Hendrik, Kelsey, Hendrik and Leanne grew up in Canada in churches that are Calvinist and Reformed. In this very moving interview, they discuss with Michael Penfold how they struggled to believe that God really loved them. Watch their fascinating stories and learn where the assurance of salvation comes from.
Recorded in Manitoba, Canada, 24th Feb 2026
Complete Series:
- We Were Raised Mennonite – Kyle, Tyler and Margaret
- We Grew Up in a Hutterite Colony – Dan, Don and Derek
- We Were Very Religious Hutterites – Silas, Adrian, Cody and Marissa
- Calvinist and Reformed – Hendrik, Kelsey, Leanne and Hendrik
Further resources:
Eternal security | Mervyn Hall
Knowing for Sure You Are Saved | Michael Penfold
The Assurance of Salvation | Michael Penfold
The Sacrifice that Satisfies | Michael Penfold
5 Poems About the Assurance of Salvation
How Do You Know You Are Saved? | Michael Penfold
The Remarkable Conversion of W.W. Fereday
Are You Saved? | Michael Penfold
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Full video transcript:
So it’s almost too dangerous to preach John 3.16. Absolutely, in their viewpoint. And just like that, assurance. Absolutely. There was a cry, and he was not answering, and then I thought, I was not elect. And oh boy, did my heart sink. Like, I would never dream again and say through that verse, And I remember thinking, if it took this to feel God, it was worth it.
To the Fiensters and the Barons, welcome to Gospel Hall Audio Podcast. This is the fourth episode today, so we’re doing a marathon. And we’ve been doing different backgrounds of religious groups in the Manitoba area, so we’ve had some Mennonites on, we’ve had a couple of groups of Hutterites, and we wanted to finish the day looking at some folks that come from a Reform background. So I know you’ve both come from very different Reform churches, which we’ll get into in a minute, but maybe you could just introduce yourself. This is Hendrik and Kelsey. My name is Hendrik Feenstra. My wife and I are from down south of Sleinbach, Manitoba. We have a little acreage and four children.
And I have one on the way. I have my Class 1 heavy driver’s commercial vehicle driver’s license and drive a concrete mixing truck, the big turning drum for those of you that don’t know of them and we’re happy to be here. We were discussing earlier on how they do concrete mixing in minus 20 or minus 30, so apparently it’s doable. It is definitely doable.
And where are you guys from? We come from Haywood, Manitoba, but I was born in Netherlands and I came here when I was 11 years old. Oh right, okay, born in Netherlands, wow. Yeah, and I dairy farm here, and I married this beautiful woman here, and we have four kids. We’ve been married for 15 years. And you’re from here, Leanne? Yeah, I grew up in Carmen. Oh, very close. Just around here, yeah. Wonderful. Excellent. Well, now we’ve got the intros over.
Let’s get into this whole topic of the Reformed churches in this area. From what I understand, you come from, Hendrik and Kelsey, come from, I don’t know what you’d call it, maybe a strict Reformed or hyper-Calvinist Reformed background, whereas you’re more mainline Canadian Reformed, is that right? Yeah, also Calvinist, but it’s a lot different than where he came from. Okay. Yeah. Tell me a little bit about the whole concept. What does Dutch Reformed mean? Is that simply because it came originally from Holland? The Dutch Reformed is originally from the Netherlands. That’s where the name comes from.
Much of it is, for us, is the Thai to the ministers, et cetera, where there is, it’s an entire denomination. There’s sister denominations, if you would call it that, and the, there is a lot of traveling minister relations, since there is so few ministers in my particular Dutch Reformed church.
And I believe it is in the neighborhood of 35 some odd churches. In the whole of Canada or in Manitoba? No, this is globally. Oh, right. So it’s 35, only 35 Dutch Reformed churches in the whole world. 35 or 40 of this particular branch, group. And in Canada, they are known as Reformed Congregation in North America. They have R-C-N-A, is it? Yes. Okay.
They have a exact carbon copy in the Netherlands, which has a higher number of churches. I believe there’s only four or five in Canada, North America, that bear the R-C-N-A label. But then in the Netherlands, and that’s where the roots are, there’s. in the neighborhood of 30, maybe a few more. I don’t know the exact number.
I have never bothered to count up the exact churches, but over- See, in the country where I come from, which is Northern Ireland, the big thing is Presbyterian churches. And in the town where I live, we have a Presbyterian church, but then we have a covenant Presbyterian church. And then down the road, there’s a free Presbyterian church.
So I guess it’s the same. They’re also all Calvinist. which is a kind of theology that could be taken on by any church, right? Absolutely. Calvinism is a certain belief system, but you could be a Methodist and a Calvinist. So, I mean, the Reformed churches that I’m aware of would include thousands and thousands and thousands of churches all the way from Presbyterians to Reformed Baptists, so I’m presuming that because you’ve got only this handful of churches, you take a very, very extreme, strict view and there’s not many people who agree with it, is that why it’s a small group? Yes, it very much is because of that. There is, like I said, a very limited number of ministers. I’m not sure of the exact number now. It was only like eight or nine a few years ago. Wow.
And the load then is on these eight or nine ministers and they travel from church to church to church. They have their main congregation, however they travel, they will spend a week at this church and then spend a week at that church. It’s gonna spread thin basically. It spreads so incredibly thin and the ministers are the only ones that are allowed to preach. It’s very very limited. So then sometimes on a Sunday a church will have no minister. Very often. Many of them don’t have a minister come more than once or twice a year. So what do they do? The lay people have to run it?
Then the consistory, the elders and the deacons, will read a sermon from a minister that has long since passed away. And what tends to happen because of that is that the elders and the deacons will select a sermon based on their mood or based on whatever format that they’re following, let’s say for the Advent or for Easter, they follow a pre-arranged gathering of sermons that are from their selection, but this selection is not just all the ministers that they could grab from, it’s a selection of ministers that align with the elder in question, his viewpoint. And this does tend to very much turn the viewpoint over a period of years that if hell and damnation is not preached enough or If free will is even hinted at, they will leave those sermons to the side. And now out of an entire bookshelf, you might get only a small number of sermons.
