You don’t have to be a part of the Church’s demise

Posted on August 4, 2024 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for Trinity 10

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

On the 10th Sunday after Trinity, the Church has historically remembered the fall of Jerusalem in AD 70, because Jesus prophesied it in today’s Gospel. Speaking to Jerusalem from the back of the donkey on Palm Sunday, Jesus wept and said, 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. As the all-knowing Son of God, Jesus could see where things were headed for Jerusalem, not just in general, but very specifically He could see some 36 years into the future, as Jewish rebels began to revolt against the Roman government and eventually overtook the city of Jerusalem. He could see some 40 years into the future as the patience of the Romans with the Jewish rebels ran out. And the armies of Titus besieged the city in April of the year 70, resulting in the city’s inhabitants resorting to violence toward one another, murder, and even cannibalism. By the end of August, the Romans were ready to enter the city. And they tore down the walls, and the temple, and burned the city to the ground. And so ended a thousand years of Jewish occupation of Jerusalem (minus the 70 years of captivity in Babylon, of course). So ended the Jewish priesthood, and the temple worship, and the rites and rituals of the Law of Moses, never to be resurrected again. Jesus saw it all coming, as clear as day. The destruction of the city was inevitable, from God’s perspective.

Why? Why was it inevitable? Because God sees beforehand everything that everyone will do. And Jesus saw what the people of Jerusalem would do. If you only knew, in this your day, the things that would bring you peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes…You did not recognize the time of your visitation. What would have brought peace to Jerusalem? Acknowledging their sinfulness before God. Repenting of their wickedness. Seeking mercy from the God of Abraham instead of relying on their family tree. Believing in Jesus, the Christ sent from God to redeem them from sin, death, and the devil. That’s what would have brought them peace.

And they had multiple opportunities to obtain that peace! They could have not crucified the Son of God at the end of that Holy Week. But that was only one opportunity. For the next 40 years or so, the Gospel would be preached in Jerusalem. The Christian Church would have a presence there, gathering in the temple and in other places, showing from the Old Testament Scriptures how Jesus had fulfilled the prophecies about the coming Christ, preaching repentance and the forgiveness of sins through Jesus, even to those who had crucified Him.

But over and over again, they refused to recognize the time when God visited them for salvation, first through Jesus directly, and then through the apostles whom He had sent. They heard the Word of God…and then ignored it, or stoned those who preached it, or put them in jail, or put them to the sword, or chased them around from one city to the next, trying to stir up the whole world against these horrible, terrible Christians who were preaching the Gospel of free salvation and eternal life for all people of all nations through faith in Christ Jesus.

And so, after giving them 40 years to acknowledge and receive the crucified and risen Christ whom God the Father had sent to Israel, God worked through the government of the Romans to bring final destruction on the city of Jerusalem and to remove His ancient people from their homeland for good. The people who reside on that piece of land today are not the covenant people of the Old Testament. They’re foreigners to the covenant God made with Abraham and with Moses, regardless of whether they can trace their earthly ancestry back to Abraham or not. No, God saw to it that Jerusalem, with its Old Testament significance, was permanently destroyed.

I said at the beginning of the sermon that the Church remembers the destruction of Jerusalem on this day of the Church Year. And we do. But we don’t celebrate it, as in, rejoice over it. Because our Lord Jesus didn’t rejoice over it. He wept over it! As he drew near, he looked at the city and wept over it. Their rejection of the Messiah wasn’t God’s doing. It was theirs. Their destruction was inevitable from God’s perspective, because He knew what they would do. But from their perspective, it was entirely avoidable. The Holy Spirit called out to them through the preaching of the apostles. He even gave miraculous signs in His early Church, as St. Paul discussed in today’s Epistle, as proof to the Jews that the preaching about Jesus was from God. They weren’t prevented by God from believing. They owned their unbelief. And Jesus wept over it, because God wanted to save them. But they didn’t want to be saved by Jesus.

It’s useful for us to reflect on these things. Because what happened to the Jews and to Jerusalem will also happen to the Christian Church in its outward form. Jesus predicted the infiltration of many, many false prophets and false christs into His Church. He predicted that weeds (false Christians) would be sown by the evil one right in the midst of the wheat (the true Christians). He predicted that the love of most would grow cold, that many would be deceived and would abandon the true teaching of His Word. He predicted the working of the Antichrist, not outside the Church in some world government somewhere, but right in the midst of the Church, and He predicted the great apostasy, the great falling away, the great rebellion within the Church, leaving her just as desolate as Jerusalem was left by the Roman armies.

