The Charge

This article will conclude my response to Mr. Meelker’s letter that he sent to the congregation of the now-disbanded Zion Reformed Protestant Church in Southern California. Having had asserted at the beginning of this series that Mr. Meelker’s letter was nothing but a cloak for his unbelief in the doctrine of sovereign reprobation in the sphere of the covenant as that doctrine was preached from a sermon series on 2 Peter, I also promised to elicit from Mr. Meelker’s own letter three proofs that what he wrote was not in zeal for God’s truth but in hatred of the God of scripture, who makes his eternal counsel and good pleasure very sharp in the second chapter of 2 Peter.

The first evidence of unbelief was Mr. Meelker’s wresting of the profound and holy words of scripture that were preached, so violently twisting them in his letter so as to make them appear perverse and impure.¹ The second evidence of unbelief was Mr. Meelker’s gutting of the doctrine of the antithesis of any real substance, so as to make room for his rejection of the preaching at Zion.² In closest connection with his rejection of the truth of the antithesis, Mr. Meelker also cast away any concern for the glory of God, who decreed the antithesis as the way of highest wisdom to magnify his holy name. The third evidence of unbelief remains to be discussed.

This final matter concerns Mr. Meelker’s charge against the pulpit that it brought no word of comfort to weary souls. After having expressed in his letter his disagreement with the pulpit’s polemics and antithetical preaching, Mr. Meelker wrote the following:

Many in the congregation feel beaten and are exhausted. Some have cried out to the consistory for help. Others have told the pastor directly. The consistory’s response has been this. “The truth hurts. It cuts as a sharp sword, and our flesh needs this cutting. Our flesh doesn’t like to be cut but we need it, and if they don’t believe it, it is because they don’t love the truth!” (This is a paraphrased quote, not verbatim)

Mr. Meelker went on to write,

The consistory knows the pushing of this antithetical view is what is dividing our congregation. What the congregation hears after bringing their grievances is not a word of comfort for their weary souls. It is not what Isaiah brought to a downcast people. Isaiah 61:1-3 “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me; because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound; [2] To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all that mourn; [3] To appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he might be glorified.”

Before I proceed to respond to Mr. Meelker’s charge, I must first digress and comment on the first excerpt from Mr. Meelker’s letter.

On the one hand, the paraphrased quote that Mr. Meelker ascribes to the consistory is substantially accurate. It was I who in the consistory room on December 12, 2023, said something along the lines of “The truth hurts. It cuts as a sharp sword, and our flesh needs this cutting. Our flesh doesn’t like to be cut but we need it, and if they don’t believe it, it is because they don’t love the truth!” Mr. Meelker offers a good paraphrase of what I said, and I stand behind my statement.

On the other hand, in this same excerpt Mr. Meelker woefully misrepresents the circumstances in Zion that preceded this statement in the consistory room. First, even I do not know what he is referring to when he writes that “some” members of Zion cried out to the consistory for help. Is he referring to complaints that the officebearers of Zion received during the family visitation that began on December 4? If this is what he is referring to, then he must acknowledge that I was not present for those family visits and that I did not receive any reports from those family visits until after his public disagreement with my December 10 sermon. The other possibility is that he refers to private complaints from “some” members of Zion who spoke to him. If this is the case, then Mr. Meelker fails to tell the congregation in his letter that he kept all private complaints against the preaching to himself. He did not bring them up in the consistory room prior to his letter. Second, Mr. Meelker is not correct when he writes that “others have told the pastor directly” that they felt beaten and exhausted. The truth is that there was only one member who talked with me directly, to tell me that my sermon series on 2 Peter was troubling him/her (although he/she also told me that my catechism preaching was comforting). God is witness that these are the facts.

Why does Mr. Meelker construe these events at Zion in such a dishonest way? I could offer my own opinions, but I will let the Lord make this manifest in his day of vindication. And I cease to digress.

The purpose of this final article is to consider Mr. Meelker’s charge that the pulpit brought no word of comfort to weary souls—a most serious charge. In fact, no weightier charge could be leveled against the preaching, for this charge implies one of two things: either there was no comfort ministered to Zion at all because the preaching from her pulpit was the word of a man and not the Word of God, or there was no comfort ministered to specific members in Zion because God, who did speak by means of the preaching, did not will that those members be comforted by the preaching. Rather, God willed that those members be hardened and left comfortless. A most serious charge.