And then these sermons shape the next possible minister. So are these sermons from years ago by people like Augustus Toplady and John Gill and whoever? Yes. Okay. But they’re even within those, they’re making sure that’s filtered. It’s very filtered. And it is so sad because, for example, Augustus Toplady or Philpott, they have such beautiful sermons where the gospel is clearly presented. Yeah. And yet, The sermons can, those sermons are very often left to the wayside.
I’ve never heard a sermon on John 3.16 or John 3.36. In your church growing up. In my church growing up. Verses like that were never spoken of. They were acknowledged as being part of the Bible, but verses like that where there’s a chance of human free will to be involved in it, where…
So it’s almost too dangerous to preach John 3.16.
Absolutely, in their viewpoint. So it would probably depend on your congregation, how the elders want to control the theology. Yes. Because they do have selection. So in our congregation, in our churches, the elders are more free. Okay. And we have heard a gospel, like a clear gospel. Yeah. And then, Kelsey, you grew up for the first few years of your life in this same small group? The sister denomination to Hendricks, so slightly less strict, maybe, they would be the opinion. I still don’t know the difference, but there apparently is a difference.
And would you have heard John 3.16 in that?
I know you were young when you left that church, but… I don’t think so. Wow, see this is like totally new to me, the thought, I mean, I know a lot of lovely reformed Christians, and I live in Northern Ireland, which is full of Presbyterians who are reformed, and the free Presbyterians and so on, and the thought of deliberately not even preaching on John 3, 16, I mean, I can understand, that churches that don’t want to preach easy believism, you know, we would all subscribe to that without repentance and without all of that stuff. But to actually not preach the gospel in case, you know, it just seems very extreme. But then you went to a different church. You moved to a Reformed Baptist, did you say? Yes, particularly called the strict and particular Baptist. Oh wow, we have them in the UK too. Okay, so you’re familiar with that.
Okay. So I grew up thinking strict meant strict as in like a strict dad or a strict mom, you know, but strict in particular is all to do with election, is it? So the strict part is restricted communion. Right, okay. And the particular part is particular redemption. That is, Jesus only died for the elect. Right. So a strict and particular Baptist, no one can just walk in and take communion because that’s, they have a… You have to be baptized and a member of that. Okay. So that’s a closed table fellowship. Yes. And then the particular is they’re going to be preaching Christ died for the elect. Yes.
So then would you have Even in that church, would you never have heard John 3.16 kind of thing? I can’t remember exactly, but they did preach the gospel. Okay. But again, free will is not an option. Okay. However, they did expect God to be working within the congregation. I guess salvation was not like prohibited, I guess.
See, I remember one of the famous reformed theologians of recent years was R.C. Sproul, or R.C. Sproul, I’m not sure how to pronounce it over here. And I remember him saying once, the doctrine that sets the reformed people apart from everybody is their belief that you need to be born again before you can believe. And I thought that was interesting because I thought I’d never realized, I knew that was a Calvinist belief, but I’d never realized it was the one thing that nobody else believes except reformed Christians. It’s all a work of God, even believing.
Yeah, so moving away from this particular strict group, coming to the more general, so the Canadian formed church is presumably huge, is it? It’s much bigger than that. I did not look up numbers before we came here, but there’s numerous community reform groups. So it’s like a major reform denomination within Canada? I don’t even know if you’d call it major. It’s pretty big. There’s enough choice in Canada. So they would preach the gospel? We’ve heard it once. I’ve heard it once clearly. Before we moved out. But yeah, the same idea in election, right?
So in the Reformed Church, there’s not a clear call to salvation. There’s not a clear call to conversion for those who are born in the covenant. So you’re born to believing parents. And then when you’re baptized as an infant, then that’s the sign and seal of God’s promises to you. That the Father will be your God, and Jesus will wash you in His blood, and then the Holy Spirit will regenerate you. Those are the promises given. So they’re not saying it happens when you’re baptized, but they’re saying it will happen because you’re now…
Baptism is not salvation, but it’s, yeah, like salvation is kind of what we would call sanctification. Okay. It’s more of like a growing into it in a process, right? Yeah, yeah. And the form, when I look at, when I study the form later on, It reads like it happens at baptism, but it’s kind of depending on who’s preaching from that, and it’s not really talking about it.
So I’ve heard that they more or less kind of take like an Old Testament, so in the Old Testament, the Jewish nation, they had circumcision when the baby is eight days old, and then there’s a verse in Colossians. Yeah, chapter two. Chapter two, which took, yeah. About 11, yeah. depending on how you read that of course, but they take it to mean that baptism has replaced circumcision in some sort of a way, and this might not be technically reformed language, but so therefore the sign of the covenant with Abraham was circumcision.
So you get circumcised, now you’re in this covenant nation. So now as a baby you get baptised because that’s the equivalent. So therefore when it’s eight days old when you’re getting circumcised, it’s as a baby when you’re getting baptised. And that brings you into this covenant family.
And that’s a general reform view, right? It would be accurate, yeah. And that’s not guaranteeing your salvation, is it? But it puts you in the fold. It puts you in the covenant community, and now you tend to just stay in that covenant as long as you obey. So there’s a teaching that if you fall away or if you stop going to church, that you become a covenant breaker. So now it’s up to you if you want to leave.
But if you stay in the church, do the right things, you are in the covenant. So I would have always imagined a Calvinist believing that you can never be lost, right? One of the T-U-L-I-P, the P is the perseverance of the saints. If you’re truly saved, you will persevere.
But you’re saying you can fall out of that? Yes, if you stop going to church or you stop believing, you are a coven breaker. So that proves you were never really in the covenant or whatever. Yeah, then you can tell that they weren’t elect. Okay, right.
And that is where there’s a marked difference between us because our church, our denomination, baptism was the signed that you were now part of the group, and you were part of the covenant, but being saved, salvation, is entirely separate to that. It was very, very highly on the doctrine of election, and very much taught that election was an unsure thing. You didn’t know whether you were elect or not. You had no clue whether you were elect.
