-“Does the Church Only Rise or Fall with the Doctrine of Justification?” -“When Sanctification Becomes Justification: How Fake Lutherans Created a Passive Church”
So, basically, one about the second use of the law, one about the third, and this one about the first.
I hope you’ll check them out if you haven’t already.
Sermon preached at Clam Falls Lutheran Church, Jan. 18, 2026.
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“You are Simon, son of John. You will be called Cephas” (which, when translated, is Peter).”
– John 2:42b
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Clearly, the heaviest phrase, the most important words from our Gospel reading this morning are the ones that John the Baptist utters:
“Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!”
That, my friends, is it. That is the sum and substance of our faith.
The Apostle John, who tells us about John the Baptist’s confession, also wrote the book of Revelation, and Revelation 13:8 speaks of the “Lamb slain from the foundation of the world”.
The New Living Translation paraphrases it more colorfully, even if very accurately, “the Lamb who was slaughtered before the world was made…”
Again, this is the sum and substance of our faith, this faith into which we are baptized!
What this means is that every failure of ours, every sin that we have committed – both what we have done and what we have left undone – was known to God from the beginning of time, even before the cross, the incarnation, even the creation!
Do not hold on to the guilt of any sin and never despair, for, in and with and through this perfect Lamb of God, all of it is at the bottom of the ocean, and removed as far as the east is from the west!
Amen?!
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So, why do I want to talk about this text about Jesus naming Simon, “Cephas”, the Aramaic word for rock, which when translated into Greek, is “Petros”, from where we get Peter?
It is because it is here that Christ first names Simon “Peter”, and another passage from Matthew 16 – where his name also figures into the text prominently – is one of the most well-known events and exchanges in the Gospels.
And as with our Gospel reading this morning, we see that it involves an exclamation or confession about who Jesus is.
I’m going to read that text in full:
“When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say the Son of Man is?”
They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets.”
“But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?”
Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”
Jesus replied, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by my Father in heaven. And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” Then he ordered his disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah.
From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life….”
And then, shortly after this, Peter tells Jesus this can’t happen and Jesus says to Peter “Get behind me, Satan”.
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Now, there is a lot going on in this passage. At the same time, what is the most important thing, the core thing, that is happening here?
The context is this:
“Jesus Himself ask[s] his disciples, ‘Who do you say that I am?’ It is not enough that they follow Him.
[Jesus] does not call for a hymn, or for giving praise to His person, or for an evaluation of Him[…]
but for a thoroughly sober judgment of fact.” (Sasse)
Jesus wants a statement about what is true – a profession or confession about what is true. About what each one of us believes is true.
“Who do you say that I am?” is the big question, it is the question each one of us must confront – and answer!
And this statement from Peter, clearly, is the big moment:
“You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”
Interestingly, the Bible lets us know that Peter was just catching up with the demons here!
The book of Luke specifically lets us know that the demons knew Jesus was the Christ or Messiah, which is why they told him they knew who he was, namely “the Son of God!” or “the Holy One of God!” (Mark 1:24 and Luke 4:41).
Of course the demons confessed who Jesus was without having any real faith in him.
Perhaps this is why we read in Romans 10: “If you declare with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved… ...“Anyone who believesin him will never be put to shame.”
While the demons believe many true things about Jesus, they do not believe in him, that is, trust in him.
In any case, here, quite plainly, the way of salvation is being revealed!
For the Savior is revealed! Peter has recognized Jesus Christ as the divinely promised Messiah, the Divine figure of the Son of Man, whom the prophet Daniel predicted would come in the clouds to save God’s people.
Peter’s recognizing Jesus as this One, the Messiah, first and foremost has to do with knowing and assenting to the Savior, being saved… trusting God alone for salvation.
Herman Sasse, a very learned theologian from the 20th century, helps us think even more deeply about this:
This is the church’s first statement of dogma, what must be believed, for dogma is the “doctrinal content of confession”. This confession of faith in Jesus as the Christ will later become prayers and hymns. Even later, as this simple statement of faith is challenged with lies, it will become the Apostle’s and Nicene and Athanasian Creeds….
“No later confession of the church can and wants to be anything else than a renewal of the original confession to Jesus as Christ and Lord… As this confession stood at the beginning of the Church’s history, so it will stand at its end.”
For every tongue will indeed confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father (Phil. 2:10 f.)!
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Still, there is a lot more going on with this passage, questions about the meaning of the name Cephas, Peter… as we heard in John 1.
The biggest Christian church today is the Roman Catholic communion, and when Jesus says “on this rock I will build my church”, there they stake their claim.
We might say that for the Lutheran Church the organizing principle is the core truth that:
“Salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ is at the heart of all the great controversies that shook the Early church as it tried to work out its own self-understanding…”
Martin Luther and the reformers were so committed to the doctrine or teaching of justification by grace through faith that they asserted the church rises and falls on this teaching.
(Douglas Johnson, The Great Jesus Debates).
On the other hand, we might say that the organizing principle of the Roman Catholic communion is that:
Christ built his church on Peter, the Rock, and that in his continuing office which comes down to today, the Gates of Hell will not prevail against it.
In fact, the Roman Catholic defender or apologist, Stephen K. Ray, goes so far as to say: “The universal acceptance of Rome’s primacy in the first centuries is simply a fact of history.”
Now, during the time of the Reformation many people dug deeply into the Bible and church history to learn the truth about this.
And the truth is that the early Church Fathers had a variety of ideas for why Jesus changed Simon’s name to Peter (Cephas, meaning “Rock”) – and then a variety of ideas about just what happens in Matthew 16…
For their part, the Lutheran reformers argued that many Church fathers – men like Origen, Cyprian, Augustine, Hilary, and Bede – focused on Peter’s confession as being the rock.
Perhaps the greatest preacher in the history of the church, the “golden mouth”, John Chrysostom, way back in the 4th century, said that Christ says “on this rock,” and not “on Peter”. For He built His Church not upon man, but upon the faith of Peter. But what was his faith? “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.”
Chrysostom said, “On this rock; that is, on the faith of his confession.” Furthermore, in his commentary on Galatians, Chrysostom notes that Paul “had no need of Peter” and was “equal in honor” to him.
At the same time, Chrysostom often called Peter the “leader of the choir” and the “mouth of the apostles.”
And at one point, waxing eloquent, he went so far as to say “Peter, the Leader of the choir of Apostles, the Mouth of the disciples, the Pillar of the Church, the Buttress of the faith, the Foundation of the confession, the Fisherman of the universe”[!]
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In fact, several of the fathers integrated both views, seeing Peter as the personal embodiment of the true faith in Christ.
So what was the rock that Jesus talked about?
Well, Peter.
But not just Peter – Peter confessing.
Peter in the act of confessing.
Peter confessing Jesus Christ as the Messiah, the Savior.
That is the rock upon which the church is built and by which the Gates of Hell will not prevail.
Even the fact that he was initially called “Rock” was a sign that this was to come.
Peter’s confession speaks to both God’s revelation to him of Jesus as the Saving One, giving him faith, coupled with God energizing and empowering Peter’s natural gifts and personality, which showed a great eagerness to confess Christ as the King!
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We Lutherans do need to be honest with ourselves. After all, Jesus did not come to establish the democracy of God but the kingdom of God.
Jesus is the King. But Jesus also appointed Peter, as well as the other apostles, as the spiritual leaders, governors, of his kingdom.
What Jesus gives Peter alone in Matthew 16 – the authority to bind and loose on Earth as in heaven, otherwise known as the power of the keys – he just as clearly gives to all the apostles in Matthew 18!
Nevertheless, one cannot deny, for example, that there were some disciples, namely Peter, James, and John, whom Jesus gave special attention to.
And Peter was certainly recognized by all of his fellow apostles as being especially attended to by Jesus, and they no doubt saw him as not only as their mouthpiece but leader.
Still, men jostle for authority. James and John wanted to sit at Jesus’s left and right hand, and Jesus then basically shamed them by holding up a little child as an example of how to be.
Not only this, but note exactly what Jesus told all his disciples at the Last Supper… Luke 22 reads:
“A dispute also arose among them as to which of them was considered to be greatest. Jesus said to them, “The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them; and those who exercise authority over them call themselves Benefactors. But you are not to be like that. Instead, the greatest among you should be like the youngest, and the one who rules like the one who serves. For who is greater, the one who is at the table or the one who serves? Is it not the one who is at the table? But I am among you as one who serves. You are those who have stood by me in my trials. And I confer on you a kingdom, just as my Father conferred one on me, so that you may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom and sit on thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.
“Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift all of you as wheat. But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.”
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I note that Jesus called him Simon here, not Peter, for Peter’s denial was just about to occur.
Still, among his brothers, who also were to bind and loose in Christ’s Kingdom, this is how Peter was to lead, guide, rule…
But did Peter have a special authority that the other Apostles did not have? Or did he perhaps have nothing other than a primacy of honor according to him by Jesus, being a first among equals, so to speak?
I believe that this is the case.
Peter no doubt should have been honored among his brethren, for he was a good leader, a humble leader.
For not every man could say words like these and mean them from the heart:
“So I exhort the elders among you, as a fellow elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, as well as a partaker in the glory that is going to be revealed: shepherd the flock of God that is among you, exercising oversight, not under compulsion, but willingly, as God would have you; not for shameful gain, but eagerly; not domineering over those in your charge, but being examples to the flock. And when the chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory.”
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Peter is the man!
Still, would that we might all see his being named Peter first and foremost being about his boldly and rightly confessing the truth, the faith!
The Christ!
Still, some again will insist that we really do need to make this about us too, that is, about authority here on earth.
After all, God does give us earthly rulers with teeth, or the sword, to govern us in the political realm.
Therefore, understandably, in the church as well, we want to know who the real boss is! Or we want to be the boss!
In life, we might want to be the boss – perhaps especially when people don’t recognize the position of honor and respect we ourselves have been given by Jesus – but for even worse reasons as well.
The Bible is so interesting regarding issues like this. On the one hand, Ephesians 5 is probably the most hated passage in the Bible today. It tells women to submit to their husbands, a message that can be found in a number of other places as well.
At the same time, while men are told to be good managers of their homes, they are never told to assert their authority over their wives, nor to ever demand submission.
Peter was never told this either.
Peter never did this either.
For even as Hebrews 13:17 tells Christians to obey their spiritual leaders, that is not anything Christian leaders ever should demand (2 Timothy 2:24-25; at the same time, see 1 Timothy 4:12 and esp. Titus 2:15).
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Folks, I need to be blunt with you. The time is short.
When persecution comes faster and more furiously in the future, I want you all to be ready. I want the seed that fell on your soil to bear good fruit….
Being deceived is so very, very easy.
We are all attracted to people who are natural authorities, who have charisma, who speak with confidence about all the things our itching ears want to hear about!
We especially gravitate towards good-looking, strong, and confident men who are really good with words!
While this can be used for good, it often isn’t. And in the Scriptures, God calls us all sheep – meaning stupid herd animals – for good reason.
Baptized brothers and sisters in Christ, the lies today are so insidious, sneaky, and above all, popular!
But love rejoices not in power or glory or wealth or pleasure or comfort but in the truth.
We can’t all be Peter. We can’t all have his leadership gifts, his natural charisma and clout, and his “go-getter”, spontaneous attitude.
But having had Jesus Christ revealed to us in his word, we can confess the son of God like he did.
Furthermore, we can all imitate his zeal, his courage, and his humility, which he had even as a leader.
We can also not fail to eagerly speak our mind about our Lord Jesus – for we are all called to speak the oracles of God! – and we can eagerly speak our mind around our Lord Jesus, knowing that when we speak incorrectly…
…our Lord will always redirect us, offer us gentle correction, and help us down the right paths!
Like Peter, God reveals to us too that Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah, the Savior!
And like Peter, God will make us into the rock that others need with our strong, rock-like confession.
Peter knew that Jesus was the rock with a capital R.
He called all believers “living stones” who were built into a spiritual house, with Jesus as the essential foundation (1 Peter 2:4-8).
He, perhaps because of a keen self-awareness of his own status, leaves it to the Apostle Paul to talk about how all believers are also, in a sense, “built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets”, that is people like him, Peter, the rock who confesses, as well (Ephesians 2:20)!
With, of course, Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, as the “Chief Cornerstone”!
May God grant you to know your stuff like Peter, and very humbly so…
Sermon preached at Clam Falls Lutheran Church, Jan. 11, 2026.
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“We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.”
– Romans 6:4
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In the book of Genesis, chapter 6, we come across some very serious words about the state of the ancient world.
One translation puts it this way:
“And… having seen that the wicked actions of men were multiplied upon the earth, and that every one in his heart was intently brooding over evil continually…. God [then] laid it to heart that he had made man upon the earth, and he pondered it deeply. And [He] said, I will blot out man whom I have made from the face of the earth, even man with cattle, and reptiles with flying creatures of the sky, for I am grieved that I have made them….”
“I will blot out man … for I am grieved that I have made them….”
Do you think you can feel the weight God felt here at all?
I’m guessing that none of us really can or do!
For the Bible tells us that there are indeed some things that God cannot do, one of these being approving or tolerating evil….
Habakkuk 1:13 says, “Your eyes are too pure to look on evil; you cannot tolerate wrongdoing”
So, then, the Bible’s first book continues:
“This is the account of Noah and his family.
Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked faithfully with God. Noah had three sons: Shem, Ham and Japheth.
Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight and was full of violence. God saw how corrupt the earth had become, for all the people on earth had corrupted their ways. So God said to Noah, “I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth…”
Too pure. As 1st Samuel says, “There is none holy like the LORD…”
So God makes a covenant with Noah, gives him directions on how to build an utterly massive boat (have you been to the “Ark Encounter” in Kentucky, and if not, why not?)… and Noah obeys.
God says in Isaiah 57:15: “I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit”.
This was indeed Noah and his family, who trusted in God’s promises.
And so, the world is purified, cleansed, by water. Sinful man (and all that is under his dominion) is destroyed.
The very few who have faith in God — to whom He reckons righteousness — are saved in the ark.
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What does all of this have to do with the text that I chose for today? Baptism?