If the preaching at Zion was emphatically not the Word of God but the word of a man, then it stands to reason that many in Zion were not comforted but remained weary, for man is a miserable comforter. Oh, yes, man can communicate thoughts to you through his speech. Oh, yes, man can try to console you if you are downcast. But even if through years of experience that man has built a most credible ethos and possesses an illustrious record of encouraging the most dejected of spirits; even if through years of practice that man has perfected a most appealing pathos and utters inspiring orations; even if through years of study that man can put forward a sound logos and reason with impeccable logic—in the end, when that man speaks a word of comfort to you, it is a word that waits upon your judgment. In the end you will be comforted only if by an act of your own will you assent to his word. In the end your comfort depends on you.

Besides, man can never impart true comfort to you. Man is a liar, and his idea of comfort is vain. True comfort belongs to what eye has not seen nor ear heard. True comfort belongs to what has not entered the heart to conceive. True comfort is this: that one belongs, body and soul, to his faithful savior Jesus Christ. And no mere man possesses the ability to convince you of such a reality.

If Zion truly heard the word of a man from the pulpit, then there was every reason to protest and to reject what was taught from the pulpit. If Zion heard the word of a man, then her minister was a liar of the worst sort. He came to the pulpit, declaring, “Thus saith the Lord!” but he brought his own private interpretation of scripture. If Zion heard the word of a man, then that minister taught the lie as the truth and corrupted the holy worship of the living God. If Zion heard the word of a man, then that minister continues unrepentantly in his own self-deceit.

But what if that minister preached the truth of God and shunned not to declare unto Zion all the counsel of God? Then what?

Then God spoke by means of that preaching. Then that preaching was emphatically not the word of a man. Then by means of that preaching, the Word himself spoke—the Word who is not an it but a he; the Word who is ever with God and who is God; the Word by whom all things were made and without whom was not anything made that was made; the Word who called light to be, and light shined out of the darkness; the Word who summoned myriads of creatures to inhabit the heavens and the dry land and the seas, and it was so; the Word who became flesh, suffered the penalty of death for the guilt of his own, arose, and became a living Lord; the Word who comes presently to raise the dead, to summon all moral creatures before his tribunal, and to express God’s judgment over all; the Word who sometimes comes in a form that breaks the cedars of Lebanon, who makes the mountains to skip like rams, who shakes the deserts of Kadesh, who causes the hinds to calve, who melts the earth; the Word who at other times comes in the form of a still, small voice and speaks by means of an earthen vessel—weak and beggarly and subject to like passions as you.

Being the personal Son of God, that Word does not speak as a mere man. He called Lazarus to come forth. And that Word to Lazarus did not wait upon Lazarus’ judgment. Lazarus did not deliberate within himself whether he would assent to the Word, stand up, and come forth. That Word irresistibly and efficaciously drew Lazarus out of the tomb. And that same incarnate Word ascended to the right hand of majesty. He will soon return on the clouds of glory. He will give his command, and all the dead shall come forth. By the voice of the Word, the sea shall give up those whose ashes were scattered upon her waters, and every grave shall relinquish the body held in its grasp. By that powerful Word every earthly body shall be changed into the body that is fit for its everlasting state, and none shall resist him. He simply calls into existence what he wills to be done. He raises the dead.

The Word of God never returns to God void. The Word of God is a lively, energetic, powerful, and irresistible voice. The Word of God does not attempt to arouse men’s interests by external pokes and prods, but the Word of God is a sword that divides men to their very cores. The Word does not wait for men’s judgments. Rather, the Word judges men.

And as a living Lord, he ever lives to speak comfort to his people. Jesus Christ is God’s anointed to preach the gospel to the poor. With all power and authority, Jesus Christ heals the brokenhearted, delivers the captives, gives sight to the blind, and sets at liberty those who are bruised. And when Jesus Christ announced these things in Nazareth’s synagogue on the Sabbath, declaring, “This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears” (Luke 4:21), he did not bear witness of himself, but the Father bore witness of him in heaven.

Therefore, if what was preached at Zion was the Word of God and not the word of man, then the Word from heaven came with comfort for his people. But Mr. Meelker has contradicted him and said, “No comfort.”

As the Christ, he always heals and delivers and liberates and fills his people by means of the preaching. But Mr. Meelker has contradicted him and said, “No Christ.”

As the resurrected Lord, Jesus forever abides in that most holy sanctuary of heaven to bestow comfort upon his people. But Mr. Meelker has contradicted him and said, “No living Lord.” Mr. Meelker has put the Lord back in the grave and has become a resurrection-denier if what was preached was the Word of God and not the word of man.