Okay. And there was no way of knowing unless you had, for example, a Damascus Road experience or from the tavern to the church pew with obvious follow-up that your life had actually changed. And we would, I got baptized as a child. And then when I was 18, I did a confession of faith, not confession of saving faith, but a confession of faith or trust in the ordinances of the church that I believed, and I truly did believe at that time, that what was being taught What I heard from the pulpit, what I learned in catechetical instruction was true, was biblically accurate. However, this did not mean that I believed myself to be saved.
I knew very much the damnation of sin and the judgment to come, but election was taught to only be that you only know for sure when you open your eyes in heaven that you’re in heaven, you’re saved or you open your eyes in hell and you missed a boat and unless you had a very definite personal relationship with God, it was… So that must be very heavy. Terribly, terribly. Where you’re brought up and the sermons are quite heavy on hell, damnation, sinners in the hands of an angry God and all that, which is all, you know, the Bible teaches all that. Absolutely.
But if that’s all you hear and your only way out is to sort of have a miraculous discovery that you’re one of the elect, You end up dying not knowing… So salvation depends on whether you are… In your mind, it depends on something that you can’t determine in any way. You can’t seek salvation and find it. You sort of sit there helplessly, wondering if you’ve got a leg stamped on your back. Very much. And we were told to read your Bible. however many texts there are that point to, out of this you can find… Believe and be saved. The truth.
However, don’t go and intensely study it because you might delude yourself. That’s something that I get accused of, is that… You’ve deluded yourself. You’ve deluded yourself. You have just… taken something and you can’t. That’s not something you can take.
So before we get on to just how each of you got saved, I was talking to you a few weeks ago, I think, certainly a few days ago, and you were saying that you held communion once a year, and even if you had a congregation of 200 people, only half a dozen would take the bread and the cup because they were the only six out of 200 that felt they were elect. I mean, that seems just so bizarre to me. Often less. And that’s because of the fear of possibly deluding yourself. That’s because of not being taught the gospel, that it is a free gift.
If we turn to Romans 5. Sure, help yourself. If we turn to Romans 5, very, very clear and very, very, very crisp in verse 16. And not as it was by one that sinned, that was Adam, so is the gift. For the judgment was by one to condemnation, Adam, but the free gift is of many offenses unto justification. It’s a free gift. The gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, that is, Jesus Christ. And verse 18, the righteousness of one, the free gift, came upon all men unto justification of life. Over and over. Over and over.
It’s a free gift. And if I come to you and I say, I have a gift for you, a gift of the Bible, and you say, oh no, I can’t accept that, I get offended because You don’t accept my gift. And you can’t pay me for a gift, because… So we’re stuck. It’s a gift.
It’s free. And that’s the miracle of how the Bible was translated, that they could clearly see it is a free gift. So which one of you got saved first? I did. Okay. By a week. Okay, well, let’s move over this side. So, Henrik, you were saved before Leanne. Right. Yeah. So you’d been baptized as a baby? Yes. And do you have like confirmation or catechism later on? Yeah.
So I’ll just start the story from the beginning. So at a young age, I got enslaved to sin. I was eight or nine. I was addicted to being attracted to girls. And it happened on a single day. I can know exactly the moment. And from then on, my brain started thinking only about that, like literally. All through my waking day, I would think while I’m talking, while I’m… It would never leave. I went to my mother and my father once, because I tried to sleep. My thoughts would not stop. And I told them this problem. I was shy and very scared. And they said, oh, that’s OK. It’s normal. Go back to sleep. So that went on. And then they moved to Canada.
And then at age 14 or 15, we started taking Catechism classes. And that’s when I heard the words of Jesus through this elder explaining the Seventh Commandment. saying that, quoting Jesus, if you look on a woman with lust in your heart, you’ve committed adultery. And that’s when I realized I’m a sinner. Before that, I was like, something’s not right, but it’s the way it is. And it developed, of course, into, as I learned more about images and what sex is, that started to become all I was thinking about, and I could not stop it. But when I heard those words, I tried to stop. So I believe the Bible. I believe that God existed. That’s what we got taught, that it’s the Word of God. And I took that at its face value. So that became my struggle, and then for 10 years, as I was trying to figure out, trying to stop.
While you’re being taught that you’re part of the covenant, that you got baptized, just don’t worry about it. And yet, I read in the scriptures that those who are of faith walk by faith, and you choose to walk by the Spirit, not by the flesh. And if you walk by the flesh, the end result is death. And I’m not seeing any fruit in my life.
And that became a burden. So I would come and pray to God very often to try and get rid of this sin, help me out, or whatever. And my early 20s, yeah, so I did go to university. I started thinking about evolution and… So this is in Manitoba? This is all in Manitoba, yeah. Were you convinced of evolution? It became a struggle more.
It seems to contradict the Word of God. So is the Bible real? If evolution is true, then this Bible is not real. And yet, at the same time, believe in God. But it became a test of faith, and I had to go through that. He was answering my prayer, right? I wanted to be delivered. Romans 7 and 8 is probably my main passage I would describe as my process. I identify with chapter 7, where Paul was saying he’s under the law, he’s condemned, he’s a slave, he tries to do good, but he couldn’t.
It’s sin in you, it’s not you who sin, okay, I can go with that. But then he goes to chapter 8 just before that, but thanks be to Christ. For those who are in Christ are under no condemnation. And then those who are, those who have, Those who have His Spirit will walk by the Spirit and not according to the flesh. And I couldn’t. How am I walking in the Spirit? I’m walking, I can’t, I’m a slave. I could not identify with chapter eight. So I knew something was wrong. And I knew I wasn’t saved.
So the question is, is God real? Jesus says, if you ask a father for a fish, what kind of father would give you a snake? And those verses came to my mind, I’m like, God. I’m asking for something and you’re giving me this. I’m enslaved. So I questioned his existence. I thought Satan was maybe God. He wrote the Bible to torture people on earth. All those things. And eventually, even not believing in God at all. Evolution is true.
