The King weeps for the Church lying in ruins

Posted on August 13, 2023 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for Trinity 10

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

Today’s Gospel is from Palm Sunday. But today we don’t focus on the donkey ride and the songs of praise Jesus heard from the crowds outside Jerusalem. Today we remember, not the joy, but the tears of Palm Sunday, the tears of Jerusalem’s King for His beloved city as He foresaw its eventual destruction.

Unfortunately, the demise of Jerusalem and the Old Testament Church of Israel wasn’t an isolated incident. It was a harbinger of the eventual demise of the New Testament Church as well, for which the King also surely wept. As Jesus Himself prophesied on other occasions, false doctrine would eventually tear His Christian Church apart as Christians stepped away from His Word, and many would eventually perish. But as we also see in our Gospel, there is a solution for the few who will accept it by God’s grace, a solution provided by the King Himself after He wept for His Church in ruins.

The palm branches had already been waved. The Hosannas had been sung. And the Pharisees had just been rebuked by Jesus for urging Him to rebuke His disciples for welcoming Him as “He who comes in the name of the Lord.” Then, still presumably mounted on that famous donkey, the King looked at the city of Jerusalem as He drew closer to it, and He wept over it. This was supposed to be your time, O city of God, the time of your visitation, the moment when 2,000 years of God’s careful attention and provision and instruction reached their climax in the actual visitation of God, the arrival of the promised Savior. This was supposed to be your hour of glory, when not just a small percentage of your citizens, but the whole city came out to welcome your King, and to praise Him, and to acknowledged Him as your Lord and Savior who makes peace between God and man through His own suffering and death. But now the things that bring you peace are hidden from your eyes.

The hiding of those things from their eyes was God’s doing, and at the same time, it wasn’t God’s doing. Let me explain.

For hundreds of years the Spirit of God had been revealing His Law and Gospel to Israel, showing them their sins through the preaching of the Law and through the daily necessity of bringing sacrifices to atone for their sins, and showing them His grace in accepting all those sacrifices that pointed ahead to the great sacrifice of the Christ who was to come. God didn’t hide His grace from them or prevent them from believing the truth. But most did not believe that fundamental truth of their utter sinfulness and neediness before God, and most did not believe in God’s promise to save them by His grace alone, free of charge, by the work of the coming Christ. Their unbelief was not God’s doing. It was their own. Matthew records these words from Jesus to Jerusalem during Holy Week, How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing.

And so, since they stubbornly rejected God’s promise in unbelief, God hid the details from them, too, about Jesus’ identity as the Christ, about His Palm Sunday ride on the donkey as the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy, and about the salvation He was coming to bring.

Now, Jerusalem had to reject the Christ initially, and cause Him to suffer, and crucify Him. That was part of God’s plan of salvation. But that still wasn’t the real tragedy for the Jews. They could have come back from that. They could have repented of that on the Day of Pentecost or even later. But the vast majority of them didn’t—hundreds of thousands of Israelites, and millions of their descendants through the ages. Almost 40 years God gave them to repent, but they wouldn’t. And so, as Jesus rides into the city, He foresees, not only their rejection of Him later that week, but their persistent, stubborn unbelief over the next 40 years, their refusal to accept that their sins against God were their biggest problem, not the Roman occupiers; their refusal to accept Jesus as Lord and Christ, risen from the dead; and their blasphemy against the Holy Spirit who was calling them to repentance through the apostles’ preaching, all of which would lead to the atrocities of the First Jewish War, to the siege of Jerusalem by the Roman armies, and to the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70.

Yes, the King foresaw His Old Testament Church lying in ruins, and He wept over it. He was deeply saddened and troubled by it. But as mentioned earlier, the fall of the Old Testament Church of the Jews was a harbinger of the fall of the New Testament Church, made up of Jews and Gentiles. The King’s tears weren’t just for Jerusalem.

As of that first Palm Sunday, God had created and cultivated and carried the Hebrew people on eagle’s wings for about 2,000 years, since the time of Abraham. Does it strike you that He has been creating and cultivating and carrying His New Testament Church for about the same length of time, for about 2,000 years? What did the King see when He looked ahead at Christianity over the centuries?

