Magyar Egyház, 1956 (35. évfolyam, 1-11. szám)

1956-08-01 / 8-9. szám

MAGYAR EGYHÁZ 13 BE STEADFAST, IMMOVABLE, Always Abounding in the Work of the Lord! 1 Corinthians 15:58 Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, im­movable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain. Dear Brethren: This is one of the many watchwords, one of the commands with which the letters of St. Paul abounds. Paul is like a commander-in-chief who has made an assault on the world and has called an army into exixtence, an army which placed itself under the flag of the Cross. This army was, at that time small and scattered all over the territories of the Roman Empire. Here a small group, there a few Christians; really only a few congregations in Asia Minor and Greece. One could quickly count them, they were so small in number. Most of them were of the strength of a platoon and company. Only in a very few places were they large enough to be considered a battalion. And these scat­tered Christians, standing in the midst of an immense world of paganism, were almost lost among the millions of those who knelt before their idols and lived in the bonds of the dark powers. Indeed these small troops of those seized by Christ were to face a war that seem­ed to be hopeless. It was a battle of life and death. For this battle they needed arms and weapons, and always new commands which briefly and convincingly like a war-cry would show them the way and would give them the strength to continue. The command as contained in our text concerns Calvinistic Christians of the present day also. We are an army of Jesus Christ scattered all over the world. We also live under the pressure of an immense un- Christian world. The very fact that we came together to this Calvinistic Conference bears testimony to the fact that we are concerned about the present status and the future prospects of Calvinism, be they repre­sented by small platoons or mighty armies throughout the world. May our prayer this morning embrace all the brethren regardless of where they are engaged in the good fight of our faith. But may we especially send a word of encouragement to those who feel the pressure of the battle; to the Calvinistic posts in the Eastern part of Europe. John Calvin was concerned about these brethren. On April 22, 1566 he rejoiced as he wrote to Buliinger, “There is an abundance of good seed in Austria and Bavaria. They can be oppressed temporarily, but the Lord will not allow their distraction.” As early as 1540 Calvin was greeted at Strassburg by a professor of Greek who told him, “You are already flying around the land of the Czechs.” And in the same year a letter was sent by Calvin to Augusta, a leader of the Czech Christians. The land to which Calvin showed much personal concern was Poland. He was forty years of age when he turned to the twenty-nine years old king, Sigismund Augustus the 11. Calvin dedicated the Latin script of the exegesis of Paul’s letter to the Hebrews to the king: “The King is called upon by God to restore the pure faith in the entire land.” In 1553 Calvin’s Institutes was read twice a week before the king. Calvin wrote three times to the king and he also wrote about twenty letters to the princes and knights of the land in which he pleads for the righteous cause of God. An invitation was extended to him to journey to Poland in order to organize the Reformed church. But instead Calvin ecouranged Jan Laski to return to his native land to do this important task. Indeed there was no other country except France that gave Calvin so much labor and anxiety as Poland. In the development of the Reformation in Hungary, Calvin did not show the same personal concern he showed in the case of Poland. We do not know of any existing letter addressed to the leaders of the Reforma­tion in Hungary, and only a few were sent to him. Yet, through the wide-spread reading of the Institutes and his catechism, Debreczen soon became the second Genf, or the Calvinistic Rome, and the Calvinistic faith was given the name “Magyar religion.” Under the pressure of the Counter-Reformation some of the outposts of Calvinism were completely wiped out, as in Moravia, Silezia and the greater part of Austria. In Poland there is hardly any fruits re­maining of Calvin’s painful efforts. His influence is more lasting in the land of the Czechs. Even more so in Hungary. After having fought four great religious wars against the organized powers of oppression, there remained about three million Hungarian Calvinists, most of them in the motherland, others known as the Reformed Church in Rumania, Czechoslovakia, Yugosla­via and as a result of the second World War, in Carpathia, Russia. These brethren of ours now feel the heat of battle. Today the very existence of the Reformed Church in Hungary is not in danger as it had been in the previous centuries. Rather they wage their war for immovable steadfastness, for Biblical faithfulness, and for the principles and achievements of Calvinism. Just recently several Calvinistic ministers of Hun­garian origin in America received a letter that informed us, for the first time, that in Hungary there does exist a Confessional Church. The proof of this existence can be found in the ever increasing number of pastors and laymen who by standing on the foundation of the Bible and by relying upon the guidance of the theology of the Reformers, face persecution, relocation, which is a modem form of transportation, and even imprisonment. They have raised their voice emphatically: First: Against optimistic evolution-ideology of the his­torical materialism endorsed by some official leaders of the church. Second: Against the ever growing tendency of curbing the missionary activity of the church among the children, youth and the un-Christian world. Thirdly: For the clear understanding of the prophetic task of the church toward the state, and Fourthly: to vindicate the Lordship of Christ over all the realms of life. In this struggle for Biblical and doctrinal purity and faithfulness, what is more needed than the Word itself: ‘Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable.’Why be steadfast? Why be immovable? Our

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