Sasse: Six Things for Lutherans to do in this New Year

This was posted by Rev. Matt Harrison 
President - Lutheran Church Missouri Synod 
Sasse: Six Things for Lutherans to do in this New Year

Is that really burying one’s talent if one does not enter into every fellowship of that kind? Did Luther bury his talent when he refused the hand of fellowship to Zwingli [at Marburg in 1529]? Did the Apostles do it when they refused to fellowship with the false teachers? We all wish to confess. We would also in humility instruct other fellow Christians and, wherever possible, learn from them. But to enter into fellowship in which truth and error are as a matter of principle placed on the same level in order to accomplish this end, that would be a denial which renders every confessing word illusory. Thus there will be Lutherans who feel compelled to decline absolutely the invitation to join the World Council of Churches and who can likewise not belong to the Lutheran World Federation as long as it indicates through its involvement with the World Council of Churches as well as through its own actions and communications that it does not take seriously, and perhaps with the best of intentions cannot take seriously, the Lutheran Confessions, which are its doctrinal basis.

And nothing in the last years has so served to clarify the position of Lutheranism and the true unity of the Church as did the manly resolution of Missouri not to join the Lutheran World Federation.[1] The Lutheran World Federation ought to sing a Te Deum in Minneapolis [at the assembly scheduled for 1957] for this clear confession which in the long view was the greatest service perhaps even to it. For now the world, which already saw the Lutheran Church being absorbed into the creedless Ecumenical Church, knows that there is still a church, or are still churches, which are not willing to surrender their doctrine, which are not minded to abandon the fundamental dogmas of the Christian faith to Rome. That was also a strengthening for many Reformed people who were completely isolated in their churches. It was for them a revival of the hope that God still has ways and means to preserve the old churches of the Reformation from being totally pulverized between Rome and sectarianism. It was an encouragement to do everything in our power to work for the preservation of the Lutheran Confessions.

But what can and must we now do? Let me in conclusion add a few words in answer to this question. The first thing which we have to do is to understand the situation in which the Lutheran Church finds itself today. We must see clearly, and we must pray God that he teach us to understand the times. It is one of those times of the Church when the casus confessionis (a case of confession) [F.C. S.D. X.1] has come, when not merely the confession of the mouth, but also confession by deed is demanded of us. As we had to confess our faith in the days of Hitler in Germany and silence constituted denial[2], so the time for remaining silent has come to an end for the rest of the faithful Lutherans today if we do not wish to become deniers of the truth. This is true particularly in America, where Lutheranism is being drawn into the stream of nationalism.

The second thing we have to do is repent. How could it ever come to this in the Lutheran Church? Where were we in the great hours of temptation? Why has confessionally loyal Lutheranism failed so? Why did it in the days of Hitler leave the confessing to others? Where was the voice, the warning voice of our American brethren, against Barmen and its untruthful and unLutheran “confession,” against the EKiD of 1948, against the World Council of Churches of that year?

Doubtless it was in many cases primarily a matter of noble discretion. There was no desire to mingle into the affairs of other churches. They wanted also to exercise Christian patience and to wait and see how things would develop. But on that account they often neglected to speak when the time for speaking had come. There also existed a theological uncertainty, at times also a lack of the gift of discerning the spirits. We all, the entire Lutheran Church, must repent. To this day every renewal of the Church has been born out of repentance, not out of accusations raised against others, but out of the genuine mea culpa, mea maxima culpa (the confession of sin: my fault, my own most grievous fault!) It is also well to consider that in the language of the New Testament the same word (homologein, confiteri) signifies the confession of faith and the confession of guilt.

The third thing which is demanded of us is faith and prayer. We believe that God can also revive sick churches, dying churches to new life. In our ordination vow there occurs the beautiful statement: “… and never to give up a soul as lost.” As we are to give up no soul in our congregation, no soul which has been entrusted to us, as lost, so we should give up no church as lost. At the beginning of the nineteenth century the Lutheran Church according to human judgement seemed to be dead, even as it seemed in general as though the Christian faith had perished. Then God granted that wonderful revival on which basically even now everything that remains of Christianity in the world lives. He granted this revival to all churches in all countries, not only to Lutheranism. Who knows what, when God’s winds blow, may still emerge out of the Christian faith of other churches, which today is so deteriorated! God also can put our churches to shame by that which he does in other churches.

But whatever He may do, He does it in answer to prayer. Luther’s mighty prayer – that is the way his contemporaries in the year following his death regarded it – rescued the Church of the Reformation during the severe crisis in which it seemed doomed. Again, the revival of the nineteenth century was in answer to the prayers of the “quiet once in the land,” [Psalm 35:20][3] of the seven thousand who had not bowed their knees before the Baal [I Kings 19:18] of reason, just as even today there still exist the unseen people of God who do not worship the Baalim of our times.

The fourth thing that is demanded of us is love, concerning which many say that it is so frequently lacking among Lutherans. No the false love which cries peace where there is not peace [Jeremiah 6:14] and thereby also denies to the soul of the neighbor that peace which surpasses all human reason!

