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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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