He foresaw Christians allowing themselves to be led astray from His Word, until the Church would be fractured into dozens of different denominations and sects. He foresaw that the ministers of His Church would take far too much power to themselves over the centuries, until their voice became louder than the voice of Scripture. He foresaw that His honor as the only Mediator between God and man would eventually been transferred to Mary and the saints. He foresaw His eternal truth being traded in for human wisdom and lies, and His Word being treated as fallible and changeable. He foresaw that the central doctrine of justification by faith alone would be twisted and denied. He foresaw that “Christian worship” would degenerate into the worship of man, into concerts that focus on what people like to hear or like to feel, instead of the ministry of the soul-saving preaching of the Gospel and the administration of the holy Sacraments. He foresaw countless Christians, much like the first-century Jews, more tied to their heritage, their traditions, and their family connections than to the pure Word of God. He foresaw baptized Christians walking away from their Baptism, being deceived by the world, behaving like pagans, without repentance, without genuine faith, and yet still calling themselves by His name. He saw it all on Palm Sunday. And His tears for Jerusalem in ruins flowed also for His New Testament Church in ruins, knowing that Jerusalem would be utterly destroyed, and that a large part of His Christian Church would also be destroyed at His second coming, knowing that it was all avoidable, and yet knowing at the same time that it wouldn’t be avoided.

But through the tears, the King also saw that not all was lost. He foresaw a remnant that would still be saved and He knew exactly how to save them. The solution, for those who will receive it, is the same for the Old and for the New Testament Church. The solution is Christ, ridding His temple of the things that shouldn’t be there; Christ, restoring His temple as a house of prayer; Christ, preaching and teaching daily in His temple.

Where did Jesus go when He got to Jerusalem? He went to Temple. And we’re told what He found there. The buying and selling of animals for sacrifice, and moneychangers exchanging currency. It isn’t wrong to do those things. It is wrong to do those things in God’s temple. They don’t belong there. God made His temple to be a house of prayer, where people could focus on the worship of God and on the meaning of the sacrifices that were being brought, where people could sing God’s praises, where people could hear His Word, where people could seek God’s help, both for their sins and for their other important needs. So Jesus, the Owner of the house, drove out those who were buying and selling there and restored peace so that men could pray and His Word could be heard. And then, in the few days He had left before His betrayal, arrest, and crucifixion, He taught daily in the temple, and all the people were hanging on His words. As a result, there was a remnant of the Church of Israel that believed and was saved, even while the majority ended up in ruins.

The Lord Christ does the same thing in His New Testament Church as it rushes to its own ruin. He still comes into His Temple, not a single building anymore, but wherever two or three (or more) come together in His name throughout the world, wherever the Gospel still is preached and wherever the Sacraments are still rightly administered, and, through the ministry of the Spirit, He drives out the things that don’t belong there: commercialism and worldliness, impenitence, selfish ambition, anger, pride, false doctrine, faith in man, fear, and despair. And then He fills His Temple with the preaching of the truth, with His Word, with the gifts of His Spirit, with prayer, and with the virtues of faith and hope and love.

And by His Spirit, by His preaching, by the Sacrament of His very body and blood, the Lord Christ preserves for Himself a remnant, a leftover bunch of believers who will not be caught up in the ruin of the visible Church, because they are the true Church, the invisible Church, the Church against which the very gates of hell will not prevail, because her members hear the Word of Christ, and heed the warnings of Christ, and live in daily contrition and repentance.

Always make certain you are part of that remnant, part of the true Church that escapes the ruin and remains forever, not here on this earth, but in the new heavens and the new earth, in the New Jerusalem that will come down from heaven with Christ when He returns. May the King’s tears for earthly Jerusalem cause you to see just how earnestly He wants you to be found in the Jerusalem that will never come to ruin. Amen.