We mean the true love of the New Testament, the love  which can also use the sword (Matthew 10:34ff.), the love of John which says “no” to heresy (I John 4; 2 John 6ff.). Even when we must speak the clear, unambiguous “no” to many things which occur in the Lutheran churches of the world and in Christendom generally, and particularly when we have to say it with Lutheran clarity, we shall not want to cease loving those people whose errors we have to reject for the sake of the truth and with whom we therefore cannot have a communicatio in sacris, a pulpit and altar fellowship, even if they call themselves Lutherans.

The fifth thing we must do in order to understand the Confessions again is to study the Scriptures. As the Lutheran Church was born in the study of the exegete and preacher, in the interpretation and proclamation of the Word of God, so every renewal which has been granted to it has come out of immersion in the Scriptures. It is not true that the theologians of the nineteenth century discovered and “renewed” the confessional writing and then renovated the confessional Church on the basis of romantic feelings. On the contrary, the renovation was simply the rediscovery of the living content of Scripture, of the Gospel of the Crucified and Risen One, the living experience of justification. That is acknowledged generally by Vilmar in Hesse, and Goehrke and Knak in Pomerania, by Thamsius and Harless in Franconia. “Not till now,” writes Harless, “after I, at the hand of the Scriptures, have experienced and recognized the nature of saving truth, did I turn to the confessional writings of my Church. I can not describe the surprise and emotion with which I found that their content conformed with that of which I had become certain out of the Scriptures and out of the experience of faith.” That is the way in which people become Lutherans. It is no indication of soundness of our church that in so many Lutheran faculties, exegesis (interpretation of Scripture) is the weakest subject and the most important biblico-theological works of today are written in other than Lutheran churches.

The sixth thing we must learn in order to become Lutherans again is that we must do serious work in the history of dogma and in dogmatics. Certainly in this respect, the situation is much worse in other churches, as, for instance, the Anglican, not to speak at all of other denominations. That which is written today in the field of systematic theology in Protestantism is, in comparison with that of other periods in church history and with the work of the Roman Church (with a few exceptions, like Karl Barth) amateurish. There is in America a more or less intelligent philosophy of religion, like that of Niebuhr[4] and Tillich,[5] but it is not theology in the strict sense of the word.

But what about us? What a paucity of truly good theological literature! This is something which we who have the task of training young theologians by means of the English language know best. What is truly important is the Luther research going on in Germany and Scandinavia. But it too is only in its initial stage, in which it is not able to contribute much to dogmatics, to preaching, to the life of the Church, because it becomes too thoroughly mired in the purely historical and selects from the mass of material only that which pleases modern man in this era of existential philosophy. Is it scientifically justifiable to be compelled to read presentations of the theology of Luther in which Luther’s doctrine of the Sacraments is treated only in passing or not at all (e.g., the posthumous work of Johann von Walther, Die Theologie Luthers, 1940)? 

In the future we shall have to do our theological work in a much different manner in order to understand our Confessions anew. Nor dare we leave theology only to the professors, but we must give thought to the fact that in the Lutheran Church every pastor in his own right must be a theologian. A theologian, as we know, is not merely the representative of a professional science, but he is one who speaks God’s Word in the sermon and in his cure of souls and who carries on that praise of God which the ancient Church also called “theology.”

Let us never forget that the word “confession” has still a third meaning. Confiteri does not only mean the confession of faith, not only the confession of sin, but at the same time and always the praise of God. Not without good reason did Luther upon occasion count the Te Deum among the confessions of the church. A true confessional church is a church which in the midst of the distress of this world and in the midst of its own distress does not cease to sing: Te Deum laudamus, te Dominum confitemur, (“We praise Thee, O God; we acknowledge Thee to be the Lord.”).[6]

Affectionately yours in the faith and confession thus understood, honored brethren, and with best wishes for a blessed New Year,

Your,

Herman Sasse

Letters to Lutheran Pastors 43, "The Confessional Problem in Today's World Lutheranism" (1956). President John Behnken had this piece translated and it was published in the Lutheran Laymen's League newspaper!  M.H.

---

[1] See Sasse’s “Missouri and the Lutheran World Federation” (n.p., n.d.) [31 Jul 1958?], typed mss., 22 pp. Feuerhahn Bibliography no. 58-03. Also, “Concerning the Nature of the Lutheran World Federation” (n.p., n.d.) [June 1963?] mimeographed, 3pp. Feuerhahn Bibliography no. 63-04. MH

[2] Sasse was editor of the Kirchlisches Jahrbuch, the general annual for all Protestant churches

In Germany  in 1932. He published the first open churchly rejection of the Nazi party platform, particularly the Aryan paragraph (24).  MH

[3] For they speak not peace: but they devise deceitful matters against them that are quiet in the land. Psalm 35:20, KJV. MH

[4] Reinhold Niebuhr 1892-1971, American writer and theologian on ethical and social problems. From 1928 he was professor at Union Theological Seminary in New York. Influenced by Barth and more by E. Brunner. For a generation his “Christian realism” exercised an influential critique on American social and political institutions. ODCC p. 1153.

[5] Paul Tillich 1886-1965, like Sasse, served in WWI as an army chaplain. Left German in 1933 for the U.S. Professor of philosophical theology at Union Theological Seminary in New York. Sought to answer the questions of culture in terms of existentialism, ontology, and Jungian philosophy. ODCC p. 1622. MH

[6] The topic of the nature of confession had long occupied Sasse’s thought and work. See “The Church’s Confession” (1930) translated by Matthew Harrison, Logia 1.1 (Reformation Oct 1992) 3-8. Feuerhahn Bibliography no. 056.

