Uploaded April 2026 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago
The founding of the OPC in 1936 was not a triumph by the world’s measure. It was an exodus. Thirty-four ministers and seventeen elders walked away from property, influence, and institutional belonging to form a church committed to the biblical gospel. They knew what it meant to be a pilgrim people.
In this lesson, Camden Bucey tells the story of J. Gresham Machen’s trial and the men who stood with him—particularly three Wisconsin pastors whose faithful witness cost them everything: John J. DeWaard of Cedar Grove, Oscar Holkeboer of Oostburg, and Arthur F. Perkins of Merrill. Their stories illuminate the biblical theme of the church in the wilderness, which the author of Hebrews draws from Israel’s experience in Exodus and applies directly to the new covenant people of God.
The church has always been on the move. We are not there yet. But the promise still stands, and the rest that remains is better than anything the wilderness generation could have imagined.
Key texts: Hebrews 3—4; Exodus 16—17; Numbers 20; 1 Corinthians 10
Topics covered: the Independent Board for Presbyterian Foreign Missions, the Presbyterian Constitutional Covenant Union, Machen’s trial, DeWaard, Holkeboer, and Perkins, the church as pilgrim, the wilderness generation, Sabbath rest, the already/not yet
Continue the series:
Lesson 1 — Who Are We? youtu.be/5EdPj0OTjMk
Lesson 2 — Where Are We Going? youtu.be/CuK8-L8PHjw
Lesson 4 — How Will We Get There? youtu.be/v3o8PxzW3GY
The founding of the OPC in 1936 was not a triumph by the world’s measure. It was an exodus. Thirty-four ministers and seventeen elders walked away from property, influence, and institutional belonging to form a church committed to the biblical gospel. They knew what it meant to be a pilgrim people.
In this lesson, Camden Bucey tells the story of J. Gresham Machen’s trial and the men who stood with him—particularly three Wisconsin pastors whose faithful witness cost them everything: John J. DeWaard of Cedar Grove, Oscar Holkeboer of Oostburg, and Arthur F. Perkins of Merrill. Their stories illuminate the biblical theme of the church in the wilderness, which the author of Hebrews draws from Israel’s experience in Exodus and applies directly to the new covenant people of God.
The church has always been on the move. We are not there yet. But the promise still stands, and the rest that remains is better than anything the wilderness generation could have imagined.
Key texts: Hebrews 3—4; Exodus 16—17; Numbers 20; 1 Corinthians 10
Topics covered: the Independent Board for Presbyterian Foreign Missions, the Presbyterian Constitutional Covenant Union, Machen’s trial, DeWaard, Holkeboer, and Perkins, the church as pilgrim, the wilderness generation, Sabbath rest, the already/not yet
Continue the series:
Lesson 1 — Who Are We? youtu.be/5EdPj0OTjMk
Lesson 2 — Where Are We Going? youtu.be/CuK8-L8PHjw
Lesson 4 — How Will We Get There? youtu.be/v3o8PxzW3GY
