The Sixth Commandment

Posted on August 18, 2021 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for Midweek of Trinity 11

Small Catechism Review: The Sixth Commandment

The Fifth commandment taught us how God forbids us to dishonor human life with our thoughts, words, or deeds, and how He commands us to honor it. The Sixth Commandment teaches us how God forbids us to dishonor His institution of marriage with our thoughts, words, or deeds, and how He commands us to honor it.

You shall not commit adultery. What does this mean? We should fear and love God, that we lead a pure and chaste life in word and deed, and each one love and honor his spouse.

Just as there’s an obvious definition of murder, so there’s an obvious definition of adultery. It’s when a married person has sexual relations with someone other than his or her spouse. So, first and foremost, we’re talking about a husband’s sin against his wife or a wife’s sin against her husband by straying from the faithfulness they promised to each other when they took their marriage vows. We’re obviously also talking about the sin of the third party, the person with whom the husband or wife stepped outside of the marriage to commit sexual immorality.

We should say a few words about marriage before we go on. Scripture defines it as the joining of one man and one woman into a union that is to last “as long as they both shall live.” That union was established by God already in the Garden of Eden, when He presented the newly created Eve to the recently created Adam, and Adam declared, This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.” Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And Jesus confirms that union, that oneness, when He says in Matthew 19, Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So then, they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate.”

The “one flesh” of marriage applies to the whole earthly life of husband and wife, including the body. As Paul writes to the Corinthians, The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. And likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. And that oneness is to last until husband or wife dies. In other words, God forbids divorce, except in the extreme situations of actual adultery or malicious desertion.

We can identify three purposes that God intended for marriage. Marriage is designed to provide lifelong companionship for husband and wife. It’s God’s divinely instituted means of bringing children into the world, to give them a stable home, with a mom and a dad, devoted to one another, who will raise their children to know and to fear the Lord. And marriage provides a divinely created means to preserve chastity.

What is chastity? It’s the godly discipline of reserving all sexual relations for the loving use of husband and wife. It’s very simple. God has placed sexual desires into men and women, and God has provided the context of marriage for fulling those desires. Marriage is to be the context for all sexual relations. Apart from marriage, God provides no context for any sexual relations. On the contrary, He forbids them.

Anything that threatens or disturbs the sacredness of marriage is also forbidden by God and summarized with the commandment, You shall not commit adultery. As it says in Hebrews 13, Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept undefiled; but fornicators and adulterers God will judge. Now, the word “fornication” is a broad term in the Bible that applies to all sexual immorality, from sex between unmarried people, to indecent language and joking, to viewing pornography, to the sinful lust of the heart. Jesus clarified the Sixth Commandment for the Jews when He said, You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart. And Paul wrote to the Ephesians, But fornication and all uncleanness or covetousness, let it not even be named among you, as is fitting for saints; neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor coarse jesting, which are not fitting, but rather giving of thanks.

Then we come to the crass forms of sexual deviancy like homosexuality, and all this chaos over “gender”—men pretending to be women, and women pretending to be men, or something else entirely. These, too, are forms of adultery which God condemns both in the Old and the New Testaments. They’re perversions of God’s creation and of God’s institution of marriage, and they are the death of a society when they’re openly embraced, as they now are in most societies of the world. The world cannot survive much longer.

On the positive side, what does it look like to “lead a pure and chaste life,” where “each one loves and honors his spouse”? It looks like fleeing from sexual immorality, as Paul puts it to the Corinthians. It looks like honoring marriage, as instituted by God, in our hearts, in our speech, and in our actions. It looks like seeking a godly spouse with prayer and sound judgment, putting God’s Word and the worship of God before everything else. And it looks like husbands and wives being devoted to one another, as Christ and His beloved Church are devoted to one another.

That’s the pattern of a Christian marriage, as Paul writes in Ephesians 5: Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is head of the wife, as also Christ is head of the church; and He is the Savior of the body. Therefore, just as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her…So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies.

Where have you failed to keep this Sixth Commandment? Where have you failed to lead a pure and chaste life, in your thoughts, in your words, in your actions? Where have you failed to treat marriage as something sacred and honorable? The Sixth Commandment, like the rest, shows us our sin and condemns us in the courtroom of God’s justice.

Which is another reason why only a fool would plead his case before God on the basis of how well he has kept the Sixth Commandment. Our only plea must be, God, have mercy on me, a sinner, for the sake of Your Son, Jesus Christ, whose every thought, word, and deed were pure and chaste, who honored marriage and defended it in my place, and who suffered and died for my unchastity and loveless behavior! Then, clothed in Christ’s righteousness and having God’s forgiveness, let the Sixth Commandment guide you each day into the new obedience of God’s beloved children, to the glory of God and to the preservation of mutual love within marriage, and God-pleasing chastity within and without. Amen.