Does God want to see things turn out this way? Of course not. As little as He wanted to see Jerusalem rejecting the Christ and suffering the consequences. But He knows the choices that people will make, and He allows His word to be opposed and His warnings to go unheeded. He doesn’t force people into submission and obedience during this time of grace between His first and second comings.

So, why preach on this text? Why meditate on this text or pay any attention to it, if the Church, in its outward form, is going to end up in ruins, just like Jerusalem did in 70 AD? Because! It doesn’t have to happen to you! Jerusalem, as a city, perished for its unbelief. But many people in Jerusalem heeded Jesus’ warning and repented and were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. Many of those Jewish Christians got out before the destruction came. Just because the Church in its outward form will perish doesn’t mean that the true Church, in its true form, will perish. On the contrary, Jesus assures His disciples that the gates of hell will not prevail against My Church. That isn’t a promise that the large institutionalized Christian Church on earth will be victorious in the end. It’s a promise that there will always be a faithful remnant of true believers within His Church, and that they will be victorious against the devil and every enemy.

And how does Jesus preserve this faithful remnant within His Church? By doing the very thing He did after He predicted the demise of Jerusalem. He pressed onward. He entered Jerusalem. And He cleansed the temple there of all the distractions and all the wickedness and all the things that were getting in the way of people hearing His teachings and praying to God. And then He taught. He taught, right there in the temple that would eventually be destroyed. He taught all those who would listen. And even His enemies couldn’t prevent Him from teaching. Because while Jerusalem would eventually perish, not everyone in Jerusalem had to perish. Some could still be saved. And the only way for them to be saved was for them to be able to hear and meditate on His Word.

And so, even though we know that the outward Church, influenced as it is by the Antichrist, will be destroyed together with the rest of the world, we press onward. We don’t get drawn in by the outward Church with its prestige and glory. We don’t get depressed when we see the outward Church failing. No, we press onward, as we are able, to make sure that the Church among us, the Church where we gather, is clean of outside distractions, clean of wickedness, clean of false doctrine, clean of lovelessness. We make sure that the Gospel is taught here where we gather, that the truth is spoken, and that lies are exposed. And those who are able gather around the Word and Sacraments of Christ. And those who aren’t able to gather here among us gather with whoever will join them wherever they are to hear the Word of God and to put His Word into practice in whatever ways they can. We make sure that we who gather together around the ministry of the Word are living in humble repentance and genuine faith, and that we’re living in the world as the light of the world and as the salt of the earth that Jesus made us to be.

When we do that, we have the Lord’s assurance that He won’t remove His Gospel from us, nor will He remove us from that faithful remnant that will remain after the outward Church is destroyed. When we see to it that our own church is continually cleansed, and that the Word of God is taught rightly among us, and that we, as Christians, are praying diligently and leading holy lives in the world, then we have nothing to fear from the impending destruction of the outward Church and of the world. We can simply go about our business here, joyfully worshiping the Lord, looking for opportunities to serve our neighbor, to encourage one another, and to be a witness in the world that Jesus is the Christ, and that there is a Jerusalem here on earth that welcomes Him into our midst, a Jerusalem that will not be destroyed, a little gathering of a faithful remnant, which all people are invited to join. Amen.

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Deliverance from every evil is coming!

Posted on July 31, 2024 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for Midweek of Trinity 9

Isaiah 51:1-11

Isaiah’s prophecy in the first 11 verses of chapter 51 is a broad, all-encompassing promise of deliverance and righteousness and justice. It applies to all three future events that Isaiah has been prophesying since the beginning of his book: the deliverance of Israel from Babylon, the deliverance of all believers from sin through the Messiah at His first coming, and the deliverance of all believers from every evil of this world  through the Messiah at His second coming.

“Listen to me, you who pursue righteousness, you who seek the LORD:

The Lord Yahweh calls out! But He doesn’t call out to everyone in the world. He calls out to those who pursue righteousness, who seek the LORD. If you want to go on living in sin, if you want to seek some other god, these comforting words aren’t for you. But if what you want is to pursue what is right, to be counted righteous by God and to live righteously before your God, if you are among those who repent of their sins and are determined to have the Lord as your God, then listen! He has great comfort for you.

Look to the rock from which you were hewn, and to the quarry from which you were dug. Look to Abraham your father and to Sarah who bore you; for he was but one when I called him, that I might bless him and multiply him.

These words apply equally to physical Israel and to spiritual Israel. Abraham and Sarah were the physical parents of all the Old Testament people of Israel. And they are the spiritual parents of all believers in Christ Jesus. You remember Abrahan’s condition when the Lord called him out of the land of Babylon (that is, Ur of Chaldeans). He and Sarah were childless. They remained childless for another 25 years after God called him. But it was on purpose that God called Abraham when he was childless and let him remain childless for so long, so that it might be unmistakably clear that it was God who would bless him and multiply his descendants, both physical and spiritual, so that, the earth—so that heaven itself! — might be filled with children of Abraham by the Lord’s own working.