...let God's Word slip from your heart.

There is no better way to prepare our Lord's Advent than to constantly receive the advent He daily makes to us and all the world. The question is whether we are willing to receive His chosen way of coming to us every day and at any hour. Consider this great piece by Deane Schuessler.

- pmwl   

“The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers—it is to him you shall listen—just as you desired of the Lord your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly, when you said, ‘Let me not hear again the voice of the Lord my God or see this great fire any more, lest I die.’ And the Lord said to me, ‘They are right in what they have spoken.  I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers. And I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him.  And whoever will not listen to my words that he shall speak in my name, I myself will require it of him.  Deuteronomy 18:15-20

Moses urges the people to keep on listening to God’s Word through his successor Joshua and to anticipate the coming of the Prophet, who would “tell them everything I, God, command him” (18). “You must listen to him” (v 15).

God would make his Word accessible to them, fulfilling his promise. The people needed to keep listening so they could be among those who would enjoy the benefits and power of a promise kept.

First, we may think, “I’s like riding a bicycle. You never forget.” Not necessarily. Israel proceeded to forget to listen to God’s Word through the prophets. During one period they would forget so thoroughly that God had to expel them from the Promised Land and allow the Babylonians to cart them into exile. Forgetting God’s Word started with their listening passively, which led to soft and mushy “muscle memory.”

Second, we tend to forget to listen to God when we’re under stress. Moses here instructs the people so they don’t go to pieces spiritually during the transition after he is gone. Therefore God trains them before he takes Moses to actively listen to the ones (ultimately the One) whom God would send to speak his true, prophetic word. Similarly Jesus prepared the disciples for the transition of his death, resurrection and his Second Advent. That Word assured them of the forgiveness of their sins. That Word established the church, and today we continue to live on the power of these same words of God. Oh, the awesome power of a promise kept by God’s Son for us.

Third, we are accountable to God, both pastors and people. Pastors who are faithful to God don’t just speak their own opinions. “This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom, but in words taught by the Spirit” (1 Cor 2:13).

God addresses his people in Heb 13:17, “Obey your leaders and submit to their authority. They keep watch over you as men who must give an account. Obey them, so that their work will be a joy, not a burden, for that would be of no advantage to you.” Pastors coach us to develop good muscle memory in our spirits, which is sustained by the “power drink” of God’s word and nourished by his holy supper for the strengthening of our faith.

Fourth, Jesus spoke exactly what the Father told him. Jn 8:28 “I do nothing on my own, but I speak just what the Father has taught me.”

His total faithfulness ensured that the life-giving word of God would be available to us.

[Conclusion] Moses warned the people not to “let (God’s words) slip from your heart” (Deut 4:9).

Deane Schuessler

Homiletic Help! CPH, 1998

Is God AN essential or THE essential?

Is God an essential in your life or is God the essential? 

"Luther’s faith was a belief in reality, a belief that accepted life’s reality at its face value and did not lend itself to any illusions.

The first and most decisive feature of this faith was the fact that for him God was a reality. Luther’s whole life can be understood only if one knows what this means. We humans, even we Christians, are, for the most part, far removed from recognizing God as the essential, yes, as fundamentally the only reality. The earthly, visible things usually appear much more real to us. To earn a livelihood for ourselves and our families, to hold our own in our professions, to advance, to acquire money and a good position, to write a few scholarly books which promote learning, to give our children a good education, to fulfill our duties faithfully toward our country, etc. — these seem to be the real questions and problems of our life. Over against these God and our association with Him must play second fiddle. Of course, we concede that God is important too; but He must content Himself with our superfluous time and strength. Luther said the very opposite. He granted that all my tasks in life are certainly important too, but most important and most real is God; all else is secondary." Luther's World of Thought.  Bornkamm,  CPH, c1958, S. 80

Is God an essential in your life or is God the essential? 

If God is an essential in your life, than He is to you not the one true God. He is but one among the other things you have believe to be equally or more essential. 

Our Lord Jesus testified as to what God the Father made the essential of His life: "Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.” Luke 19:10.

- pmwl.

 

Idolotry ...denying yourself to those whom Christ has given Himself

You know you've begun to believe in a god who is not the Living God - Father, Son and Holy Spirit, when you believe you are justified in denying yourself and what you have to those whom Christ has given Himself and all He has.  

Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.  Colossians 3:12-14 (ESV)


- pmwl

Confessional Gadfly: Serve vs. Fix and the idea of Authority

Confessional Gadfly: Serve vs. Fix and the idea of Authority: A thing that Pastors always have to remember is that fundamentally a Pastor's job is to serve his congregation and people... not "fix" them....

An excellent article on the unrealistic expectations that slip in on both the pastor and the congregation he servers.

- pmwl

Sexual Immorality and Five Other Reasons People Reject Christianity

The following is an insightful piece from Don Johnson Ministries as to the real challenges for those outside the church and those inside the church to take up or continue the good fight of the faith. While challenges, none of them is an obstacle as long as one's faith is fixed on Jesus Christ alone and His righteousness for all. 