 

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Mary, Mother of God, Sister of All Christians

Posted on August 15, 2021 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for the Festival of St. Mary, Theotokos

Galatians 4:4-7  +  Luke 1:41-50

This is the first time we’ve ever celebrated a festival of St. Mary, at least, a festival on August 15th. We do have Mary’s Visitation on July 2nd, and that we’ve celebrated before. In fact, the Gospel we’re using today is just a shortened version of the Gospel for that day. August 15th has been observed for centuries as the Dormition of Mary, that is, the day when she “fell asleep” in the Lord. Or, it’s called the Assumption of Mary or the Ascension of Mary, either because her soul was taken up to heaven, as are the souls of all believers when they die, or based on a legend that her body, too, was taken up to heaven when she died. That’s the official doctrinal position of the Roman Catholic Church.

Luther celebrated this day, as did some Lutheran churches in the 16th century, although Luther made it clear that we don’t know anything about Mary’s body being taken up to heaven; it isn’t an article of faith. And the Gospel for that day was the Gospel of the sisters Mary and Martha when Jesus came to their house, so that’s what Luther preached on. Still, not all Lutherans continued the observance. Already in the early 1600’s Johann Gerhard, the great Lutheran theologian, didn’t include this festival among his festival sermons. And our 1941 hymnal, TLH, although it includes festivals for all the apostles and even for Mary Magdalene, didn’t include one for Mary, except for the Visitation.

That’s an understandable omission, not only because the “assumption of Mary” is based on legend, and Lutherans refuse to make anything an article of faith that isn’t taught in Holy Scripture, but also because, of all the saints, Mary is the one who has been most abused in the history of the Church. She has been worshiped. She has been prayed to. She has been feared, loved, and trusted in as much as God, and often times more than God. She is falsely claimed to have been “immaculate” from the time she was conceived, unspotted by sin. She’s referred to in Roman circles as co-redemptrix, that is co-redeemer, our “redeemer together with Christ.” And then there are the phony or demonic apparitions of her, like the Virgin of Guadalupe, who reportedly told Juan Diego to go build a shrine in her honor, saying, “Am I not here, who am your Mother? Are you not under my shadow and protection? Am I not the fountain of your joy?”—a statement that is not only false, but robs God of His proper glory and honor. Modern Catholics still write things like this: “She stands on the threshold of divinity…The Virgin has always been honoured by a supereminent worship…Hence Mary is queen of the human race, queen of heaven, and is to be venerated by all. The title of Mother of God makes Mary all powerful with her Son.” In other words, Mary has been turned into an idol, a false god, by millions of deluded Christians over the centuries.

Given all this superstition and idolatry throughout Church history, it isn’t that surprising that Lutherans have often chosen not to celebrate a festival of Mary on August 15th.  The last thing we want is to participate in the idolatry of Mary, the worship of Mary, the superstitions about Mary, or the praying to Mary that is all still so common in the world. And yet, we don’t want to jump to the opposite extreme that many Protestant churches do, which is to ignore Mary, diminish her proper place in God’s plan of salvation, or even dishonor her. Once in a while, it’s good for us to remember, as Lutherans, that we still should and do hold her in high regard, and that we do, in fact, embrace the title by which she has come to be known, Theotokos, the God-bearer, or the Mother of God.

We turn to the Gospel. Elizabeth was about six months pregnant with John the Baptist, and Mary had just recently become pregnant with Jesus after the angel Gabriel made that blessed annunciation to her that she would give birth to the Son of God. Mary went down from Nazareth to Judea to visit her pregnant-but-elderly relative, and as soon as she greeted Elizabeth, the baby leaped in Elizabeth’s womb. Now, 24-week-old babies kick and jump and squirm in their mother’s belly all the time. But this time was different. We’re told that Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit, and so was able to know and to communicate accurately the reason for her baby’s jumping. As she says, As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby leaped for joy in my womb.

That makes sense that tiny baby John would react this way, because, if you recall, the angel Gabriel foretold this about John: He will also be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother’s womb. So John and his mother Elizabeth were prompted by the Holy Spirit to recognize and to rejoice in the God who had taken on human flesh in the womb of the virgin who was standing on their doorstep.

Elizabeth said to Mary, Blessed are you among women. “Blessed” here means “praised” or “praiseworthy,” worthy to be spoken well of. It’s where we get our word “eulogy” from. You are “to be eulogized” among women. Why? Because of her faith, in that she believed the word of the Lord, even the impossible word that was spoken to her that she, though a virgin, would conceive the Son of God in her womb. And because of her humble submission to the will of God, that she accepted this divinely given role meekly, humbly, and obediently, as she responded to the angel Gabriel, Behold, I am the Lord’s maidservant! Let it be to me according to your word.

