Mr. Huisjen Reading His Bible with a Magnifying Glass at the Age of 99
Last week I was privileged to conduct the funeral of a very close friend, Phil Huisjen, who was also the oldest member of our congregation. He died at the age of 101.
I love(d) this brother immensely. He was one of my favorite friends to visit. I often felt that he pastored me more than I pastored him. There was something so real, so godly, so self-effacing about his entire demeanor and conversation that I cannot put it into words. Suffice it to say, we never wasted more than a minute talking about his health or mundane things like the weather. He always wanted to talk about spiritual matters, and would often ask me questions about various theological issues he had been wrestling with. Many times we talked about faith, assurance of faith, the character of God, and especially the righteousness of Christ.
When I first began to pastor brother Huisjen nearly twenty-eight years ago, I found him to be a rather lonely man (he had lost his dear wife Lucia ten years earlier in 1977), while at the same time a contemplative brother of deep spirituality. He was a humble, sincere believer, but was still caught in the bondage of a kind of hyper-calvinistic “hard believism.” He didn’t think salvation could ever be possible for him, even though he couldn’t deny that he hated sin with passion and loved the Lord Jesus Christ as His only hope for salvation, and longed to know Him better.
What a reader he was! In those early years of pastoring him, he most commonly read William Huntington’s writings, and would comment frequently how they would give him hope at times, then dash those hopes to pieces.
Over the years, God graciously blessed preaching and pastoring to his soul to give him more hope outside of Himself in Christ alone for salvation. He once told me with tears that when I preached on the righteousness of Christ as the sum and substance of our salvation his soul could rejoice. But then he would still look back toward himself and get caught in the snares of unbelief again.
I never met a man who hated his unbelief so much as Phil Huisjen. He would openly weep over it. I still remember him sobbing in my presence, crying out, “Oh, my unbelief, my cursed, wretched unbelief; Lord, I believe, help thou mine unbelief.” Gradually, however, instead of taking ten looks at himself and one look to Christ, he began to take an equal number of looks at both himself and Christ, until the last years of his life when he truly followed the advice of Richard Baxter to take ten looks at Christ for every look at self.
For seventeen of the last twenty-eight years I pastored him over the phone as he moved to Texas to be near his daughter. Before he went to Texas, he gave me his set of Huntington’s Works, telling me that he was coming to more assurance of faith but still had a ways to go; nevertheless, he felt that there were other writers who could help him along to assurance better than Huntington. He also told me that he thought he would die soon and asked me to conduct his funeral. I gladly agreed, but neither he nor I imagined that he would live for another quarter of a century!
Mr. Huisjen went through some hard times, but his faith did not waver. He grieved greatly over the death of his two sons, David and Donald. During his Texas years, he endeared himself to his daughter Cheryl and her husband, as well as to his grandchildren, even more than before.
When he returned from Texas some years ago, it became more evident that he had come to a more settled assurance in Christ for his own soul. All those years he had listened to sermons from afar, and slowly but surely came to embrace Christ as the Surety of his own soul. His former problem that he had never seemed to have an extraordinary experience of Christ seemed to have given way to a quiet childlike faith of certitude in Christ’s righteousness.
Mr. Huisjen’s mind was strong until a day or two before he died. Two hours before he died, I asked him if he had pain. He could not speak well but clearly shook his head no. I then asked if he was resting in Christ’s righteousness alone to which he responded by mouthing the word “yes” and clearly shaking his head up and down in affirmation. I told him that though we would never see each other again on this side of the grave, that I wanted him to know that I loved him and that we would meet sin-free on the other side in glory where Christ would be all-in-all. Again he mouthed the word “yes.”
I buried my dear friend with these words, “For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain” (Phil. 1:21). His gain is our loss. I will miss him, and yet I know that He is far better off with the Lord. Phil Huisjen now has finally received his desire to focus on Christ fully and forever. Hasten the day, Lord, when the shadows will flee away, and this corruption shall put on incorruption, and this mortality shall put on immortality.
Are you too trusting in Christ and His righteousness alone for salvation? With less than that righteousness, you cannot stand before God on the great Judgment Day; more than that righteousness you do not need.