For the LORD comforts Zion; he comforts all her waste places and makes her wilderness like Eden, her desert like the garden of the LORD; joy and gladness will be found in her, thanksgiving and the voice of song.

Zion, the Old Testament people of Israel had been reduced to almost nothing during their captivity. But the Lord would restore them and make them prosper again and rejoice again after their time of punishment was complete. Spiritually, Israel also appeared to be practically dead. But then the Lord would send the Messiah, and His Holy Spirit, to breathe new life into them, and into all who would believe. The same goes for the New Testament Christian Church. The Church looks like a wasteland in these latter days, like a wilderness that used to be inhabited but that is now almost barren. The Lord also promises to deliver His Church and to restore joy and gladness, thanksgiving and the voice of song when Christ comes again to deliver us.

“Give attention to me, my people, and give ear to me, my nation; for a law will go out from me, and I will set my justice for a light to the peoples. My righteousness draws near, my salvation has gone out, and my arms will judge the peoples; the coastlands hope for me, and for my arm they wait.

Again, God speaks to His people. He wants our attention. He promises that “a law will go out” from Him, and that He will “set His justice for a light to the peoples.” This is the same language that’s used later on in reference to the day of Pentecost, when the “law,” that is, the teaching of the Gospel started to go out from Jerusalem to all nations. God literally brought His righteousness near in the person of Jesus Christ, the Righteous One, and He brings His righteousness near every time sinners are brought to faith in Christ and covered in His righteousness as with a garment. His salvation goes out every time the Gospel is preached. His arm, His saving arm, judges the peoples, judges between righteous and wicked, believer and unbeliever, and the coastlands, the most distant reaches of the earth, hope for Christ and for His salvation.

That’s all the more true as we witness our world going down the toilet. So many lies, so much mockery of God, so much depravity and wickedness fills the world. The world that, to a large degree, welcomed the preaching of the Gospel when it first went out, is now rejecting it more loudly, more angrily than ever before. But Isaiah’s prophecy includes the final judgment and the final salvation that God will bring to His Church. And the Lord wants us to take comfort in it.

Lift up your eyes to the heavens, and look at the earth beneath; for the heavens vanish like smoke, the earth will wear out like a garment, and they who dwell in it will die in like manner; but my salvation will be forever, and my righteousness will never be dismayed.

Look all around you! Everything you see, in this room, out the window, across the valley, and into the heavens—all of it will come to an end. Nothing you own will last. Your body won’t last. None of your enemies and those who oppose God will last, either. But here God promises His people an eternal salvation that will last after this world wears out, an everlasting home and a place at His own table.

“Listen to me, you who know righteousness, the people in whose heart is my law; fear not the reproach of man, nor be dismayed at their revilings. For the moth will eat them up like a garment, and the worm will eat them like wool, but my righteousness will be forever, and my salvation to all generations.”

Again, the Lord calls out to believers, who have the law of God written in our hearts, who truly believe the Gospel and seek to live according to God’s commandments. He says, fear not the reproach of man, nor be dismayed at their revilings. Now that is some important advice which we do well to pay attention to. So often Christians fail to do the right thing or to say the right thing, not because we don’t know what the right thing is, but because we’re afraid of how people are going to react. We’re afraid they’re going to make fun of us or get angry with us. We allow ourselves to be crushed by the thought of people’s disapproval or disagreement. But, when it comes to right vs. wrong, true vs. false, we have the Lord God on our side, who holds our future in His hands. We have no reason in the universe to fear the scorn of men.

Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the LORD; awake, as in days of old, the generations of long ago. Was it not you who cut Rahab in pieces, who pierced the dragon? Was it not you who dried up the sea, the waters of the great deep, who made the depths of the sea a way for the redeemed to pass over? And the ransomed of the LORD shall return and come to Zion with singing; everlasting joy shall be upon their heads; they shall obtain gladness and joy, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.

Here Isaiah joyfully calls on the Lord to carry out this promised deliverance. He speaks directly to “the arm of the LORD” and says, “Awake! Awake!” Then he recalls that other monumental deliverance that the LORD had carried out in the past when He delivered the captive people of Israel from bondage in Egypt, when He cut “Rahab” in pieces (earlier in his book Isaiah had identified Egypt with this name “Rahab) and caused the Red Sea to dry up so that His people could pass over to safety. The deliverance that the Lord will carry out in the future is even greater than that deliverance once. The ransomed of the LORD shall return and come to Zion with singing; everlasting joy shall be upon their heads; they shall obtain gladness and joy, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.