Some of you might know where I’m going. I promise I’ll get there soon.
First, however, let’s hear about the topic of baptism in the New Testament.
It not only shows up both in our Gospel and Epistle readings for this morning. It is also in the other Gospels, where in each one we hear about Jesus being baptized by John.
And in the gospel of Matthew, right at the very end in chapter 28:19-20 we hear some of Jesus’ last words to his disciples before ascending into heaven:
“Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
Mark 16:16 says that “Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.”
In John 3:5, Jesus says: “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit.
In Peter’s Pentecost sermon he tells the crowd of 3,000 in Acts 2:38,39:
“Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off—for all whom the Lord our God will call.”
Titus 3:5 says: “He saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit.”
This very clearly connects salvation to the “washing of regeneration” through the Spirit, identified with baptism.
1 Peter 3:21 is stunning as well, and it will also lead us into why I started this sermon by talking about the flood and Noah’s Ark:
“…this water [from Noah’s flood] symbolizes baptism that now saves you also—not the removal of dirt from the body but the pledge of a clear conscience toward God. It saves you by the resurrection of Jesus Christ…“
And all of these passages, particularly the last two, talk about how the act of baptism is something that God does.
And baptism does not merely “signify a burial of the old sinful life and a resurrection to new life with Christ”, it is a burial of the old self and a resurrection to new life with Christ.
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Jesus got baptized too. Even though he was sinless, he set an example for and identified with us, not as a sinner but as the one who would get close to us and take care of all our sin, in fact becoming the sacrifice for our sin.
Therefore, in baptism God removes sin, adopts us into his family, and puts his name upon each one of us. He says, “I love you, you are mine.”
I’m guessing that every single one of you in this congregation is baptized.
All of your baptisms were valid, don’t ever let anybody tell you anything different…
But may all of your baptisms be efficacious or effective as well!
Back to the flood.
Over 500 years ago, the German friar Martin Luther started the Reformation of the church.
One of the things that he did was translate the church service in Latin into German, the native tongue of his people.
Luther kept a lot of the traditional liturgy or worship service. At the same time, in the service of baptism, he added a new prayer, which I am going to read to you now.
“Almighty and eternal God, according to Your strict judgment You condemned the unbelieving world through the flood, yet according to Your great mercy You preserved believing Noah and his family, eight souls in all. You drowned hard-hearted Pharaoh and all his host in the Red Sea, yet led Your people Israel through the water on dry ground, prefiguring this washing of Your Holy Baptism. Through the Baptism in the Jordan of Your beloved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, You sanctified and instituted all waters to be a blessed flood, and a lavish washing away of sin. We pray that You would behold (name) according to Your boundless mercy and bless him with true faith by the Holy Spirit that through this saving flood all sin in him which has been inherited from Adam and which he himself has committed since would be drowned and die. Grant that he be kept safe and secure in the holy ark of the Christian Church, being separated from the multitude of unbelievers and serving Your name at all times with a fervent spirit and a joyful hope, so that, with all believers in Your promise, he would be declared worthy of eternal life, through Jesus Christ, our Lord.”
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Luther was a true theologian, who knew his Bible forward and backwards. Unlike many of his day.
This is a biblically marvelous and beautiful prayer.
What this is saying is that just like in the flood God buried sinful man and in the Exodus buried God’ people’s enemies, we too in baptism experience death, our own death.
Our old nature is buried with him in baptism. That old rabid dog, our old Adam, has been taken behind the shed and shot.
Rejoice, for you are a new creature in Christ! Who we once were, we no longer are. The old has gone, the new has come!
Because Jesus sanctified all the waters of baptism by his own baptism, you are baptized into Christ, you are put into Christ. You are adopted by him, you are united to him in marriage, now a part of his holy people, his church.
Let’s not have surface level understanding here.
I want to take the nail and pound it deeply into the wood.
I have done this illustration before many times, but I will never fail to delight in sharing it with you again.
If Jesus Christ is this book, you are this bookmark.
Jesus Christ was crucified on the cross because of our sins, and we too, the Bible asserts, have been crucified with him.
Your old man, old Adam, old nature, your old being – which means all of your original sin and your actual sins – was buried in the ground with him.
As Christ, the God-man, was raised from the dead, you too were raised from the dead, given new life in him.
Again, as our passage from the Apostle Paul in Romans this morning says:
“We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.”
That new life is yours and baptism!
In like fashion, as Jesus Christ, the man whom God has appointed to judge all things, sits at the right hand of God, you too, united to him in baptism, married to him in baptism, sit at the right hand of God.
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Paul says to reckon, or consider, yourselves dead to sin and alive to Christ. What does he mean?
This:
This is now who you are. If you were baptized into Christ, you are a new creature in him.
Dwelling safely on the ark, Noah and his family were saved from death and judgment through the flood. The Israelites were set free from death and slavery in Egypt through the Red Sea.
Though those were absolutely spectacular saving acts — and frankly, terrifying acts of drowning in water — God has done a similar miracle to you through the simple, humble, and non-terrifying means of cool and refreshing water, water combined with the command and promise of God’s own word.
Your primary identity is no longer sinner. Your primary identity is saint.
Yes, you are a “sinner-saint”, but the emphasis on saint.
And this means that every time you confess your sins you are drowning them again, drowning that sinner in you again.
Luther says in the Small Catechism,
“What does such baptizing with water indicate? It indicates that that Old Adam in us should by daily contrition and repentance be drowned and die, with all sins and evil desires…”
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Baptism delivers everything to us. It gives us everything that Christ did for us.
It gives us his whole life, his whole righteousness. We are clothed in him.
When God looks at us, he does not see all of our sins, but the righteousness of Christ. In another prayer Luther said:
“Lord Jesus, you are my righteousness, just as I am your sin. You have taken upon yourself what is mine and have given to me what is yours. You have taken upon yourself what you were not and have given to me what I was not….”
And as my pastor said years ago, we all are Macgyvor Christians. Everything we have we already need, even if it is only in embryonic form.
Again, all of this is a pure gift of God because of His grace and mercy. Is nothing better than being regenerated by God’s Holy Spirit, given new life in him.
What does all of this mean? One pastor sums it up well:
“In baptism you are made a member of God’s holy priesthood and called to a life of service to Him. The sacrifices you offer are not the blood of sacrificial animals but the sacrifice of praise to God and acts of love towards your neighbor. This is the life to which you are called through your baptism.”
This is your life. Don’t leave that behind!
It is true that 26 years ago I was married. But I don’t really talk like that. I say I am married.
The church is the Bride of Christ, united with him.
Don’t just say “I was baptized”, but “I am baptized!”
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There are definitely incorrect understandings of baptism, and we should quickly address some of those.
Some say that baptism in the New Testament, even though it is always connected with water, is actually just baptism of the Holy Spirit.
The water connected with the word of promise really means nothing, the Spirit is everything!
What that means is that baptism is really just an outward work of ours that we do for others which demonstrates the inward change the Spirit has accomplished.
First, we certainly confess all need to be converted!
Yes, a living faith is always important, but we need to see and acknowledge that baptism itself regenerates!
But, you might say, what about faith? Don’t we need to believe? Don’t we need to decide to accept this? And how can babies believe? Why should they be baptized?
Without faith, a Christian baptism is indeed valid but not efficacious.
To look to one’s baptism with faith is to look to Jesus Christ. For again, in baptism he delivers all the gifts that he won for us at the cross.
We need to put the focus on the one who delivers the gifts. Scripture asserts that it is God who grants repentance, gives faith.
And babies?
It is true that there are a lot of people in America who will not baptize babies.
At the same time, throughout Christian history, almost everybody has baptized babies. Today, worldwide, 80 to 90% of Christians still baptize babies.
Male infants in Old Testament Israel were circumcised on the 8th day, and baptism is biblically understood as the fulfillment of circumcision.
Babies are included in all nations!
In the book of Acts we heard how baptism was for you and your children!
Entire households are baptized in the New Testament and this does not exclude children!
But can babies have faith?
When John the Baptist in Elizabeth’s womb heard Mary’s words about the Messiah, he leapt.
Jesus Christ said let the little children come to me and do not hinder them. Children in this passage should be translated as “infants”.
And the Psalms make it very very clear that infants do believe. The psalmist himself talks about trusting in God from his mother’s breast.
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Not only can babies believe…
The fact of the matter is that unless we become like little children we do not even enter the kingdom of heaven!
This is not because children are so good and innocent, they are not!
They are infected with original sin just like any one of us, and they need to be saved. They need to be transferred from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light.
That is what baptism does!
The absolute dependence of infants on others should be our model. Sinful though they may be, they must trust and do trust.
Imitate them! While we are never to be childish, when it comes to faith we should be childlike.
All of this shows us how clearly grace is what the Christian life is all about.
Remember, that the Apostle Paul himself pits grace against the law, grace against the works of the law, or even “works done by us in righteousness”.
And there is no greater picture of God’s grace than an infant being baptized. This grace will give us the strength that we need.
Martin Luther would often tell a story, evidently popular during his time, about a nun who was tortured by Satan in the monastery. The devil would consistently tell her that she could not be a Christian, that she had committed too many sins, that she was too bad and did not measure up.
The woman’s response to the devil? I am a Christian!
It doesn’t matter how much you may accuse me, it doesn’t matter how much I might feel the weight and guilt of my own sins…. I know that God has put his mark upon me, and made me his own!
Baptism is like that. It is something objective, a solid promise that the Other makes and you receive. It is something that does not depend on your fluctuating emotions and moods.
It is something outside of you, a landmark, something that God does to anchor you.
May your bookmark always be firmly enveloped by the book!
Baptized into Christ!
He says that no one can snatch him out of his hand. Let this knowledge be driven into you like a nail into wood.
May you too always be anchored in your Lord Jesus Christ and the forgiveness, life, and salvation that he brings, in the most precious union that you have with Him.
“Jesus praises the faith of the Canaanite woman, affirming implicitly that Gentiles too are spiritually hungry, can put their trust in the Son whom God has sent, and are able to become children of God the Father. Moreover, Jesus meets the Gentile’s daughter’s physical need by delivering her from bondage to Satan. He reaches out to strangers in their spiritual and bodily needs.”
The Bible talks a lot about foreigners or aliens. Right away, we know these words indicate there is something different about them. We need to be honest with ourselves. They are not us.
Water cooler report: all the POCs are against ICE and all the Whites tried to reason with them, and seemed perplexed why it was like talking to a wall. I kept my mouth shut, because I am a professional
So race? Being European? Being British? English? Who cares! Isn’t there really only one race, the human race? And, after all, this is America, right?! In addition to being wildly politically incorrect, how could making an issue out of all of this stuff – even mentioning it as a factor – possibly be a good thing?
I kind of used to think this way. Even if the CTCR document mentioned above leaves much to be desired, for a while I basically tracked with its wishy-washy thinking. I was always pro-immigration for the most part (even as I always sensed the danger).
Until the time when I wasn’t(and then I also noticed some theological friends of mine withdraw from speaking with me).
All ethnic groups are nations. All nations are races, but all races aren’t nations.
Some “nation-states” choose to break, be who they are (1993 E. Europe).
Am I “a little bit racist”? I think the Bereans were better than the Cretans! (still, all should say “my mom is the best”) https://t.co/Wv1vI82Vuy
And yes, I continue to hope that I haven’t completely socially assassinated myself – or alienated myself from family members for that matter…
I’m still not against immigration in principle, but I think that even in the best of days and in the best of times it should always be very limited. Assimilation by largely compatible populations – and basically assimilation by marriage into the native population – is a must.
Clearly, there have been negative consequences because of all of the post-1965 immigration. Jobs and resources taken by immigrants are jobs and resources people who have been here much longer, and who have “seniority” so to speak, can’t have. Yes, if “heritage Americans” – those whose families have been here forever – will not work these jobs then the wages should be raised. Yes, we all might have to feel some pain.
If you want to ask me about whether there have been immigrants in my own family, the answer is “yes”, and I’m not convinced it was a good idea for them to be allowed to come here either. Germans in particular are quite stubborn and have often had a very hard time humbly assimilating.
When outright fraud (Somalians in Minnesota) and nepotism by immigrant managers towards their own in hiring practices take hold (e.g., Indians in IT, with H1-B), the problems only become that much more obvious.
BREAKING NEWS: Treasury Secretary Bessent announcing tonight from Minnesota:
Starting tomorrow, if you’re on public assistance, you can’t wire money out of the country.
According to a summary from Google artificial intelligence (yes, don’t rely on this, unless you either are a subject expert or are willing to fact check):
“While the Bible emphasizes compassion for vulnerable foreigners, it also describes foreigners in negative terms, primarily when they are viewed as a source of idolatry and corruption [see I Kings, Ezra and Nehemiah] or as a sign of God’s judgment on Israel” (bold mine).
This post is really about that last element in particular. When in Acts 17 the Bible says “From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands.”
…I think, given what the Bible says on these matters, that it is a very safe assumption to say that if those boundaries are changing, God’s judgment is happening. And here, I go where many will not tread, for fear of cancellation in this or that context.
In their “Ecumenism in the Trenches” episode, the LCMS’s Voldemort, the Stone Choir (Woe) said:
“In fact, your pastor has no business talking about [7 million aliens coming into the country in the past year] at all.
If he wants to talk about it in the church context, I hope you find something Christian to say.
There are Christian things to say, like when a country is overrun by foreigners, that’s God’s judgment.
When your belongings and your produce are devoured by aliens, that’s God pouring out His wrath on you.”
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Using Google AI one can quickly get an accurate fact check on this:
“The Bible… does describe divine judgment and curses involving foreigners devouring crops and possessions, often as consequences for disobedience, connecting such devastation to God’s anger poured out on a people…”
Verses mentioned:
Isaiah 1:7:
“Your country is desolate, your cities burned with fire; your fields are being stripped by foreigners right before you, laid waste as when overthrown by strangers.”
Jeremiah 5:17:
“…foreigners devour your harvest and food; they will consume your sons and daughters…”
Jeremiah 7:20 goes on:
“Therefore this is what the Sovereign Lord says: My anger and my wrath will be poured out on this place—on man and beast, on the trees of the field and on the crops of your land—and it will burn and not be quenched…
Of course, if one thinks these quotations are unfair, there is always the very clear Deuteronomy 28, curses that God warned Old Testament Israel about – and that don’t necessarily involve foreign armies.