- pmwl

Why do people reject Jesus? As someone with a keen interest in doctrine and apologetics, I usually focus on the more intellectual reasons for disbelief. I have found that skeptics are generally ignorant of sound theology, sketchy on the facts of history, and shoddy in their use of logic and philosophy. As such, my goal is always to gently instruct them in these areas, using evidence and argument to help them understand the teachings of orthodoxy and the reasons for believing that the Christian worldview is true. But I also know that even if I succeeds in my argument, that’s won’t necessarily get a skeptic to turn to Jesus. There are a myriad of other factors at play. Here are six.

Christians Behaving Badly

People who call themselves Christians can be jerks. There is just no way around this fact. From sign wielding preachers of hate to motorists with fish stickers who flip obscene hand gestures, believers don’t always show much gentleness and compassion.  This turns people away from Christianity. After authoring The End of Faith, Sam Harris was motivated to write his Letter to a Christian Nation in part because he received so many letters telling him how wrong he was not to believe in God. He notes, “The most hostile of these communications have come from Christians. This is ironic, as Christians generally imagine that no faith imparts the virtues of love and forgiveness more effectively than their own. The truth is that many who claim to be transformed by Christ’s love are deeply, even murderously, intolerant of criticism” (Letter to a Christian Nation, vii.)

There is no doubt that Christians are often immoral and this does immense harm to the cause of Christ. As Gaudium et Spes points out, “believers themselves often share some responsibility for [atheism]…To the extent that they…fail in their religious, moral, or social life, they must be said to conceal rather than to reveal the true nature of God and of religion.” (19) If your conversation partner seems more resistant to Christians than Jesus or Christianity, it may be because he has been hurt by believers in the past.

Heartbreak

When Russell Baker was 5 years old, his father was suddenly taken to the hospital and died. As the New York Times columnist recounts in his best-selling autobiography, it was a pivotal event in his life:

For the first time I thought seriously about God. Between sobs I told [the family housekeeper] Bessie that if God could do things like this to people, then God was hateful and I had no more use for Him.

Bessie told me about the peace of Heaven and the joy of being among the angels and the happiness of my father who was already there. The argument failed to quiet my rage. “God loves us all just like his own children,” Bessie said. “If God loves me, why did he make my father die?”

Bessie said that I would understand someday, but she was only partly right. That afternoon, though I couldn’t have phrased it this way then, I decided that God was a lot less interested in people than anybody in Morrisonville was willing to admit. That day I decided that God was not entirely to be trusted.

After that I never cried again with any conviction, nor expected much of anyone’s God except indifference, nor loved deeply without fear that it would cost me dearly in pain. At the age of five I had become a skeptic.(Growing Up, 61)

Baker’s heartbreaking (and all too common) story is quite revealing in regards to the psychology of skepticism. I’m sure most of us can think of someone we know who is angry at God about some tragedy in their life. Often, it seems, this goes hand in hand with a denial of his very existence. A recent study led by psychologist Julie Exline of Case Western Reserve University supports this notion. In studying college students, her research indicated that “atheists and agnostics reported more anger at God during their lifetimes than believers. A separate study also found this pattern among bereaved individuals.” If atheists and agnostics are angry at God, what does that say about their skepticism? It seems to suggest that the intellectual label they wear is motivated by their hurt more than rational analysis of the evidence.

Fatherlessness

Baker’s situation, unfortunately, made him particularly prone to such a reaction. As Paul Vitz argues in his provocative and persuasive book Faith of the Fatherless, the absence of a father, or presence of a defective father (one who is abusive or weak or cowardly, for example) can play a major role in young men becoming atheists.

Vitz’s “defective father hypothesis” suggests that a broken relationship with one’s father makes it very difficult to accept a supposedly loving father in Heaven. Vitz developed this theory while studying the lives of history’s “great” atheists, including Hume, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Russell, Sartre, Camus, Hobbes, Voltaire, Butler, and Freud. All had fathers who died when they were very young or were “defective” in some major way. James Spiegel notes that this principle also applies to many modern day skeptics as well, including Daniel Dennett and Christopher Hitchens. (The Making of an Atheist, 68)

Of course this does not mean that all fatherless kids will become atheists, and there are many qualifications and subtleties to Vitz’s argument that I won’t get into here. However, his point is something to keep in mind when talking to skeptics. Humans naturally conceive of God according to the pattern set for us by human fathers. When that father isn’t there or isn’t loving, “an atheist’s disappointment in and resentment of his own father unconsciously justifies his rejection of God” (Vitz, 16). In a culture where a third of our children are growing up without their biological dad and 40 percent of babies are born to unwed mothers, you can expect to run into this problem much more in the future.

Social Pressures

Vitz himself became an atheist in college, and offers a frank assessment of his motives: “On reflection, I have seen that my reasons for becoming, and remaining, and atheist-skeptic from age eighteen to age thirty-eight were, on the whole, superficial and lacking in serious intellectual and moral foundation” (Vitz, 139). He notes that he accepted the ideas presented to him by academics without ever actually studying them or questioning them in any way. So why did he accept them? One reason was “social unease” (134). Vitz was embarrassed to be from the Midwest, which “seemed terribly dull, narrow, and provincial” compared to the big city. He wanted to “take part, to be comfortable, in the new, glamorous secular world” into which he was moving, as did many of his classmates” (135). He also wanted to be accepted within his scientific field, so just as he had learned to dress like a college student by putting on the right clothes, he learned to “think like a proper psychologist by putting on the right – that is, atheistic – ideas and attitudes” (135).