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The Sixth Vision: The earth is harvested

Posted on August 9, 2023 by Rev. Paul Rydecki

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Sermon for Midweek of Trinity 9

Revelation 14:14-20

As you listened to the verses read this evening from Revelation 14, I’m guessing you may have breathed a little sigh of relief, because these words are relatively easy to understand. We may still struggle with this or that detail of John’s sixth vision in the set of seven visions, but there is no question at all that the harvesting of the earth that we heard about in these verses is the final judgment of the earth.

There are two parts to this vision. First, the harvesting of the believers, and then the harvesting of the unbelievers.

Jesus is pictured for us as a Son of Man, sitting on a cloud, wearing a golden victor’s crown on His head. That’s like what He told His disciples, that they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And He will send His angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they will gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other. In the vision before us, that gathering together of the elect from the four winds is pictured with a sickle that the Son of Man swings over the earth. He’s informed by an angel (not that He needs to be informed, but it’s part of the story) that the harvest of the earth is ripe, so it’s time to reap. Finally! Throughout Scripture, God refers to the judgment of the earth as a harvest. In fact, this imagery in Revelation is drawn almost directly from a prophecy in Joel 3: I will gather all nations, and bring them down to the Valley of Judgment; And I will enter into judgment with them there on account of My people, My heritage Israel, Whom they have scattered among the nations. Put in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe. Come, go down; For the winepress is full, the vats overflow— For their wickedness is great.

For now, the wheat grows together with the weeds, as Jesus paints the picture in one of His parables. For now, believers and unbelievers grow together in the world, and even in the outward, visible Christian Church. But it won’t be that way forever. When the harvest is ripe, when all the elect have been called by the Gospel and brought into the kingdom of God through Baptism and faith, when the wickedness of man has reached the highest point God has determined it may reach, then the day of harvest, the day of judgment will come.

Here’s how Jesus described what Judgment Day holds for believers in the parable of the sheep and the goats: the King will say to those on His right hand, ‘Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. John the Baptist foretold the same thing early in his ministry, the Christ has His winnowing fan is in His hand, and He will thoroughly clean out His threshing floor, and gather His wheat into the barn. St. Paul put it this way in his epistle to the Thessalonians: The Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord.

That’s the part of the harvest you and I want to be in, isn’t it? The wheat harvest. It’s the future God has promised to the baptized, as long as we remain in the faith until the end. So take God’s Word seriously and use the tools God has provided—prayer and the ministry of His Word—to hold on until the end!

Because you don’t want to end up among the weeds, or among the bad fish that are tossed out, as Jesus put it in one of His parables, or among the chaff that’s blown away, as Psalm 1 puts it, or among the chaff that’s burned up, as John the Baptist put it, or in the grape harvest, as John describes it here in Revelation, all describing the final judgment of the wicked.

You heard John describe another angel with a sickle coming out of the heavenly temple of God who was charged with performing the grape harvest. He went out and swung his sickle and gathered up all the grapes from the earth and threw them into the winepress of God’s wrath—His wrath against sin, and wickedness of all kinds, but especially the wicked treatment of His beloved Christians—wickedness of which the nations will never repent, even though God has sent prophet after prophet and preacher after preacher to call them to repentance before it’s too late.

Now, you know, if you ever watched that old episode of “I Love Lucy” what happens to grapes in the winepress. They’re “pressed.” They’re trampled (or at least, they used to be trampled) under people’s feet and crushed until all the juice comes out. Except that, in John’s vision, it isn’t grape juice that comes out. It’s blood that’s squeezed out and fills an area of about 200 square miles, several feet deep. 1600 stadia, which is 4x4x10x10, representing the final harvest of the whole earth. What a horrific picture! And yet, God wants people to understand that this is part of His revelation, too. He wants all men to be saved through faith in Christ Jesus. But because He knows that most will remain in their wickedness, He has prepared this end for them and warned them about it ahead of time. As Jesus put it in the parable of the sheep and the goats, the wicked will hear the dreadful sentence, ‘Depart from Me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels.

It’s either one harvest or the other. Both are executed by God. And every time we pray, Come, Lord Jesus!, this is what we’re praying for, for Jesus to come and carry out these two harvests, one that will rescue the saints from all the troubles and turmoil we face here, and the other one that will send the unbelievers to everlasting punishment. But even though we pray, Come quickly!, we know He won’t come before the time is right and the harvest is ripe, nor will He delay any longer than He needs to. At just the right time, the harvest will come, and we raise the great and glorious song of Harvest-home. Amen.

