I decided to become a priest out of deep conviction. I wanted to go as a missionary to the unexplored islands of Papua to bring them the message of God, the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I thought that I was well prepared to face all the difficulties that awaited me there. With the motto “I'm going because I must,” I went to New Guinea, a former Dutch colony, only to discover after five years that although I had started with enthusiasm, my mission had turned into a disaster. I realized that my co-workers and others were completely ignoring me, as if I was nothing but air. My load became very heavy because of that. Disappointed, angry, and hurt, he didn't want to pray anymore or talk to God. There was no way at all that I could avoid facing my failure. He wanted nothing more to do with God.
I learned about my sinful nature
Just when my spiritual crisis was at its lowest point, I met a Reformed missionary. I didn't want to talk to him at all, but I still did and found the man to be a truly joyous Christian. He heard my story, and that alone was already a comfort and encouragement to me. He could understand my disappointment and my anger. From my conversation with him, it became clear to me that I had been listening to myself and my own foolish convictions. In my life I had never heard God's Word, prayed to God, or trusted God. Slowly but surely I began to see what a useless servant I was and would be as long as I continued to lean on my own strength, but that I could also be a useful instrument in God's hands when I let Him guide me in all things. It was as if a new world had opened up for me.
I have often seen that articles describing discussions with Roman Catholic priests regard their doctrine as biblically sound. They are not really biblical at all; they can't be for that. That was also my difficulty before I converted. In the course of my conversion I was often told, "That is not scriptural, the Word of God says otherwise." After each discussion I became more and more insecure, being directed to the Scriptures I had to acknowledge time after time that what I was speaking was really contrary to the Scriptures, that in effect, I did not know the Word. The fight to know the truth was tough. He didn't want to admit he was wrong. Nothing is more humbling than having to acknowledge God's own opinion, one's own conviction, acquired over many years of study and experience considered immune to challenge, a conviction that one would do anything — that all of this was nothing but false and unscriptural opinion. It made me feel like a failure, like someone severely maimed.
". . . Dead in your trespasses and sins ” (Ephesians 2: 1)
The Lord knows how much I resisted the doctrine of total human corruption: man's tendency toward all evil, his inability to do good — how harsh that doctrine is. It makes one fall off the pedestal and become completely miserable. Very slowly I learned to see that man had fallen from his pedestal centuries ago when he chose sin and turned against God. For years I, along with many others, tried desperately to keep that fallen man upright. Then we talk about the wounded man who continues to fight to improve the sick man, wanting to make himself righteous in God's eyes. He thought that in the end God was going to reward those good works, or rather that he was obliged to reward them. It would reward us with eternal salvation. The good works of our meritorious lives would even bring salvation to others. Against the biased Roman Catholic view of a "good, loving God" he was to know him as the Lord who pours out his wrath on sin and who most certainly cannot leave sin unpunished. The Lord who reveals himself in the Old Covenant is the same yesterday, today, and forever.
Catholic comic stories
This was the end of the comic stories about the "great saints" who had secret back doors in heaven to "smuggle" special worshipers inside. It signified the end of stories about clever sinners who, winking maliciously at Peter, the jealous guardian of heaven's gate, sneaked inside. Now it was, according to God's Word, all by faith. “For by grace are you saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God; not by works so that no one can boast ” (Ephesians 2: 8-9).
The abundant grace of God
When God, in his infinite mercy had convinced me, I no longer had pretensions. When its light illuminated me, I understood the gravity of Pablo's words: "Wretched me!" Then I was able to understand Romans 3: 9-20. God presented me with a completely clear figure and I knew it was myself. But (and I must add that this was next) great was my joy at salvation in Christ Jesus. Then I was able to savor the richness and depth of this passage of Scripture : “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish, but may have eternal life ” (John 3:16).
I was able to ask the throne of the merciful Heavenly Father for help who, in Christ Jesus, saved me, made me a new creature through the new birth, filled me, and renewed me through the Holy Spirit. Now I can live a life of gratitude to my God and my Lord. I learned to know and worship the God who calls and chooses. I came to understand that one stands before God empty-handed, and to allow Him only to fill them. And all of this has allowed me, by the grace of God, by which I came to believe, to move forward by the power of that faith. Having been a hopeless failure, I was unexpectedly allowed to get ahead. God guided me in a wonderful way. It is in his grace that I now openly boast, because he took me by the hand and now I rejoice in his service.
Having become his property, recreated according to his image, I began to live in him with a new heart. I was able to love God and my neighbor and keep his commandments. Not only did I feel like a new person, I actually became a new creature, renewed in his image by his Spirit. The new creature just wants to be grateful and praise him, who has seen our misery and made us so rich.
When I hear that from time to time a converted Roman Catholic has returned to the bosom of the “mother church,” I silently reflect on the many things I have received, being called and taken in an inescapable way by the Lord. I had to hear many times say: "What a change, what a great transformation, from Roman Catholic priest to Reformed minister!" However, I could not give a satisfactory answer to this comment, as it was a change, a transformation that I had not brought about — quite the opposite! David could continue thanking God as he sang: "In my distress I called upon the Lord, and cried out to my God."(Psalms 18: 6). My folly was such that I did not invoke God at that time; no, I didn't even ask Him for help, but He just took what He wanted. He took and led the reticent where he knew he would be fine: in his church, where his Word is solidly preached, where his sacraments are faithfully administered, and where his discipline is maintained.