And blessed is the fruit of your womb! The fruit of your womb is to be eulogized. Why? Because He is God! But also because He is the God who took on human flesh for the one and only purpose of saving human beings from sin, death, and the devil. As we heard in the Epistle, when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.

And how am I so favored that the mother of my Lord should come to me?, Elizabeth asked. Notice, she says, the mother of my Lord. Which is no different than saying the mother of my God. “Mother of God” is a fitting description of Mary. Not that she is the source of the Holy Trinity, or the one who begot the Son of God in eternity. But she is the human source of the human flesh of the Son of God, who is truly God, truly divine, together with the Father and the Holy Spirit. Theotokos, the God-bearer, or the Mother of God is a title that is entirely correct. It’s a title that’s meant to confess the true divinity of Jesus, not any sort of divinity of Mary.

But it is a title that has been abused throughout history to give greater glory to Mary than she or God ever wanted her to be given. We see that clearly in her own words, in the song that we know as the Magnificat.

My soul magnifies the Lord. To magnify is to “make great,” to proclaim as great, to “increase the magnification” on someone or something so that we can see it better and see just how awesome it truly is. We learn from Mary to magnify, not ourselves, not our works, not her, not any other human being, but to magnify the Lord. We have to be careful not to fall into that trap of magnifying anyone or anything, including ourselves, to a position of such greatness, to think too highly of ourselves and what we can achieve and what we can do and how important we are. Let’s learn from Mary to magnify the Lord, and Him alone.

My spirit rejoices in God my Savior. What made Mary’s spirit glad? “God her Savior.” Only sinners need a Savior from sin. Mary was sinful like the rest of us, but through faith in God her Savior, her sins were forgiven, and she rejoiced. Through her, we also learn to acknowledge our need for a Savior, and we learn to rejoice in God for the salvation He has provided by the fruit of Mary’s womb.

For he has regarded the lowliness of his maidservant. Mary was nobody, living up there in Nazareth. She had no fame, no wealth, no importance. But God likes to regard the unimportant things of this world, to look upon the lowly to raise them up, in order to shame the wise. God certainly raised up Mary to an honored place in history, and from her we learn, not only to acknowledge our own lowliness, but to take comfort in the Lord’s mercy toward lowly people like us, to bask in His blessed condescension, in His desire to regard us in our lowliness and care for us as if we were the most important people in the world.

For, behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed. And so we do. We call her the “blessed virgin.” She was given a special place in God’s plan of salvation, not a divine place, and not a place that she keeps, either, as if Jesus still listens to her as His mother, or as if she sits as queen of heaven. She fulfilled a servant-role and was raised up, not to royalty, not to divinity. But to blessedness. Happiness. Like all the saints, like all believers. But unlike most believers, Mary and her confession of faith are actually known to all believers in Christ, and so we can all acknowledge her blessedness, whereas our own blessedness is much more hidden, known only to us and to those who can hear or learn about our confession of faith.

For he who is mighty has done great things to me, and holy is his name. Yes, God is the mighty one, not Mary. Her intercession is no more powerful or valuable than that of any child of God. And it’s God’s name that’s truly holy. We say “Saint” Mary, that is, holy Mary, just as we say “Saint” Paul or “Saint” anyone. But we know that our sainthood, the sainthood of believers, is only by imputation, by faith in the holy Lord Jesus. Only God is holy by nature.

And his mercy is on those who fear him, from generation to generation. Yes, God is merciful to all in giving sunshine and rain and harvest and beauty and daily care and rescue from so many dangers. But all of that He does in order to bring us to rely on Him for mercy before His judgment, to acknowledge the sinfulness and neediness of our soul and to approach Him who is merciful for the sake of Christ Jesus. For those who do, there is special mercy for His children, “for those who fear Him,” special care, special love, special faithfulness. And not just for a little while, but from generation to generation, for us and for our children, forever and ever, for all who fear Him.

The Magnificat doesn’t end there, but our Gospel for today does, maybe so that we can end on that very note of God’s mercy, toward Mary and toward us who fear Him. That’s what she was focused on, and if we would honor her rightly, then that will be our focus, too, the mercy of God in the Person of His Son, Jesus Christ, born of the virgin Mary, who became the Mother of God and, not the mother, but the blessed sister of all who believe in her Son. Let us give thanks to God today for our sister Mary, both for her faith and for her example. May God help us to imitate them both. Amen.