If the Lord spoke, then Mr. Meelker refused him who speaks. And the epistolist to the Hebrews answers Mr. Meelker and says, “If they escaped not who refused him that spake on earth, much more shall not we escape, if we turn away from him that speaketh from heaven” (Heb. 12:25).

Let all who left Zion stand before the face of God—stand before the Lord Jesus Christ when he appears corporally and visibly and personally in the glory of God with ten thousands of his holy ones to execute judgment upon all and to convince all who are ungodly of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him—and tell Christ, “You did not speak to Zion.”

A Hard Saying

“No comfort. Your word gives no comfort to our weary souls.” This charge is not the first time the Word of God has been slandered so on earth. This is the same charge that the multitude of John 6 made against the Lord when they said, “This is an hard saying; who can hear it?” (v. 60).

He who now speaks from heaven had spoken on earth the day before and proclaimed to the multitude, “I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world” (v. 51).

The proclamation of comfort!

For those who eat Christ possess the greatest good amid the greatest evil. The greatest evil is sin. And the greatest comfort is Christ, in whom is the forgiveness of sins, everlasting righteousness, and immortal life. And he comes from heaven! Just as manna was received not by toil—not by tilling the fields, nor by sowing the ground, nor by picking out the weeds, nor by harvesting the crops, nor by sifting the grains, nor by mashing the grains into meal, nor by forming the bread—but was rained down from the heavens upon Israel, so too the greatest good falls from the sky upon the elect in abundance and is received by faith, by resting in Christ’s satisfaction. Comfort!

But the multitude of John 6 received not that Word of comfort. At the conclusion of the Lord’s sermon, they threw up their hands and declared, “This is a hard saying! You speak to us too bitterly and too harshly. Your words are too rough and too stern. Your doctrine is offensive and intolerable. Who can hear it?” In other words: “No comfort. Your word gives no comfort to our weary souls.”

The day before, this same multitude had been willing to storm the gates of Jerusalem and to seat the Lord upon a throne and to make him their king. The day before, this multitude had said, “This is of a truth that prophet that should come into the world” (v. 14).

Unbelief can find the Lord Jesus Christ attractive for a time. Unbelief can behold his mighty works and stand in awe. Unbelief can hear the fame of his name, assemble before him in droves, and mouth his praises. Note that scripture calls this multitude of John 6 “disciples,” disciples who were willing to dissociate from the religion of the scribes and Pharisees for a time. For a time those disciples did not mind the shame of being associated with the Lord.

But because the motive of all their actions proceeded from unbelief and sin, Jesus only seemed good to them so long as he would fulfill their carnal appetites.

The next morning when they found the Lord on the other side of the sea and asked him, “Rabbi, when camest thou hither?” (v. 25), the Word of God spoke, and the Word of God responded by cutting right to the spiritual essence of their question. The Word of God penetrated past the façade of their external discipleship. The Word of God searched out what secret inclinations of their hearts had motivated such a question. The Word of God came to their innermost beings with inscrutable precision and divine power. And discovering their hearts, the Word of God exposed their carnal desires to their consciences. The Word said, “Labour not for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life, which the Son of man shall give unto you: for him hath God the Father sealed” (v. 27). In other words: “You only seek me because you want bread. That is not what matters. All that stuff perishes. What you need is everlasting life!”

In an instant that Word of God arrested their consciences and convicted them of sin. Guilt jolted down their spines. Guilt stiffened the hairs on the back of their necks.

And I know what you are thinking: “How silly that those disciples preferred perishing bread over bread that endures unto everlasting life!” But that multitude of John 6 justified themselves over against their own carnality. As poor, they only wanted what sustains an earthly existence. But you have bread coming out of your ears. Today Jesus is good for you so long as he gives you leisure and ease, a fat pocketbook, the wine, and the oil. Today Jesus is good for you so long as he gives you a comfortable family gathering where those who believe the lie can happily sup together with those who believe the truth. At least those disciples only sought a basic earthly need…

But the Word always brings your carnality to light. Like Rachel with Laban, you can sit in your tent and conceal your idols from the eyes of men. But the Word always penetrates past the external veneer of skin and tissue, smiles and tears. The Word always comes to the spiritual heart of the matter. And when you pass under the Word of God, you cannot be left untouched.

If you are a child of God, that Word will humble you. If you are a child of God, that Word will work in you an acknowledgment and confession of your guilt. If you are a child of God, that Word will bring forth in you a cry for forgiveness.

But will unbelief be humbled? Will unbelief acknowledge the testimony of the Word, shut its mouth, and sorrow after a godly sort?