Isaiah pictures it all: The arm of the Lord sweeping away the Babylonians and gently shepherding His people back toward Jerusalem. The arm of the Lord smashing Satan and all his demons and shepherding His people safely into the kingdom of His Church. The arm of the Lord defending His people from every earthly enemy and from all the wickedness here, and shepherding us safely into His heavenly kingdom. And so we pray with Isaiah, “Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the LORD!” Or to put it another way, “Come, Lord Jesus!” Amen.

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Using earthly wealth for heavenly purposes

Posted on July 28, 2024 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for Trinity 9

1 Corinthians 10:6-13  +  Luke 16:1-9

Elon Musk recently said, “I do believe that the teachings of Jesus are good and wise.” He was talking about teachings like “turn the other cheek” and other practical teachings. We have one of those practical teachings before us in today’s Gospel. But I truly hope that Mr. Musk has some real Christians in his life who will tell him that those practical teachings of Jesus aren’t the heart of His teaching. You can’t start with them. You have to start where Jesus started, which was, “Repent and believe the Gospel!” The God who created all things sent His Son into human flesh to redeem fallen mankind by His perfect life and by His innocent death. So repent and believe in Jesus, and be baptized in His name for the forgiveness of your sins! Come into the Lord’s house, that is, the Christian Church, and find a Father’s welcome, for this life and for the next! Become a child of the light! Only then can you begin to live as a child of the light.

Jesus speaks of “sons of the light” in today’s Gospel. His practical teaching is for them, and only for them. So let’s turn first to the end of our Gospel to hear Jesus’ summary of the parable He told of the unjust steward, and then we’ll go back and look at the parable itself.

For the sons of this age are wiser toward their own kind than are the sons of the light. And I say to you, make friends for yourselves with unrighteous mammon, so that, when you become destitute, they may welcome you into the eternal dwellings.

What’s the problem Jesus is addressing in the parable of the unjust steward? What’s the sin He wants His people to recognize in themselves, to repent of, and to avoid and correct in the future? It’s the sin of negligence in our use of mammon, that is, the earthly possessions that our Master has entrusted to our care. And to teach us that lesson, He contrasts the negligence of believers with the shrewdness of an unbeliever, to drive home the point that we, the sons of the light, need to be better than that. We need to loosen our tight grip on our wealth and possessions put some time and effort into using our earthly wealth for heavenly purposes.

Jesus calls unbelievers the “sons of this age,” people as they are naturally born, born of the flesh only. They’re the people who live only for this age, for this life. Everything for them, every aspect of their life is about secular, worldly affairs, getting by in this world, having the best life possible in this world, enjoying life here. The unjust servant in the parable, the rich owner of the business in the parable, and the people who are indebted to that owner, all represent “the sons of this age.”

But the sons of this age are not completely incompetent. Even though they don’t acknowledge God, they use their God-given reason to solve earthly problems. Take the unjust steward, for example. When he was about to be fired from his job, he had to sit down and come up with a plan for his own survival. As it turns out, that plan involved using the little bit of time he had left as the manager of his master’s resources to gain the favor of as many people as possible by being generous toward them with his master’s wealth. You recall, he called in every person who owed his master something, whether it was oil or wheat or money. You owe my master 100 measures of oil? Change it to 50. You owe my master 100 measures of wheat? Change it to 80. 50% off here, 20% off there, and so on, and so on, until he had gone through the whole list of debtors. Imagine how those debtors reacted to the steward’s generosity, which they had to assume was actually the generosity of the owner who was authorizing these huge discounts. Imagine what would have happened if the owner had ended up firing the steward! The steward could have gone to each of those debtors and told a sob story about how the mean owner had fired him for the kindness he had shown to the debtors. And they would have welcomed him into their homes, while thinking poorly of the owner himself for firing such a kind and generous steward.

Yes, it was a wise plan. And, in the end, everyone benefited. The debtors had their burdens lightened, the owner appeared generous and magnanimous in the eyes of the debtors, and the steward was praised by the owner for coming up with that plan, whereas, previously, the steward had acted haphazardly with his master’s wealth, squandering it, being negligent with it, which is why he was going to be fired in the first place. But, when it became a matter of survival, when he had to rely on being liked by other people, he finally wised up and used the wealth at his disposal to do them some favors.

Now, how does Jesus apply this to His people, to the “sons of the light”? Listen again to His summary: The sons of this age are wiser toward their own kind than are the sons of the light. In other words, unbelievers are often more careful, more thoughtful, more deliberate about using earthly wealth to gain earthly friends for themselves than Christians are careful, thoughtful, and deliberate about using earthly wealth to gain heavenly friends for themselves. Unbelievers sometimes show more kindness to others than Christians do, even if they’re only doing it for self-serving reasons. And that should make each of us pause and consider: How deliberate have I been with my earthly possessions, in using them to help others—especially to help them know the Gospel and receive the ministry of Word and Sacrament, which is what they need more than any earthly thing? How deliberate have I been? How intentional, how kind have I been with my possessions, which are actually God’s possessions?