“You will be pledged to be married to a woman, but another will take her and rape her. You will build a house, but you will not live in it. You will plant a vineyard, but you will not even begin to enjoy its fruit. Your ox will be slaughtered before your eyes, but you will eat none of it. Your donkey will be forcibly taken from you and will not be returned. Your sheep will be given to your enemies, and no one will rescue them.Your sons and daughters will be given to another nation, and you will wear out your eyes watching for them day after day, powerless to lift a hand. A people that you do not know will eat what your land and labor produce, and you will have nothing but cruel oppression all your days. The sights you see will drive you mad….
The foreigners who reside among you will rise above you higher and higher, but you will sink lower and lower. They will lend to you, but you will not lend to them. They will be the head, but you will be the tail…”
Google AI, helping to sum this up:
“While these passages speak of God’s fury, they frame it in historical/prophetic terms of human nations or enemies (“strangers”) acting as instruments of judgment….
If ‘aliens’ are seen as symbolic of foreign invaders or disruptive worldly forces, then these biblical texts provide parallels for such devastating loss as a form of God’s judgment or a consequence of human sin, as seen in passages about locusts or invading armies.”
Locusts?
Yes. More Google AI:
“in the Old Testament, particularly in the Book of Joel, foreigners (specifically enemy armies like Assyria, Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Rome) are metaphorically identified with locusts as symbols of devastating invaders… powerful foreign armies that strip the land bare, mirroring the destruction of a real plague.”
Again, not just armies:
“The Bible uses locust imagery for foreigners beyond just invading armies, notably in Nahum to describe the numerous merchants and soldiers of Ninevah:
‘Make yourselves as numerous as the locusts, make yourselves as numerous as the hoppers… your merchants, more numerous than the stars of heaven… your officers, like swarms of locusts that settle in the walls on a cold day… when the sun appears, they flee away, and no one knows where they go’ (Nahum 3:15-17)
Here, the merchants and officials (soldiers/garrison) of the enemy city Nineveh are compared to locusts, emphasizing their overwhelming numbers and transient nature.”
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The LCMS is the home of the rather politically correct demographer Lyman Stone, and he once commented on X (in a reply) that for all practical purposes invasion by an army and mass immigration were the same thing. That they have historically been considered the same thing. Of course, granted, if it were an actual invading organized military force, things could be really, really bad.
The current “native” Inuits of Greenland completely genocided the actual natives in 1300AD. The Thule wiped out the Dorset down to the last man, woman, and child. Even the Vikings arrived before they did. The Vikings are more native to Greenland than the modern Inuits. pic.twitter.com/cvJFvZBA6r
At the same time, of course many people have noted that the majority of people pouring across the border seem to be younger men of military age. We also note that rulers, for instance, have since ancient times been aware of the potential for using different ethnic groups, or nations, against one another in political conflicts (see, e.g., Daniel 2:40–43, 2 Kings 17:24 here!). And in addition to pointing out the above, Aristotle also says that one of the differences between a king and a tyrant is that a tyrant is guarded by foreigners.
If the Left takes power in January 2029, they will release the excel file detailing every name, address, phone number of those who applied to ICE. They will do this to harass them, hurt them, and put a target on their back as well as their families.
Why might anybody be interested in other forms of government besides liberal democracy today? In America at least, if you are a traded company and you do not attempt to maximize your earnings for your shareholders, you can be taken to court. It seems that because capitalism is all about maximizing profits, this can even potentially trump good actions based on one’s concern to be a wise steward as well as loyalty and honor towards one’s employees – especially if perceived racial discrimination is going on. In addition to the moral corrosion capitalism encourages, of course this is going to have an impact on how people view the positives and negatives of immigration.
Even looking at this matter from a less dark perspective, it makes sense to me that people who are minorities in a land might feel and think that it’s better for there to be more minorities in the country. Where even the current perceived majority (whites or Europeans) gets to be at least at the same level, population-wise, as everyone else.
After all, given sociological realities like self-segregation and in-group preference, won’t many minorities feel more comfortable that way? The former Prime Minister of Singapore, Lee Kian Yew, admittedly a right winger, reflecting on the political realities he saw work out in his own nation, saw that: “In multiracial societies, you don’t vote in accordance with your economic interests and social interests, you vote in accordance with race and religion.”
Still, many CEOs and politicians – as well as Hollywood stars, media personalities, and other social media influencers – really want all of this to continue.
At what point do people talk about treason?
The other guys want to expropriate my house & jail me for hate speech & mutilate my kids so yeah I'd support basically anyone taking basically any action to defeat them https://t.co/FTbjO4gkK4
Woe goes on: “When you are ruled by women and by foreigners, that is God judging you.”
Google AI again, with a more extended quotation this time:
“Yes, the Bible, particularly the book of Isaiah, describes being ruled by weak or foreign leaders, including women and children (metaphorically), as a sign of God’s judgment and societal disorder due to the people’s sins, a situation indicating divine displeasure and a broken covenant. It’s seen as a reversal of God’s intended order, highlighting national weakness and corruption, with prophets lamenting such rule as a curse.
Key Biblical Passage: Isaiah 3:12-15
“As for my people, children are their oppressors, and women rule over them. O my people, they which lead thee cause thee to err, and destroy the way of thy paths” (Isaiah 3:12, KJV).
This passage links leadership by the inexperienced (children, metaphorically weak/ineffectual leaders) and women (in a context of societal breakdown) with God’s judgment against corrupt elders and princes….
Being ruled by foreigners (or having foreign influence) was often a consequence of Israel’s own unfaithfulness, a reversal of their covenant blessing.”
Woe ends:
“That’s what a pastor can say.
He can say, you see these people pouring over the border and you see these people in Congress who do not look like us… this is God pouring out His wrath.
That’s a Christian thing to say. If they want to say that, that would be great. No argument for me because that’s in Scripture.”
In Crisis: Immigrants, Aliens, and the Bible, Hoffmeier says “nation states large and small in the biblical world were clearly delineated by borders and were often defended by large forts and military outposts” (153, see 39-57). Going along with this, the Stone Choir men elsewhere look at how in Numbers 20:14-21 the nation of Edom refuses Israel passage through their land – where their king even threatens them! On the basis of the timeline that is in the Septuagint, they conclude that Job was the king of Edom at this time.
There is never any indication in the book of Numbers or any other biblical books that God was angry with Edom for this particular action. Perhaps King Job was just being a good ruler!
In the Bible, foreigners are something, well, foreign, strange, alien, other…. different. Hence, they were treated differently in Levitical worship (Leviticus 22:25), and they were not permitted entrance into the temple until later generations (Deuteronomy 23:3-8). Like Israelites, both they and their children were to be tenants, not owners of land, even as only the Israelites’ descendants would always receive it back in the Year of Jubilee (see Leviticus 25, Numbers 26:52-56). Finally, foreigners were both permitted to be slaves of the Israelites (Leviticus 25:44-46) and be charged interest by them (Deuteronomy 23:20) – while Israelites were not permitted to do this to one another…
So they were not treated exactly the same, in spite of the fact that these were some of the most generous legal protections in the ancient world (Leviticus 19:18, 33-34, Numbers 15:14-16, Deuteronomy 24:14; See also: Jer. 22:3; Ezek. 22:7; Mal. 3:5; cf. Ps. 94:6; Jer. 7:4-8; Zech. 7:8-10)!
"But if the Church speaks and acts as if nations do not exist, and the people of different nations are interchangeable, it is not speaking according to the Word of God, but in submission to the American Interim." – Rev. Karl Hess
None of this abolishes passages like Galatians 3:28, but rather establishes it. The passage would not make any sense otherwise. There are still males and females and Jews and Greeks even if all of them equally have salvation only in Christ.
Conclusion
An online friend pointed out to me that the “sojourner” in the Old Testament law isn’t talking about whole migratory tribes, but about individuals and small groups. But laws passed in 1965 in effect opened up the floodgates. Still, a sovereign authority’s border policy must be formulated according to what he judges to be best for his own people.
All of this is definitely not what we are dealing with today. I conclude thatGod is judging us, and it remains to be seen how bad things will get.
I will leave you with the words of Pastor Karl Hess, who writes at TheAmerican Martyr:
“If God is judging us, the proper response is to recognize it and repent, not receive it as a blessing of God and rejoice in our own destruction. We have an obligation to seek the welfare of our own people. The only exception to that would be if you’re Jeremiah and God tells you not to pray for this people and tells you to defect to the Babylonians.”
Again, to belabor the point, I too must conclude that current immigration madness is God’s punishment against America. I wanted to get this out there, establish this as my position. As to the solution, that is for another post, and perhaps better minds. Of course, repentance is needed.
Many aliens need to repent, for breaking our laws. Many politicians and others need to do this as well. And we all must repent for breaking God’s law. And respecting nations is a win-win for everyone.
Let us not fool ourselves. God has indeed been very clear about this. In Jeremiah 18:7-10, he says:
“If at any time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be uprooted, torn down and destroyed, and if that nation I warned repents of its evil, then I will relent and not inflict on it the disaster I had planned. And if at another time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be built up and planted, and if it does evil in my sight and does not obey me, then I will reconsider the good I had intended to do for it.”
So let us repent, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ (John 16:8-11).And fight for our nation.
And yes, the Bible does encourage us to treat the foreigner or alien kindly, particularly to those not planning on staying forever, but also any in our midst. So, as we deport them – also away from all the people who are happy they can pay them slave wages – we should keep that in mind. They would be better off being treated like many of the foreigners in Israel who were enslaved, but nevertheless given things like food and shelter. Also, the nations that they left will certainly be happy to get some of their family back, some of their best and brightest back.
Indeed, Christianity lifts up distinct persons, which we today call “Individuals”. On the other hand…
The following is an excerpt of a long email that I wrote to a good friend, a scholarly colleague, a while back. Some editing has been added for clarity.
I share it now because the Pirate Christian, Chris Rosebrough, has recently stated that anybody who is a collectivist must be “driven out of the church”. This, presumably, even if they believe – in line with historic Western jurisprudence influenced by Christianity with its respect for divine law – that distinct persons should be equally recognized by the law, be able to own property, and given fair trials.
TL;DR:
Along with “equality”, modern individualism is indeed cancer. At the end of my letter, I conclude: “…looking at things in terms of the individual is not only anemic but ultimately impossible, for man is a political animal.”
Here is the letter:
Friend,
Brace yourself. What follows is long, and I don’t expect any immediate answers, to say the least…
First, some preliminaries, which many will think necessary. I believe the section can also be skipped.
In general, man believes that he is basically good. He follows God’s law as he understands it, and generally thinks that he does a better job of being good than others.
We see this exemplified in an ancient Jewish prayer:
“The Jewish prayer ‘Blessed art thou, O God, for not making me a Gentile, slave, or woman’ is a traditional blessing that is part of the morning service. The blessing is recited as part of a series of blessings called Birkot Hashachar, which means ‘blessings of the morning”‘ (Google AI)
All of this also syncs with what is called the “opinio legis”, or the opinion of the law. The opinio legis is the belief, held in common by sinful man (see Peiper on the only two kinds of religions) that being good merits not only blessing but salvation, blessing in the life to come. In other words, all our good outweighs all our evil and hence we merit his favor, or more piously, His mercy. The worthy obtain mercy.
The thing is though that man, generally, also does not fear God. God is, almost for everyone, an afterthought. This generally comes “next” for people. Usually, we are concerned with meeting the standards of those who are most like us, or our class, or our peer groups: the people that we want to associate with, be found with, be identified with. Note what C.S. Lewis writes in his book The Four Loves loves when he talks about friendship, and particularly relationships among male peers:
“…the danger is that this partial indifference or deafness to outside opinion, justified and necessary though it is, may lead to a wholesale indifference or deafness. The most spectacular instance of this can be seen not in a circle of friends but in a theocratic or aristocratic class. We know what the priests in our Lord’s time thought of the common people. The knights in Froissart’s chronicles had neither sympathy nor mercy for the ‘outsiders’, the churls or peasantry. But this deplorable indifference was very closely intertwined with a good quality. They really had among themselves a very high standard of valor, generosity, courtesy, and honor. This standard the cautious, close-fisted churl would have thought merely silly. The knights, in maintaining it, were and had to be, wholly indifferent to his views. They ‘didn’t give up damn’ what he thought. If they had, our own standard today would be the poorer and the courser for it. But the habit of “not giving a damn” grows on a class. To discount the voice of the peasant where it really ought to be discounted makes it easier to discount his voice when he cries for justice or mercy. The partial deafness which is noble and necessary encourages the wholesale deafness which is arrogant and inhuman.”
Perhaps even some circles of friends could produce this kind of feeling and attitude as well… Lewis here says: “what concerns us is not to expatiate on the badness of bad friendships but to become aware of the possible danger in good ones. This love, like the other natural loves, has its congenital liability to a particular disease…”
So Lewis is not saying that the standards that any particular group has are bad, only that they can become quite twisted. Like in the prayer above, which both Jesus in Matthew 8 and Paul in Galatians 3 seems to answer.
All this said, I don’t want to talk about particular standards that any particular group shares. Instead, we need to address the issue of universal standards and what all this means for man
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[At one point in my life,] I had simply seen this song as really a denial of original sin, and while it might be that, it also does contain some important grains of truth, and is quite beautiful:
(don’t the little children who imitate us also just assume that things like dogs and core principals of right and wrong are the same for everybody everywhere?)
Bonhoeffer, for all his faults, once said the following: “…no persons are so abhorrent that they would not know that they have to honor and love God. Therefore, in every person there lives a conscience, although it may be weak, formed by the law.”
Now, we get into the weeds. Please don’t mind the assertive tone of the following. I am certainly open to push back, being challenged (as I understand this may well be pious opinion at best, as opposed to all of it being binding claims!). Rebuked, even. Also, again, as much as I enjoy and feel like I need this kind of high level theological discussion, I am well aware that I can indeed be annoying. So — and I truly mean this — feel free to ask me not to write to you so much, or even to take a break for a long time, or talk to you about it again after reading/doing a/b/c…
Please take your time. Again, do not even feel like you must respond to me — even as I hope you will.
