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By D.E.T. Evenhuis
I was born in post-war Holland in 1949, the younger son of Reinder and
Hermina
Evenhuis. A few years prior to my birth, my parents had been in the
Dutch
underground, a dangerous vocation indeed. They had further jeopardized
their
lives by hiding a man for years in a wall cavity of their home. Father
too
experienced a Nazi prison while our nation reeled under a massive
destruction of
life and property.
Yet there was one particular matter that disturbed my father
more than any other, the brutal and senseless murder of almost all of
Europe’s
Jews. Holland and other nations too lost up to 98% of their Jewish
community. My
father’s search for answers as to why this heinous holocaust
had taken place
was fruitless until he attended a birthday party in 1947.
There two men startled
him by insisting that the Jewish people were still in covenant
relationship with
God. Since childhood my parents had been taught that because the Jews
had
rejected Jesus, God had in turn rejected them and had replaced them
with the
Church. Carefully these two men showed further just how flawed this
replacement
theology was. They revealed to him from the Bible that God fully
intended
bringing the Jews back to their land and back to Himself. Father went
home armed
with a list of Scriptures, which after careful study, fully persuaded
him as to
the rightness of the testimony of these two brethren.
Now he understood that
Hitler along with Pharaoh, and Haaman and Herod were instruments under
satanic
control in the devil’s on-going but vain attempt to thwart
God’s plans. Now
for the first time my father realised the error of teaching that
God’s
covenant with Israel was subject to sin or circumstance.
“Thus saith the
LORD, which giveth the sun for a light by day, and the ordinances of
the moon
and of the stars for a light by night, which divideth the sea when the
waves
thereof roar; The LORD of hosts is his name: If those ordinances depart
from
before me, saith the LORD, then the seed of Israel also shall cease
from being a
nation before me for ever. Thus saith the LORD; If heaven above can be
measured,
and the foundations of the earth searched out beneath, I will also cast
off all
the seed of Israel for all that they have done, saith the
LORD” (Jeremiah 31:35-37)
When I was a toddler my
parents immigrated to
Tasmania, Australia. My earliest memories take me back to the family
altar where upon my father’s knees I was taught to love and
trust
God. My father’s love for God shone out in his love for my
mother, and the family. Every meal time was accompanied with a reading
from God’s word. He always maintained a loving care for the
Jewish people and prayed steadfastly for their salvation and for the
peace of Jerusalem.
After finishing my schooling, my father who was an excellent
smallgoods-maker, taught me his trade. My brother and sister; fourteen
and eleven years my senior, had long since married and moved to the
south of our island. In 1969 I met my true love Phyllis and we were
married in 1971. We were soon blessed with five precious children;
Maria, Lazlo, Daniel, Jared and Samuel.
We were also blessed with good business opportunities and were in full
swing when out lives took a sudden turn. Only three days after
Samuel’s birth and upon my thirtieth birthday, the Lord
called
us. We immediately sold out home and business and moved to Melbourne.
In 1980 we began our work in the Jewish community. I also travelled
extensively, nationally and internationally. Our ministry was twofold.
We sought the good for Israel, shared the gospel with Jewish people and
taught about bible prophecy in churches. These were years of great
opportunity and we saw, heard and learned so much through experiences
as diverse as sitting with remote Aboriginal tribal leaders and sitting
down with the President of Israel in his home.
In 1988 we were called back home. I was now able to return to my work
as a grazier of a property purchased by us as an investment before
leaving in 1980. After Samuel’s birth, Phyillis began to have
trouble with her voice. This puzzled us and the doctors, but a decade
and many symptoms later, Phyllis was diagnosed as having
‘Multiple Sclerosis.’ We are daily proving the
blessedness
of trusting in God in every situation. It was so good that after a very
busy eight years in Melbourne, we could now return to the quietness of
our country home. We were also much blessed in being able to care for
my ageing parents. By 1990 they had both passed away.
After fifty four years of marriage father survived mother by only tem
weeks. That same year we published a book dedicated to the memory of my
father entitled ‘Israel’s Destiny.’ The
quieter
lifestyle too afforded us far more time with our growing family as we
saw them through school, college and university and into their
vocations. These are wonderful times when the whole family comes home.
As it was in my father’s house, the family altar still
stands.
Here too the Jewish people are remembered as we too earnestly pray for
them and the peace of Jerusalem. We just love being grandparents.
I was lead to write ‘Holy Matrimony’ by events that
took
place in 1984. Beginning in August that year and in the space of twenty
one days, I experienced three separate encounters of a spiritual
nature, My first came in our bedroom while my Bible lay open upon my
lap and Phyllis lay beside me asleep. The second was in a hotel room in
Athens and the third in the Judean hills. We could say a great deal
about these experiences but it is our earnest desire to build upon
God’s word and not upon the personal experience of a man. It
will
suffice to say that even as my father learned that Israel’s
adulteries could in no way dissolve the covenant between God and they,
so too have we learned that a man’s marriage covenant with
his
wife is not subject to sin. Death and death alone can dissolve that
oneness spoken into being by Almighty God. “The
two shall be one,” “they shall no more be
two,” “the wife is bound to her husband as long as
her husband shall live.”
In a previous quotation from Scripture, we heard God calling upon the
sun, moon, stars and earth to bare witness to the immutability of His
covenant with the house of Israel. In the same way the Son calls upon
heaven and earth to witness to the fact that the marriage of
“whosoever” is governed by the same eternal
principle. And it is easier for heaven and earth to pass,
than one tittle of the law to fail. Whosoever putteth away his wife,
and marrieth another, committeth adultery: and whosoever marrieth her
that is put away from her husband committeth adultery. Luke
16:17-18
Recently, a team of men and we felt that these principles should be
committed to record. We asked the Lord to confirm to us His will in the
matter by giving us fifty believers to stand with us in this most
sensitive of ministries. We then reverently set before the Lord a
deadline, and with only one day to go, we only had forty nine names. On
the final day, one more letter arrived making the number exactly fifty.
Thus this book was written and scrutinised by God-fearing people.
We give our special thanks to all involved. We now humbly present this
work to you and wish you the rich blessing of Israel’s
covenant
keeping God.
“For this God is our God forever and
ever” Psalm 48:14
© Copyright Dirk Evenhuis. The book Holy Matrimony is
protected by
Australian copyright law. No part of the book may be used or
distributed for commercial reasons without the written permission of
the author Dirk Evenhuis.
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