You, the children of the light, are stewards, managers of things that ultimately belong to your Father. How much have you squandered on useless things? How much have you horded out of greed, or out of fear? How often have you neglected even to think about how God would have you divvy up your paycheck or your investments or your bank accounts? Has it occurred to you to take a portion of it and give it away in an act of charity? Give it away, not recklessly, but thoughtfully, wisely, deliberately, for the purpose of helping someone to know the Lord Jesus Christ, whether that means lightening some of their financial burdens, or whether that means seeing to it that others can have access to the ministry of the Word, which does have costs associated with it?

Now, every year we come to this Gospel from Luke 16, and every year I remind you that it’s not intended to be some sort of fund drive or appeal for more offerings to the church, and certainly not for a raise in the pastor’s salary. It’s not that at all. It’s an appeal to you, God’s people, to take Jesus’ words to heart, first to convict you, and me, where we need convicting, because the sinful flesh is always wrapped up in the things of this life, and our possessions are the number one thing that ties us to this earthly life, because what we have here stays here. It will never see the kingdom of heaven. And yet our hearts, by nature, are tied to the things we possess, and we do not part with them easily, unless it’s to get some other earthly thing that we can use and enjoy here in this life. It doesn’t come naturally to us fallen creatures to think about giving away any amount of our possessions for things that won’t benefit us in this life at all, for things that we will only see the benefit of after this life, in the eternal dwellings of heaven. And that’s what charity is truly about. That’s what supporting the ministry of the Word is also about. It does you no earthly good, not really, to come to church, or hear a sermon, or support a mission far away. But the things that you give away so that the ministry can be carried out among you and among others, in other places—those things will have heavenly results, for you, and for others who benefit from the ministry that you support.

Again, this is not a complaint about not enough offerings. Far from it! As your pastor, I’m so thankful for all the good you’ve done for your fellow members, for all your support of the ministry here, for the ministry in Latin America, and for the ministry among our long-distance members. But we need to hear the Lord Jesus telling you and me, in today’s Gospel, the truth about ourselves, that we are not yet as wise or as deliberate or as selfless as we should be with our possessions. And if God’s favor depended on us being shrewd enough or good enough stewards of His things, then we would never have God’s favor or a place in heaven at all. No, God loved you and sent His Son to die for your sins and failures, to pay everything that had to be paid, to give away all that He had, even His very own body and blood and life, so that He might welcome you into eternal dwellings, at no cost to you whatsoever.

You have God’s favor through faith in Christ Jesus, apart from any wealth management you have or haven’t done well. So put your faith in Christ Jesus, and don’t think for a moment that you need to earn the favor of your Father in heaven. But if you love the God who loves you, for Jesus’ sake, then also listen to His practical teachings and put His words into practice. Take this annual message to put to death the deeds of the flesh and its desire to hold on tightly to every last penny or to use your pennies only for your earthly benefit. Arise each day to walk in the new life that Christ has given you, a life that doesn’t ask, “How can I serve myself today?”, but that asks, “How can I manage the things God has entrusted to me today, for the good of His kingdom and for the benefit of my neighbor?” And know for certain that, with your gifts and your charities and your offerings, you are, even now, making friends for yourselves, not for this life, but for the next—friends who will be there, in the end, to thank you and to welcome you into eternal dwellings in the presence of God. Amen.

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The Servant will suffer victoriously

Posted on July 24, 2024 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for Midweek of Trinity 8

Isaiah 50:1-11

The Messiah makes another appearance in the 50th chapter of Isaiah’s prophecy. Isaiah presents the Messiah again as God’s special Servant. In the previous chapter, he hinted at the Servant’s suffering, saying simply that He would be despised by the nation, that is, by the people of Israel. In this chapter he adds to that some forms of physical abuse that the Servant would suffer, all leading up to chapter 53, where he would record the Servant’s death. Through all of it, the Messiah is pictured as the One who willingly obeys the voice of the Lord, so that Israel may be saved through His perfect obedience.

First, the Lord speaks to the people of Israel in their future captivity: Thus says the LORD: “Where is your mother’s certificate of divorce, with which I sent her away? Or which of my creditors is it to whom I have sold you? Behold, for your iniquities you were sold, and for your transgressions your mother was sent away.

