Let your ears be opened!

Posted on August 27, 2023 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for Trinity 12

2 Corinthians 3:4-11  +  Mark 7:31-37

We come to this Gospel every year of the healing of the deaf man with the speech impediment. And the simplicity of it could lead us to conclude, there’s not much here worth spending sermon time on year after year. Clearly this account teaches the same two basic things as every healing miracle recorded in the Gospels: first, that Jesus is the promised Christ, the Son of God, sent by God into the world, and, second, that Jesus, and therefore, our God, is not only all-powerful, but full of compassion—compassion for sinful human beings in our misery, as we live with the consequences of our sins, whether they’re specific consequences for specific sins, or, as in the case of the deaf man, the general consequences of being sinners in a world that remains under God’s curse.

Jesus’ identity as the Christ and His compassion for sinners in their misery is certainly on display in the account before us today. But there is more for us to notice and to learn, too. Let’s walk through the text together one more time and hear what the Holy Spirit is saying.

They brought to him a man who was deaf and had trouble speaking; and they urged him to put his hand on him. This deaf man had some people who cared about him enough to bring him to Jesus, since Jesus was the only One who could help with his infirmity. What might we learn from that? Well, who else can help our unbelieving friends with their sin? Who else but Jesus can heal the breech between the sinner and God and save a person from eternal death? No one, of course. And knowing that, as you do, take the example of these friends of the deaf man and do what you can to bring the people in your life to Jesus. You do that by bringing them to church with you, if they’ll come, or by bringing them with you to talk with the pastor, or by encouraging them to watch one of our services online. You also do that by living as such lights in the world, as such good examples of Christian people, filled with the hope and joy and peace of the Gospel, that the unbelievers around you come to recognize that you have something they need.

And Jesus took him aside from the crowd by himself and put his fingers into his ears, and he spit and touched his tongue. And looking up to heaven, he sighed and said to him, “Ephphatha,” that is, “Be opened!” There we see the compassion of Jesus and His willingness to help anyone who is brought to Him. There’s no charge, no fee, no demand. All that’s necessary is already there. A needy person who recognizes his need and who looks to Jesus for help. So it is whenever sinners are brought to Jesus for spiritual healing. There has to be a recognition of need on the sinner’s part, an acknowledgment that you’re not “doing just fine” before God. You haven’t lived according to His commandments, not really. You haven’t worshiped Him as He ought to be worshiped, nor have you loved your neighbor as He commands you to love. You regret having sinned against God. You know you deserve only His wrath and punishment. But you’ve heard that Jesus can help, that He wants to help, and so you look to Him for the help He’s promised. We call that repentance and faith. That’s all it takes for Jesus to work the healing of the forgiveness of sins.

For the deaf man, Jesus went through some visual steps to heal him personally, placing His fingers in the man’s ears, visibly spitting and touching the man’s tongue, looking up to heaven, sighing, and speaking that word that any lip-reader of Aramaic could easily understand: Ephphatha! Be opened! —all motions and signs that communicated to the deaf man that Jesus was the One sent from heaven to have mercy, not just on those sinful men out there, but on this very man who has Jesus’s fingers in his ears and on his tongue. So God has sent His ministers out into the world to preach the Gospel, not just to a general audience out there, but to individuals, to baptize individuals, and to pronounce forgiveness to individuals, and to give individual Christians the body and blood of the Lord to eat and to drink in His Sacrament. The ministry of the Spirit is carried out personally, even as Jesus performed this healing miracle personally.

And immediately his ears were opened and the bond on his tongue was loosed, and he spoke plainly…And the people were utterly astounded, saying, “He has done all things well. He even makes the deaf to hear and the speechless to speak.” And there it is, one more piece of evidence that this Jesus, who was traveling all over the land of Israel, was the promised Christ, the Son of God, one more divinely given indicator that they should, therefore, listen to Him, take His words seriously, believe Him, believe in Him, and do what He said.

The same goes for you who have believed in Jesus. He went on to do far greater things than healing people’s deafness, using far greater sign language than He did with the deaf man. He gave Himself up to those who hated Him, allowing Himself to be tortured, unjustly condemned, and hung on a cross. He went willingly to His death and then rose from the dead. And, as if that weren’t enough, He sent and continues to send His Holy Spirit to give power to the Gospel when it’s preached, so that people actually believe it and are made children of God by it. Recognize that listening to Jesus and believing what He says is a far greater miracle than the healing of deaf ears, a miracle performed by God the Holy Spirit.