Random accident. You were very confused and your life was in your early 20s? It was my early 20s. And you were still going to church? Yes, yes. I was also joining the reserves military, so I wouldn’t go to church as often because training and so on. But the sermons were not answering any of these questions you had? Really? Well, I went to Catholicism class. I did not do confession of faith at the normal time. So I did a post-confession class where I went to the minister’s house. And he actually introduced me to Creation magazine.
Oh yes, uh-huh. And I devoured those. Sure. So that sort of allowed me to, okay, there are answers. Yeah. But it did not prove anything, right? No, sure. But I knew that God was real because the chance actually just didn’t make sense. Yeah. It was obvious through just looking around. Yeah. So you’re sort of starting to come back now actually there are answers, creation is true, there really is a God, but I still have this besetting sin, besides all the other sins. I was not aware of any other sins. I was a pretty good person. It was only later, afterwards, that I started realizing that there was worse than that. This was my identity, I was enslaved. I was enslaved.
So then you came across Romans 7 and 8? No, I would not say that that was my defining moment. It was just that I came across passages such as that. And same with those who believe in Jesus have crossed from death to life. That kind of idea that I kept seeing, I could not identify with that. It didn’t fit in my experience, even though I was taught that I was fine because I was baptized, I was in the covenant, just stay faithful, even though, yeah. So I struggled a lot with that, and I started to be angry with God, like many times, crying out to God. It was a cry, and He was not answering, and then I thought, I was not elect. And oh boy, did my heart sink. Oh boy. God’s not answering, He doesn’t care. That’s a danger, isn’t it? That’s terrible. Yeah, it was terrible. But you know what?
So there are people who think that and then say, well, then I’m going to live my life the way I want to live. Sure. If I’m elected, I’m elected. If I’m not elected, I’m not elected. I can do nothing about it. Yeah. But that obviously didn’t plague you forever because you then eventually got saved, right? So my thought was, well, If I’m going to hell and God doesn’t reward or punish according to what you do, I better do as good as I can. At least my time in hell won’t be as bad as some other people. That was my thought process. But yeah, there were times where I just wanted to end my life. Yeah, I didn’t want to live, because life sucked. I had no hope. I was a slave.
So you could see no way out of your sin, and the church wasn’t offering you any hope because you’re not elect. I did not look at that as the church was failing me. I kept going because I believed the Word of God. It’s just that what they were preaching was not always consistent with what I was seeing.
But that didn’t matter. That wasn’t a click in my mind. It was, okay, the Word of God is saying this. I’m trying to apply it to my life. Because I took it as real. So then what was the kind of aha moment that moved you from this place of condemnation to seeing Christ as the answer? So there was other things going on in my life that play a role, but basically one night I made a I deal with God, kind of.
I was at the end, I was like, Lord, if I sin for the next three months, I was already seeing her, not seeing her, but thinking about asking her to go out with me. But I had this problem, I’m like, this is going to affect my marriage. Marriage is not going to solve this problem. So I said, Lord, if I sin one more time in the next three months, I want you to kill me. And I won’t ask her until three months are over.
And I think I fasted for a day, maybe that day or before. But I was in tears. I was crying. That was probably my last cry. I don’t know. I don’t know what would happen if he didn’t respond. But anyways, I went to sleep sad and defeated. But I woke up the next morning and…
You just knew, eh? Yeah, I don’t know how to describe it, but God, he was there. He basically put his head, it’s not physical, it was no voice, but I knew that he said, you’re done. And I knew it was Jesus. And I knew that I was not gonna struggle with this anymore. I knew. Amen. Yeah. Ever since then, I have peace with God. Amen.
So, that’s when you asked Leanne out. Three months after that. Three months. I made a covenant, or a promise to God. Sure. And he sent me the first day, and I had to wait three months. And I thought she was going to leave the BC and be gone forever. It was threatening him. Now, so were you saved at that stage? No. Oh, okay. But I didn’t know it. Oh, wow.
Yeah, so I grew up in the church, and I believed the Bible. I believed that Jesus died for sinners, and I was a sinner, so Jesus died for me. Sure. Right? I didn’t put a whole lot of thought into it, though, growing up. So you kind of gave mental assent to all the… Yeah, yeah. I believed what I was taught. So you were theologically orthodox and everything. I was sound. Yeah. Soundly lost. That’s right. And had no idea. And I wasn’t really convicted about sin or anything. I knew I was a sinner, but Jesus covered that, right? So it’s stupid. Yeah. Yeah. So you were like fully involved in the youth and the church or whatever. Yeah.
And would most of your friends have been in the same position as you, do you think? So hard to say. It’s so hard to say, like even talking to my family members after I’ve been saved. You know, I think that maybe I was the only one that didn’t get it. So what does that say? I don’t know. I don’t know. I’m not comfortable making that assessment. But I mean, we went to the private Christian school and judging by the fruit of what was going on during high school, these were not saved kids. So you were both at the same private Christian school? Yes. And this is run by your church? Yes.
Yeah, well that can be the thing sometimes, you just put all the Christians together and it’s a Christian environment and everybody’s a Christian, but put them out into the real world and you suddenly find out whether or not they really are Christian. Right, yeah. You can shelter people and it sort of can hide the truth sometimes. But it doesn’t change the heart. Exactly.
So I’m really thankful for the home that I grew up in. The word of God was taken seriously. We read the Bible together at least twice a day, my entire growing up years, and took it seriously. A holy life was important, and honoring the Lord, and all that, right? That’s great. In today’s world, that’s precious. Very thankful for my upbringing.
Yeah, so then we got married, and It wasn’t until after we started having kids that I actually had a conviction of sin. Wow. Because I was tired and I had little kids, and I was not being a very nice mom. I mean, I wasn’t even living up to my own standard of what a mom should be, never mind God’s. And what convicted me was that It’s a little bit embarrassing. For the first time in my life, I actually tried to be good. Okay. Because I always kind of had it in my head that if I try, I will be able to. Sure. But I wasn’t too worried about, you know, selfishness or critical thoughts or like that kind of thing, right? So I never actually tried to quit. Yeah.