No. Once exposed in its carnality, what does unbelief first do? Unbelief tries to put on a religious front. It was no different for the multitude of John 6. After Jesus had rebuked the people’s carnality, they responded, “What shall we do, that we might work the works of God?” (v. 28). When confronted, unbelief becomes exasperated and vigorously tries to cloak itself in pious speech. And that response of the multitude did not come from fleshy and contrite hearts. That response came from cold and refractory hearts that had just been hardened in their sins. Already they had rejected the Word of God that they heard, and they more emphatically asserted themselves over against the Word that they heard.

Jesus responded to the multitude with irony: “This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent” (v. 29). Marvelous! In kind with their question, Jesus said, “You want works? You want to know what you must do? Here is what work you must do: do nothing! Believe on him whom God has sent!”

But the multitude became more flustered in their shame. Not only their carnality but also their false conception of religion had become exposed. And being increasingly hardened against the Word, they dared to demand of the Lord a sign: “What sign shewest thou then, that we may see, and believe thee?” (v. 30). That question was not asked in simple innocence. The multitude dared ask the Lord to prove himself and to prove the authority of his doctrine. They challenged the Word of God, though a day earlier they had exclaimed, “This is of a truth that prophet that should come into the world!” (v. 14).

Furthermore, while ever attempting to cloak their unbelief, they only continued to expose their wretched carnality. The multitude added, “Our fathers did eat manna in the desert; as it is written, He gave them bread from heaven to eat” (v. 31). Do you see what they just did? They actually tried to justify their carnality with scripture. They attempted to rebut the incarnate Word with scripture, saying, “You say that we do not need earthly bread. But do you not know what God did for our fathers? He gave our fathers manna from heaven. He made sure their bellies were full.” When they read scripture, they found all sorts of justification for their own carnality—for the lusts of their eyes and the lusts of their flesh and the pride of life. The multitude of John 6 had their favorite texts. And the people insinuated that Jesus was not the Christ because he was not giving them what they thought God wanted them to have.

It is no different today. Unbelief always twists scripture to justify its own carnal desires.

But the Lord was not done speaking to the multitude. The Lord responded that the true bread from heaven was not manna but himself. The Lord testified that all who eat and drink him are those whom God causes to eat and drink him. “All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out” (v. 37). “No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him” (v. 44). The Word of God to the multitude was that God absolutely and sovereignly determines who is nourished by the Word and who is not.

And what incensed the multitude against the Word of God was this: “I say unto you, That ye also have seen me, and believe not” (v. 36). The Word of God to them was that they were unbelievers.

The Word of God always divides men into two categories: believer and unbeliever, spiritual and carnal, those who have a godly sorrow and those whose sorrow works death, elect and reprobate. The Word always discerns whether in a man’s heart is faith toward God or deceit. The Word of God always expresses God’s righteous judgment over men and manifests that judgment to their own consciences.

That Word of God always justifies faith, because faith itself is worked by the Word. “Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God” (Rom. 10:17). That is why every believer loves the preaching. When the child of God comes to church with his burden of guilt and the stench of the world, when he comes to church with all his ingratitude and God-forgetfulness, the voice from heaven by means of the preaching speaks this to him: “Forgiven!” The Word of God judges the child of God righteous in Christ and draws that child into his kingdom.

That same Word also always condemns unbelief.

Now, it is true that all unbelief is wicked rejection of the Word of God. It is true that all unbelief is fierce rebellion against the Word of God. Yet nowhere does unbelief so visibly manifest itself than in the house of the Son of God, where his voice is heard, clearly and constantly. A hypocrite can last a long time in a church where there is no true preaching of the Word of God, for there is no power to tear off that man’s cloak and expose his nakedness. But as soon as the true preaching comes, the Word of God infallibly manifests the hypocrite’s unbelief with divine precision.

That is why unbelief always chafes under the Word of God. Unbelief will say about that preaching, “It is too judgmental. It never has anything good to say to me. It always makes me feel bad. It never edifies me.” That is what the unbeliever says. Why? Because unbelief is being condemned by the Word and shut out of the kingdom.