Look at the world we live in! Being a Christian in the western part of the world became “normal” for many centuries. If you lived in Europe, if you lived in the United States, you were almost expected to be a Christian. Believing and quoting from the Bible was considered normal. Going to church every Sunday was considered normal. Living according to God’s commandments was considered normal. Not that everyone did, of course, but there was nothing striking or strange about being a Christian. That’s not the case anymore. Now to do any of those things makes you the strange ones, and in some cases, can even make you enemies of the state. So if anyone actually believes the Gospel and is ready to lay down life and limb to live according to it, then recognize that for the miracle it is. It’s God who has opened that person’s ears and heart to believe with the heart and to confess with the mouth.

Likewise, if it seems impossible that anyone in this world of ours should come to faith in Jesus, should recognize the demonic lies that fill our society and turn away from them to the truth of the Christian Gospel, know that nothing is impossible with God. Faith may be rare in these last days, but the Gospel is still the power of God for salvation to all who believe.

So don’t take the miracle of faith for granted, for yourselves or for others. If you allow your own ideas, your beliefs, your earthly goals to drown out God’s Word, then you will lose the gift of hearing that God has miraculously given you. And you can’t confess clearly the righteousness of God with your mouth if you aren’t living according to the righteousness of God with your life. You need to keep hearing the Word of God, keep praying, keep reading and studying and gathering around Word and Sacrament as often as you can, because the miracle of faith is not a “once given always there” kind of miracle. Faith requires sustenance, and God will provide what your faith needs, but you need to use the gifts He provides. And even as faith has enabled your tongues to sing God’s praises here in church, so let your tongues keep speaking His praises when you step out from these doors. Let your hands and your arms and your feet and your legs also behave in a way that’s consistent with what your mouth confesses. Then the world will be amazed at what the Gospel of Christ was able to accomplish with someone like you or me.

You’ve come here again (or tuned in here from afar again) this morning because you believed that Jesus could help you. He can. And He will. Let your ears be opened to hear His Word! Let your tongues be loosed to sing His praise and to confess Him as Lord! Let the healing of the forgiveness of sins be yours! And let it produce the ongoing healing of sanctification in your lives! Amen.

 

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The first five bowls of God’s wrath

Posted on August 23, 2023 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for Midweek of Trinity 11

Revelation 16:1-11

The vision of the seven bowls filled with the seven plagues of God’s wrath is actually very similar to the vision of the seven trumpets that we reviewed several weeks ago. We would need a whiteboard or something to place the comparisons side by side. If you’re interested, you can take your Bible and compare the two visions at home.

Tonight we heard about the first five bowls and the plagues that were poured out from them. But just as we did with the vision of the seven trumpets, so we’ll do here: we’ll recognize that the plagues poured out upon the earth, upon the sea, upon the rivers and streams of water, and upon the sun, are not to be taken literally. In other words, in the last days before Christ’s return, we don’t expect to see all unbelievers walking around with sores all over their bodies, nor do we expect all the waters of the world to be turned into human blood, or for all the sea creatures to die off, nor do we expect the sun to start setting people on fire, literally. That would all make for a thrilling sci-fi movie, but it isn’t what the Bible is talking about. In fact, I wonder if, the more they make movies to portray the events described in Revelation as literal, the less people will take to heart the true, spiritual meaning behind those pictures, which are meant to serve as warnings to unbelievers and as a great comfort to Christians.

The first [angel] went and poured out his bowl upon the earth, and a foul and loathsome sore came upon the men who had the mark of the beast and those who worshiped his image.

Earlier, John saw a beast come up out of the earth. That was the Antichrist, the symbolic leader of the false Church. A plague is poured out on that Church in the last days. This first bowl is what gives it away that the plagues are spiritual, not physical. Because the only ones who receive these foul and loathsome sores are the ones who have the mark of the beast, who worship his image. That is, the unbelieving and idolaters, especially those who have attached themselves to the false Christian Church. True Christians, believers in Christ, are not plagued with these sores. So these must be sores on the conscience and on the rational part of the soul, punishments sent by God on those who disbelieve His Word and His Gospel, who are in love with the false teachings of the false-teaching Church that sits within the borders of the visible Christian Church. If the Gospel is twisted, then men no longer have the peace that comes from it, but their consciences are tormented, as by painful sores.

Then the second angel poured out his bowl on the sea, and it became blood as of a dead man; and every living creature in the sea died.

Earlier, John saw a beast come up out of the sea. The sea stood for the unbelieving nations of the world, out of which antichristian rulers arise. Now the sea is turned to disgusting blood. Unbelievers are already spiritually dead. But this plague seems to indicate the removal of everything that was good and wholesome among the societies of the world. Reason and rationality are gone. Good order is gone. Good will is gone. In the vision of the seven trumpets, something similar happened to the sea, except that only a third of the living creatures there died. Now in the very last days, it’s “every living creature.” The societies of the world, together with their governments, are utterly ruined. Does that sound like the world we live in?