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The Fifth Commandment

Posted on August 11, 2021 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for Midweek of Trinity 10

Small Catechism Review: The Fifth Commandment

The Fourth Commandment commands us to have the right heart and to do the right things with regard to our father and mother and those in authority over us, all out a genuine fear, love, and trust in God. The Fifth Commandment commands us to have the right heart and to do the right things with regard to human life, both our neighbor’s and our own.

You shall not murder. What does this mean? We should fear and love God, that we do not hurt or harm our neighbor in his body; but help and support him in every bodily need.

Let’s start with the obvious prohibition. Murdering. The KJV had Thou shalt not kill. But there are several words for “killing” in Hebrew, and the context of Scripture makes it clear that not every instance of killing is forbidden by God, so “murder” seems better here, that is, unlawful killing.

When is killing not unlawful? When is killing not “murder”? When God, the Author and Creator of life, authorizes it. Using Holy Scripture as our guide, we can identify those circumstances pretty easily. In the Old Testament, God authorized the Israelites to wipe out the Canaanites in order to punish the wicked inhabitants of Canaan and to fulfill His covenant with Abraham. He also authorized the kings and armies of Israel to kill people of enemy nations that were physically threatening Israel. Those were specific commands to Old Testament Israel, as the nation God chose as the breeding ground for His Son, and they don’t necessarily apply to all people. But in both the Old and New Testaments, God authorizes the government to take the life of murderers and other evildoers. Already in Genesis 9, after the Flood was over, God said to Noah, Whoever sheds man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed. And the secular authority does not bear the sword in vain, Paul writes, for he is God’s minister, an avenger to execute wrath on him who practices evil. Finally, God authorized private citizens in the Old Testament to take a life in defense of themselves or their property, as in Exodus 22, If a thief is found breaking in, and he is struck so that he dies, there shall be no guilt for his bloodshed. Apart from those instances, no one has the right to take a human life. God’s commandment forbids it.

But it isn’t just unlawful killing that God forbids. The Old Testament Law makes it clear that injuring your neighbor was also a grave sin. That’s why the law was “an eye for an eye.” If you injured your neighbor’s eye, you forfeit your own eye. As Luther explains, We should fear and love God, that we do not hurt or harm our neighbor in his body. Bodily hurt or harm falls into God’s category of murder.

More than that, Jesus reveals in the Sermon on the Mount that hurtful words fall into His category of murder. Whoever says, ‘You fool!’ shall be in danger of hell fire. More than that, both Jesus and the Apostle John reveal that even apart from any emotional or physical harm we may do to our neighbor, the hatred and unrighteous anger we harbor toward our neighbor in our hearts also fall into His category of murder. Whoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment…Whoever hates his brother is a murderer.

What are we to do instead? Luther explains, we are to help and support our neighbor in every bodily need.

Someone will ask, All right, I’m not to hurt my neighbor in any way, but help him in every bodily need. What about myself? What about my bodily life? Do I have the right to take my own life or do harm to my own body? Notice, it doesn’t say, “You shall not murder your neighbor.” It simply says, You shall not murder. How we treat our own bodies also falls under this commandment. Because “our own bodies” are only “our own bodies” in a certain sense, in that my body does not belong to you or to anyone else, nor yours to me or anyone else. But God, as the Creator of all things, remains the owner of all things, including your life and my life. More than that, God, as the Redeemer of all men who purchased us with His blood, is twice the owner of our bodies. As Paul wrote to the Corinthians, You are not your own. For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.

So in the Fifth Commandment, God is protecting the bodily life He has given us. Our lives are sacred gifts of God which are to be treated with respect and used for His honor and glory. He protects my neighbor’s life from me doing him harm, and He protects my life from my neighbor doing me harm. And He commands that even our inward thoughts and attitudes, and the words we speak, must be for the good of our neighbor’s life.

What are some common ways in which people break this commandment in their hearts? Well, seething in anger at someone. Wishing evil on someone. Wishing someone were dead. Holding onto bitterness. Holding a grudge. Hating your neighbor—but also hating yourself, hating the life God has given you.

What about our words? “You fool! I hate you! I wish you had never been born!” Snapping at people. The silent treatment! Threatening someone. These are ways of harming your neighbor’s life, even without lifting a finger.

What kinds of bodily harm are mentioned in Scripture? Killing (obviously), maiming someone, fighting/striking, gluttony (eating too much), excessive drinking of alcohol, rape, and other violent behavior. Suicide is clearly also a violation of this commandment, as is euthanasia—intentionally ending someone’s life to keep them from suffering—and abortion. We can easily add negligence to those things, failing to do your duty to keep your neighbor safe.

