction on what truths were corrupted because of this doctrinal error.”

But God, who is a burning light, revealed the hearts of every elder in the consistory room when the vote to suspend was tallied, and every elder in the room voted to suspend, save one.

The suspension was done in concurrence with the consistory of Peace Protestant Reformed Church, who will no doubt bear the same damning judgment as Crete Protestant Reformed Church for her part in that wickedness.

The Sunday following Reverend Langerak’s suspension, the consistory of Crete called a special council meeting to be held after the evening worship service. The purpose of this meeting was to hold mutual censure among the officebearers with a view to celebrating the Lord’s supper. The vice president of the consistory chaired the meeting and announced that the elders desired to celebrate the Lord’s supper as soon as possible because that was “what the congregation needed at this time.” Each man was asked in turn if he had anything to say regarding censura morum. One elder and one deacon stated that they were in complete disagreement with the wickedness of the consistory in suspending their faithful minister and thereby removing the truth from the pulpit at Crete. The elder and deacon also stated that if the consistory went through with the celebration of the Lord’s supper, it would be against their consciences to partake of the table and therefore to partake of this wickedness. The clerk of the consistory then admonished the elder and deacon for their “schismatic behavior in disagreeing with the decisions of the consistory” and directed them to repent of this sin. Mutual censure was brought to a close, and the majority agreed that they would move forward with the celebration despite the fact that there were two officebearers who would not partake. This was yet another evidence that the consistory was bearing rule by their own means. Instead of working with these two men to restore unity among the officebearers, so that they could all partake of the Lord’s supper in full agreement, the consistory attempted to disregard these men and to bind their consciences, in effect, forcing them to partake.

The consistory also twisted the meaning of the terrible sin of schism for its own advantage. The consistory defined schism as “disagreement with a decision of the consistory” instead of its true meaning, which is to separate the bride of Christ from him and the truth of his word. True schism, of course, was the sin that the consistory had just committed when it removed the truth from the pulpit. It was abundantly clear to the two dissenting officebearers that all three of the marks of the true church were thoroughly corrupted at Crete.

God has a judgment regarding unfaithful watchmen who bear rule by their own means and behave as lords in his church. When God appoints elders in his church, God is not divesting himself of his own sovereignty as supreme leader; rather, God is ordaining men to judge in subjection to the yoke of Christ. These men rule as ambassadors of Christ.

When elders throw off the yoke of scripture and the Reformed creeds and rule by their own means, they are ambassadors of the devil, and any appeal to their office as a shield to protect them in their self-rule will have their self-fashioned shield consumed by fire in the presence of God. “I have said, Ye are gods; and all of you are children of the most High. But ye shall die like men, and fall like one of the princes” (Ps. 82:6–7).

God had raised a new consistory at Crete with the purpose of silencing the preaching of salvation through Christ alone and apart from man’s works. By means of these and other wicked men, God gave the Protestant Reformed denomination of churches over to confess a false gospel of salvation in the way of grace-empowered works, through a false god who does not save his people but makes salvation possible through a mixture of grace and the works of man.

Even though the toxic mixture of grace and works was actively permeating every nook and cranny of the Protestant Reformed denomination and making inroads among the members at Crete church, God continued to feed his church with the pure preaching of the gospel of Christ.

After God had finished his work at Crete Protestant Reformed Church, he quickly delivered his church to safety.

On April 21, 2021, Crete’s consistory voted to suspend Reverend Langerak, pending concurrence of the neighboring consistory.

On Saturday, April 24, the consistory of Peace Protestant Reformed Church concurred with the suspension of Reverend Langerak.

On Sunday, April 25, Reverend Langerak was formally suspended from Crete Protestant Reformed Church. The announcement to suspend him was read by Prof. Brian Huizinga, and Professor Huizinga led the worship service that Sunday morning.

On Monday, May 3, the Act of Separation and Reformation was distributed to the members of Crete Protestant Reformed Church, who were all invited to a meeting to be held on May 5.

On Wednesday, May 5, the Act of Separation and Reformation meeting was held, and the document was signed by the charter members of Second Reformed Protestant Church.

On Sunday, May 9, the first worship service of Second Reformed Protestant Church was held at Wonderland Tire Company in Calumet City, Illinois.

Through the formation of Second Reformed Protestant Church, God has manifested his providential care for his church. Israel shall dwell in safety alone.