So then I tried really hard to do what was right, and I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t do it, and I was so convicted, and I really felt like God didn’t like me. God still loved the world, so I mean, obviously He loved me because I’m part of the world, but He did not like me, and He was certainly not pleased with me. because you were losing your temper with your kids or whatever? That’s right, because I wasn’t good enough. I wasn’t good enough, and I definitely couldn’t feel that. So you felt condemned? Yeah. And were you angry at God for that? No, I felt like it was right, but also I was really hurting. Yeah, because what can I do?
I actually often thought of John, right? John was the special friend of Jesus. I just felt like I was the opposite. I was probably the last person he wanted to hang out with. And so were you sharing this with Hendrick, or this was all inside? I was aware she was struggling. It was coming out, yeah. And I was concerned that she might leave the faith. I remember, I didn’t know she was unsaved. We didn’t talk in those terms. We don’t talk like that. In our church, we never talked about being born again, or salvation, or getting saved. But you assumed she was a Christian, right? Right, yeah.
So she was doubting, and I would hear that, and we’d talk a lot of things. Oh yeah, and Hendrik had this complete assurance that he belonged to God, and I was very jealous of that, because I didn’t think that was fair. If that’s possible to have, then why couldn’t I have that? So those were the first stirrings of actual thought. So did you ask him, how could I have the same peace that you have? Um, I kind of asked like, how come, you know, for sure, or how can you be so sure? Right.
But again, like we, even you weren’t thinking of terms of being born again. Like you didn’t even think at that time of your experience of deliverance as being born again, as being saved. You didn’t know that. No. Until I started looking into baptism.
That’s when those terms starts clicking together and you’re like, that’s what happened. Yeah. Yeah. See, and that’s what started going on is that you started, I mean, we started researching so many biblical things and you started seeing a lot of things, but eventually it brought us to baptism. What is baptism? Is infant baptism right? What does the covenant mean and all that stuff? So we’re talking about theology all the time at the same time that I’m feeling this stuff. Yeah, good.
And there’s also a time when you had miscarriage and that helped Yeah, I also had quite a number of miscarriages and, um, on our first, on our first miscarriage, then I ended up going into the hospital and I was there alone because it wasn’t what I expected to happen.
And then, um, yeah, I, I phoned you kind of in a, in a panic. And so after like everything had been confirmed, I was in my room by myself and I phoned you, I was like, I need you to come now. Like, this is, yeah, kind of panicky. And then, uh. And then I prayed, I hung up, sorry, because I got the voice message, so I left him a voice message. And then I prayed and I said, God, I just need you to hold me.
And he did. He did. It was physical. It was the most amazing experience of my life. And I remember thinking, if it took this to feel God, it was worth it. So, then I knew He was real and that He loved me. Like, His love for me was so overwhelming. And I think that’s the first glimpse that God of His reality and His care.
But that was not salvation. No, no. So, yeah, that definitely gave me the desire. But that was a powerful experience. Yeah. in such sadness and despair and loneliness, to know that God is there. He was there, and He wasn’t enjoying it either. You know, when it says that He has our tears in a bottle? Believe that. He weeps with us. He doesn’t enjoy the brokenness of the world either.
Anyway, then I phoned you back and I said, I’m OK. Come when you can. Just that peace. I was like, it’s OK. Yeah, but then we kept talking about baptism and all these things, and then we became quite convinced that believers’ baptism was biblical baptism. So then COVID hit. Oh, right, so this is quite recent. Yes, it is, yeah.
And then we were sort of looking around-ish, starting to think, okay, well, if we’re not Canadian Reformed, then what are we gonna do? And starting to think about being baptized, which is funny, because I’m not saved yet. Oh, because, because, yeah, okay, so because you are now convinced that believers’ baptism is the way the Canadian Reformed Church was like, maybe not the place we should be going. Well, I first thought I was just gonna baptize and continue on. But I started actually talking to ministers, and this is what I’m seeing. and I start realizing that we’re not compatible.
Not from my point, but from their point. And our church was shut down because of COVID. So you can watch online, but that’s, so we started. In some ways, COVID gave us the opportunity to check something else out because then our church wouldn’t know we weren’t showing up or going somewhere else.
The providence of the Lord. Yeah, exactly. So where did you end up going and getting saved or how did it happen? Yeah, so we knew, we had friends in the hall here. But we ended up looking it up online and thinking, okay, this is worth checking out, let’s see. So this is the Gospel Hall in Rose Isle? This is in Rose Isle, yeah. It’s 20 minutes from our home.
We always had discussions in the way back from church, and she had logical problems with some of the teachings. I wasn’t thinking about leaving the church, because Paul says that fellow makers, you don’t hang out with other people. And one of the things was 1 Corinthians 14, about believers, they all partake, and one or two stands up. And I was seeing a minister preaching, and we had him for 16 years. And it was getting, you know, you get old after a while. And I was looking around the church and I see some brothers here. I bet they could have a message too. But if they got up, they would get taken down.
And I said that to Leanne. And she turned to me and said, there’s no church like that. And I’m like, yeah, you’re right. So I just put that away. And then she checked out the Gospel Hall website and it actually talked about that. And she turns to Hendrick. what you’re seeing is right here. And this is very special to me because she was reformed to the core, and I couldn’t convince her mind, and I was really praying to God too to show her the truth of helping her. Not for salvation, but yeah, I knew something was wrong with her. Yeah, so anyway, that’s why we ended up checking him out, because I said to Hendrik, like, this is what you’ve been talking about for three years. And we live in the middle of nowhere. That’s amazing.
So you had seen in 1 Corinthians 14 that church in the New Testament had an open element to it where someone could bring a psalm, someone could bring a hymn, someone could bring a prayer, someone could bring a message. Then you’re thinking, we’ve been listening to the one man for 16 years, that doesn’t match up. And then you found this church in Rose Isle. where the believers meet together to break bread, and there’s people, there’s congregational participation in the worship, and you’re thinking, this is what I’m reading in the Bible. So you visited them for doctrinal reasons.