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I’m sorry clear theses tend to evade me. Here though, is one: “A person’s striving to fulfill the law as they understand it cannot be sustained during more difficult times without an understanding, tacit or explicit, of the law as God’s standard for all persons, universally“.
Yes, men are first driven by their desires and wants, not thought or reflection on their lives, or life itself. Even the most intellectually great among the pagans are in bondage to sin, with impure impulses, and for the wrong highest objects/Object at that (God as they understand God….)! Still, who rejects the Golden Rule upon hearing it? Who does not think there is something solid and reliable about the ancient world’s wisdom literature, like the Proverbs?
And I note that even just talking about one law (not fulfilling the laws, plural) is something we men do, and one dictionary seems to address that as well when it shares this definition: “A law is a rule or set of rules for good behaviour which is considered right and important by the majority of people for moral, religious, or emotional reasons.”
So societies that don’t have enough persons like this, particularly leaders — who either know this explicitly or implicitly, tacitly — will collapse, be destroyed, fail. It seems to me this is a political question, a basic issue of politics, political science — more or less unrelated to formal theology, although not unaffected by the prevalent theology. It is related to why even some unbelievers and skeptics do not think atheists should be rulers and might want to be ruled in a Christian manner, albeit watered down.
And here’s a related thesis: the Golden Rule is the universal moral standard given by God, entailing all the other commandments. It is really the base level for all proper human functioning. People either try to follow the Golden Rule or just make sure they appear to follow it (individually and corporately). If the latter, they still won’t want to “fake it’ with the people they truly care about at some level.
This is all base-level civil righteousness, as we call it.
Respect for God’s law and its wisdom, some respect for God, makes for earthly peace. Romans 12:18 says “If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.” So, the Golden Rule would also say that we want people who recognize that there are enemies in this world — men who do not respect or regard God’s law and the shalom that it brings — and will help defend us from them. They also want this from us, and then we find each other.
So the rest of what follows is just an unpacking of these two main ideas.
If you think it worthy, feel free to share it with anyone, in the interest of further discussion and the refining of good thinking among Christians.
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I really was hoping that you would answer my question about the television shows that you referred to from all those other countries, but since I didn’t hear back from you on this I’ll just proceed with explaining my thoughts regarding what you said there.
To be sure, one common quality of all people is that they realize that things are not the way that they should be, or are supposed to be.
And, to be sure, there are some real heroes. Heroes from this or that religion, nation, class, ideology, etc. even….
These are people who realize that things are so bad that someone needs to do something and so they do it! Even well!
Though there are some who many believe to be heroes who really, in the end, aren’t…. Barrabas! They are more villains or even obviously villains to many, even if they are like “angels of light” to others who are blinded worse than most.
These are people who, though they realize that things are so bad that someone needs to do something and do it, they, in effect, counter real evils with even worse evils, evils that in fact overturn the created order. These are Satan’s useful idiots, and there were many in the 20th century in particular, as the decay of the world continues apace…
In the examples that you mention (these tv shows), are we talking about people who need to counter very evil situations that have gotten to be so bad everywhere that even exceedingly large populations know that something, perhaps even something drastic, must be done? (much like all the people in the Soviet Union in the 1980s knew that something had to be done as they navigated the edifices of lies, even if they did not know what to and did not know how to get started)? Often? Or rarely?
I’m guessing rarely. And I’m guessing that basically we are talking about your run-of-the-mill dreamer-types who, perhaps unlike many of the others around them, are basically unsatisfied with the general fallen condition of the world, and particularly the world they have come to know — evident to basically every thoughtful / reflective person — and particularly relevant and pressing for every idealistic person and artistic type of person (and particularly the revolutionary-minded person during times when the government and general leadership is, indeed, genuinely quite awful in many ways!) to some degree or another.
If they are striving to fulfill the law as they understand it, I suppose that they are doing so in a way that would nevertheless harken to Matthew 23 (which talks about the weightier matters of the law particularly the showing of mercy/compassion… the loving of mercy [Micah 6:8])… perhaps even falling into a Savior or Messianic role…. and maybe even getting sympathetic with the Barrabas direction, as I now think Bonhoeffer clearly did.
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Is it unfair for me to think along these lines right away?
Again, I had said this:
“Do you think that a person’s striving to fulfill the law as they understand it can be sustained for any amount of time without an understanding of the law as God’s standard for all persons, universally?”
I was thinking not so much about those who would be heroic and perhaps even act as activists, but more about the common and simple man who has a real respect for the law, order, authority, hierarchy, tradition, and ritual. Who see their more or less functional and law-and-order-based societies as flawed but nevertheless valuable, and would along with all of this also uphold traditional religious teachings that really do explicate universal moral standards — ***at least for those they are close to (think here of the original context of “love your neighbor as yourself” in Leviticus) — unless explicitly encouraged by their religion to see beyond their own people (see Jesus’ clear interpretation of that second greatest commandment in His parable of the Good Samaritan, which does not thereby nullify a fundamental “Ordo Amoris”)***. In other words, externally, they by habit practice and enact the fundamentals of goodness without being the spiritual man, the Christian.
Civil righteousness.
“So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this is the Law and the Prophets“, so it says right in the Sermon on the Mount. Seems pretty serious, and many in the world get this.
It is clear that people can and do intuitively understand, and often do so explicitly as well with some reflection, that some laws, decent laws, are there to be followed because they benefit the neighbor in some ways, and hence are also of benefit to oneself if others follow these same laws.Here we can think about Bonhoeffer summing up Luther talking about how ***prior*** to the law’s spiritual work in man, by the Holy Spirit, creating a real fear of God’s judgment and real worldly sorrow and remorse [which can also, prior to this, involve real raging, fleeing, hating, cursing, grumbling, and blasphemy vs God (I’d say this is all many “atheists” are really)], the only motive for obedience to what is commanded is external (which I’d interpret as the desire to win the trust and goodwill of certain others; the fear of disappointing others is involved here as well as the reward of pleasing them; the universal recognition that we reap what we sow, etc.).
[I also thought while reading Bonhoeffer about how when I had written those successful papers in the academic library world, I did not shy away from these matters, but made my, I think, strong case]
A clip:
“Forms of [the Golden Rule] have an impressive pedigree, appearing, importantly, in concrete testimony both trans-historically and trans-culturally. And this, it seems, is most significant for our discussion here regarding social constructionism and its either implicit or explicit claims about power’s all-encompassing role. For understood rightly, the Golden Rule’s profundity is undeniable. As relational beings, all of us, whether we are aware of it or not, constantly make moral judgments about ourselves and others (easier!). Here, the Golden Rule gives us the means whereby we might test the consistency of our judgments vis a vis our own lives, consciously self-legislate our behavior, and even recognize the significant overlap of our judgments with those of others – particularly those committed to living ethical lives. Further, it is conducive to building human understanding, respect, and mutuality – solidarity, trust, and even love” (Guseinov, 2014).
Obviously, the goal is that each man would know Christ and be led by his love. That we would simply imitate the love of Christ, our Everlasting father (Isaiah 9), as His own dear children. Nevertheless, again, this, in some very real way, sums up the law and the prophets, which all men can begin to understand….
That said, these laws that natural men practice, that begin in the natural family and radiate outward, that are often established in the positive laws of a nation, and that will always mirror God’s commandments imperfectly but noticeably, can sometimes begin to break down when criminality and sheer evil (see below for an example I saw the other day *), for example, begins to reign (in both blue and white collar ways) — and then what?
Here, no matter how corrupt a culture/civilization around a person might be, there will always be some families that will maintain these old religious ways, this old time religion, this old time view of values, of looking at the world (“Recabite” folks!). These are the cream of the crop of the “noble pagan” common man I am speaking of. They recognize the value of the law of God and God blesses them through their neighbors, even if these people do not even have the beginnings of any real fear of God (the law in its spiritual understanding is basically dead to them — Romans 4:15). Should this be disputed? Again, as Bonhoeffer puts it, summing up Luther, “no persons are so abhorrent that they would not know that they have to honor and love God . Therefore, in every person there lives a conscience, although it may be weak, formed by the law.”
I think about the muslim truck driver that I drove with for a whole week not long ago: he was one of the more morally sound and sensible people that I have ever met. And how very good he was to me and his customers. Obviously, still, his knowledge of God is limited to the law — even if, without the Holy Spirit creating a holy despair, sorrow, and remorse, God is more of an afterthought — but it is a very, very real knowledge nonetheless. He would be completely against everything the left stands for, as he admitted to me.
Here is the point: if one is confident that it is really ***God’s law***, universal for all people, that one is attempting to follow — and not merely one’s own understanding — then one can easily conclude that — in spite of the chance that select others might take advantage of you by their own not following this law — there will always be a real benefit to following it and not just a potentially illusionary one or one based merely on ideas of “social construction” (as well as a real judgment if it is not followed!). Why? Because God is ultimately the strongest and will rightly reward the following of his law, so that man need not be ashamed (everybody else would simply have no reason to not give into the temptation to only give the appearance of following the second table of the commandments and the Golden Rule in their relationships with people who they don’t truly want to be close to — or have any kind of loving or even just respectful relationship with, but only one in which they simply use the other person for whatever it is they want to do).
In this way the “fear” of God is the beginning of all wisdom not only as regards salvation but as regards civil righteousness, that is the only sensible way of living in the world. This would be a non-saving faith, a non-spiritual understanding even if it does begin to involve some external God who is ***somewhat acknowledged***, that acts on the knowledge of the law that is in us innately by nature (and here, God’s Holy Spirit may act as well, teaching/reinforcing ***and convicting***, [with a view towards proclaiming and creating faith when and where He pleases]), working through God’s orderly creation, conscience, and human language, even the testimony of the Language Made Flesh, that is, the external Good Life of Christ.
Even as things might break down around them here or there, they can find others who they realize also know what they know and can therefore work together to salvage what can be salvaged and fight against those who have no respect for others. And they will both hope for real temporal blessing (and, sure, likely eternal blessing [again, afterthought!]) to accrue to them!
Still, one might object:
“But if their conscience is functioning properly, there is no need for the thought that everyone else should live in such as way as well.”
On the one hand, I think that is correct, because no Christian qua Christian is concerned that he is being treated equally. He is willing to suffer all, knowing that the world is evil and even hated its Lord.
On the other hand, I strongly disagree because these matters are not only about him. So every Christian, loving their neighbor as themselves, is concerned that everybody is treated equally in a certain sense: they hope for and work towards the goal that everyone would be blessed to deeply know the law of God well and have the pleasure of living in it, to the honor of his holy Name. All in the blessed imitation of Christ, who is first our Savior and only then our example.
And now… I can also say this: might not some of our more artistic and idealistic people I mention above also believe something similar, even as they look to overthrow “the man”, the hierarchically-oriented oppressors obsessed with power and privilege if not crass pleasure as well? Might they not believe that “God”, “the Universe”, “the Divine Mind”, the “Divine Collective Unconsciousness”, will possibly, even probably, reward them, in this life and/or the next? Do not even the worst of men remain God-haunted religious animals? (and even these men, again, will basically follow the moral law and golden rule among those they wish to try to trust, love, and be close to…).
So: two sides emphasizing two aspects of what the law of God really demands — namely, moral uprightness, right behavior, judgement of evil ***and*** compassion, mercy? (even though one group, the latter, tend to see a “law of God” in a way that actually, in its ***necessary evolution***, begins to displace both tables and the created order!). Forcing us, politically, to choose one bad thing over another? The lesser of two evils?
I think so. And, again, I don’t think this is even really getting into a particularly Christian theology. This is good political science perhaps, informed by faith. The integration of faith and learning…
I think.
+++
And yet, believe it or not, in the end, I really don’t think I care about politics that much… or even enough! The question of nations is likewise an annoyance to me, as I am simply trying to wrestle with what I perceive on the ground and what Genesis 11 and Acts 17:26 mean today. I mean, really, like money, I’d rather not be that involved or think about it too much. Just give me Jesus and his kingdom please! (I’d rather think on the nature of the church, ecclesiology, and what a good and salutary ecumenical effort might look like today!)
In fact, it will probably take society falling apart and total war for me to really care about these things more or to be devoted to any particular group or party that is on the side of the angels, or at least the lesser of two evils. By this, I mean the people who will help me to defend my own family and the ones that I know love me and that I love from aggressors, evil men, who would steal, kill, and destroy….
Regarding political realities, I first and foremost think about what 1st Peter says:
“Be subject for the Lord’s sake to every human institution,whether it be to the emperor as supreme, or to governors as sent by him to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good. For this is the will of God, that by doing good you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people.”
And I think this goes hand in hand with a few quotes I’ll share about Universal standards:
“Atheists do not want there to be any Mind higher than theirs with which they might have to compete in understanding that Form and processing its implications. And to say that Form is transcendent is to say that there is such a Mind.” (Eric Phillips)
“It is [the]conviction of a transcendent, non-material reality which is foundational to the conception of truth within the Western world.” (Jordan Cooper)
“No decent, human society can survive that does not accept certain moral foundations. These principles we must assume are universally valid and can be known through moral reasoning.” (Paul Gottfried)
What do we learn in that 1st Peter quote? We learn that God desires us to be subject to every human institution. Every. Every! (also, I think we must consider the church to be a human institution as well, even if it is one ordained and established by God in a way distinct from Rom. 13 governance). We also learn here that rulers do not only punish the evil, as it says in Romans 13, but they are to reward the good. This presumes we know what good is. Finally, the last sentence from that passage above reinforces this as we learn that the doing of good silences foolish and ignorant people. They know. Of course they recognize goodness, which goes right along with universal standards, when they see it, and are convicted. Before we can even talk about conviction of sin as a possibility we presume real goodness, beautiful order and harmony (“flourishing”) created in line with God’s moral character.