Now, that brings up a question that’s been raised quite a lot over the last year and a half. Is it sinful negligence if a Christian passes on a disease to someone, or harms his neighbor by spreading germs? Is it our Fifth-Commandment duty to take every conceivable precaution so that the air in our lungs doesn’t reach our neighbor, on the chance it may produce an infection in our neighbor, or to inject a vaccine into our bodies? Many people have claimed that, in the Fifth Commandment, God is commanding you to stay home or “social distance” or get a vaccine or wear a mask, even if you have no signs of sickness, so that you are as certain as you can be that you won’t share contaminated air with your neighbor. That, they say, is what Christian kindness and love requires.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: That is a false use of the Fifth Commandment. It has no basis in Scripture. It’s a manmade law and an idolization of science. No one in Scripture is ever accused of negligence for breathing or for passing on a disease; that’s not how the Bible ever talks about disease, or breathing. Breathing is not a form of violence, in God’s estimation. We are never cautioned about sharing air with one another. On the contrary, God made us breathing creatures, and He created us actually to share the air we breathe. Some would say that the Christian thing to do is to harm your own body, if necessary, in order to lessen the potential for harm to your neighbor’s body. But, first of all, there is a great difference between doing something that will benefit your neighbor and doing something that just might possibly benefit your neighbor. Secondly, the Law doesn’t say, “Love your neighbor more than yourself.” It says, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” It says, “Do to others what you would have them do to you.” In love for yourself, do you want other seemingly healthy people to keep their distance from you, to cover their face in front of you, to inject themselves with medicine they aren’t sure about in order to keep you safe at the expense of their own safety or happiness? I hope not! So, if you would love your neighbor as yourself, you’ll treat your neighbor as you want to be treated.

As we’ve seen, your bodily life is also a precious gift from God and is protected by God and honored by God. You should not despise your life, to view yourself as a constant threat to your neighbor. Your life should not be mistreated lightly. It is God-pleasing for people to honor their own bodies, too, and not to mistreat them. What’s more, we’ve also seen that it isn’t just the mechanism of the body that God protects in this commandment, but the life of the body, which includes more than just keeping the viruses out. It includes the soul, actually, and how the soul is affected by either hurtful words or by helpful words, by hurtful practices or by helpful ones. It includes joy, happiness, closeness, all of which are undoubtedly hampered and diminished if we’re interacting with one another with covered faces. Our lives, which God protects in this commandment, are more than our bodies. Much more. And the purpose of our life is much bigger than preventing the spread of this or that airborne illness.

So what are some practical ways of helping and supporting your neighbor in every bodily need? Well, if you know that you’re sick and contagious with something, it would be a loving thing to try not to expose a vulnerable person to it. Then there’s the obvious, giving help to the poor and needy, whether in the form of money or clothing or food, tending to the sick or to those who are otherwise in distress, as the Good Samaritan did. A kind word to your neighbor instead of a hurtful one. A parent changing a child’s diaper, providing food, clothing and shelter for their children, and all the many ways in which parents care for their children’s bodily needs. Taking care of an elderly parent or relative, which we also talked about under the Fourth Commandment. And, of course, a heart of love on the inside that truly wants what’s best for our neighbor and prays for God’s blessing on our neighbor’s life.

Where have you failed to do that? Where have you failed to help and support your neighbor in his bodily need? Where have you hated or despised yourself or someone else or been indifferent to your neighbor, as the rich man was to poor Lazarus? Where have you done harm, with words or with deeds?  The Fifth Commandment, like the rest, shows us our sin and condemns us in the courtroom of God’s justice.

Which is another reason why only a fool would plead his case before God on the basis of how well he has kept the Fifth Commandment. Our only plea must be, God, have mercy on me, a sinner, for the sake of Your Son, Jesus Christ, who did no harm to anyone, but cared for all human lives in my place, and who suffered and died for my harm and my lack of help! Then, clothed in Christ’s righteousness and having God’s forgiveness, let the Fifth Commandment guide you each day into the new obedience of God’s beloved children, to the glory of God and to the benefit of your neighbor’s bodily life. Amen.

 

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What to do for the Church that is doomed

Posted on August 8, 2021 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for Trinity 10

1 Corinthians 12:1-11  +  Luke 19:41-48

I want you to think about the state of the Christian Church today. Think about all the Christian churches you know of here in Las Cruces, in New Mexico, in the U.S., around the world. Think of the message you hear from churches, about churches. Think of the worship practices you have heard of, and about the public stance Christians have taken on doctrinal issues or societal issues. How much is focused on Christ crucified and risen from the dead? How much is rooted in the preaching of repentance and the forgiveness of sins in His name? How much is grounded in the absolute truth of His holy Word? How much is centered on Word and Sacrament? In preparing people to bear the cross patiently, to face death bravely, and to prepare for eternal life with God earnestly? Honestly? Not much.