Yes. Not even because I want to be saved, it’s just because this is a scriptural church. 100%. Okay. But it’s funny because we ended up going to a gospel meeting because we didn’t know there was any, like in our church, there’s the morning service, the afternoon service, and they’re pretty much the same. So it worked for us to go to the one that started at that time at seven, right? Yeah, so I went the week before just to check it out before to send the family with. Well done. Okay, yeah. That’s good. So then my first time going was a gospel meeting, but we didn’t know that. We just showed up to church. So their evening service, as it would normally call, was specifically for preaching the gospel, which was wonderful. That’s what you needed. You say on the first day.
Wow! Yeah! The preacher said that if you can take God at His word when He says that sinners are condemned, then you can take Him at His word when He says Jesus died for you. Amen! And it clicked. It’s the same with everybody. It just … Yeah. Yeah. And I felt the peace of God that night, and as we drove home that night I said to Andrew, I wonder if this will last. And it has! I was rejoicing in it because I knew … She has peace. This is it. Yeah.
So actually it took me quite a while to admit what happened because even then we weren’t thinking of terms of born again. I didn’t think that I was unsaved. No. Right. And I was also a little bit annoyed maybe that It happened there, and it couldn’t have happened growing up all those years. Because it’s not like we don’t teach that Christ died for sinners. And we were not even thinking about leaving Reformed Church. But it was a possibility, and you did not like the idea. Wow, it was very hard with my family.
Yeah, sure, absolutely. It’s what you’ve always known. So then, of course, baptism started making a lot more sense. Yeah. I can totally resonate with that because I understood Christ didn’t die for his own sins, he died for mine one evening in my teenage years, but I’d had sort of several goes at being saved before. Okay. And so, you know, if you’d have asked me that night, have you been saved? I would have just thought I understood the death of Christ better than I understood it before, but then as time went by, I thought, no, that’s when you’re going to say, because that’s Christ, before it’s me praying.
100%. Yeah, it became personal, right? I saw him. And then the verse that became so special to me was, this is my beloved son. With him, I’m well pleased. And I realized that It wasn’t my job to please God. Jesus did that. Amen. And just the rest in that was incredible. That’s well, very well put. The Lord helped you put that well. Yeah. So we have about 15 minutes left, which is probably not very long for you guys, but I did, at some point you told me you got to say like a week apart. And you were first? Yes. So you’ve told us the kind of church you’re brought up in and the sort of extreme view on election and nobody isn’t really sure. So what on earth happened for you to sort of come out of that into being the happy, saved Christian that you are today?
Well, it’s a rather long story, so I’ll try to still it down a little bit. We had friends that were at the RCNA, the Dutch reform that I was part of and their family, they had family move to a few miles away from us. Okay. And they, When they moved, me being a helpful neighbor, it’s just how I like to do things, neighbor moves, you go and help him. Neighbor moves in, family of a friend, you go and help him. Well, that started a very good friendship, and they would do Bible study with us, but we still struggled with election. because… And they’re in your same church? That family, they were of the same church, but they left the RCNA and joined the gospel hall in Mitchell.
In Manitoba. In Manitoba. Because just changing churches or they got saved and changed churches? They got saved in Ontario. Okay. And they didn’t really have a financial future in Ontario. They had a large family, a very large family, and they didn’t have a financial future in Ontario. So they said, you know what, we have her sister living in Manitoba. It’s nice to live close to family. So they moved to Manitoba. They got baptized and and joined the Gospel Hall in Manitoba. And they invited us over a fair number of times for Bible study. They started going through, I believe it was the Book of John. Gospel of John. The Gospel of John, yes. And they had invited us over for hymn sings. I absolutely love singing.
But nothing really clicked. And we’d met a fair number of times, and they invited us along to meetings here in Rose Isle, and I didn’t know that it was going to be a sermon. But when I realized that, I went up along because I thought it was going to be somebody telling his life story of a radical change. And I was interested in that because a life story is always interesting. Biographies or autobiographies are interesting. But when I realized it was a sermon, I had the checklist, the mental checklist that our church drummed in of this and that and that all need to be part of the sermon.
To determine the soundness of the preacher. So you’re not talking about the structure, you’re talking about the content. The content. The content had to be rigid inside this boundary. If it’s outside of this, it’s… Free willism. Free willism. Potential for delusion.
So I looked at that and by God’s grace This entire checklist got completely checked off. Oh, okay and Kelsey and I went there after again, we got invited back to Rose Isle for Supper and come out for meeting again, but And this was one of the first times that I’d ever truly heard the gospel, the truth of the love of God. And it sat, I kind of mull it over, but I wasn’t happy in the Dutch Reformed because there was a lot of things that I was questioning and a lot of things I was fighting with. But then a few months later, that was in March, I believe that was, a few months later in September, the Mitchell assembly had, the Mitchell church had gospel meetings a few miles from our house, halfway in between our friends and our place. And We were, we said, you know what, we’ll support our friends because the entire rest of the community isn’t going to come out. Okay. There were a few here and there, but. There’s not very many total people. No. There’s very few people that, out that way. So we were like, you know what, we’ll support them. We’ll, we’ll go there. And.
I very much knew about sin. I knew that I was damned unless by chance I was an elect. But this was the first time that the gospel was on repeat. It wasn’t just one message here and think about it. No, it was a message. And then the next night, and again, and again, the next night from a different angle, but the same from both evangelists, it was the same message from different points. And oh, I love the singing, but singing doesn’t matter. It matters what’s in the heart.
So it was starting to get through to you this… It wasn’t truly getting through, but it was starting to percolate in. And it was a Saturday in the Gospel meetings that I was… The Saturday, the end of the first week. The end of the first week, that’s right. I was heading home and yes, it was night, but all was blackness. Like, it speaks in the 10 plagues of Egypt of the utter blackness that the Egyptians were under.