Still, what if we take God out of the equation? (or do you think we should just try to take universal standards out of the equation and leave God in?) After all, the quotes from Jordan Cooper and others above seem to indicate we could do so and still have a western civilization. In other words, what if I change this…
“Do you think that a person’s striving to fulfill the law as they understand it can be sustained for any amount of time without an understanding of the law as God’s standard for all persons, universally?”
…to the following:
“Do you think that a person’s striving to fulfill the law as they understand it can be sustained for any amount of time without an understanding of the law as THE standard for all persons, universally?”
Now, our question has excluded God. So the question does not ask from where the standards derive, even as it still presumes universal standards that transcend every distinct person (like the definition of law I found and shared earlier: “A law is a rule or set of rules for good behaviour which is considered right and important by the majority of people for moral, religious, or emotional reasons.”)
Now these “forms” could be something external, coming from a Source that is Pure Existence or Pure Being (the Christian Neoplatonist says: “Forms are ideas, and ideas are thinking, and thinking is what a mind does”). And how would this Source then not be a Mind, and if a Mind how would it not be personal, a Person?
Alternatively though, it could be understood as deriving and ever evolving from the Collective Common Mind that is the only one that we “really know” exists, the one that is thinking these thoughts. Me. You. Man. Man as the [Increasingly Wise and Progressing] Spirit…
So we are back to all people assuming that these [evolving] standards are in some sense Universal, Divine, more than material and physical (that is, only based on chaos and randomness with a little bit of seemingly [Not so!] creator-less, meaningless, purposeless, universal “laws of nature”, etc.). Their “faith” in this “god” says there is indeed more, so join their [utopian] movement! (it is easy to see why there are not many people so traditionally religious among them, and who can sustain any kind of faith necessarily outside of, extra nos to… man….)
+++
Unfortunately, I believe that we are bound to go in this godless collective direction. Instead of embracing the nature of man, the church now, even if it did not before, not only lifts up and recognizes but focuses on the individual. But I think looking at things in terms of the individual is not only anemic but ultimately impossible, for man is a political animal. “All men are created equal? These truths are self-evident”?
No.
Does the distinct person, which we call the “individual”, need anything more than their conscience to understand if there is some sort of “right” action?
Indeed. They need a community, a collective, to reinforce the golden rule that is in them by nature, and even more than this — they need a community to share with them the Word of God, God’s Holy Spirit/the Spirit of Christ, the Hope found only in the Gospel.
Christianity values and lifts up each distinct person – for in the church especially each member of the body is important – but to focus on the “individual” is sheer poison. When Paul says that he would go to hell for his own kin, his own race, we cannot truly understand at all, so cold is our own love. This focus is debilitating and causes us to not recognize the kind of love we are to have for our neighbor more broadly, in our families, churches, neighborhoods, socially, politically, in our nation and beyond our nation….
The fact of the matter is that we do not have very many examples of feral children without human community. They obviously did not do well. We do have a myriad of examples of people who have some human community, some with better help than others. And of course there is even honor among thieves, who will operate according to the Golden Rule with those they aim to be found with…..
So Western liberal piety cannot escape nature. “Social construction”, though real and significant and important in very real ways, is not enough, cannot be exclusive, and will perish. As evidenced by its actions, Western liberal piety never believes it is good for all to “do what is right in [one’s] own eyes” (“you do you”). The desires for political freedom, “modern rights”, with some moral tolerance, though strong, are not absolute.
Even at its absolute worst, Western liberal piety upholds critical universal standards – now accompanied by calls for equality in most every respect – to topple hierarchy/hierarchies, even as the pyramid of hierarchy is then re-established. Some having this frame of mind are of course naive to this permanently recurring motif, while others know exactly what they are doing…
Meanwhile, all continue to practice the Golden Rule – by which the law and the prophets are summed up – among those they wish to be identified, found with. Promoting trust and good will, it is natural for this to be nurtured and encouraged in families – and then, in healthy societies, in wider circles: clans, nations, federations, etc. Here, good and strong families are seen as essential.
Revolutionary opposition, on the other hand, seeks to oppose this, and in its extreme forms tries also to establish artificial substitutes, at least for those it desires to manage, subjugate, weaken (if they do not eliminate them more quickly), not for itself….
In this sense it opposes God and His law. They are evil and cruel men par excellance. And hence, ultimately a law to itself, it can’t not help choose Barabbas or worse.
+Nathan
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Endnote
* –
“Absolute Truth?”
In college Philosophy 101, professor Wennberg explored with us if there was such a thing as “absolute truth.”
He posed, “Is it always wrong to torture infants for your own pleasure?”
If you answered in the affirmative, then you believed in the existence of absolute truth. And if one believes it exists, then one then must ponder the origins of that truth. Such arguments inescapably lead to the logical conclusion that an absolute truth giver must exist; i.e. God.
I loved that class, loved professor Wennberg, and never forgot this intriguing, rhetorical question.
Regardless of where one stands on the question of absolute truth, except for perverts, everyone should agree that torturing infants for pleasure is always wrong.
Nevertheless, to my utter shock and dismay, this practice is prevalent in our culture, and we deserve hell-fire and brimstone for it.
Encouragingly, some people have been doing something about it, and have been rescuing children from their torturous predicaments.
Which leaves us with yet another serious problem: what do we do with these rescued children, and how can we restore them to some semblance of a life?
Yesterday, I was appointed to serve on the board of “Peace of Heaven Children’s Paradise, a Refuge for Trafficked Children.” It is still in the planning and fund-raising stages, and we’ve already raised over $1.6 million of our $4 million launching target.
It is hard to imagine a more worthy cause. It is an absolute necessity. We plan to house, nurture, and educate over 350 children, pre-K to 12th grade.
Sadly, I anticipate that one of our biggest challenges will be that we will be at capacity in mere months. The reality of this is devastating.
Last year, I had already signed up for a monthly donation of $100. I’m urging each of you to subscribe as well. We anticipate a $10 million dollar annual budget (non-profit). Any amount is welcome. Just do it: PeaceOfHeaven.life
“In as much as you have done it to the least of these, you have done it unto me.” – Jesus Christ
Sermon preached at Clam Falls Lutheran Church, Dec. 28, 2025.
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“[Your children] will return from the land of the enemy…to their own land.”
– Jer. 31: 16b, 17b
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In our readings this morning, we hear about enemies.
What is an enemy?
It’s an important question.
The new Pope, Pope Leo, says that “[t]here are no enemies – only brothers and sisters. What we need are gestures and policies of reconciliation.”
I get where the Pope is coming from.
The Bible tells us to love our enemies; that Jesus actually makes peace with evil men, making them friends…
And then, following from this, it urges Jesus’s followers to be peacemakers, to let our reasonableness be known to everyone, and tells us that we should seek to live at peace with all, insofar as it is in our power…
Still though, the Bible talks about real enemies all the time!
Also, people who don’t believe the Bible – and people who get really involved in politics – talk about enemies all the time.
An enemy doesn’t need to have fangs, be cartoonishly evil.
The term simply means “a person who is actively opposed or hostile to someone or something”, or “a thing that harms or weakens something else”.
It goes hand in hand with words like foe, adversary, opponent, rival, nemesis, antagonist…
So who is a Christian’s enemy?
Well, the Bible talks about sin, death, and the devil.
It also warns us about the world, our flesh or old Adam, and the devil.
The devil appears in both lists for good reason…
…for he and his demons are the invisible yet powerful actors that reside behind the curtain of the world that we cannot see with our eyes, experience with our senses…
+++
So, some more about the enemy of Christians.
The enemy of a Christian is the one who opposes Christ, who is anti-Christ.
A Christian is fully united with Christ, beginning in baptism, in conversion.
They are the ones who believe that Jesus Christ paid the price for all of their sins, died because of the cost of their sins, making a way for them to be forgiven and to get to heaven.
Therefore, because of this great wrath and love of God known from the cross, a Christian is also one who will fear to commit sin, desire not to sin…
That means that the Christian’s enemy is the opposite of this. His enemy is the one who does not fear to commit sin.
He is the one who rebels against God, Christ.
The one who rebels against the good and life-giving word that God utters.
+++
Still, don’t some non-Christians follow the law better than us? Well, maybe externally, and even then, only certain parts of it.
The non-Christian is nevertheless the enemy of God – and us – because He ultimately opposes Jesus Christ.
Non-believers… heathen… pagans… may not rebel against their parents, may not kill or commit adultery or steal or bear false witness or covet this or that… they in fact might be a great neighbor for you personally.
…and yet, if they oppose any statement God makes – if any command or promise he gives is disregarded – they rebel against him.
They oppose him, they make themselves out to be his – and our – enemy.
The Ten Commandments overall, both tables, generalize about what our lives should look like both before man and God…
And the first commandment, found in the first table, says that we are to fear, love, and trust in God above all things.
Great church fathers like Augustine and Martin Luther have commented that when the first commandment is kept all the others will be kept as well.
Everything comes down to fear, love, and trust in God, in Jesus…
The Christian lives by the gospel and walks in God’s law. Moreover, we live by every word that proceeds from His mouth.
If we do not do this – if we think for some reason that we do not have to do this – to that extent we rebel, and put our soul in peril. Put our salvation at risk.
If we have people in our lives who truly love us, they will tell us this, humbly tell us this, even as they are aware of their own sin.
Hence we must always be vigilant to fight against our enemies…
…not meaning first and foremost flesh and blood…. but the world, our flesh, and the devil!
We walk in danger all the way… of all these enemies, especially the last one, the devil, Satan, Lucifer, the angel of light – and all of his hordes.
+++
This is deeply connected with God’s promises of blessings and curses.
In the Old Testament we read “those who bless Israel I will bless, those who curse her I will curse.”
Many misunderstand this verse today.
The proper interpretation of this relates to who Jesus Christ is, who the Messiah is…
Grammatically, in this passage Israel is about a single individual.The Messiah, the Christ, is Israel reduced to one. One faithful man without sin. No one is good but God alone, and Jesus is God as well as man.
And He is the perfect Israelite and representative of them all, for he is the perfect man, Adam, and the representative of us all!
He is the head of the church, which is in fact the true Israel (for not everyone descended from Israel – that is Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob – is Israel, Paul says in Romans).
The gospel of Matthew tells us that Jesus fulfilled the prophecy in Isaiah 49 about God’s servant, who is rightly associated with the Messiah:
“It is too small a thing for you to be my servant to
restore the tribes of Jacob
and bring back those of Israel I have kept.
I will also make you a light for the Gentiles,
that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.”
This sounds like a great message of confident hope, which it is.
But what do we read in Isaiah 49 before this great prophecy?
Countered by enemies, we read these interesting words:
“I have labored in vain;
I have spent my strength for nothing at all.
Yet what is due me is in the Lord’s hand,
and my reward is with my God.”
The very Messiah himself utters a complaint against what his enemies have brought against him – a complaint that his Father hears and remedies, just like he does with Rachel’s weeping!
+++
But what is this about Rachel? It has to do with both of our Old and New Testament texts this morning.
Rachel was the wife of the Patriarch Jacob, and gave birth to Benjamin, who became the most prominent of the northern tribes….
Again, our text from Jeremiah 31 reads:
“They will return from the land of the enemy.
…Your children will return to their own land.”
What the author of Jeremiah is saying here in the broader context of our Old Testament text is that Rachel’s work – her giving birth to and raising children, her prayers for their repentance and faith, and her tears and weeping in the light of their untimely demise – shall be rewarded!
With her own eyes she will see the return of not only the captives, but the slain! (see Heb. 11:35)
The rest of Jeremiah 31 gives us this great picture: in heaven all will be made right!
As we sing….
“O come, O come, Immanuel,
and ransom captive Israel
that mourns in lonely exile here
until the Son of God appear!….”
When the Messiah comes, the exiles shall return, and the land be inhabited again, though not as the old Jerusalem but the new!…
Here, the northern nation of Israel – those for whom Rachel weeps – is a stand-in for all of God’s people, including the southern kingdom, Judah.
And this can be applied to the innocents slain in Bethlehem from our Gospel reading in the following way:
“Those holy innocents – those little martyrs of Bethlehem – will one day return from the land of their enemy, King Herod, and from the Last Enemy to be destroyed, Death.
…They will return to their own land, the new Israel, the new Jerusalem, the new heavens and earth!”
This is a greater fulfillment of the prophecy than in the Old Testament, because the Holy Innocents were innocent, while Jacob’s and Rachel’s children, or Israel, brought about their own destruction.
What is the meaning of this prophecy today?
This prophecy will come to its final fulfillment when Christ returns, judging the living and the dead, and saving his people from their enemies, taking all of those made innocent by his blood home…
Again, besieged by the devil, the flesh and the world with its Powerful Spirit, or Zeitgeist, the church is a stranger and alien and exile this side of heaven.
It is scattered across the nations and time.
Yet it is all those who hear and heed the voice of their good shepherd, powerfully risen from the dead, Jesus Christ, the way, the truth, and the life!
Because of his great mercy, we will have Israel, Jerusalem, again in our Heavenly land to come!
+++
Until that time, we must deal with having enemies.
Who are the enemies of us today? Who are the church’s enemies today?
Of course, in this age, as in any age, they are those who oppose the message of the Messiah:
That there is no other name under Heaven by which we must be saved, and that he, and that he alone, is the way, the truth, and the life.
That means, again, contra Pope Leo, that we have a lot of enemies!
Let me talk about one of these, one that might make many of you uncomfortable.
In 1 Thessalonians chapter 2 the Apostle Paul speaks of:
“…the Jews who killed the Lord Jesus and the prophets and also drove us out. They displease God and are hostile to everyone in their effort to keep us from speaking to the Gentiles so that they may be saved. In this way they always heap up their sins to the limit. The wrath of God has come upon them at last…”
Today, in the states of South Dakota and Florida – as well as any educational institution in the United States receiving federal funding – words like these from the Bible are now illegal, violating laws against anti-semitism.
I guess that is what the political term of art “Judeo-Christian” means.
In an official 2015 document from the Vatican it states that: “…the Catholic Church neither conducts nor supports any specific institutional mission work directed towards Jews.”
This goes along with the most commonly accepted understanding of Vatican 2, which is that the Jews, in their faithfulness to God, find salvation through their own covenant….
This is called letting your enemies change your teaching.