Does it make you weep? It should, at least on the inside. The Christian Church, in its outward form, is God’s house, God’s city. But it’s crumbling, and it’s destined to crumble. It’s doomed. The Scriptures foretell the great apostasy, the great falling away, the growing number of false teachers and those who believe them. As Paul writes to Timothy, the Spirit expressly says that in latter times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons, speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their own conscience seared with a hot iron, forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from foods. And again, The time will come when they will not put up with sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables. My friends, that time is upon us.

A similar time was upon the Jews and the capital city of God’s Church at that time, the city of Jerusalem. We can learn a lot about our own times from Jesus’ tears and words for Jerusalem, and also from His actions afterward, because the same actions are called for in our time. Today in the Gospel we learn what to do for the Church that is doomed.

As Jesus approached the city of Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, five days before the leaders of that city would successfully bring about His crucifixion, we’re told that he looked at the city and wept over it, saying, “If only you knew, on this your day, the things that would bring you peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. For the days will come upon you when your enemies will put up an embankment around you and will surround you and besiege you on every side. And they will raze you to the ground, you and your children within you; and they will not leave one stone upon another within you, because you did not recognize the time of your visitation.”

Jesus wept, not because Jerusalem was about to crucify Him, but because, after crucifying Him, the people of Jerusalem, the Old Testament visible Church, would not repent, would not acknowledge their sins, would not believe in Him, would not make use of the atonement He was about to provide with His death. And so the city, less than forty years later, would be mercilessly attacked by the Roman armies and utterly destroyed, not because God truly wanted it that way, not because God chose them for destruction or predestined them to it, but because you did not recognize the time of your visitation. God sent the Messiah to Jerusalem, as promised. God the Holy Spirit made it absolutely clear, both by Jesus’ words and by His deeds, that this was the promised Savior. But they shut their eyes and closed their hearts to the Spirit’s work. And so only the remnant, stragglers, a small number of leftover Jews, would be saved.

But that remnant would indeed be saved. Some members of the Old Testament Church would repent and believe in Christ Jesus and would escape not just the destruction of Jerusalem, but eternal condemnation in hell. Jesus saw those people, too. He wasn’t paralyzed by the sadness He felt for Jerusalem or by the certain knowledge of the doom and destruction of the city and the people as a whole. Instead, He went on to do the only things that would save the remnant.

First, He went to the temple and cleared it of the things that didn’t belong there. He went into the temple and began to drive out those who were buying and selling in it, saying to them, “It is written, ‘My house will be a house of prayer.’ But you have made it a ‘den of thieves.’” Buying and selling are not sinful activities. But the house of God is no place for them. Zeal for God’s house—for His house—consumed Jesus, and He drove out the things that distracted from prayer, and from the ministry of the priests, and from the architecture and the furnishings and the sacrifices that all pointed to Him.

And then, He sat down in the temple daily, for the next few days, for His last few days before His death, and taught the Word of God to all who would listen. And then, as we know, on that Thursday evening, He instituted the New Testament in His blood. On Sunday morning He rose from the dead and commissioned His apostles to do as He had done, to preach and teach until the end of the world. Fifty days later, a relatively small church of 3,000, a New Testament Church, was born, just a few decades before the Old Testament Church was destroyed, after having existed for some 2,000 years, since the first Testament was made with Abraham.

Well, now it’s been almost 2,000 years since then, about 1,988 years since 33 AD, when Christ died and rose again and the Church of the New Testament was born. The Christian Church has lasted almost as long as the Church of the Old Testament. And we see it in about as bad a shape as Jerusalem was in when Jesus wept over it. The Church, in its outward form, has become a den of thieves, filled with teachings and practices and activities that only distract from Christ, whether it’s the so-called “speaking in tongues,” or Millennialist teaching, or social justice, or manmade rules, or entertainment based, man-centered worship, and on and on and on. Christians who believe and teach the Gospel rightly, and who use the Sacraments devoutly, according to Christ’s institution, are scattered all over the world, gathering in small pockets here and there. Some we know of, some we don’t. They’re stragglers. They’re a remnant. Jesus looks out at what the Church that bears His name has become in the world, and He weeps, because He knows destruction is coming, and He knows it’s the fault of the preachers who preach lies in His name, and the fault of the Church members whose itching ears have driven them away from His Word and to the nice-sounding-but-deadly doctrines of men.

So it shouldn’t surprise us that there is always turmoil within the Church. It shouldn’t surprise us that church bodies come and go, rise and crumble, that they remain faithful for a while, and then go astray, including Lutheran ones. It’s the history of the whole Church. It’s painful to watch it unfold. And I have often been close to real tears for the downfall and the impending destruction of Christian churches and Lutheran church bodies.