I had this in my mind. I could not comprehend the gospel messages. I could not comprehend the good news. And I knew I was damned. I knew there was zero hope for me, for myself. And I pulled over and I parked and I prayed, God, I know nothing. I cannot understand nothing. I cannot go on.
I don’t understand, but I know your word is true and Lord help my unbelief. And it wasn’t instant. It wasn’t immediate. I struggled. And I couldn’t, I could not grasp it. It was utter blackness in my mind. I went to two more gospel meetings. I thought, there might be a little bit of something for me, but I still, I dared not grasp it. I could not accept it, even though it was a free gift. And they had… Why did you feel like you couldn’t accept it? Because I did not believe that I could accept the words of the Bible, even though I knew the Bible was true, I did not believe that I could just take.
Because of your theological background. Because of my theological background. So you’re struggling with your sin, and then you’re hindered by this, am I elect or not, and here’s salvation sitting ready for the taking, but you daren’t put your hand out.
Absolutely. And I was struggling with it, and I said to friends, I think there might be a chance that this might be for me, but I still did not dare. And it didn’t matter how many times friends that came there would would go through the passages and say, just believe. I could not believe. I had a block.
But then driving home on the third evening after the gospel meeting, I had just left the hall and a sentence from one of the Psalters that Was very familiar with I’d been singing them my whole life One sentence Lord thou has greatly blessed our land and Like I was greatly blessed our land. It comes. Okay. Yeah, it comes out of Psalm 85 and I Knew the entire tune right the entire musical tune. Did you only sing Psalms in your church? Yes. Yeah, okay. I knew the entire tune but That was the only sentence I had.
And I was like, well, feelings don’t matter. Feelings are not something you can stake eternity on. But I couldn’t figure out anything more than just that sentence. Then when I got home, my wife and daughters were already asleep at home. And I tried to find it, but I couldn’t find it.
But Psalm 45 came to my mind. When I was searching, my heart doth overflow. A goodly theme is mine. My eager tongue with joyful song doth praise the King Divine. And this was, it was another layer of feeling, but I couldn’t trust that. And then I found the one I couldn’t find before, and it continued, Thou hast brought back our captive band.
Thy pardoning grace has made us free and covered our iniquity. Now truth agrees with mercy mild, now law and peace are reconciled. Behold, the truth from earth arrives with justice shining from the skies. The Lord will send his blessing down and harvest, all our land shall crown. Before him righteousness abides, and in his steps our feet he guides. And this was beginning to to resonate in my soul, resonate that there was a chance, a very real chance, but I still wasn’t sure. And we always turned music on so that some people have white noise playing so that their children go to sleep.
We did hymns and music, psalms, and I stepped through the door to the last half of the last verse of the Dutch version of the Psalms, Psalm 73, which corresponds to verse 28 of Psalm 73. And the first half of this verse speaks of who is He who is far from God or seeks his his his fortune far from God is Is going to be lost Verse 27 of Psalm 73 goes for lo they that are far from thee shall perish thou has destroyed all them that go whoring from thee and this this was in Dutch and it was slightly rephrased and Give us the Dutch. You want it in Dutch? Yeah, I love it. That was the first half. It spoke of destruction to those that turned their back to God. And I didn’t walk in on that. The Lord be praised that I did not walk in.
Oh yes, this is playing in the hymn. Yes, yes. It’s playing More damnation. More damnation. But by the grace of God, I walked in on verse 28, the last half of the psalm, of the verse of the psalm, where it continues in English, but it is good for me to draw near to God. I have put my trust in the Lord God that I may declare all thy works. in Dutch, maar het is mijn goed, mijn zalig slot, my destiny, nabij te wezen bij mijn god, ik vertrouw op hem, geheel en al, den heer wiens werk ik roemen zal, whose work I will glory.
And I heard this and I knew the verse very, very well. But it clicked. All of a sudden, heavenly joy, heavenly glory, all the entire darkness, and I still had darkness till I walked in on that, but it was all banished. And what in particular from that was the moment, like I would never dream again and say through that verse?
It was, it was the drawing near, but it is my good, my blessed destiny. That’s the translation of it. It is my good, it is my blessed destiny to be close to my God. To be close. And to trust. And to trust. I didn’t realize that it was the trust, but It was the drawing near.
And then the last sentence, I trust completely in him, totally, utterly. As it says in English, I have put my trust in the Lord God. And this is the word of God saying, this is your destiny. That was my destiny. In other words, God is saying, you don’t need to worry. This is supposed to be for you.
And I knew. The joy I had. It continued. Amazing. I knew that feelings don’t do it. Oh, no, no, but they come. But also, they come. But after that, I also spoke with another gentleman. And you know, 1 John chapter 5. There is knowledge. Verse 13, These things have I written unto you, that believe on the name of the Son of God, that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God. This is a certain knowledge. And I knew, eternally secure. Praise the Lord. Amen.
Now, our faithful camera team has been here since eight o’clock this morning, and we’re now at suppertime, but we wanna hear what happened to you, Kelsey, because you got saved the next week. So, did you see this dramatic thing happen to Hendrick? I did, but at the time, I wasn’t sure if I could believe it, if I could trust it, or if he was just…
Because you had the same theological background. Yes, pretty much. And were you also thinking, What if I’m not elect? Yes, I would say when I was 14, then I realized it’s not about which church you’re attending. You have to be born again. And where did you learn that? Um, through the, the preaching in the strict Baptist chapel, as well as, um, being taught by my parents, I guess my mother, particularly, she was homeschooling us and we did. And your mother was saved?
Um, yes, but struggled with assurance. Um, and then when I was 17 is when I realized I was a sinner, me personally, and I knew that Jesus came to save sinners, but he came to save the elect, right? So I didn’t know that he came for me. So, and I guess I would really struggle with knowing whether God loved me or not. Because part of our upbringing is, God only loves the elect, right? He hates the others. So all the verses of telling of God’s love, including John 3, 16, are for the elect. For those who love the word of the elect. Yes, so basically from the time I was 17 till 29, I was wondering whether God loved me or not. Wow.