Michael Shermer, editor-in-chief of Skeptics Magazine and Executive Director of The Skeptics Society, has a similar explanation for his deconversion story:

Socially, when I moved from theism to atheism, and science as a worldview, I guess, to be honest, I just liked the people in science, and the scientists, and their books, and just the lifestyle, and the way of living. I liked that better than the religious books, the religious people I was hanging out with—just socially. It just felt more comfortable for me. …In reality I think most of us arrive at most of our beliefs for non-rational reasons, and then we justify them with these reasons after the fact.

Well, I’m not sure if most people do that or not, but it certainly does seem to be the case with many skeptics. Again, they are not evaluating evidence and making reasoned decisions. They are becoming unbelievers because they like how it makes them feel to be accepted into the “in” group.

The Cost of Discipleship

G.K. Chesterton famously said that “The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried” (What’s Wrong with the World, Kindle Location 405). That sums up another reason for skepticism: following Jesus is hard!

For example, Vitz admits that “personal inconvenience” was another major factor in his atheism: “Religion takes a good deal of time, not just on Sunday mornings; the serious practice of any religion calls for much more than that. There are other church services, as well as time for prayer and Scripture reading, not to mention time for ‘good works’ of various sorts. I was far too busy for such time-consuming activities” (Vitz, 136-137).

Philosopher Mortimer Adler became a Christian while in his eighties, after spending decades refusing to make that commitment. During that time he admitted that converting to a specific faith would simply be too hard for him. It “would require a radical change in the way of my life, a basic alteration in the direction of my day-to-day choices as well as in the ultimate objectives to be sought or hoped for. …The simple truth of the matter is that I did not wish to live up to being a genuinely religious person” (Philosopher at Large, 316).

In cases like this, skepticism is simply the rationalization of a desire to stay comfortable. People don’t want to take on the commitment that becoming a Christian requires, so they claim that it must be false.

Pope John Paul II noted that this attitude can also lead to resentment and even hatred of religion. “The fact is that attaining or realizing a higher value demands a greater effort of will. So in order to spare ourselves the effort, to excuse our failure to obtain this value, we minimize its significance, deny it the respect that it deserves, even see it as some ways evil” (Love and Responsibility, 143). That would certainly help explain some of the contempt we see for Christianity among modern skeptics. If you run into an unbeliever that offers scorn rather than reasoned arguments, this may be why.

Immorality

Now for the big one. Of all the motivations and reasons for skepticism that I encounter, immorality is easily the most common. In particular, sexual sin seems to be the largest single factor driving disbelief in our culture. Brant Hanson calls sex “The Big But” because he so often hears this from unbelievers: “’I like Jesus, BUT…’ and the ‘but’ is usually followed, one way or the other, with an objection about the Bible and… sex. People think something’s deeply messed-up with a belief system that says two consenting, unmarried adults should refrain from sex.” In other words, people simply do not want to follow the Christian teaching that sexual intercourse should take place only between and man and woman who are married, so they throw the whole religion out.

The easiest way to justify sin is to deny that there is a creator to provide reality with a nature, thereby denying that there is any inherent order and purpose in the universe.

Aldous Huxley admitted that this is a common reason for skepticism:

I had motives for not wanting the world to have a meaning; consequently I assumed that it had none and was able without any difficulty to find satisfying reasons for this assumption…. Those who detect no meaning in the world generally do so because, for one reason or another, it suits their books that the world should be meaningless. …

For myself as, no doubt, for most of my contemporaries, the philosophy of meaninglessness was essentially an instrument of liberation. The liberation we desired was …liberation from … a certain system of morality.  We objected to the morality because it interfered with our sexual freedom…. There was one admirably simple method in our political and erotic revolt: We could deny that the world had any meaning whatsoever. Similar tactics had been adopted during the eighteenth century and for the same reasons. (Ends and Means, 270-273)

Indeed, similar tactics have been used extensively up to the present day. If you are looking for two great resources that document the extent to which the work of the world’s “great” atheistic thinkers has been “calculated to justify or minimize the shame of their own debauchery,” (Spiegel, 72)I recommend Intellectuals by Paul Johnson and Degenerate Moderns: Modernity as Rationalized Sexual Misbehavior by E. Michael Jones. The bottom line is that these skeptical scholars didn’t reach their conclusions by following the evidence where it led. They didn’t “discover” that the world was meaningless and then proceed to live accordingly. They lived sinful lives (usually involving some type of sexual deviancy) and then produced theories that justified their actions.

This connection between immorality and unsound thought is clearly scriptural. Paul tells the Ephesians that they “must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking. They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts.  Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, with a continual lust for more” (Eph. 4:17-19) Paul blames futile thinking and a lack of understanding on hard hearts. When we compare this passage with Romans 1, it seems that immorality and bad ideas work together in a vicious cycle that spirals downward. Sin leads to false philosophies which then lead to more sin.

The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.

For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.

Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised (Rom. 1:18-25)

So Paul argues that the nature of reality is clear to everyone but people suppress the truth by their wickedness. Rebellious people become fools as they deny the obvious meaning of creation because of their sin. Their foolishness leads them to indulge in more immorality. Thus immorality is very closely linked to skepticism and we need to be aware that sin will almost always be at least an underlying issue in our conversations.