But we learn from Jesus not to be paralyzed by such knowledge or by such pain. We learn that the godly remnant’s survival doesn’t depend at all on the larger church’s survival. It depends only on Christ and His Word. And there will always be a remnant on earth. The only question is, will we be a part of it?

And so we learn from Jesus in the Gospel to do the only things that will still save some, including us.

We learn to drive out the things among us that distract from prayer, from hearing God’s Word, from focusing on the Sacraments. We learn, by daily contrition and repentance, to get rid of things that don’t belong, either in Church, or in our private Christian lives, like false doctrine, like willful sin and pride, like hatred and bitterness, backbiting and cruelty. We learn to toss out man-centered worship practices, and also an overemphasis on politics and public policy, as if the Church existed to fix human society instead of becoming the society that will prosper beyond this world, as this world crumbles.

And we learn to keep teaching the Word of God to all who will hear. Both in the Church and in our private lives as Christians, the Word of God has to take priority, to hear it, to know it, to learn it, to put it into practice, and to support its ministry in the world. The Lord Jesus still sits down in His temple, in His house, in the Holy Christian Church, to teach. Only He now does it through men who have been called by His Spirit, through the Church, to do it. Preachers aren’t Jesus, but, if they are legitimately called by Him and if they teach according to His Word, they are His ambassadors and His instruments for gathering and for preserving the remnant in the world.

Yes, the Church, by and large, is doomed. But we don’t have to be. We can mourn over the downfall of outward Christianity. But we can’t be paralyzed by it. The Lord Jesus has given us all we need to escape the eternal destruction that will come upon the apostate Church. He has given us vital tasks to be doing. And He will continue to give us the strength to do them, through His Word and through His Sacraments. Let us be devoted to using this house of prayer for prayer, and for receiving the instruction and the strength we need to keep doing what needs to be done for the salvation of the remnant in the midst of the Church that is doomed. Amen.

 

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Catechism Review: The Fourth Commandment

Posted on August 4, 2021 by Rev. Paul Rydecki

We’ve quickly run through the first three commandments, sometimes referred to as the First Table (or the first tablet) of the Law. Since Moses received the commandments from God on two stone tablets, we speak of the commandments about love for God—the first three, as we have numbered them—as being the First table and the commandments that deal with our interactions with our neighbor, the other people God has placed in our life, as the Second Table, regardless of how the commandments may have been divided on the original stone tablets.

The first three commandments are about loving God above all things by (1) honoring and worshiping Him alone as God, (2) honoring His name and using it correctly, and (3) honoring His Word and the ministry of it. The other seven commandments are about loving God by doing as He says with regard to our neighbor in some general and some specific ways.

The Fourth Commandment: You shall honor your father and your mother. What does this mean? We should fear and love God, that we do not despise or anger our parents and those in authority over us; but honor them, serve and obey them, love and cherish them.

Let’s start with the parents, father and mother, the most basic form of authority God has given on this earth. God designed it into His creation that it takes a man and a woman to come together to have children, gifting to every child both a father and a mother, who are supposed to stay together for life, and to work together, as God’s own representatives in the home, to provide for that child and to raise that child in the “fear and admonition of the Lord,” to care for their child, both body and soul.

Our modern society, as you know, has largely shoved aside God’s design, even promoting homes with a mother only, or a father only, or a father and a “father,” or a mother and a “mother,” or with multiple sets of parents after divorce and remarriage or divorce and living together outside of marriage. But that was not God the Creator’s intention. His design was for children to benefit from both a father and a mother, married to each other for life, living together in the same home. Anything else is either the direct result of sin, or the sad consequence of the sin that has ravaged our world.

In turn, God has revealed His will for all children of all time, that they are to honor their parents, both father and mother.

What does that look like, to “honor your father and your mother”? First the catechism explains what children are not to do. We should not “despise” our parents or “anger” our parents. How might you despise them? By getting angry at them; by thinking evil about them in your heart; or by assuming the worst about them. How might you anger them? By outright disobedience, bad behavior, or rebellion; by obedience that is careless, sluggish, or reluctant; by grumbling or complaining to them or about them behind their back; or by speaking ill of them or showing disrespect toward them. That’s what children are commanded not to do.

What are children commanded to do with their parents? To honor them, serve and obey them, love and cherish them. Now, each of those words is pretty self-explanatory. To honor is to show them the dignity they deserve as God’s appointed representatives in our homes. That includes our actions (serving them and obeying them), and it includes our attitudes (loving them and cherishing them, respecting them, thinking highly of them). And while the “obedience” part of the commandment only applies to children before they reach adulthood, the “serving” part of honor may become even more necessary as their parents get older, and the “loving” and the “cherishing” parts of honoring their parents apply even after their parents are gone. So even for those of you who no longer have parents around to obey or serve, you can still love and cherish those you had and give thanks to God for them, and rejoice that those who fell asleep in Christ are resting safely with Him in Paradise.