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Revisiting your stewardship as children of the light

Posted on August 6, 2023 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for Trinity 9

1 Corinthians 10:6-13  +  Luke 16:1-9

It’s a common thing in the world of politics to be generous with other people’s money. It’s one of the chief principles of socialism. Why do politicians like to be so generous with other people’s money? And why do people often support it? It’s theft, after all, according to God’s commandments. Well, it’s done out of greed for personal gain, usually to purchase the favor (and often the votes) of those who receive the money, but if nothing else, it’s because it makes people feel good about themselves to help other people, while not having to sacrifice anything of their own in order to do it.

That’s unjust, unrighteous. As I said, it’s a form of stealing in God’s sight, whether or not it’s legal according to human laws. But, in a very worldly sort of way, it’s rather shrewd of politicians to do it, because it works. It doesn’t make the world a better place. It isn’t morally right. But it does tend to keep that person in power, to keep that person with a job in politics. Politicians do it time and time again, because, time and time again, it works!

The parable Jesus tells in today’s Gospel is pretty similar to that scenario, actually. He tells of an unjust steward who had done a terrible, sloppy job managing his master’s wealth, but who then decided, in a moment of personal crisis, that it was in his best interests to be generous with his master’s money, essentially to rob from his master in order to purchase the favor of the people who owed money to his master. And his plan paid off! Not only were the debtors now indebted to him, but even his master commended him for his shrewdness. Finally this steward wasn’t just haphazardly spending money and keeping the books. He used his master’s wealth to gain something for himself by helping others.

Now, Jesus does not want His disciples to be unjust. He doesn’t want us to be like that unjust steward in mismanaging our Master’s wealth, nor does He want us to rob from the rich to give to the poor. He doesn’t want us to be generous with other people’s money. To be sure, He doesn’t want us to do anything for self-serving reasons. But He makes His point clear at the end of today’s Gospel. The sons of this age (that is, the unbelievers) are wiser toward their own generation than are the sons of the light. In other words, Jesus wants us, as the children of the light, to learn a lesson from the unjust children of this age—yes, a lesson from unbelievers, because they often act more deliberately with their wealth for earthly gain than Christians do for heavenly gain. So He wants us to learn this one lesson from how unrighteous unbelievers behave, to think about and plan carefully how we use the wealth God has lent to us, and to realize that God wants us to use it for the benefit of others, especially other Christians, which will also benefit us in the end.

Let’s make some comparisons between the unjust steward’s situation and our own so that we can reevaluate our stewardship as children of the light.

The steward in the parable worked for a rich man. He had no wealth of his own; his job was to be a good steward, to manage the rich man’s wealth diligently, honestly, and faithfully, for the benefit of the rich man’s business.

You and I should recognize that we also work for Someone. We have no wealth of our own. I think you all know that, but it’s worth reminding ourselves, because it’s not at all how the world thinks. We acknowledge God to be both the Creator and the Owner of all things. Even the things we’ve earned with our hard work still belong to God. As the Psalm says, The earth is the Lord’s and all its fullness. We are stewards, managers of the things God has given us or granted us to have, whether much or little. He expects us to manage His wealth wisely, diligently, thoughtfully, deliberately.

But the steward in the parable wasn’t diligent at all. He squandered the rich man’s wealth in a way that helped no one. Can that be said about you? Does your household budget reflect God’s priorities? Do you even have a budget? Or do the bills just dictate where most of the dollars go, while the rest just sort of trickle away on unimportant things?

Well, that haphazard, lazy, purposeless stewardship got the steward in the parable in big trouble with his boss. He was about to lose his job, but he was given a little time to get the records straight and present an accounting of his management. So finally, when his life depended on it, he started to take the management of his master’s wealth seriously, not to benefit his lord’s business, but entirely for his own benefit, not by stealing the money for himself, but by lessening the financial burden of his master’s debtors, so that they might help him out and take him in after he lost his job, so that they might welcome him into their homes after that mean rich man fired him.