The Lord pictures Himself, first, as having been married to the mother of the children of Israel. Zion, the mountain on which Jerusalem was built, is often pictured in the Scriptures as a woman, who stands for the Church. God compares Himself to a husband, and the Church He compares to a wife. When He chose Israel to be His people and committed to being their God, it was like a marriage. But when God sent the people of Israel away from Jerusalem into captivity, it was like a husband sending away or divorcing his wife. And God wants the people of Israel to remember that 100% of the blame for the failure of this marriage belonged to them, because of their iniquities and transgressions.

Why, when I came, was there no man; why, when I called, was there no one to answer?

It’s a rhetorical question, of course. Why was there no man who could hear and answer God’s call to save Israel from their sins? Because no man can do it. As the Psalm says, Truly no man can ransom another, or give to God the price of his life, for the ransom of their life is costly and can never suffice, that he should live on forever and never see the pit. No mere man could save Israel or anyone. If there is to be a Deliverer from sin and condemnation and eternal death, God Himself will have to provide one, which is exactly what He promises in the next verses to do.

Is my hand shortened, that it cannot redeem? Or have I no power to deliver? Behold, by my rebuke I dry up the sea, I make the rivers a desert; their fish stink for lack of water and die of thirst. I clothe the heavens with blackness and make sackcloth their covering.”

To these questions, the answer is obviously, No! No, God’s hand is not too short. No, He does not lack the power to deliver. In fact, God alone can deliver. God’s hand alone is long enough to reach all the way down to earth, all the way down to the dregs of society, all the way down to where Israel, and you and I, found ourselves, wallowing in the filth of sin. In the next verses, we see how the hand of the Lord would reach down to Israel in the form of His Servant, the Messiah, who speaks the following words:

The Lord GOD has given me the tongue of those who are taught, that I may know how to sustain with a word him who is weary. Morning by morning he awakens; he awakens my ear to hear as those who are taught.

 

These are the words of the Servant, of the Messiah. He always listens to the voice of His Father. He is the very Word of His Father. No one has seen God at any time. But the only-begotten of the Father comes from the bosom of the Father to reveal Him to us. So He always has exactly the right words to sustain with a word him who is weary, such as, Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest!

The Lord GOD has opened my ear, and I was not rebellious; I turned not backward. I gave my back to those who strike, and my cheeks to those who pull out the beard; I hid not my face from disgrace and spitting.

When the Father told His Servant to go down to the world, to become a man, to be born under the Law, to redeem us who were under the law, the Servant listened. The Servant obeyed. And then, when the Father handed the cup of suffering to His beloved Son, the Son didn’t refuse to drink it. Isaiah prophesies some of the things that the Christ would have to suffer: the strikes on the back with the scourging He would receive, the slaps on the face and the spitting He would receive from the guards and the soldiers, and the disgrace He would receive from the Jewish leaders. I did not hide My face from it, says the Servant. He was obedient to His Father in suffering it all willingly, even to the point of death on a cross.

But the Lord GOD helps me; therefore I have not been disgraced. That is, the Servant would not end up in disgrace. After suffering the disgrace of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday, the Father would help Him by raising Him from the dead.

Therefore I have set my face like a flint, and I know that I shall not be put to shame. Luke seems to refer to this verse in his Gospel when he writes this about Jesus, When the time had come for Him to be received up, He steadfastly set His face to go to Jerusalem.

He who vindicates me is near. Who will contend with me? Let us stand up together. Who is my adversary? Let him come near to me. Behold, the Lord GOD helps me; who will declare me guilty? Behold, all of them will wear out like a garment; the moth will eat them up.

This is what enabled Jesus to go through with all the suffering, all the shame, all the injustice, and death itself, because He knew that, in the end, His Father wouldn’t abandon Him. In the end, no one could stand against Him or be victorious over him or hold Him in the grave, because the Lord was on His side and would help Him, while all His enemies would, eventually, pass away.

Now the application to you and me: Who among you fears the LORD and obeys the voice of his servant? Let him who walks in darkness and has no light trust in the name of the LORD and rely on his God.

Do you fear the LORD? Do you revere Him and worship Him as your God? Do you obey the voice of His Servant Jesus? And do you sometimes walk in darkness, not seeing the path ahead of you clearly, having to pass through times of suffering and affliction? Then do as Isaiah says: Let him trust in the name of the LORD and rely on His God. Because, just as the Lord God brought Christ, His Servant, through all His afflictions and through the times of darkness, so will He do for you who trust in His Servant. Because that’s why the Servant came, to suffer those things for you, to atone for your sins and to open the kingdom of heaven to you, who couldn’t have done a thing to deliver yourselves. And so God sent Christ the Deliverer to Israel, and now, to you in the Gospel. The words of St. Paul to the Romans echo the words of Isaiah: If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things? Who shall bring a charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us.