Posted on October 15, 2012 by Don Johnson

http://donjohnsonministries.org/sexual-immorality-and-five-other-reasons-people-reject-christianity/

...if the hand does not share itself ... by cleansing the wound...

Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. … So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith. Galatians 6:2 & 10

The one who does not turn aside from the calamities of others, will not suffer even in his own misfortunes, because that person has learned and exercised themselves in sympathy.
The one who will not bear the griefs of another through such sympathy, will learn all measures of sorrow in himself alone.
In the case of some bodily disease, or when the foot is badly injured, if the hand does not share itself in sympathy by cleansing the wound – washing away discharge, and applying a bandage – the hand will share a like disease or injury of its own.
So he who will not share himself in service to another when he himself is not afflicted, will have to bear his sufferings alone.
For the evil in a person that refuses to share and serve those who are suffering, that same evil will spread to that person’s own suffering, making it most lonely and bitter. The time of sharing the burdens will have passed because such a person is overcome by the bitter loneliness of their own burden.
The one who refuses to share themselves so as to relieve those who are suffering, will be a lonely sufferer himself.

St. John Chrysostom

... it is not of ourselves that we are what we are.

Some prespective for a world bound in sin and thus turned in on itself as we all are who are born of woman.

"There is no glory in having a gift without knowing it. But to know only that you have it, without knowing that it is not of yourself that you have it, means self-glorying, but no true glory in God. And so the apostle says to men in such cases, ““What do you have that you did not receive? If then you received it, why do you boast as if you did not receive it?” 1 Cor 4:7, showing that the guilt is not in glorying over a possession, but in glorying as though what one has had not been received. And rightly such glorying is called vain (empty) glory, since it has no the solid foundation in truth.
The apostle shows how to discern the true glory from the false, when he says, He that glories (boasts), let him glory in the Lord, that is, in the Truth, since our Lord is Truth (I Cor. 1.31; John 14.6).
We must know, then, what we are, and that it is not of ourselves that we are what we are. Unless we know this thoroughly, either we shall not glory at all, or our glorying will be vain. Finally, it is written, If you know not, go your way forth by the footsteps of the flock' (Cant. 1.8). And this is right. For man, being in honor, if he know not his own honor, may fitly be compared, because of such ignorance, to the beasts that perish. Not knowing himself as the creature that is distinguished from the irrational brutes by the possession of reason, he commences to be confounded with them because, ignorant of his own true glory which is within, he is led captive by his curiosity, and concerns himself with external, sensual things. So he is made to resemble the lower orders by not knowing that he has been more highly endowed than they.
We must be on our guard against this ignorance. We must not rank ourselves too low; and with still greater care we must see that we do not think of ourselves more highly than we ought to think, as happens when we foolishly impute to ourselves whatever good may be in us. But far more than either of these kinds of ignorance, we must hate and shun that presumption which would lead us to glory in goods not our own, knowing that they are not of ourselves but of God, and yet not fearing to rob God of the honor due unto Him. For mere ignorance, as in the first instance, does not glory at all; and mere wisdom, as in the second, while it has a kind of glory, yet does not glory in the Lord.
In the third evil case, however, man sins not in ignorance but deliberately, usurping the glory which belongs to God. And this arrogance is a more grievous and deadly fault than the ignorance of the second, since it condemns God, while the other knows Him not. Ignorance is brutal, arrogance is devilish. Pride only, the chief of all iniquities, can make us treat gifts as if they were rightful attributes of our nature, and, while receiving benefits, rob our Benefactor of His due glory.
Wherefore to dignity and wisdom we must add virtue, the proper fruit of them both. Virtue seeks and finds Him who is the Author and Giver of all good, and who must be in all things glorified; otherwise, one who knows what is right yet fails to perform it, will be beaten with many stripes (Luke 12.47). Why? you may ask. Because he has failed to put his knowledge to good effect, but rather has imagined mischief upon his bed (PS. 36.4); like a wicked servant, he has turned aside to seize the glory which, his own knowledge assured him, belonged only to his good Lord and Master. It is plain, therefore, that dignity without wisdom is useless and that wisdom without virtue is accursed. But when one possesses virtue, then wisdom and dignity are not dangerous but blessed.
Such a man calls on God and lauds Him, confessing from a full heart, Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto Your name be glory' (PS. 115.1). Which is to say, O Lord, we claim no knowledge, no distinction for ourselves; all is Thine, since from Thee all things do come.'
To sum up: what infidel does not know that he has received light, air, food--all things necessary for his own body's life--from Him alone who gives food to all flesh (Ps. 136.25), who makes His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust (Matt. 5.45).
Who is so impious as to attribute the peculiar eminence of humanity to any other except to Him who says, in Genesis, Let us make man in Our image, after Our likeness'? (Gen. 1.26)."

Bernard of Clairvaux  - On Loving God
A majority of this was posted in Treasury of Daily Prayer - August 19 - CPH.

Again, it is a bold slap in my face of just how far I have run ahead of the Lord in understanding myself and what I have received.  God bless and love you.

-pmwl

to awaken without Jesus ...