Except that he wasn’t fired in the end. His lord finally saw some skill in that unjust steward, some shrewdness, some thoughtfulness, some purpose. And he actually commended the steward for it. Maybe he could be an asset to the rich man’s business after all.

Now, this is a rather unique parable, isn’t it? Why does Jesus want us to study the bad example of the steward to learn from it? Well, it isn’t that uncommon in Scripture, actually. Today’s epistle made that clear. St. Paul pointed the Corinthians Christians to several bad examples from Israel’s history in order warn Christians not to become complacent, not to take God’s grace for granted, not to become so assured of your salvation that you stop listening to God’s direction. That went very badly for the Israelites. But God uses that bad example for the good purpose of keeping His children humble and penitent and focused on His Word.

Again, Jesus words at the end of the parable make it clear why He uses the bad example of the unjust steward: The sons of this age (that is, the unbelievers) are wiser toward their own generation than are the sons of the light. He’s talking to His own disciples here. He’s talking to Christians. He’s talking to those who believe in Him and who are counted among the sons of the light, whose sins have been forgiven, who are beloved children of God, on the path to spending eternity with Him in Paradise. But He knows that we have not been perfected yet. In fact, that won’t happen until we slough off this sinful flesh. And He knows that our sinful flesh is always turned inward, not toward serving God and not toward helping our neighbor. And He also knows that wealth and earthly possessions are one of the biggest temptations and pitfalls for His people, so that even penitent and believing Christians often forget that we are stewards of God’s possessions. We often forget that God has priorities for the wealth He’s placed into our hands—even the wealth that is our time, by the way—and that one of His top priorities is helping other people through this life, especially our fellow Christians. And, yes, we should be convicted by His words for not even being as shrewd as unbelievers are in being generous with other people’s money. We have been called to be generous, not with other people’s wealth, but with God’s wealth, with all the wealth God has put into our hands, to think carefully about how we might use it to “make friends for ourselves.”

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.

Mammon—worldly wealth—is not evil, but it’s often used for evil, unrighteous purposes. Hear the Lord Jesus today teaching you, His disciples, to direct the wealth He’s put into your hands for the benefit of others, because you can’t take it with you when you go. But the Christians who have been helped by you will remember that help even after this life, as you will remember those who have helped you. They won’t be the gatekeepers letting you into heaven—the only way to be saved and to enter God’s kingdom is by faith in Christ and His righteousness, and His death on the cross for your sins, and the free forgiveness He extends to all who trust in Him. But the citizens of heaven who received God’s help by your hand will not be ungrateful in the heavenly mansions, even if their gratitude wasn’t perceived here on earth. Your use of God’s wealth will solidify those friendships for eternity. Isn’t that incentive enough to be intentional and deliberate and generous with the wealth you’ve been given to manage, knowing that it not only fosters eternal friendships, but that it pleases God, whose wealth you manage and whose child you are? Because God sees you as people who might yet be an asset to His heavenly business. Amen.

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The fifth vision: The three angels

Posted on August 2, 2023 by Rev. Paul Rydecki

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Sermon for Midweek of Trinity 8

Revelation 14:6-13

The troubles brought upon the Church by her three enemies—the dragon and the two beasts—are countered in this fifth vision by the proclamation of the three angels. Let’s just briefly walk through their three messages tonight.

Then I saw another angel flying in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach to those who dwell on the earth—to every nation, tribe, tongue, and people—saying with a loud voice, “Fear God and give glory to Him, for the hour of His judgment has come; and worship Him who made heaven and earth, the sea and springs of water.”

In spite of all the opposition of the hostile governments of the world and the apostate church, the gospel will continue to be preached in all the world. That’s the simple message here. It’s the everlasting gospel. None of the devil’s lies can change it or stop it from being preached. It will be preached to all nations, as Jesus also promised when He talked about the end times.