Finally, the Lord, through Isaiah, sends out a strong warning to those who would try to deliver themselves, to provide their own light, their own religion, their own spirituality, their own salvation: Behold, all you who kindle a fire, who equip yourselves with burning torches! Walk by the light of your fire, and by the torches that you have kindled! This you have from my hand: you shall lie down in torment.

You can’t find your own way through the darkness of sin, or through the valley of the shadow of death. Don’t even try! Instead, rely on the Lord God and on Christ, the Lord’s Servant, who came, not to be served, but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many. Hope to be saved through His service, and you will never be disappointed. Amen.

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The Shepherd is determined to keep you safe from the wolves

Posted on July 21, 2024 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for Trinity 8

Romans 8:12-17  +  Matthew 7:15-23

You know Jesus as the Good Shepherd who laid down His life for the sheep. He once spoke of the hirelings who see the wolf coming and abandon the sheep, because they don’t care about the sheep. But He didn’t abandon His sheep. He saw the wolf coming and allowed Himself to be killed so that His sheep might be safe, so that people might hear the good news of the payment He made for our sins on the cross, that we might repent of our sins, and believe in Him, and have eternal life in His heavenly pastures.

But we won’t have that eternal life if we don’t make it all the way to the end of our lives still knowing Him, still trusting in Him, still living in the safety of His holy Christian Church. And, the fact is, we have enemies who would drag us out of His Church. And the worst part is, these enemies appear to be members of the Church.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus, the Shepherd, speaks of the wolf again—the wolves that threaten to devour His sheep so that we don’t make it safely to the end. So our Shepherd steps forward to warn us. Unfortunately, it’s a warning that very few Christians take seriously. Because these wolves don’t look so scary. These wolves don’t have fangs or claws. They don’t look like wolves at all. They look like innocent, sensible, inspiring people—people who make a lot of sense, people who say things about God that sound good, that sound right. The hardest part, as I said a moment ago, is that they look like Christians. But you, Christians, pay attention to what the Good Shepherd tells you in today’s Gospel. Because the Lord is determined to keep you safe from these wolves, too.

In this case, He keeps you safe from the wolves by giving you a much-needed warning, which you are to follow throughout your earthly life: Watch out for false prophets. What is a prophet? It’s literally anyone who claims to speak for God, or to teach you something about God. And a false prophet is someone whom God has not sent to speak for Him, or who teaches you things about God that are not true. Now, many prophets have gone out into the world—Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Sikhs (like the woman whom the RNC invited onto the stage this past week to teach people about her god). But these aren’t the wolves Jesus is warning His people about. He doesn’t need to. Christians know better (or should know better) than to listen to prophets who aren’t even Christian. No, the ones Jesus is warning about come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. In other words, these are the ones who pretend to come in the name of Jesus, seemingly innocent, harmless, often having prestigious titles or distinguished offices in the Church. These are the ones you really have to watch out for, because they present themselves as ministers of Christ.

So, Jesus says, watch out for false ones, for ministers who are actually wolves. And, as Jesus describes in the last verses of our Gospel, they may not even know that they’re wolves who are tearing people to pieces with their teaching. Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven; but the one who does the will of my Father in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, in your name did we not prophesy? And in your name did we not cast out demons? And in your name did we not perform many miracles?’ And then I will confess to them, ‘I never knew you. Depart from me, you who practice lawlessness!’” So being a false prophet isn’t necessarily an intentional thing. Many of them are perfectly sincere in what they preach, thinking they’re serving the Lord Jesus, thinking He’ll be welcoming them into heaven one day. But they’ll learn the hard way that what they preached, or what they practiced, was not what God the Father wanted them to preach or practice.

So how does one recognize a false prophet, if he looks and sounds so much like a true prophet? What are you supposed to look for? By their fruits you will know them, Jesus says. So whenever anyone, especially a minister, comes around claiming to speak for God, or trying to teach you about God, you have some work to do, if you would be faithful to the Lord Jesus. You have to examine their fruit.

First of all, if you’re looking for grapes, you don’t go looking among the thorn bushes. If you’re looking for figs, you don’t go looking in a patch of thistles. No, you go to vines that you know to be grape vines or to the tree that you know to be a fig tree. Likewise, if you’re looking for solid Christian preaching and teaching, for a prophet whom Jesus had sent to speak in His name, then you shouldn’t go looking outside the ministry of the Christian Church. You shouldn’t go looking to someone who got up one day and said, “I feel called by God to be a prophet (or a pastor or a minister).” You shouldn’t trust in someone who came along and said, “I found a Bible! Let me teach you what I’ve learned!” These are all the Glenn Becks of the world, the self-appointed radio prophets or TV evangelists or best-selling authors, or any woman who claims to be a pastor. They may also include any number of self-appointed ministers in those Christian churches that don’t even claim any relationship with the ministry established by Christ through His apostles. You don’t turn to such sources at all if you’re looking for the preaching and teaching of the Word of God. No, you go to the Christian Church and to the ministers who have been rightly called to the office of the preaching ministry.