How serious is God about this? This was the civil law in the Old Testament: Everyone who curses his father or mother shall surely be put to death. Or again, If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey the voice of his father or the voice of his mother, and who, when they have chastened him, will not heed them, then his father and his mother shall take hold of him and bring him out to the elders of his city, to the gate of his city. And they shall say to the elders of his city, ‘This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious; he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton and a drunkard.’ Then all the men of his city shall stone him to death with stones; so you shall put away the evil from among you, and all Israel shall hear and fear. Even in the New Testament, the Apostle Paul lists being “disobedient to parents” among the serious sins for which those who practice them deserve death, and, Paul says, the Fourth Commandment came with a promise, “that it may be well with you and you may live long on the earth,” as God’s extra incentive to get children to obey, because a stable family, with devoted father and mother and with obedient children, is necessary for civilization to remain intact. That’s all too obvious as we see the Biblical concept of family being rejected by the world, which is at the heart of all our culture’s decay.

What if parents don’t deserve your respect or honor? Well, sometimes they don’t. No parent is sinless, and some, sadly, are truly wretched and we don’t have to pretend they aren’t. But their God-given role as parents is still a role that God infuses with honor, and every bit of goodwill and obedience, love and respect that can be given in good conscience should be given. But if your parents tell you to do something that God has forbidden, or command you not to do something that God has required, that’s when “civil disobedience” is called for in the home. As the apostles said to the Jewish authorities when they were commanded not to do what Jesus commanded them to do, namely, to preach the Gospel, “We must obey God rather than men.”

That brings us to the extended application of the Fourth Commandment, where Luther explains that it’s not restricted to honoring your father and your mother, but also those in authority over us. The German uses just one word for all that: “Herren,” lords. We don’t use that word anymore, except for THE Lord, but in German it included everyone in a position of authority over you, from your boss to your king, in the secular realm, and it also included your pastor in the spiritual realm.

The Scriptures back up that extension of the Fourth Commandment. We’re told, especially by St. Paul and St. Peter, to submit to the governing authorities and to honor the king. We’re told by the writer to the Hebrews to Remember those who rule over you, who have spoken the word of God to you, to obey them and to be submissive, for they watch over your souls.

Spiritual authorities have a God-given duty to watch over the souls of those entrusted to their care—not unlimited authority, but the authority to teach God’s Word and administer the Sacraments, to rebuke sin, and to forgive it.

Secular authorities have a God-given duty to watch over, not the souls, but the bodies of their subjects, but only in certain ways; they don’t have God-given authority over every aspect of life. According to Scripture, the secular authorities exist to maintain justice, not allowing one person to mistreat or steal from another. The authorities are to ensure the safety of their citizens, that is, to prevent evildoers from harming their person or property, to protect them from foreign and domestic threats. That duty does not extend, by the way, to preventing the spread of disease at all costs; there is not even a hint in Scripture that the government has the authority from God to punish people or to restrain people on the off chance that they may have some disease, the one possible exception being the quarantining of a person who had been formally examined and diagnosed to have leprosy, which had more to do with ceremonial uncleanness than with the prevention of contamination—nothing like the authority we’ve seen the government grant to itself over the past year.

Still, when acting in their God-given roles, the Fourth Commandment extends to authorities in the church and to authorities in the state, and we are all commanded to honor, to serve and obey, to love and cherish those authorities. That certainly also includes praying for them and trying to work together with them for the good of the Church and for the good of society.

Where have you failed to honor? Where have you failed to obey, to serve, to love, or to cherish, in the home, in the Church, or in society? Where have you despised or angered parents or those in authority over you? Are you always careful to defend their honor? Are you always careful to obey? Always eager to love them? To pray for them? A sin against the Fourth Commandment is a sin against the God who put those authorities in place in your life. And so the Fourth Commandment, like the rest, shows us our sin and condemns us in the courtroom of God’s justice.

Which is another reason why only a fool would plead his case before God on the basis of how well he’s obeyed the Law. Our only plea must be, God, have mercy on me, a sinner, for the sake of Your Son, Jesus Christ, who honored both His earthly parents and You, His heavenly Father, in my place, and who suffered and died for my dishonor and disobedience! Then, clothed in Christ’s righteousness and having God’s forgiveness, let the Fourth Commandment guide you each day into the new obedience of God’s beloved children, and may He grant us all the wisdom to know when the authorities are acting as God’s representatives, and when not. Amen.

 

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