Where Jesus is not with the sinner, the sinner must live and die in his or her sins.
A sinner without Jesus is without the Cross of Christ, His truth, His grace, His blessed substitution for them and their salvation from their sin and themselves as sinners.
If one departs from Christ, departs from the blessed receiving of Him in His Word and Sacrament, who will deliver that person? 
It is a terrible thing when a person remains in their sin. How much more tragic when an infant, conceived and born in sin is denied access to Christ, to His saving grace through the Word.
And how even more tragic is it when parents bring their child to Christ in baptism – and then deny their child any further access to Christ by their refusal to faithfully worship, bring their child to Sunday School and share Christ with their children in the home. Doesn't such a parent force their children to only breath the second-hand spiritually of their mother or father. Such spirituality is pure smoke for it lacks the Holy Breath of the Spirit that God first breathed into their child in baptism.
When one is left to live in sin or the second-hand spirituality of this world, such a person, such a child, is bound to live and breath only what is sin and self. Sin and self become the place where one feels at home, at ease and comfortable, sin and self is the only air their soul is given to breath; and it is in sin and with self alone that such a one dies, waking up in sin and self for all eternity. What shall be the home, the ease, the comfort of such a person, such a child, when he or she realizes that all they have brought with them into eternity is their sin and themselves – with NO means for the breath life and salvation?
In John’s Gospel, Jesus says three times, “You shall die in your sins, unless you believe that I am He (the heaven sent Savior) Jn 8:24.
To believe is to receive Jesus Christ – AS HE IS, not as we would make Him or have Him to be.
To believe is to receive Jesus Christ – AS HE COMES TO US – not as we would have Him come to us.
To believe is to receive Jesus Christ – WHENEVER HE COMES TO US – not when we think we need to receive Him.
The only place on earth or in eternity where sin and our sinful nature and condemnation does not have the final word or work is in Jesus Christ alone. “Blessed are those who (live and) die in the Lord” Rev. 14:13.
Oh what grandness shall be the home, the ease, the comfort and the air of those who are in Christ Jesus as the live and breath by the Holy Air, the Holy Spirit of God now in time.  Surely great shall be the joy and glory of those who awaken in eternity, seeing themselves with Christ – where all sin and sinful self is forever removed.
Lord have mercy on those who refuse to be with Jesus Christ.
Lord have mercy on those who refuse to receive Jesus Christ as He is.
Lord have mercy on those who refuse to receive Jesus Christ as He has chosen to come to us.
Lord have mercy on those who refuse to receive Jesus Christ where He has chosen to come to us.
And Lord have mercy on every child living in the second hand smoke of their parents' sin and selfishness.
Lord have mercy on us all, for our own sin would turn us all together, no less away from Christ our Lord.

- pmwl

Amen.

when the wicked desire of the heart breaks out upon us

Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin! For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment. Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me. Behold, you delight in truth in the inward being, and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart. Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones that you have broken rejoice. Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit. Psalms 51:1-12 (ESV)

It was not just the sins with Bathsheba and ‘Uriah that, David felt. He confesses: “Behold, I was brought forth” in iniquity, And in sin my mother conceived me.” True confession of sin does not look just at outward sins, but feels the heart’s deep corruption and there finds a terribly poisonous fountain from which all sinful deeds spring. There is lying and hatred and unchastity and greed, as the plant is already determined in the seed. This poison has penetrated the heart, so that it is wicked from youth on. Jesus says: “For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries,’ fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies” [Mt 15:19].
The Lord allowed David to see Bathsheba, but. He prevented David from hiding his sin with Uriah’s visit at home. If the Spirit cannot show us our sin in any other way, God allows the wicked, hidden desire of the heart to break out on us so that we see the sin for what it is and humble ourselves and pray for grace. He does this because where our sinful desires have taken us is away from our Lord and Savior, only by seeing our sin and where we have followed it, are we able to call upon Him and receive His blessed forgiveness and right relationship with Him. But let no one trifle with sin and do evil in order to learn contrition and to prove the truth of the Lord’s Word! Extinguish the spark so that it doesn’t become a flame! Pray God to spare you from David’s terrible way, and beware of that which lies at the door to ensnare you. God still will not let you taste the bitterness of sin if you are upright (seeking Him and His forgiveness) and want to ‘be obedient toward His Spirit. And such a feeling of sin is always necessary; whoever does not recognize his sin with sorrow and recognize the justice of God’s judgment, also does not know the sweet and blessed peace of His mercy.
Take note of David’s prayer and confession:•these are not the words of a cold heart, but the strong piercing cry for mercy from an eager spirit. It is not an apathetic admission that he is a weak person like everybody else, but the deep and true confession of a wounded soul, that he is an evildoer from birth on. He is not done putting• forth his confession and his prayer, but it is unspeakably important to him to be shown mercy and to be cleansed by the Lord. “Wash me thoroughly,” he says: “Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.’’
Do you have the same prayer within you, my soul?
Are you bringing the proper sacrifices of God: a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite heart?
Humbly pray that God will give you the true spirit of contrition (sorrow over doing wrong rather sorrow over being caught), and say with the prophet: You have fed them with the bread of tears, And given them tears to drink in great measure” [Ps 80:5]
Lord God, we do not have David’s deep humility, but still we feel our corruption and our sinful guilt with remorse and pain. Yes, I am poor and wicked; cleanse me and heal me, O God, for Jesus’ sake. Amen

Bishop Nils Jakob Laache
330. Trinity 11 – I
BOOK OF FAMILY PRAYER
Slight editing – pmwl

