The line of separation between God's children and those who do not fear God must be drawn. The preacher must also take into account the different standings, which, according to God's Word, exist in spiritual life. But then we are not yet finished.

After all, not only are there different shades on the right-hand side of the great line of separation, namely among God's children, but also on the left-hand side of the line of separation, among the uncon­verted, everyone's condition is not the same! In this regard, it is interesting to note what our fathers re­marked when they were together on November 3, 1568, at Wezel, under the leadership of Petrus Datheen, to draw up a few initial rules for church life. We read the following in Article 23 (of the second chapter) of the Articles of Wezel: "Everything shall be directed towards these two chief segments of the Gospel, namely, faith and repentance. And therein the preachers shall have in view as their only goal the knowledge of Christ and diligently teach the true mortification and quickening of the people. With their sermons they shall labor to penetrate, as much as is possible, into all covered veils and hiding places of the souls of the hearers, and rebuke all false opinions and heresies and evil morals; and not only pause at gross offenses and evident sins, but also shake out that hidden hypocrisy of the heart, and bring to light from it and destroy most thoroughly the seed and that miry pool of all kinds of wickedness, pride, and unthankfulness, which still have their nourishment and motion even in the very best." One can find the above quotation in the Kerkelijk Handboekje, published by Rev. G. H. Kersten, pp.19,20. Emphasis are mine.

It is certainly clear what Datheen and his brothers wanted to say with this article in Wezel. Preaching has to be discovering. The minister should not just speak to the unconverted in general, as if they are all alike; also in pointing out sin he should not be superficial and stick to evident sins! No, preaching has to penetrate into the hiding places of the souls of the hearers, and the secret, hypocrisy of the heart has to be shaken out. In regard to this the Council of Wesel did remark: "As much as is pos­sible." After all, breaking and converting hearts is God's work. By quoting the Wezelian article just mentioned, we wanted to make clear that preaching must also separate on the left-hand side, that is, among those hearers who do not fear God. Just as there are so many shades among God's children, do we not also find many different types among the unconverted hearers as well?

There are those who are indifferent. They are present in every congregation. They are among the baptized members, but they are also among the (professing) members. There are among our young people some, who, at house-visitation, say, without a trace of emotion, that they do not believe that there is a God, and who admit that they no longer pray or thank. Many of them have turned their back on the church and have become fanatical enemies and religious nihilists. Sometimes they are listed on the register of baptized members, sometimes they have already been taken off. Such persons have always been there, but their number increases in these last days. Some of them still come to church for various reasons and are sitting under the Word. We may not forget, however, that indifference is not limited to our baptized members. The Gallio-types can also be found among the confess­ing members. Is it not frightening to hear a ninety-year-old, when asked on house-visitation where the jour­ney is going, answer that he does not bother with that? Well, the preaching shall also have to have a message for such people. It will have to be the awful message of Amos 6:1: "Woe to them that are at ease in Zion, and trust in the mountain of Samaria."

On the other hand there are the emotional types. These are the Orpahs, who go along, oh, so far, out of the Moab of the world. When a word to the heart is spoken, they are quickly touched. They sometimes even love God's people, just as Orpah had a certain respect for Naomi. Sometimes they cry under the preaching. They are certainly not indifferent to death and eternity. On house-visitation you can speak easily to them. And yet – all these things can be present without the true renewal of the heart. The danger is so manifestly present that such types are going to take their feelings to be faith. Usually they do not care much for a preaching that cuts off, in which everything that is outside of Christ is marked as insuffi­cient. Such daughters of Jerusalem weep so feelingly about Jesus' suffer­ing, but they forget themselves and their children, who are sitting under the Word every Sunday. In the rightly separating preaching they will also be addressed.

There are hypocrites, the people who feign. These are the ones who consciously pretend to be different from which they are. They are, Smytegelt said so often, different before God from what they are before people. For all kinds of reasons they attempt to show an appearance of godliness. Judas did it for money; he thought that godliness was gain. Others are willing to do everything in order to obtain a name among God's children. For this purpose they partake of the administration of the Holy Supper; for this purpose they visit the gatherings of God's children; they exercise themselves in the language of Canaan; but, with all that, under the sheep's clothing they carry a wolf's heart. The minister of the Word may not forget to address them, either.

There are those who deceive themselves. They should be distinguished from the hypocrites. The hypocrites mentioned above consciously deceive others; the people whom we now mean unconsciously deceive themselves. They think to possess grace, but build upon a wrong foundation. Saul of Tarsus, for instance, was no hypocrite before the Lord stopped him on the way to Damascus! He was not someone who pretended to be different from what he was. In all sincerity he was jealous for the traditions of the fathers, and in his raging against the Lord's congregation he thought to do God service. But, alas, he deceived himself in his legalistic religion in an awful manner. If God had not opened his eyes, Saul would have perished forever in outer darkness, with an imagined heaven, thinking to be a son of Abraham. Every minister has to realize that in every congregation there are still such rich young rulers.

With all this we do not mean, of course, that a minister of the Word is a knower of the heart. There is but One who knows in a perfect manner who are standing on the right-hand side and who are standing on the left-hand side of the invisible line of separation. The Lord knoweth them that are His! Neither may a preacher ever allow himself to be tempted on the pulpit to picture someone, whom he thinks to be a hypocrite, in such a manner that everyone realizes who is meant by it. Dr. T. Hoekstra, already quoted a few times by us, says about this: "In this case the application has opposite effects and does not reach its goal. Most of the hearers let the application go past them. They do not take the spiritual medicine, because they think that this is intended for someone else. And the person whom it concerns becomes bitter in most instances, instead of improved" (Gereformeerde Homiletiek, p.305). Nevertheless, every minister who understands the necessity of a separating preaching will have an eye for the fact that every one of the types mentioned (and still more than those!) are found in his congregation, and this realization will have to drive him out to the throne of grace, to understand what message the text to be preached on by him contains for every kind of hearer.