The Roman Catholic mindset
How is that possible? Ask the Lord, he is wonderful in all his deeds. But when I read the comment about some priest "God will surely have to reward his brave act of leaving the Roman Catholic Church", then I see with great sadness that that person has not understood anything at all about his own misery and saving intervention of God by grace alone. This person continues to wear the miserable Roman hereditary stain: “It is I who have to do this; I am the one who has to achieve something and then the Lord will be obliged to reward me ”. We can only pray for such a person to be truly enlightened by the Lord, definitively taken by his Word, and at the same time, hear of the mercy of God in our Lord Jesus Christ.
When someone writes against those who want to justify homosexuality, it is obvious that they will be viciously criticized. They will point to him as that old priest who had such a need to marry but was not allowed to do so, who changed his religion and continued to demonstrate against everything related to Roman Catholicism. Those are the notes of those who speak on a completely different wavelength. They are in tune with the world and do not want to recognize that man is conceived and born in sin. Such people must first be convicted of sin by the Holy Spirit (John 16: 9), then by the grace of God accept salvation based on the complete sacrifice of Christ, by faith alone.
Ecumenism hurts
However, it hurts me much more when Christians bear witness to Roman Catholics and at the same time accept Roman doctrine and practice. The tendency to soften sinful Roman Catholic doctrines and practices should be another warning to us of the false ecumenical movement that causes great harm to the Lord's work!
I am grateful to have been chosen to experience the rich thoughts that are clearly described in the Bible, the written Word of God Himself. Through His written Word, we learn to understand what it does to our eternal peace. It is through the solid preaching of the Word by the Holy Spirit that even the hardest of hearts are softened: “I will praise you forever, because you have. . . " (Psalm 52: 9).
Often when I was on the mission field in New Guinea, I had to ponder this passage of Scripture: "So faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God" (Romans 10:17). In the same way that I have been saved by the grace of God alone, salvation has come to others here. Heathens who had no desire for justice have become righteous in Jesus Christ. The Lord has sent us to make the pagans his disciples by preaching his Word.
The light shines in the dark
God in his love and mercy and being full of forgiveness came into my life and a miracle happened. A Roman Catholic priest in his late fifties would never naturally have started a conversation with a Reformed missionary, the priest that I was surely would not have! I've never seen a Reformed missionary before, never talked to one, and yet somehow I did. An invisible hand intervened. At first I resisted, but when the Reformed missionary invited me to sit next to him on the riverbank, the Spirit of God was at work. In that first conversation (and many others that followed), we found the face of God together, and we were some of the most joyous people on earth. His grace had been victorious. My eyes were opened to the Light that shone in the dark and I found the Truth of the Scriptures. Through this truth, I went from being a priest to being saved, from being a missionary to being a minister, from a busy “do it yourself” man to a servant who learned to ask God for obedience to his Word. Since I understood that salvation is by grace alone (Ephesians 2: 8-9), I am a different person who lives by the grace of God in Christ, a testimony that Jesus Christ is the only Savior. When I look back on my life, I cannot help but rejoice as a happy and grateful man. I would like the whole world to know, dear friends, that I did not earn this, but that God was merciful, and unexpectedly saved me only by his free grace. from missionary to minister, from busy do-it-yourself man to a servant who learned to ask God for obedience to his Word. Since I understood that salvation is by grace alone (Ephesians 2: 8-9), I am a different person who lives by the grace of God in Christ, a testimony that Jesus Christ is the only Savior. When I look back on my life, I cannot help but rejoice as a happy and grateful man. I would like the whole world to know, dear friends, that I did not earn this, but that God was merciful, and unexpectedly saved me only by his free grace. from missionary to minister, from busy do-it-yourself man to a servant who learned to ask God for obedience to his Word. Since I understood that salvation is by grace alone (Ephesians 2: 8-9), I am a different person who lives by the grace of God in Christ, a testimony that Jesus Christ is the only Savior. When I look back on my life, I cannot help but rejoice as a happy and grateful man. I would like the whole world to know, dear friends, that I did not earn this, but that God was merciful, and unexpectedly saved me only by his free grace. a testimony that Jesus Christ is the only Savior. When I look back on my life, I cannot help but rejoice as a happy and grateful man. I would like the whole world to know, dear friends, that I did not earn this, but that God was merciful, and unexpectedly saved me only by his free grace. a testimony that Jesus Christ is the only Savior. When I look back on my life, I cannot help but rejoice as a happy and grateful man. I would like the whole world to know, dear friends, that I did not earn this, but that God was merciful, and unexpectedly saved me only by his free grace.
May the Lord call you in His grace to know Christ and the power of His resurrection (Philippians 3:10). To God alone be the glory!
Jacob Van der Velden
Jacob Van del Velden was a Dutch saved by grace in New Guinea. Since his conversion he was pastoring a Reformed Church in Holland. He is currently with the Lord, having passed into his presence on January 24, 1997.
[Source: https://bereanbeacon.org/es/la-gracia-de-dios-en-nueva-guinea/]
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