And you must never forget that sobering conclusion of Lord’s Day 31 in answer to the question, “How is the kingdom of heaven opened and shut by the preaching of the holy gospel?” The Catechism teaches thus:

When according to the command of Christ, it is declared and publicly testified to all and every believer, that, whenever they receive the promise of the gospel by a true faith, all their sins are really forgiven them of God, for the sake of Christ’s merits; and on the contrary, when it is declared and testified to all unbelievers, and such as do not sincerely repent, that they stand exposed to the wrath of God and eternal condemnation, so long as they are unconverted: according to which testimony of the gospel, God will judge them, both in this, and in the life to come. (A 84, in Confessions and Church Order, 118, emphasis added)

“According to which testimony of the gospel, God will judge them, both in this, and in the life to come.” When the Word of God comes, that Word gives a testimony that accords with God’s righteous judgment. When a minister preaches to you the truth, he can say at the end of his sermon, “And according to this testimony, God judges you.” Why? Because it was not the word of man but the Word of God.

Let Mr. Meelker consider that. Let all who left Zion consider that.

And now, what does unbelief do when unbelief is cornered with nowhere left to go? Unbelief first attacks the messenger. Unbelief attempts to discredit the one who speaks the Word of God and has given the unbelievers nowhere to hide. That is what the multitude of John 6 did. The people asked, “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? how is it then that he saith, I came down from heaven?” (v. 42). Oh, they knew full well the marvelous events that had surrounded Christ’s birth, which testified of his heavenly origin. But they spoke of his family in order to excuse their unbelief. Unbelief always kills the messenger. Which of the prophets has unbelief not murdered?

Then unbelief throws up its arms and shouts as loud as it can, “This is an hard saying; who can hear it?” (v. 60).

No comfort!

And finally, unbelief will do everything in its power to escape that Word of judgment and find some other way into heaven, a back door. Unbelief will return to the ways of the scribes and Pharisees and stand in the back of their synagogues and say, “How good it is to be back!”

Take Heed

“From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him” (John 6:66). After hearing the Word of God, many of the Lord’s disciples departed from him. Just a day earlier they had declared that the Lord was “that prophet.” But then the Word spoke to them. The Word manifested them as miserable recreants. The Word judged them. And because they could not stand that judgment, they walked no more with Jesus.

Now, chapter and verse designate these former disciples with the number 6-6-6.

Oh, I understand well that the division of this text into chapter and verse was not inspired. The modern arrangement of holy scripture into the verse units that we find in our English Bible has its own peculiar history. Yet there is no more fitting number to encapsulate the words of this text. Six is the number of man and represents the idea of earthly toil without rest. Six thrice-repeated represents the culmination of man’s efforts to establish rest in his own earthly kingdom. But no matter how vigorously man strives to attain rest, he never attains to seven. He never attains the rest of God, the rest of God’s everlasting covenant in the kingdom of heaven. In other words, man never has true comfort. True comfort is the rest that one possesses by faith in Jesus Christ.

And here in John 6:66 is the record of those who, having heard the very voice of God and the Word of the gospel preached unto them, departed from the living God in evil hearts of unbelief. And here in John 6:66 is the manifestation of those concerning whom God had no pleasure but swore in his wrath, “They shall not enter into my rest!”

Take heed, brethren.

Today, if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts as in the provocation. If you enter the house of the living God, you will hear a voice. That voice is the very Word of God and emphatically not the word of man. When you hear, do not provoke him who speaks. Remember the generation that came up out of Egypt. They tempted God. They proved God. They saw God’s works for forty years. And God swore in his wrath that they should not enter his rest.

If they escaped not who refused him who spoke on earth, much more shall not we escape, if we turn away from him who speaks from heaven!

On the porch of Solomon, Peter warned, “Moses truly said unto the fathers, A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren, like unto me; him shall ye hear in all things whatsoever he shall say unto you. And it shall come to pass, that every soul, which will not hear that prophet, shall be destroyed from among the people” (Acts 3:22–23).
In the synagogue of Antioch in Pisidia, Paul and Barnabas warned, “Beware therefore, lest that come upon you, which is spoken of in the prophets; behold, ye despisers, and wonder, and perish: for I work a work in your days, a work which ye shall in no wise believe, though a man declare it unto you” (Acts 13:40–41).

Take heed!

“See that ye refuse not him that speaketh” (Heb. 12:25).

That exhortation—“See that ye refuse not him that speaketh”—is curious. It is curious because to refuse or not to refuse does not rest in the power of those who hear the Word of God. Whether or not one refuses him who speaks—this comes from God and not from man.

“See that ye refuse not him that speaketh.”

If you refuse him not, then you are judged already. You are judged in Christ as righteous and worthy of eternal life. But if you refuse him, then you are likewise judged already. You are judged outside of Christ, and you will not enter his rest.

It is according to this testimony of the gospel that God judges, both now and in the day of the Lord.