Then the third angel poured out his bowl on the rivers and springs of water, and they became blood.

There is nothing left to refresh and sustain the unbeliever when things come to this point. The Word of God, which is often compared to refreshing water in Scripture, no longer refreshes, because it has been so twisted and corrupted by men that the Christianity that’s preached in the world in the last days is no longer the Christianity of the Bible. The gospel that’s preached is no longer the true Gospel, but a false one that cannot save. As Paul wrote to the Thessalonians, God will send them strong delusion, that they should believe the lie, that they all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.

And I heard the angel of the waters saying: “You are righteous, O Lord, The One who is and who was and who is to be, Because You have judged these things. For they have shed the blood of saints and prophets, And You have given them blood to drink. For it is their just due.” And I heard another from the altar saying, “Even so, Lord God Almighty, true and righteous are Your judgments.”

These judgments of God are just. The world wasn’t willing to be instructed by God’s Word. As Paul writes to Timothy, the time will come when they will not endure 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. And so God said, “Fine. Have it your way. You didn’t want My Word? You didn’t want the preachers I sent to you? Then I’ll see to it that you only hear false doctrine and that you only have false teachers, so that you are deprived of the only thing that could bring you to repentance and faith. This is justice.”

Then the fourth angel poured out his bowl on the sun, and power was given to it to scorch men with fire. And men were scorched with great heat, and they blasphemed the name of God who has power over these plagues; and they did not repent and give Him glory.

The sun was given to give the earth heat and light, to be a blessing to man. This seems to be another picture of God’s Word, which is meant to be a lamp for our feet and a light for our path. But when God allows the light of His Word to be corrupted, when He allows false Christianity to fill the world with its false version of Christ and His Gospel, then it no longer serves to lead people to God. Men rejected the Gospel for centuries when it was purely preached. So now men don’t even have the wholesome witness of the Christian Church filling the world anymore, but only the false witness that doesn’t give true comfort or joy or peace but only a burning emptiness inside, because truth has been replaced with falsehood.

Then the fifth angel poured out his bowl on the throne of the beast, and his kingdom became full of darkness; and they gnawed their tongues because of the pain. They blasphemed the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores, and did not repent of their deeds.

The throne of the beast represents the governments of the world that oppose Christ or twist His Word. Civil government was instituted by God to be a blessing, to promote a quiet and peaceful life. But when false and demonic delusions turn governments into promoters and defenders of “institutionalized robbery, militant atheism, atheistic evolution, murder of the unborn, pornography and countless other evils, what was intended to be a blessing becomes a curse and a source of pain and suffering,” as one commentator puts it, as people trip all over themselves and one another in the darkness of the reality they’ve created for themselves. And even though men have corrupted the Word of God and the Christian religion, the same men then turn around and curse the Word of God and Christianity as they’ve corrupted them.

But Christians are spared from all these plagues. Not that it’s comfortable living in a world that is living under the curse of God’s punishment, but the curse of false doctrine doesn’t touch those who hold to the truth of Christ. We don’t have to suffer any of the fear, or bitterness, or irrationality, or despair, or guilt, or ignorance, or confusion that the unbelieving world suffers. Because, by God’s grace, we still have the light of His Word. We still have the peace of His Gospel. We still have the guidance of His Holy Spirit. Where the truth of God’s Word is still proclaimed, there the plagues cannot fall.

So watch in society for the plagues John talks about here and how they’re manifested among those who reject the pure teaching of the Gospel. Take comfort in God’s protection, even as you witness that protection being removed from the unbelieving world. For the believer who clings to God’s Word and is watching out for false doctrine, the words of David in Psalm 18 ring true: The LORD is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer; my God, my strength, in whom I will trust; my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold. I will call upon the LORD, who is worthy to be praised; so shall I be saved from my enemies. Amen.

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The justification of the penitent only

Posted on August 20, 2023 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for Trinity 11

1 Corinthians 15:1-10  +  Luke 18:9-14

A few weeks ago, you heard Jesus, early on in the Sermon on the Mount, make a rather shocking statement—at least, it would have been shocking to His hearers. Unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven. The Pharisees appeared very righteous to the average observer. More than that, as we see in today’s Gospel, they appeared very righteous to themselves. And, of course, it wasn’t just the Pharisees. Other very religious people among the Jews at that time also thought of themselves as good, decent, honest people who had done at least most of what God had required of them in His Law, and who deserved His favor far more than the Gentiles did or than the tax collectors and “sinners” did. And yet, Jesus told them that they didn’t have enough righteousness to enter the kingdom of heaven. They didn’t have enough righteousness for God, the heavenly Judge, to declare them righteous, to “justify” them.