But, obviously, you’re not done yet. Having approached the right kind of tree, an actual called and ordained minister of the Christian Church, now you have to examine the fruit from each one of those trees, to determine if it’s good or bad. And, just like with a piece of fruit, you can’t always tell just by looking at the outside. You have to cut it open and look at the whole thing on the inside. Now, obviously you don’t cut the minister open. But you have to investigate both what he teaches and what he practices. As the apostle John wrote in his first epistle, Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world. You examine the fruit, you test the spirits by examining their teaching in the light of the Holy Spirit’s inspired Scriptures. This is what the people in the little town of Berea did when the Apostle Paul first came to them with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The Jews in the synagogue listened to Paul’s preaching, and it rang true with them. But they didn’t just accept it or reject it. They searched the Scriptures daily, to see if what Paul was saying was true.

So you compare the whole teaching of a minister with the words of Holy Scripture. But even then, you have to be careful, because the Scriptures can be abused. The devil himself was able to quote from the Bible in his futile attempt to lead Jesus astray. And many, many people pull passages of Scripture out of context still today. So you have to know the Scriptures well enough to pull together the whole message of God and use it to evaluate a preacher’s preaching, to see if it’s true or not.

How true does a preacher’s preaching have to be? Or to turn it around, how much false doctrine does he have to teach in order to be recognized as a false prophet? Well, that depends. How much poison is it safe to consume? How much gangrene can you tolerate on your body? How highly do you value God Himself? Because, contrary to what many false prophets will tell you, God cannot be separated from His Word and from the teaching of it. As He said through the prophet Isaiah, This is the one to whom I will look: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and who trembles at my word. And as Jesus said, Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will never pass away. And you remember what He added to His command to baptize? Teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you. Nowhere does God tell His people, “Just focus on My main teachings, and don’t worry about the rest of My doctrine.” Nowhere does God tell His people, “Doctrine doesn’t matter.”

And so the apostle Paul warns the Christians in Rome, Watch out for those who cause divisions and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine that you have been taught; avoid them. Or, as Jesus simply put it, watch out for false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves.

This is why, after avoiding all the non-ministers in the world and their teaching, and then, after carefully evaluating the fruit of the other Christian churches in the world, and then, after carefully evaluating the doctrine that is proclaimed from this pulpit and taught by this minister, most of you here today have determined to attend here and to become and remain members here, to receive the ministry of God’s Word in this place, in obedience to both of Christ’s commands: to watch out for and to avoid false prophets, and to consume the fruit that you’ve determined to be good. I say that with humility, because, to produce good fruit in the teaching of God’s Word is a daunting task, an impossible one, really, without the continual aid of the Holy Spirit. And to recognize the good fruit of a spiritual tree also requires the Spirit’s help. But, in the end, we have determined that the Mormon prophets are false prophets, along with the Calvinist (Reformed) prophets, along with the Baptist prophets, and the papal prophets, and the Pentecostal prophets, and the Methodist prophets, and many Lutheran prophets as well. Again, I say all this with humility, but also with conviction, with the conviction that the ancient Creeds of the Christian Church are true, and with the conviction that the Confessions of the Lutheran Church are also true, and trustworthy aids in evaluating a prophet’s preaching.

But even with that, our job isn’t done yet, neither your job nor mine. It’s never done this side of heaven. Because the Lord Jesus knew that there would always be false prophets, going forth in His name but never sent by Him. He told us that, leading up to His second coming, there would be very many false prophets who would deceive many, and that’s precisely why there are so many different kinds of churches out there, because there are many false prophets, and because there are few who take seriously Jesus’ command to watch out for them.

But the Lord is determined to keep you safe from all the wolves, including the wolves masquerading as sheep, and as prophets who speak for God. By issuing the warning in today’s Gospel and seeing to it that His Holy Spirit had it recorded in Holy Scripture for us, and again seeing to it that His words are preached in your midst, He is carrying out His task as the Good Shepherd, warning you, guarding you, guiding you. Now you, as sheep of the Good Shepherd, keep putting into practice His warning to watch out. Use the Scriptures at your disposal. Use the ministry at your disposal. And trust that, as you seek to obey the word of Jesus in today’s Gospel, the Good Shepherd will use that very word to keep you safe from the wolves. Amen.

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