Though I suppose if you don’t think you have any enemies, you might fall into this mistake.
But the Apostle Paul says that Israel according to physical descent and the church are now separate, for the church is by faith what Israel by blood was meant to be, the true Israel.
Nevermind that the Jewish Talmud decries the New Testament and reinterprets and overshadows the Old Testament for modern-day Jews; that it directly contradicts God’s word on many occasions, identifies Christians as enemies who can be lied to, and says that Jesus Christ is eternally boiling in excrement.
Nevermind that the modern day nation-state of Israel will not allow any Christian evangelism, and will not allow any ethnic Jews who convert to Christianity to immigrate there.
On the other hand,
“[a] Jew who abandons Judaism for atheism can still qualify. A Jew who practices witchcraft, Buddhism, Scientology or Islam can still qualify under certain circumstances.”
This is irrevocable opposition to the Christian faith.
These are certainly our earthly enemies precisely because they follow in Satan’s train.
They have been deceived by him.
They are not part of the church or “friends of the church”, but the world, friendship with whom we are to scorn…
+++
The forgiveness, life, and salvation of Christ must not be rejected.
This is war.
Get your spiritual armor on. Take up your weaponry!
Weekly worship on Sunday is the most important hour of the week!
Use it to help shape your whole week!
This is your battle station, even as it is your hospital as well.
Today, we might have a few hours of continual “catechesis” at church each week, but the world – with its media, professors, politicians and influencers – in fact catechize us for the remainder of the week when we give them our eyes and ears….
Enemies make everything difficult.
But in the Christian’s life, God uses everything for our good. God uses our enemies for our good.
And our good means he in turn uses us for the good of others… even our enemies’ good.
This, in part, means teaching us what it means to be like Jesus, and to be like Jesus is both to loveand hate one’s enemies.
What? What do I mean?
Well, what I mean is there are some very difficult Bible passages we must deal with.
In Psalm 139, for example, we read:
“If only you, God, would slay the wicked!
Away from me, you who are bloodthirsty!
They speak of you with evil intent;
your adversaries misuse your name…”
The Psalmist clearly experiences anger over this.
Righteous anger, he would undoubtedly say! What he goes on to say though, may catch us off guard even more:
“Do I not hate those who hate you, Lord,
and abhor those who are in rebellion against you?
I have nothing but hatred for them;
I count them my enemies.”
Interestingly, right after saying this, he goes on to say:
“Search me, God, and know my heart;
test me and know my anxious thoughts.
See if there is any offensive way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting…”
We might be inclined to say, “Yeah there’s something really offensive about your hating others created in the image of God!”
But we must be wise.
+++
An enemy is one who opposes you, Christian.
These necessarily oppose God, and this ultimately results in their hatred of him and their real blood thirstiness… their willingness to steal, murder, and destroy…. even kill God himself.
For this reason, God curses them, though he also removes this curse through Jesus! For Jesus bears the curse of man’s sins on the cross.
Still, men resist even Jesus. The face of God in its most gentle and tender form. So the curse of God remains on them.
Also, for this reason we must talk about love and hatred in these terms.
Hatred and anger can be talked about in a subjective sense that the Bible warns us against – “do not let the sun go down on your anger.”
But again, it can also be talked about strictly in terms of the ongoing need to oppose evil, that which is opposed to God.
First and foremost, this means always opposing Satan.
But it also means opposing those who follow in his train, whether invisible, demons, or visible, pagans.
It means opposing God’s enemies, our enemies.
That is what a perfect hatred is.
It mirrors and is the exact opposite of the state of Israel.
That state will not allow Christian converts among their people because Christians are their enemies.
Heaven will not allow those opposed to Christ in because they are enemies.
+++
We are not guaranteed God’s temporal blessings in this world.
In fact, throughout the history of the world, there have been many times when Christians have had to succumb to their enemies.
As Jesus, the Christ, Israel’s and the world’s Messiah himself, complained about his enemies, we, who follow in his train, will undoubtedly as well…
But in the end, with the final judgment, victory is sure!
In their hearts, Christians always lead with the message of God’s mercy in Christ, his forgiveness for those who repent.
Still, all won’t.
And so God’s judgment of all our enemies is, in the end, indeed good news!
The psalmist this morning spoke genuinely God-pleasing words when he said, and we repeated:
“Let evil recoil on those who slander me; in your faithfulness destroy them…
You have delivered me from all my troubles, and my eyes have looked in triumph on my foes…”
God will save us from our most sinister and destructive enemies.
Again, these are not primarily flesh and blood.
Instead, sin, death, and devil lie shattered before the foot of the cross.
For me, for you…
And now, eternal life is ours in Jesus Christ, and no enemy can ever, ever take this away from us!
Sermon preached at Clam Falls Lutheran Church, Nov. 30, 2025.
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“Nation will not take up sword against nation,
nor will they train for war anymore…..”
— Isa. 2:5b
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What is God’s will for my life?
Two things, as I re-frame that for you:
First, it makes sense to ask instead how my life fits into God’s will.
Second, it makes sense to first speak about God’s will for man in general, not just you!
And here, God’s will for mankind really isn’t that complicated – even after Adam and Eve messed things up.
Man is made in the image of God, and is to be good, holy, like him, who is named Love, is Love.
And you can’t just love in any way!
For God designed us creatures, body and soul, in accordance with his own unchangeable divine nature and character.
So in a very specific way.
He even gave us a “how-to manual” or “roadmap” of sorts in the Bible.
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The other morning at work I was delivering food to a Noodles restaurant, and I saw a sign that read:
“Treat others how you want to be treated all the time.”
This rule is pretty universal… variations of it have popped up throughout human history.
And, interestingly, what does Jesus say about it specifically?
That it, the so-called “Golden Rule” – which of course also goes along with “love your neighbor as yourself” –sums up the law and the prophets.
That, if you think about it, is jarring, momentous.
That means it absolutely goes hand-in-hand with God’s created order and his Ten Commandments…
…particularly the second table of the law we heard about in our Epistle reading from Romans this morning, written by the Apostle Paul.
How would things work if everybody followed this rule all the time?
How would it work if we first followed this rule with those closest to us, especially our family? What if everyone did this – was determined to do this – without consideration of whether their neighbor would return the favor?
Certainly, earth would be more like heaven.
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You know that in the Lord’s Prayer we pray “thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven”.
What does this mean? In Martin Luther’s Small Catechism we read the following about this petition of the Lord’s Prayer:
“The good and gracious will of God is done even without our prayer, but we pray in this petition that it may be done among us also.
How is God’s will done? God’s will is done when He breaks and hinders every evil plan and purpose of the devil, the world, and our sinful nature, which do not want us to hallow God’s name or let His kingdom come; and when He strengthens and keeps us firm in His Word and faith until we die.
This is His good and gracious will.”
If God’s will were perfectly followed by all, there would be no war.
This is why we read the prophecy we read this morning from the book of Isaiah, describing the last days: “…all nations will stream to [God’s Temple on his mountain].” God will teach them his ways, his law, and he will settle the disputes of the nations.
“They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks.
Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore…”
There will be no war in the life to come, in the new heavens and the new earth.
None at all. For war is a curse. It – like all suffering and pain and thorns and toil – is always a message from God that man needs to repent.
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And what if they did?
What if not only each individual but each nation – all the races, all the people groups! – followed the Golden Rule regarding one another?
Certainly, following God’s law, his Commandments – even imperfectly – is what brings blessing to people on earth. Jeremiah 18:7-10 says:
“If at any time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be uprooted, torn down and destroyed, and if that nation I warned repents of its evil, then I will relent and not inflict on it the disaster I had planned. And if at another time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be built up and planted, and if it does evil in my sight and does not obey me, then I will reconsider the good I had intended to do for it.”
But the rulers of men reject this, are rejecting this, more and more.
As prophesied by Psalm 2, they say, along with the nations that conspire, “Let us break [the] chains and throw off [the] shackles” of God and his Messiah.
“Well god, if we are not only human but fallen then maybe you should have given us better instructions, more reasonable directions, commandments more in accordance with who we are right now, who we feel we are right now.
And since you didn’t do this, we’ll have to make our own laws to some degree, take matters into our own hands!”
This is how man reasons, uses his sin-infected mind, and the thought processes have gotten even more out of control today.
“Who knows if you are real? Who knows if you, the God we hear you are, will judge us?
We don’t need any of your boundaries, barriers or borders! We don’t need one man and woman in marriages for life. Not every child needs a mom or dad. Why even seek children, really? Wives need not be keepers of the home or submissive to their husbands! So for sure, sexual activity doesn’t only need to be for marriage. And we don’t need to insist men be men, women be women, or families be families or nations be nations. And we certainly don’t need to acknowledge the right to life of the smallest and weakest and oldest members of the human race…”
God is love, but the world has decided that love is god, check that, what they feel is loving and love is their god.
They have a god falsely named “love” who is an idol, better, a demon. The Bible asserts that all false gods, idols, are demons.
Some people will still tell you that they believe in “tough love”, but they nevertheless now have defined love in a completely different way.
In fact, they might feel they need to exercise tough love against you, who do not conform to their new, un-biblical, definition of love!
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And when man is at war with God, no wonder there is discord… strife… war. You can’t have harmony if you don’t humble yourself and follow the instruction manual.
See our passage from Romans. In that epistle reading, Paul talks not only about “carousing, drunkenness, sexual immorality and debauchery”, but “dissension and jealousy”…
Elsewhere he speaks about vices like hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions, and envy. Of course all of these are strongly associated with violence, conflict, warfare…
In the Book of James we also hear about evil desires and passions like selfish ambition, envy, jealousy, and a materialistic spirit. He states that “fights and quarrels come from your desires that battle within you”. We covet rather than asking God for help, and so there is war.
The answer to this, of course, is the fruits of God’s Spirit which walk by and in love, which walk in accordance with his paths, his way, his law.
Still, we are not content, are we?
We trespass against our neighbors.
Instead of “let[ting] no debt remain outstanding except the continuing debt to love one another”, as our Epistle reading says, we rather accumulate, accrue, debts with them… we sin, trespass, against them.
By following one’s base desires and giving into one’s feelings suffering is caused.
Clearly this is something many understand. Buddhists in fact wrongly go so far to say that allsuffering is caused by desiring or wanting anything or anyone at all, whatever or whomever it may be. But a desire for good things, properly aimed, is fundamentally good.
In any case, sin, springing from naturally good desires that have been infected, warped, and even altered by sin does cause all problems, and we need to be bridled.
People need to be made to respect us.
We need to be made to respect others.
In one sense, the tyrants of the Enlightenment who said that we must be “forced to be free’ some 250 years ago were not altogether wrong, for man will at least be considerably more in line with who they are meant to be – even when compelled or even forced to follow God’s law…
At Noodles and beyond.
Old Adam always rebels against goodness and a good ruler will curb people’s worst impulses by God’s law and even, to some degree, inspire and incentivize behavior that is good.
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Again, in the end, this is very simple.
There is not a problem with the law, but with sinful man.
In our rebellion and selfishness, we confuse matters, not putting first things first, and make everything impossible.
Following God’s law, on the other hand, makes for blessings.
If you follow the law you will not only get along well with your family and friends, but neighbors as well. In this context, things will work well.
And we are humble in not only recognizing this but in our doing it, realizing that our following God’s law is imperfect, our motivations mixed and askew.
We still die, after all, which is proof that we – though also new creatures in Christ – are nevertheless still sinners this side of heaven.
Still, following the law, especially with a deep awareness of one’s sinful impulses inside, makes for blessing. We will get along with our family, neighbors, and beyond.
Except those who you don’t get along with, because they continuously abuse and disregard God’s law.
This is what happened to Jesus.
The Pharisees were hypocrites and did not actually follow God’s law (if you don’t believe me, take a look at what Jesus said in Matthew 23, or the Apostle Paul said in Romans 2).
Interestingly, all of this played into the original ideas behind the old monastic communities, when they arose in the West.
They thought they would have communities where everyone follows God’s law, regularly hears his word, and has strict discipline.
The path to heaven is thereby seemingly made easier, with less roadblocks along the way.
But some things begin to go awry. There was corruption and scandal in the monasteries. Sin was still among them! Some monks, like one of the most popular ones of the 15th century, Thomas a Kempis, therefore took matters to the next level.
His solution, outlined in his classic devotional book, The Imitation of Christ, veers, in a sense, towards Buddhist or gnostic ideas:
Desire is the problem. Kill all earthly desires.
Certainly, there is much in his book that is wise and truly commendable.
Nevertheless, at the same time, he disparaged all forms of attachment in this life and bemoaned the necessities of nature, asking for God to make all earthly things bitter, “all low and created things into contempt and oblivion”.
Elsewhere, he spoke of “despis[ing] the things of the earth” and “disregard[ing] the world” (82). He said things like “eating, drinking, clothing and other necessaries appertaining to the support of the body, are burdensome to the fervent spirit” (121).
This is mistaken. The problem is not the created things on earth, but worldliness. The issue is not desire per se, but sinful desire: desires that are excessive, out of place, not in accordance with nature, and finally, not informed by a love for God.
So we should not retreat from the earth, created things like this!
Even if we should always seek the Lord before and above all the gifts on earth he has given us.
Even if we should prioritize time for him and other Christians.
Even if we should make time to to intently sit at His feet and “take everything to God in prayer”…
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Again, our sinful desires lead to discord, strife, war… even total destruction.
God calls us to repent, to trust him, the Prince of Peace.
True, trying to avoid war and destruction is not the best reason to repent.
Still, all must abandon the world’s false god of love, created by our very own sinful desires, for the true God who is love.
One path leads to war, the other to earthly peace.
And one path leads to hell and the other to eternal salvation.
The Christian life involves increasingly following God’s law but nevertheless, counterintuitively, is not primarily focused on the law.
It is focused on the One who not only has borne the curse of the law on the tree of the cross…
…but has perfectly lived, perfectly fulfilled, the law for us, on our behalf, in love.
And he now calls us to do the same!
We do not climb to heaven by our works, we do not proudly stand before God according to our own personal righteousness, we are not saved by following God’s law.