We don’t need to narrow down this angel to one preacher in the history of the world. But many Lutherans have seen Martin Luther and his fellow preachers at the time of the Reformation as prime examples of this angelic preaching. Why? Because the beasts have been associated with the Roman Empire and the Roman Church that grew up out of that empire, and together, the not-so-Holy Roman Empire did immense damage to the Church. But the message of the Reformation was what the angel here proclaimed: Fear God and give glory to Him! Don’t fear the saints! Don’t fear the emperor! Don’t fear human beings who make themselves grand and glorious leaders of the Church! Fear God! Give glory to Him! Worship the Creator, not the creature! Let His Word dwell richly in your hearts! Let His Word determine what you believe! Do it now, because He won’t put up with this world for that much longer. The time of grace is still here, but it’s running out! Turn to Christ and escape the coming judgment!

That message continues to be preached in the world in these days of earth’s final gasps. Stop worshiping yourselves, you people of the earth! Stop living for yourselves! Fear God! Hear His Word! Repent and believe in Christ Jesus!

And another angel followed, saying, “Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city, because she has made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication.”

This is a message of hope for the Church as well as judgment for those who have allied themselves with “Babylon.” Now, why Babylon? This is clearly looking back to Old Testament history, when Babylon became the great enemy of the Jews, even as it harbored the Jews for a time while they were living there in captivity. At John’s time, the great city that had become the enemy of Christians, even as it harbored many Christians, was Rome, and, by extension, the whole Roman Empire. And, as we said, Rome eventually became the seat of the most prominent false teacher in the history of the Christian Church, namely, the pope or the papacy itself, which is actually the enemy of Christians, even as the Roman Church still harbors many Christians throughout the world. Together, the hostile governments of the world and the false church (both of which have moved well beyond the borders of Rome), make all nations to drink of the wine of the wrath of their fornication, that is, leading people to worship idols, whether in the form of saints, or in the form of the government, or just in the form of self. But Babylon, in both these forms, will fall. The governments of the world will be toppled. The important men of the world will be destroyed. And the false-teaching church will come to an end. That’s good news to Christ’s flock throughout the world that has been struggling to get by. Not glorious here, not successful by earthly standards, not big and impressive. But faithful! Babylon will fall, but the Church of Christ will prevail.

Then a third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, “If anyone worships the beast and his image, and receives his mark on his forehead or on his hand, he himself shall also drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out full strength into the cup of His indignation. He shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment ascends forever and ever; and they have no rest day or night, who worship the beast and his image, and whoever receives the mark of his name.”

The preaching of the gospel continues to go out, and with it, this warning, which is about as stern a warning as people can get. Do not be deceived by the antichristian government, and do not be deceived by the antichristian church. Don’t be deceived by their lies. Don’t give in to the idolatry they promote. Don’t go along with the false church with its false teachings, just because you grew up in it, or because it seems to get a lot of things right. All those who refuse to worship the true God and His Son Jesus Christ, as He has revealed Himself to us in Holy Scripture and as He is preached by faithful ministers of the Church, will end up in hell. Here is the fire and brimstone that maybe too many Christian preachers used to be known for, although today, it’s probably not enough. Fire and brimstone isn’t the only thing Christian preachers are to preach. It’s not even the main thing. But it is a thing. The same Lamb of God who gave His life for the sins of the world, who still wants all men to be saved, will also look on approvingly at the eternal punishment of those who squandered their day of grace, who remained in their sins instead of repenting of their sins and accepting His gracious offer of salvation while it was on the table, because it won’t be on the table forever.

Here is the patience of the saints; here are those who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus.

There are two ways of understanding this verse. Either the ongoing preaching of the gospel and the coming judgment of the Church’s enemies gives the saints patience to make it through, or John means that the saints will still need to be patient for a while, because the Church’s enemies will still be allowed to torment Christians for a while. I think the latter understanding makes more sense. Because what’s also called for, as we wait for the Lord’s deliverance, in addition to patience, is that we continue to keep the commandments of God and stay believing in Jesus, in spite of what everyone else around us may be doing.

Then I heard a voice from heaven saying to me, “Write: ‘Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on.’ ” “Yes,” says the Spirit, “that they may rest from their labors, and their works follow them.”