And I guess at that point, There’s the outward call of the gospel that we were taught, and the effectual call, so waiting for this effectual call. You don’t know it. Yeah, for those people that don’t know, the outward call is the kind of general invitation, but only the elect get this effectual call, and if you don’t get that, you can’t know you’re elect. Yeah, you can’t be saved. You’re familiar with that? Not put that way, no. Okay, well, I hope that’s the correct interpretation. Yes, yes. So you spent 12 pretty worrying years. Yes, yeah.
And especially like after I became a mother, right? I have these precious little souls to guide. Are they all right? Well, no, I wasn’t quite worrying about that, but I was like, how can I teach them about God when I don’t know about God? So, Yes, that was a heavier burden to bear. And… Oh, so this time, so by this time you’re married to Henry, you’ve got kids, but neither of you are saved? Correct. Okay, and then he goes and gets saved. Yes, and we had, so we had a three-year-old, a two-year-old, and a six-month-old at this point during the gospel meetings close to our house. And this is in 2021? 2022. And then, yeah, so he went and got saved. And I was, at that point, I was more than ready to be saved. I just didn’t know how to get saved. So I was, yes, I was just struggling, trying to get saved, and I didn’t know how.
So were you telling Kelsey, this is all you have to do, you just have to believe in Christ? No, because you couldn’t really put it into words yourself, right? I definitely couldn’t put it into words. I still struggle putting it into words. Because the teaching, the indoctrination, still makes it very, very difficult to talk about salvation. But I know in whom I have believed. Amen.
So you were, in a sense, on your own, because he was so new to it. So were you going to these gospel meetings in the community at all? Not every night, but as often as I could make it out with the three little ones, of course. Sure. Yeah. And then, yeah, so after he got saved, then I really felt hopeless, I guess, because I was left behind, right? You know, one is taken and one is left. Yeah. And then… You’re doing well, by the way. You’re doing really, really well. So, just take a deep breath, and the Lord will help you get it out. If you want one of these, you’re welcome.
I’ll need one at some point, yeah. Yes, it was a Sunday night, and I’d been to another gospel meeting, and I just couldn’t figure out how to get saved. That night when I went to bed and I would just finally, a final prayer, Lord, I give up. I can’t. And I will be done. And then I fell asleep. And in the morning when I woke up, then of course, the first thought, you know, my poor soul. And then I heard with, you know, still small voice in my soul, Jeremiah 31 verse 3, I have loved thee with an everlasting love, and therefore with loving kindness have I drawn thee.
And just like that, assurance, absolutely. Wow. Amazing. And what was even more amazing for me, because this was Monday morning, and Kelsey didn’t tell me, We had gone Saturday night as a family of three small children and Sunday night as a family. And you’ve had children yourself. You know how it is with young children that late night they get crabby.
And I was working in a butcher shop at that time and I came home just in time. I could wolf down supper and quickly jump through the shower and rush off, because now I wanted to be at the gospel meeting, because it was wonderful. I loved it. And I plop down, I start wolfing down supper, and Kelsey rushes out because she needs to be back in the house to take care of the children. I had chores to do outside, yeah. Okay.
When I’m gone, and she’s back in a flash, chores are done, And she plops down on the kitchen chair beside me and says, we’re going to gospel. And I’m like, hold, of what? Who? How? This is impossible. Because three small children, they’re crabby, and we’re not going.
And all day, I’d already had another psalm going through my head. I was glad when unto me they said, let us go up to the house of God and praise. And it didn’t make sense. But Kelsey plopped down on the kitchen chair as I was finishing last bites of supper, and we’re going to gospel tonight. And I’m like, do you have something to tell me? And that’s when she told me that she had found salvation too.
What a blessed thing. Amen. Two saved in 24 hours, eh? Husband and wife. It was a week to the day. Oh, a week later. Okay. Well, that’s even amazing. My wife’s sister and brother got saved in 24 hours when they were in their 40s. Yeah. But isn’t the Word of God amazing?
The earlier episodes today, we had a lot of Ephesians 2.8, we had a lot of John 19.30, you know, and here we are in Psalm 73. Jeremiah 31. Yeah, Jeremiah, I have loved thee. But you see, You didn’t think God loved you.
Exactly. For all those years. And God only loves the elect. And Jesus only died for these select people. Now you’re like, I don’t know anything about that, but I do know the Bible says, I’ve loved you with everlasting love. And that is salvation, isn’t it? When you see Christ’s love took him to the cross.
Wonderful. Wow, your lives must have been so turned upside down. Yeah. Yeah, amazing. Well, we are out of time. I’d love to go on to the next. We could talk all night, couldn’t we, about all the other things, but thank you so much, Henrik, Leanne, Kelsey, Henrik, two Henriks with two red beards. It’s been great having you on and I just hope a lot of people listen to this and able to cut through and see what real salvation is and the real love of Christ and that salvation is for the whosoever will, and there’s no limits on that in anybody.
And it’s always Christ. He has to be the center. Exactly. And don’t give up. Jesus holds, his words are true. He says, all those who seek will find. It took me a while. It was a journey, but Jesus says, in regards to prayer, to be like that woman who’s looking for justice, to persist. And when the light dawns, you’re not looking back at those 12 years, oh, I lost all those years, and it’s terrible. You’re like, well, it was worth the wait. Now I have the real thing. Now the real. I hope more people don’t have to go through 12 years of wondering. No, no. And that’s where it is, too, with the whosoever.
Romans 5.18, I believe I mentioned that before.
Even so, by the righteousness of one, the free gift came upon all men. What a blessed thing that it came for me, that it came for my wife, that if it could come for me and for Hendrik, it can come for anyone. And you don’t need to wait to hear if you’re one of this group or specially selected.
The Bible says Christ died for our sins. He gave himself a ransom for all. The Lord desires all men to be saved. And it’s only the perverse mind of man that says, well, that’s just all the elect or that’s just all this group. No, it’s all. It’s whosoever. Well, thank you very much. We’ve had a call of the day. Thank you for coming on. God bless you all.