Not the labors of my hands
can fulfill thy law’s demands;
could my zeal no respite know,
could my tears forever flow,
all for sin could not atone;
thou must save, and thou alone.
Nothing in my hand I bring,
simply to the cross I cling;
naked, come to thee for dress;
helpless, look to thee for grace;
foul, I to the fountain fly;
wash me, Savior, or I die.
Believe it my friends!
Look outside of yourselves and believe!
Trust, rest, in him.
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Nevertheless, being filled with God’s Holy Spirit we produce good fruit.
The Christian lives in God’s law; following, walking according to, God’s law is good.
We should not follow God’s law thinking it will guarantee all prosperity and success and happiness on earth.
We should follow the law because it’s the right thing to do, it is our duty, and it glorifies God when we serve our neighbor through it.
Still, we must realize that at times we who walk in God’s law will be persecuted by those most set against him.
Like Jesus.
The highest of his own people envied him, plotted against him, and killed him. They did not follow God’s law, even imperfectly.
Jesus came as the one who perfectly fulfilled the law and was in fact the Prince of Peace. He was rejected, killed for it.
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The Jews are a stand-in for all of humanity here. All of us – to some extent at least – desire to cast aside God’s law, scorn his word. Be done with it.
Perhaps some of us – like the Jews – have even known burning anger and hatred towards God.
Martin Luther felt this.
And perhaps more might feel this today if they spent more time fasting from their regular media intake, instead reading and meditating on God’s word…
…not passing over the more difficult and harder parts, of which there are many.
We are what we eat? I think of the prophets Ezekiel and Jeremiah, who had visions of eating the scrolls containing God’s word.
More so, we are what we hear… listen to… read.
We live from every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.
We still flee though, much less fail to prioritize.
No, there is always a struggle within the true Christian, between the new man that desires to do God’s will, and the old man that does not.
The Bible shows us clearly that man, even redeemed man, must deal with his sinful nature…
…it shows us the infection of evil inside, that resides within, that we must fight against, and do fight against.
Again, that this fight occurs within – that we fight this evil, though at times unsuccessfully – does not mean we are not Christians; it means that we are.
And in the case of Jesus, as with all of us, God will use all the evil deeds of sinful men who hate goodness.
He will, amazingly, use their evil for good.
But still woe to him through whom such temptations – and then sins – come!
Let us not love the world, its worldliness, its lust and its pride and its folly; rather, let us be those who increasingly love God’s law and word.
That we, our families, our neighbors and our nations, would be blessed here on earth as in heaven.
That we would be peacemakers.
As the author of Hebrews says: “Strive for peace with everyone…” As James says, “peacemakers who sow in peace reap a harvest of righteousness” Insofar as we are able to do so, and it depends on us, let us do so! (Romans 12:18).
Dear God, O Prince of Peace, deliver us from evil…
…and give us hearts and minds that long for you to come quickly, even like a thief in the night.
Sermon preached at Clam Falls Lutheran Church, Oct. 26, 2025.
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“This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe….”
— Rom. 3:22a
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Today is Reformation Sunday.
Why?
Because the worldis in the church.
Take the world’s largest and most recognizable church, the Roman Catholic communion.
What has the new Pope, for example, been doing?
Well, when he’s not blessing blocks of ice, adding Muslim prayer rooms to the Vatican, or praising gay pedophile priests as prophets, he’s saying one can’t be pro-life without also being against the death penalty…
And he ended up saying much the same – with some hesitation – to those in the Western world who want to deport immigrants.
And even though the Bible is honest about Christians having enemies, in a statement on social media not long ago he also said that there are no enemies.
Needless to say, after Pope Francis’ death, things do not seem to have gotten much better.
I’m guessing many devout, traditional Roman Catholics are themselves increasingly hoping again for a kind of reformation of their own.
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Meanwhile, in the Protestant world, there is a young man – quite popular on social media – named Richard Ackerman who goes by the name of “Redeemed Zoomer”. The Zoomer has his “Reconquista” project.
I edited a Google AI summary that I can confirm is accurate, and it follows:
“The Redeemed Zoomer ‘Reconquista’ project seeks to restore traditional theology within mainline Protestant denominations by strengthening conservative members from within rather than abandoning them.
The movement argues that liberal theology has led to church decline and promotes staying to preserve and revitalize historic institutions unless forced out.
Its strategy involves conservative Christians joining or remaining in these churches, gradually becoming the majority, and ultimately restoring traditional teachings and unity.”
There are some good criticisms of his plan, and I recently came across one that was new to me:
“Reconquista is self[-]defeating at the outset. The plan hinges on people in faithless institutions having the faith and conviction to, at some point, cleanse the institutions, but having faith and conviction means you cannot tolerate being in the institution to begin with.
This critic is saying that no one is going to be able to join a more “moderate” Anglican/Episocopal congregation, for example, because someone with real faith will not be able to tolerate it at all; they would be so disgusted with it…
Of course, if Rome becomes increasingly liberal, some will leave and go to Protestant congregations that say they believe the Bible – maybe like one of those big evangelical churches that the late Charlie Kirk went to.
On the other hand, there are some who will stay because they are convinced there is only one church, under the Pope.
That, interestingly, would have been Martin Luther’s orientation and attitude as well.
Reformation of the one church – not revolution – was his hope.
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Did Luther really want that though? Some have questioned this. I think about a theological friend of mine, who pointed out that Luther’s rhetoric, for example, could be rather vicious, even for his times.
I think it’s very true that Luther did not want to leave, in spite of his occasionally harsh rhetoric.
Why? Again, because Christ’s Church is one. Because there is only one body, even if it is not always looking conspicuous, much less attractive and glorious!
How different is this attitude from today when people go “church shopping”, looking for the best place that aligns with their preferences!?
How different is this attitude from today when people are hurt by others in a congregation, and quickly decide to go to a different “denomination”!?
Today, there is almost no recognition that denominations should not exist and that there should only be one Church.
Even the most fiercely conservative Christian will say that as long as an orthodox or rightly-believing person is looking for a faithful congregation, he need not really belong to one in order to somehow be a part of the true church….
But was that really the case for Martin Luther? For him, there was only one church, one living temple of God.
And he had to object to the problems that he saw because where else could people go?
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In Luther’s day, too many things were happening during his day that were too crazy, that had departed from God’s word too much.
Of course, since you grew up in the Lutheran Church and have been around the block, most of you probably know a bit about these issues. A sampling:
-Belief in purgatory, a place of fire and purging that could last for thousands of years.
-Indulgences. Want to knock a few hundred years of your stay in purgatory? Reverently give to the church.
-Monasticism. This claimed to be the most sure path to salvation. Also, less time in purgatory.
-Special “works of superrogation” where one could go beyond what God demanded.
-Hence, prayers to saints, merit super-earners, for assistance in this “salvation system”.
-The absurd multiplication of saints’ relics, with their special healing powers.
-The sacrifice of the mass, including paid masses for the rich or for the dead.
-Forbidding priests to marry.
-Communion in only one kind.
-A multiplication of the sacraments beyond baptism and the Lord’s Supper.
-Above all, justification before God not just by faith but by works done in righteousness.
Finally, there was the belief that traditions were on the same level as Scripture, and that the papacy was an office ordained by God…
…one that demanded it be obeyed at the cost of one’s salvation.
Quoting 2nd Thessalonians 2, Luther said the Pope was the Antichrist who sat in the Temple of God, or the Church, claiming divine authority for his human traditions and his ability to anathematize or condemn souls…
…and the Lutheran Confessions that all traditional Lutheran pastors still subscribe to would not give us any indication that this evaluation has changed.
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In fact, councils like Vatican 1 in 1869 and 1870 and Vatican 2 in the 1960s actually just made things worse.
And now, with Leo, “What can we expect next?!”
God knows.
One of the reasons why one is hard-pressed to find much hope here is because a lot of the problems that I’ve mentioned above – that people complained about during the Reformation and still today – are based on deeper and more fundamental issues.
What are these?
First of all, sin is a stain, not a deep and fatal infection. People and their desires are basically good, and people are not – as the Bible teaches – children of wrath by nature. This root problem affects everything.
Second, one is saved by [Rome’s idea of] grace more than faith in Christ. Since Rome has always focused on works instead of faith, their doctrine has now developed so that basically anybody doing good by grace (kind of like God’s love poured into us as a human gasoline) can be saved without faith in Christ.
Third, we are not truly dead in sin and raised by the gospel. Rome says that “[i]f God wills the salvation of all men (1 Tim 2:4), he must give to every man the opportunity to ‘respond to the love and piety of God’”. But the point is that without God in His forgiveness first having its way with and transforming us… our nature can’t even do this.
Fourth, the final major issue: Scripture is not Supreme. For example, no prominent voice in Rome from the past 200 years[!] has rejected evolution or the belief that the Earth is millions of years old. One may also think of the papal declarations about the Mariological dogmas of 1854 and 1950, asserted by the Pope over and against both Scripture and traditions from the church’s earliest days.
So these are the major historical, doctrinal errors of the Roman Catholic Church, whether pre- or post- Vatican 2.
Even if some Roman Catholics don’t seem to focus on these things, they are still teachings of the Roman Catholic faith.
I’ll speak about how the consequences of all of these beliefs are becoming more clear and consequential in a minute.
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Let’s start to pull all these pieces together. What does it mean?
You should want the church to be one, visibly united in a common confession.
One body, one Spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God… (Eph. 4:4-6)
You should also want your children and grandchildren to be raised in an environment where they will be told that their salvation is by grace through faith in Jesus Christ (here’s another problem with Redeemed Zoomer’s plan – young people risking their kids in a bad church?).
Hence, as the great biographer of Martin Luther, Roland Bainton put it about the reformer’s work:
“The center about which all the petals clustered was the affirmation of the forgiveness of sins through the utterly unmerited grace of God made possible by the cross of Christ, which reconciled wrath and mercy, routed the hosts of hell, triumphed over sin and death, and by the resurrection manifested that power which enables man to die to sin and rise to newness of life. This was of course the theology of Paul, heightened, intensified, and clarified.Beyond these cardinal tenets Luther was never to go.” (Roland Bainton, Here I Stand, p. 6)
Happy Reformation Sunday!
Even if the Roman Catholic church has still not heeded Luther’s call.
And they do not look like they will be reforming anytime soon, for that church, of course, also continues to progress, evolve – or better, mutate.
I’m guessing you know about the two statements from past Popes about Mary that most all Roman Catholics say are infallible.
That she was born without sin (1854) and assumed into heaven (1950).
According to these documents, if you don’t believe either of those things, you are cursed, condemned, anathematized, that is, damned.
And now, in August 2018, the Vatican announced that Pope Francis formally changed the official Catholic Church teaching on the death penalty, calling the practice “an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person,” adding that it is “inadmissible” in all cases. This has been the only major change in the 1992 Roman Catholic Catechism.
In thIe book of Genesis, chapter 9, we hear God say “I will demand an accounting for the life of another human being.
Whoever sheds human blood, by humans shall their blood be shed; for in the image of God has God made mankind.”
Simply put, a refusal to live under the reign of the Incarnate Man – and an insistence on undermining His words – is rebellion.
It is to usurp Christ’s kingship.
Rome says that because of human dignity there can be no death penalty.
The Bible says that whoever violates human dignity by taking the life of an image bearer will have his own life taken from him.
Why do we Christians think Jesus died on the cross!?
It is because he suffered the death penalty we deserved so that we could be saved!
Rome still desperately needs reformation. No doubt.
And it desperately needs the Lutheran Reformation.
The papacy, still today, bears the marks of Antichrist.
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The first Lutherans were so convinced of this in their day that in one of their confessional documents they stated that even if the pope was who he said he was by Divine right, or Divine institution,he would still need to be resisted for the sake of the doctrine of justification.
They said he directly opposed the Gospel and obscured the “glory of Christ” and the “firm consolation” of believers, thus necessitating resistance.
If you think about this, this makes perfect sense. Rome should listen to this.
Let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that the Roman Catholic Church, with a divinely ordained Pope, is indeed the fully and rightly ordered expression of the body of Christ.
Even then, what would that mean?
After all, there are plenty of examples in the scripture of people being divinely appointed by God and yet making pronouncements that were false.
Even Moses spoke with divine authority but did not speak in accordance with God’s word. “Listen, you rebels, must we bring you water out of this rock?” he said, as he struck the rock twice with his staff, in fact bringing out the water God wanted to give the people.
Like Saul, also divinely appointed, Moses paid dearly for his sin, even as we have every confidence the latter is in heaven.
We are not told that any resisted Moses here, particularly Aaron. But had any resisted in some way this would not have been wrong.
Roman Catholic apologists will point out how at one point Jesus told the people to listen to the Pharisees. After all, we are told, even though Jesus knew they were hypocrites they still taught theright things. This is why we should submit to Rome too.
Jesus did urge respect of the Pharisees: do what they say, not what they do.
Still, at another time he also warned about their false teachings.
He criticized their teaching of “corban”. He criticized their back-breaking “traditions of men” like Sabbath laws (He also encouraged his disciples to ignore their commands about washing hands).
And what about their telling the persons to swear falsely about the temple and the altar? (Matthew 23). What about their not supporting either John the Baptist or Jesus?
What about Jesus’ insisting – over and against their own claims – that they really did not know the Scriptures? That they did not know the power of God?
This is why God has told us not only to respect those in positions of authority but has also given us the holy scriptures!
So that when leaders go astray or worse, we have the means to recognize false statements – or even the false prophets among us – and to call them to account by the word of God (Matt 7)!
As Pastor Bryan Wolfmueller, getting to the crux of the issue, has brilliantly put it:
“So, what exactly is it that you want me to believe that the Holy Spirit did not inspire the prophets or apostles to write?”
This was always the attitude of those in the early church, as they – keeping in mind the Apostle Paul’s exhortations to the Corinthians to “not go beyond what is written.” (I Cor. 4:6), – recognized that God meant for the scriptures to be supreme in the church (see Acts 17).
Even as far back as Vatican 1, Rome used to want to emphasize that the scriptures had to precede the church logically…
…in other words, “we acknowledge they are God’s word before we say they are man’s word…”
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In Luther’s day, there were actually multiple Roman Catholic bishops, teachers and cardinals who – being Augustinians – argued that Luther’s doctrine of justification was biblical, orthodox, catholic, and patristic.