There’s the comfort! There’s what gives the patience and strength we need. The Lord from heaven pronounces a blessing on those who die “in the Lord,” who die believing in the Lord Jesus. Blessed “from now on,” that is, blessed from the moment they die and lasting forever, because death isn’t defeat for those who die in the Lord. It’s the passage into the eternal blessedness and rest we’ve all been waiting for, where none of the labors or troubles follow, but only the Father’s welcome, and His “Well done, good and faithful servant!” Amen.

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You have a duty to watch out

Posted on July 30, 2023 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for Trinity 8

Romans 8:12-17  +  Matthew 7:15-23

You know the Ten Commandments. You know your duties not only as human beings but as those who have been born again through Holy Baptism as the people of God, who believe in the true God and who call Him Lord. The Ten Commandments are very useful for summarizing and laying out the responsibilities you have as God’s holy people, to love the Lord your God above all things and to love your neighbor as yourself.

In the Third Commandment (as the Church has traditionally numbered them), we are commanded to Remember the Sabbath Day, to keep it holy. The New Testament that Christ instituted no longer has a “Sabbath Day” of 24 hours set aside in which to do no work. What we do have is the ongoing command to honor the ministry of God’s Word, to gladly hear and learn His Word and not to despise the preaching of it.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus highlights an aspect of gladly hearing and learning God’s Word that many people fail to take to heart. It’s not even on their radar, so to speak. And yet, it’s a vital warning, because implied in the hearing and learning of God’s Word, as it’s preached and taught, is the one who preaches and teaches it. But not everyone who claims to preach and teach God’s Word actually preaches the truth in all things. Many preach false things about God, about His commandments, and about the way to salvation. And so, in our Gospel, Jesus issues a stern warning: Watch out for false prophets!

Watch out for false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. You know, I think for a lot of people, when they’re going around looking for a church to call their own, it’s not false prophets they’re watching out for, just as it’s not true doctrine they’re desperately searching for. It’s usually other things, earthly things—a preacher’s style, an atmosphere, a kind of music, or a “right fit” that makes them feel either good or bad. But that’s not keeping Jesus’ command at all. It’s actually just another way of living according to the flesh, which St. Paul warned against in today’s Epistle.

But Jesus commands: Watch out for false prophets. Why? What makes them so dangerous? It’s that they dress like sheep—like innocent, reliable Christian preachers—but end up tearing people’s souls apart like wolves with their false teaching.

What is false teaching? It’s any teaching that doesn’t agree with the whole Word of God. When preachers tell you things about God that aren’t true, or things about His commandments that aren’t true; when they don’t tell the truth about sin, or about God’s plan of salvation, or about the Sacraments God has instituted, or about the Church and its ministry, or about the Christian life—how Christians are to do as St. Paul said in today’s Epistle, putting to death the deeds of the sinful flesh and living according to the Spirit. The preacher may be very nice. His sermons may be very engaging. And the church itself may be fun and dynamic and welcoming. But Jesus commands His disciples to look past all that and compare the teaching of the teacher with the Word of God. If you’re not willing to do that, to take the time and put in the effort necessary, then you are ignoring the warning of the One whom you call Lord. And that will go very badly for you.

“But it all comes down to a matter of interpretation, doesn’t it? Who’s to say who is right or wrong in all those denominations out there? We can’t actually know who’s a false prophet and who isn’t, can we?” Oh, but Jesus says that you can. By their fruits you will know them. You will know them, He says. You don’t think He’s lying to you, do you? Sure, it will take effort. It will take actually examining the preacher’s fruit. But with the Holy Spirit’s help, with earnest prayer and study of God’s Word, you can do it. And when you do, Jesus says, you will know the false prophet. Do people gather grapes from thorn bushes, or figs from thistles? Even so every good tree bears good fruit; but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and cast into the fire. Therefore by their fruits you will know them.

Now, who qualifies as a prophet? Technically, a prophet is anyone who claims to speak for God, who claims to be teaching you the truth, leading you along the right way, the way of salvation. These days, it seems like there are prophets everywhere, whether they claim the title or not. TV shows, movies, songs on the radio—the writers of those things are constantly preaching at you, subtly indoctrinating people with their way of thinking. There are Facebook prophets, too. Politician prophets. Talk-show prophets. Classroom-teacher prophets. And, of course, all the actual preachers and church leaders out there.