The way to heaven barred by excuses

And at the time for the banquet he sent his servant to say to those who had been invited, ‘Come, for everything is now ready.’ But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said to him, ‘I have bought a field, and I must go out and see it. Please have me excused.’ And another said, ‘I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I go to examine them. Please have me excused.’ And another said, ‘I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come.’  Luke 14:17-20 '

It is interesting to ponder the fact that those who kept themselves away from this banquet - excused themselves. Note that the host did not excuse them, but they excused themselves.  In so doing, they made themselves equal to, and in fact superior to, the host in that they decided what was a valid excuse for their refusal to receive the blessings of the host.  Such excusing of self is old as sin. Were there not excuses on the lips of both Adam and Eve's to justify their refusal to attend the banquet of life that the Lord had prepared for them, so that they could attend the banquet offered them by the lie of Satan and consumed by their own hands. 

It is said that the road to hell is paved with good intentions.  It can and ought be equally said that the way to heaven is barred by vain and empty excuses. 
What excuse will stand before the face of God? 
Imagine on the last day when the Lord asks why you refused to receive, refused to participate in the worship of the Lord, refused to receive the blessed absolution and sacrament as often as it was offered?  How trivial will your excuses of fatigue, personalities, style of worship, etc appear to even yourself on that day?
Understand that no excuse will stand before the Lord today or on the last day.  The only thing that will avail is forgiveness.  With the Lord there is forgiveness for all sins, even the inexcusable. 

Come to the banquet, everything is ready. 

-pmwl / Hammersten

Love Your Pastors

A excellent article on the relationship of congregations and their pastors.

Thank you President Harrison!

The Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod - The Lutheran Witness

To baptize or to teach ... ????

It is a both/and command, not an either/or suggestion.

“All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” Matt 28:18-20 (ESV)

Baptism is the foundation God lays and teaching the Scriptures is the building that God erects upon the foundation that Himself has laid. The one who is baptized has received the right and responsibility of discipleship. For the one who is baptized IS into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
To be baptized in the name of the Father gives to the baptized, God as He above all else desires to be and give everything that God as Father can be and give to one created in His image.
To be baptized in the name of God the Son gives to the baptized, the life, the death, and the resurrection of God the Son, Jesus Christ and all the blessings He has won for all by His incarnation through to His ascension.
To be baptized in the name of the Holy Spirit gives to the baptized all the works of God’s Spirit by which the baptized is called, sanctified, and kept in one true faith through the Word of God, until such time as the Holy Spirit shall present the baptized holy and righteous at the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ.
While the blessings of baptism and the name of God – Father, Son and Holy Spirit that is placed upon us are rarely apparent to the human eye, this is no proof that the Word of God and the water of baptism have failed to give and work the works of the Triune God upon the baptized.
What is to become of those who having been blessed with baptism and have been denied the teaching that must follow upon the blessed gift of baptism due to apathy and neglect on their part or that of their parents? How shall they be kept from growing up in the spirit of this world and its ungodliness.
What a blessed gift of God in baptism that though the baptized may fall away from the Lord, the Lord’s promises to not fall away from the baptized. These promises are secure because they are made and kept by God and not the baptized. When the baptized do fall away, they become again a lost child to the Father. The prodigal son could never have gone back to a home where he was not once a child. May the Lord work a blessed remembrance of their baptism in the hearts and minds of all the baptized that have fallen away so that a blessed return may be easier and more quickly accomplished for all.

“Baptized into Your name most holy,
O Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,
I claim a place, though weak and lowly.” LSB 590

- pmwl

Where the love of God in Christ is and is not ...

Where the love of God in Jesus Christ is found, it will find a way to express itself because this love is Christ – resurrected and living to live, to love and to serve through faith in Jesus Christ.
If one would know where this love of God in Christ is not found, let that person listen, and they will hear any and every excuse for not letting this love have its way in the life and living of the person who claims to have it.

- pmwl

DRINKING FROM MY SAUCER

I’ve never made a fortune

And it’s probably too late now
But I don’t worry about that much
I’m happy anyhow.

So often I can get caught up

In all that others have
Then the eyes of holy faith
Sight for me my true riches
As I am drinking from my saucer
‘Cause my cup has overflowed.
 
And as I go along life’s way
I’m reaping better than I sow
I’m drinking from my saucer
‘Cause my cup has overflowed.

Haven’t go a lot of riches

And sometimes the going’s tough
But I’ve got loving ones around me
And that makes me rich enough.

I thank Christ’s for his blessings
And the mercies He’s bestowed
I’m drinking from my saucer
‘Cause my cup has overflowed.

O, Remember times when things went wrong

My faith wore somewhat thin
But all at once the dark clouds broke
And sun peeped through again.

So Lord, help me not to gripe
About the tough rows that I’ve hoed
I’m drinking from my saucer
‘Cause my cup has overflowed.

If Christ gives me strength and courage

When the way grows steep and rough
I’ll not ask for other blessings
I’m already blessed enough.

And may I never be too busy
To help others bear their loads
Then I’ll keep drinking from my saucer
‘Cause my cup has overflowed.

I offer this poem that a now sainted man named Vernon Fuchs gave me while serving in my first congregation, Zion Lutheran Church in Farmersville, Illinois.  Thank you Vernon

 

pmwl