They basically defended Luther’s doctrine of justification at the Council of Trent shortly after Luther’s death – as many of them also rejected those other four Roman Catholic problems we talked about earlier…. (almost like all those things should go together).
We should all pray that men in Rome, leaders in Rome, would re-discover their Augustinian heritage and roots and rise up again in that great church.
One of the reasons that the doctrine of justification is needed so badly these days is because of all the people who are quick to question the Christian faith of others.
For example, one of the most respected and popular Roman Catholic radio hosts tells a Protestant caller that they are not able to have confidence in their salvation because they are not aware of all their sins (using 1st Corinthians 4:1-5)…
Also, in the wake of the Charlie Kirk assassination a few weeks ago, some professing Christians I know cast real doubt on that man’s salvation in social media posts.
One said Charlie Kirk was no martyr, but “a political whore who rejected the Bible”. Another said he was a hate-filled person who pushed an agenda that only his followers could possibly believe was true. He said that he found it very hard to believe Kirk was a Christian – or even just a good person at all – because he shared so much that goes against what Christ’s teachings call for us to do.
Even if one finds something or another not to like in Kirk’s politics, his faith was clearly an animating thing that drove him, and he often shared his faith in Christ with the students he always interacted with when talking about cultural and political issues.
In like fashion, John the Baptist also got his hands dirty in politics and was killed for it – and he, of course, is rightly remembered today as a martyr.
In short, even today many who profess Christ are eager to say that other certain Christians – even those admired for their works – are not believers.
What is Rome’s basic answer to this problem?
They basically say that Christ’s righteousness is imputed to the justified believer who, somehow cooperating with grace, does what he can. But “justified believer” here would be an expansive definition.
It would simply mean the [usually] hard-working, sincere and humble person of good will that God favors… even if that person does not trust in the promise/Christ.
So even Jews, Muslims, and atheists can be saved by their good works as they willingly cooperate with God’s grace, fuel…
Last August President Donald Trump – who just this past week lit an Indian diya candle in the Oval Office to help celebrate the Indian religious festival of “Diwali” – mentioned trying to get into Heaven by ending the Ukraine war…
…and so a reporter recently asked him about the Israel-Palestinian deal he had helped create, and if this might help him get to heaven. He said:
“I mean, I’m being a little cute. I don’t think there’s anything going to get me in heaven…”
Of course then he added: “I’m not sure I’m gonna be able to make heaven. But I’ve made life better for a lot of people.“
This is how natural man thinks, and what Rome encourages him to think.
Even if we also should want to make life better for people, the Reformation goes to absolute war with the idea that this is how we stand before God, are justified before Him.
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“How can I know I have a gracious God?”
Jesus.
The Bible says that Jesus Christ came to give us peace with God.
It says we can know we have eternal life now because of Jesus.
It says it is normal for a Christian to not know why he does the evil he does not want to do.
It says it is normal for a Christian to not be able to recount all of his sins and errors.
It says, when our hearts condemn us, that Jesus is greater than our hearts.
This is Christianity 101.
This is why we need good pastors who know the Bible, know Jesus Christ, know his doctrine of justification.
When you, rightly or wrongly, are absolutely terrified of your very real sins before God – or even just when it seems everyone around you believes you are too big a sinner to be saved – a good pastor in a good church is what you need, will help you.
If you are in need of comfort, if you need to know you are really right with God – in a “state of grace” – your good pastor can hear your confession, in line with God’s law, and pronounce Christ’s forgiveness and absolution to you.
He can give you the confidence and even certainty that God Himself has died for every single one of your sins and has made you one of His own dear children.
Peace with God!
Peace with God!
Peace with God!
This was the title of one of Billy Graham’s bestselling books for a reason.
It matters like nothing else.
So Rome must absolutely still be reformed. If not today, then soon.
Because the Lord Jesus Christ is coming again and is ready to take not those who are good in the eyes of the world, but real sinners, unto Him.
From faith to faith, for the first to be last, and the last to be first…
Sermon preached at Clam Falls Lutheran Church, Oct. 12, 2025.
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“Remember Jesus Christ, raised from the dead, descended from David. This is my gospel…”
— 2 Tim. 2:8
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In this text, God, through the Apostle Paul, is urging us to remember Jesus Christ.
This, to be sure, is not all on us. For God’s Spirit works in men’s hearts:
“He hascaused his wonders to be remembered;
the Lord is gracious and compassionate…”
So, being used by God, Paul urges us on as he does:
“Remember Jesus Christ, raised from the dead, descended from David. This is my gospel…”
I am guessing that many of you – I hope every single one of you – can personally relate to this in one way or another.
As far back as I can remember, I remember remembering Jesus.
Ever since I was little, I believed that I heard the Good Shepherd’s voice.
I remember my mother patiently teaching me to entrust extended family members to Jesus each night and singing “I am Jesus’ little lamb” and “God loves me dearly” to me.
And there were some memorable – very memorable – moments or experiences for me. I remember being in the worship service in Kennan, Wisconsin, and thinking – as we sang St Augustine’s Te Deum to the old organ – that we sang not alone but with the angels in heaven.
I remember in that same church, at about 6 years old, being alone in the sanctuary and walking up to the altar with the statue of Jesus – and basically wanting to be closer to him, having heard again and again how good and strong he was.
…this One who I heard proclaimed and praised in the scriptures.
When I think about what I am doing today in this pulpit, it is in some sense impossible for me to separate that from who I am… who I have always known myself to be.
But to say “remember Jesus Christ….”
…this, really, is not about my personal experiences.
Likewise, it’s not about your personal experiences or even experiences as a group – even if we are conscious to give the glory to God here… speaking about how he has called us, and thankful for whatever memorable moments we have.
But it is all about Him, the One who before he gets into us – before he becomes a part of anything we experience – is outside of us.
It is about the One who entered human history and has died and risen for the world, even for us…
It is about the One that the Bible, amazingly, says was slain from before the foundation of the world…
The One who called everything into existence and speaks to all, revealing himself, bringing people everywhere out of darkness into his glorious light…
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“Remember Jesus Christ, raised from the dead, descended from David. This is my gospel…”
We need to take all of this talk about remembering to a deeper level, a more profound level.
This is about the Great Cause, the Great Purpose, the Great Object…
This Jesus, according to Paul’s gospel, laid before us…
The Apostle brings the great message, Jesus Christ is the Great Message that brings life to the world!
How can we not be resolute? Faithful to our Captain? His Message…
Don’t be discouraged brothers and sisters! Don’t doubt!
In the book of Romans, Paul argues that men’s unbelief does not make God’s word without effect. He says:
“What if some were unfaithful? Will their unfaithfulness nullify God’s faithfulness? Not at all! Let God be true, and every human being a liar.”
Let us too walk by faith, not by sight.
In our reading, we basically hear how the Apostle Paul was suffering as one of the worst criminals in the world!
The words he uses here indicate that he was suffering the utmost shame and disgrace as a criminal of the most shameful and disgraceful kind (Lenski)… even though he was suffering as a Christian, in fact because he was a Christian.
But no matter that!
For Paul invites Timothy, the young pastor to whom he writes here, to come down to the depths with him, to join him and Jesus Christ in the suffering that he endures.
The rejection that he has experienced from the world.
“Timothy, do not be ashamed of me! Join me!”
Or, reflecting on our Old Testament reading this morning, “be like Ruth to Naomi for me!”
But why does he know that Timothy can do this, and in the Spirit’s power, will do this?
It is because, again, Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, from David’s seed… Paul’s gospel.
And so while he suffers and is imprisoned on the one hand, he is also speaking how the word of God is not imprisoned!
For he is really free! Timothy is really free!
Paul is saying this:
“….for my gospel men could do this to me but with God and God’s word they can do nothing. Me they can silence but that is far, far from silencing God. For the testimony of our Lord no man can silence…”
Who cares if the apostles’ living voice is smothered in his own blood – what his Lord speaks through him still resounds in the wide world!
Who can stop the mighty message that overcomes sin, death, and the devil – the glorious triumphant word of God?” (Lenski)
Jesus Christ, born of David’s line, is raised from the dead!
Christ has died, Christ has risen, Christ will come again!
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Going along with this key message, there is another passage from our epistle reading this morning that I want to highlight.
It is the part where the Apostle Paul talks about how for the toiling farmer, it is necessary that he is the first one to take his share of the fruits.
Regarding this passage, as well as the ones that precede it, the commentator Ellicott says:
“It is the enduring, patient, self-sacrificing toil that is rewarded in the affairs of common life—the man that ‘endures hardness,’ whether as a soldier, or athlete, or tiller of the ground, wins the reward; and as in the world, so in religion…. Men must really live the life they say they love.”
This is true, as far as it goes… but I want to focus on something else here.
I have been helping out with the preaching here now for almost 7 years.
How many sermons have I preached? Well, a number of them, and, lucky you (or unlucky you), it sounds like you’ll be seeing me a little bit more regularly from now on again.
The thing I want to highlight here is this: the Lutheran commentator R.C.H Lenski, says of this passage about the farmer that there must be farmers to sustain the life of the world ; and in like fashion, there must be preachers to sustain the life of the church.
He highlights that this passage is not talking about how preachers generally must have physical sustenance from their spiritual work, for the farmer takes his share of the very produce he raises for others.
What it means is that the sermons that I preach, the “produce” that I create, nourish me as well!
I have always known this, but had not realized until last week that the Bible speaks about this specific thing…
And I can only say that my hope is that God’s Holy Spirit would use my words to nourish you, make you strong in faith in Jesus Christ as well.
My own dear father is a pastor, and I believe a good one.
Still, in truth, I don’t think I can remember one very specific thing about God’s word that my dad told me. And at the same time he – well, he and my dear mother – nevertheless did in fact teach me most everything I know about God’s word.
There is only one thing he told me about God’s word that I really remember, a memorable moment or experience if you will…. a very ironic one.
It was a story about a man who was discouraged because he could not remember what any one of his pastor’s sermons had been about.
The answer to this conundrum, provided by a wise person in the story, was this:
Even though you have had a number of good meals in your life which have nourished and sustained you, how many of those do you specifically remember?
Sermons are a lot like that, even if you don’t remember them, they nourished and sustained you.
I’ll just tell you that looking at some of the sermons that I’ve preached over the past 7 years I don’t remember a lot of them either!
Though it might sound like me coping, life is like this, I think.
Nevertheless, we live by every word that comes from the mouth of God.
And God forms us – without our even realizing or remembering it – through those he puts in our life to speak the word to us.
Those simple experiences of hearing and believing the word of God – even if we don’t remember any of them in particular – are the core thing we need.
“Remember Jesus Christ, raised from the dead, descended from David. This is my gospel…”
For that word is the only way that we live –
And that we live forever!
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There is one more thing that I want to talk about this morning.
You’ll remember that I just talked about how my hope and prayer would be that the sermons I preach would help nourish and strengthen you in faith, to help it grow big and strong.
One of the paradoxes about this is that our faith does not grow big and strong by focusing on our faith – even though it is of course desirable that we have a stronger rather than a weaker faith.
Our faith grows big and strong when we focus on Jesus Christ, when we rest in him, his words, his strength.
“Remember Jesus Christ, raised from the dead, descended from David. This is my gospel…”
Especially today, this world is noisy and chaotic. Jesus Christ does not mean for any of you to perpetually retreat from this world. On the contrary, he does indeed call each one of us to fight, in our own vocations and roles.
I talk about that and preach about that quite a bit I think.
At the same time, I’ll just say right now that there are few passages in the New Testament that I feel are as important as the final verses that we read in our epistle reading this morning:
“If we died with him,
we will also live with him;
if we endure,
we will also reign with him.
If we disown him,
he will also disown us;
if we are faithless,
he remains faithful,
for he cannot disown himself.”
As best I know, each and every one of you here has been baptized.
You are baptized into Christ.
That is a present reality. You can cry out “I am baptized into Christ. The old is gone, has died; the new has come!”
Your baptism was not your act, not your decision, but it was the death of your sinful flesh, your old nature, God’s own decision to place you into his Son and to have you dwell in him.
His death on the cross is now your death to sin, and his resurrection is now your resurrection!
Remember this!
“Remember Jesus Christ, raised from the dead, descended from David. This is my gospel…”
Always.
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Sadly, some people grow up and reject their Christian faith. They reject God’s claim on their life. Some atheists have even had de-baptism ceremonies.
These have disowned him. They have not endured with him.
But that, I pray, is not you, now or later. You are, after all, here.
And I trust you are not here to receive a fake Jesus Christ – of which there are many in this world – but you are here to meet with the Jesus Christ spoken of in the scriptures, to sit at his feet.
That Jesus Christ who is raised from the dead, descended from David.
You might not feel like your faith in him is very strong. Believe me, I know what that feels like.
Even as I know he wants more for me.
So when you feel faithless – when you either feel your faith slipping or feel like you can’t believe at all – remember that he wants more for you too.
And he remains faithful to us when we are faithless, because he cannot disown himself.
He cannot disown who he is, the One who shows himself to be ever merciful in Jesus Christ.
The very nature, the very character of God is our only hope.
Lord, I believe, help my unbelief!
And so we hear:
“Remember Jesus Christ, raised from the dead, descended from David. This is my gospel…”
Though His work is often so hidden in this world – though as the author of Hebrews says, “we do not yet see everything in subjection to him” – though as Peter says “you have not seen him, [yet] you love him [and] believe in him…” – He is nevertheless so rich to us in his gifts…
…giving us not only the words we need, but even his true body and blood as well when we join him in holy communion.
Believe!
And since we don’t have that particular joy and comfort this morning, let me tell you, one more time, not just from the bottom of my heart, but from the very word of God:
“In the mercy of Almighty God, Jesus Christ was given to die for you, and for His sake God forgives you all your sins. To those who believe in Jesus Christ He gives the power to become the children of God and bestows on them the Holy Spirit.”
May the Word of Christ dwell in you richly.
Jesus Christ, raised from the dead, descended from David.
theology like a child 