What are the fruits a prophet bears? First of all, it’s his doctrine, his teaching. And not just what he happens to teach on a given Sunday morning, but his teaching as a whole. Every preacher who claims to be Christian will teach you that Jesus is Lord. That’s certainly true. But what does he mean by it, and what else does he teach? Does he teach in line with the ancient Christian Creeds or has he gone off on his own? Does he teach a six-day creation according to Scripture or does he teach millions-of-years-molecules-to-man evolution? Does he teach that all people are sinners and are justified solely by faith in Christ crucified (as he should), or does he minimize sin, or tolerate sin, or teach justification by works, or by faith plus works, or not by faith at all? Does he teach Baptism as the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit (as he should) or as the sign of a person’s own decision to follow Christ? Does he teach the real presence of the Lord’s body and blood in the Sacrament (as he should) or does he teach that Christ’s body and blood are not truly received by communicants? The list goes on. And the only way to fulfill Christ’s command is to know His Word well and to use it to evaluate the teachings of a pastor and of the church that he shepherds and of the church body to which he willingly belongs.

But a preacher’s doctrine isn’t the only fruit he bears. His life, his behavior is also part of his fruit, and that you have to evaluate, too. You shouldn’t expect him to be sinless. But you should expect him to be “blameless,” as Paul writes to Timothy concerning bishops (that is, pastors). Blameless means that he can’t be accused of grave public sin or vice. He can’t justly be accused of having a shady or dishonest character. A pastor who regularly sets a bad example for believers is showing you that his fruit is rotten. A pastor who preaches the truth but then backs away from it when challenged, or who won’t stand up for it, is showing you that his fruit is bad. Now, personality flaws can be overlooked in love, or corrected with love, if necessary. That’s not necessarily “bad fruit.” Actual sins against God’s commandments must be addressed, though, and where there is no repentance, again, he’s showing you his fruit, that it’s rotten and bad.

It’s the Christian’s duty, according to the Third Commandment, to be watching out for false prophets as you walk through this life, just as you should watch out for rattlesnakes as you walk through the desert. If you find a rattlesnake along your path, you don’t sit and play with it. You avoid it. So you must do with false prophets, who are far more dangerous than rattlesnakes, because a snake bite can only harm your body, while false teaching can jeopardize your place in heaven, even as that preacher who is a bad tree will be cut down in the end and cast into the fire.

The last part of today’s Gospel makes the necessity of this “watching out” all the more urgent. 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! Calling oneself a Christian preacher—calling oneself a Christian!—is not a guarantee of being allowed into Christ’s kingdom in the end. Even prophesying, even casting out demons, even performing miracles is no guarantee that a person was a genuine preacher sent by Christ, or that a person was a genuine Christian at all.

What is the guarantee, then, that one will not hear those terrible words from the Lord Jesus on the Last Day, I never knew you. Depart from me, you who practice lawlessness! It’s as Paul said in today’s Epistle: If you live according to the flesh, you will die. But if, through the Spirit, you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For those who are led by the Spirit of God, they are sons of God. Being led by the Spirit of God begins with repentance and faith in Christ Jesus for the forgiveness of sins, not because you’ve earned it, but because Christ earned it for you by His righteous life lived in your place and by His innocent death suffered in your place. But being led by the Spirit continues with daily contrition and repentance, putting to death the deeds of the body, being determined not to live in sin any longer but to live for God, to live a life of love. That’s where the Spirit always leads. The Spirit leads you to prayer, too. And, of course, the Spirit leads you always to God’s Word, by which He continues to guide the people of God through all the murkiness and darkness of all the false prophets and false teachers of this world to see the light of Christ, our Redeemer. So, with the Spirit’s help, do your duty according to the Third Commandments, not just to treasure preaching of His Word and to hear and learn His Word gladly, but also to heed Christ’s warning and to carry out His command to watch out for false prophets, wherever they may be—and also to recognize and give thanks for those who are true. Amen.

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