Justification, as you know, is a courtroom verdict in which God judges a person to be righteous, innocent, acceptable to Him, worthy of eternal life. The opposite of justification is condemnation, a guilty verdict in God’s courtroom. And God, the always-just Judge, in the courtroom of His holy Law, only declares a person innocent if a person is actually innocent. He only declares a person righteous if the person is actually and thoroughly righteous, as judged, not by our own evaluation of ourselves, but according to His commandments. But we have this underlying problem with our humanity. It’s fallen. It’s corrupt and diseased down our very souls. There is pride where there should only be humility. There is selfishness where there should only be selflessness. There is hatred where there should only be love. And there isn’t the devotion to God that should be there, all leading God to declare in His Word that, There is no one righteous, no, not one.

So the question of questions is, how can someone who is less than righteous ever be declared righteous by the God who cannot lie, cannot make a mistake, and cannot ignore the facts? Jesus shows us in today’s Gospel with the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector. In the only verse in the Bible where Jesus Himself uses the word “justify” in this context, He teaches us that contrition and repentance is the only way to be justified.

Jesus spoke this parable to certain people who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and despised others. That was typical of the Pharisees, that attitude of smugness and condescension. It’s the very definition of being “self-righteous.” Righteous in your own estimation, a good person in your own eyes. And these people were doing what most people do who think of themselves as “good people.” They “despise others,” look down on those whom they see as not good people. Now, it’s not wrong to recognize bad behavior as bad. It’s not wrong to notice when other people are sinning. It’s the next step after that where people tend to go wrong. They see the sins of other people, and then they start comparing, “those bad people” to “us good people,” and then they make the huge mistake of thinking that they stand in God’s favor because of what good people they are, how obedient they are to His commandments, vs. those “bad people” who are so obviously disobedient, and, therefore, must be rejected by God. This whole parable is designed to put a knife through such a false, ugly, self-righteous belief.

Jesus introduces us to the stereotypical Pharisee in this parable. He parades into the temple with his head held high. He knows he’s better than most of the riff raff around here. He has dedicated his life to his religion, and to living according to it, and to teaching it to others. He follows the Law to the letter (if not to the spirit). In fact, he loves the concept of commandments so much that he and his fellow Pharisees have added hundreds of laws and interpretations of laws to do even better than God originally commanded. He’s sure that he has the right doctrine—unlike those Sadducees, who deny the resurrection and the existence of angels. It’s time to go to God’s holy temple and give thanks.

Oh, but what does he give thanks for? O God, I thank you that I am not like other men—extortioners, unrighteous, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week, I give tithes of all that I possess.’ Jesus puts it as crassly as possible, painting this man as so full of himself that he dares to approach God with self-praise. Now, be careful! Hopefully you’re not starting to say a little prayer, “O God, I thank you that I’m not like that self-righteous Pharisee!’ We all tend to do it, and it’s a terrible, dangerous habit, comparing ourselves with others before God. It’s exactly why Jesus had to unfold the Law to the people in the Sermon on the Mount. They thought, like this Pharisee, “I’m not an adulterer!” because they had never cheated on their wives. But they were fine with divorce for any reason and remarrying as often as they wanted, which is also adultery in God’s eyes. And it didn’t even occur to them that looking at a woman with lust in their heart was also included in the sin of adultery in God’s judgment. And so on. They hadn’t committed big, outward sins, in their narrow definition of sin. And so they thought they were righteous and thus qualified for God’s kingdom, while they saw the sins of others and assumed they were disqualified.

But then Jesus gives us the example of the tax collector. Now, you remember what the deal was with the tax collectors. They were Jews who went to work for the Roman Empire, collecting taxes for the Empire from their fellow Jewish citizens. And the Empire allowed them a lot of leeway in how much extra tax they were allowed to collect, above and beyond what the citizen owed to the Empire, taking advantage of their neighbor for their own benefit. The vast majority of them did collect extra, and everyone knew it. They practiced extorsion and bribery and favoritism. They were like mafia thugs, going after someone who owed money to the mob, except that what they were doing was perfectly legal. That’s why they were so hated, and why they were seen as traitors to their countrymen. The lowest of the low.

And yet, this one wasn’t laughing it up with his friends and enjoying his wealth. He was standing off in a corner of the temple, almost hiding from the people, but not trying to hide from God. He didn’t look up to heaven with pride, or self-satisfaction, nor did he attempt to justify his sinful behavior and explain to God why he had to do it, for this or that reason. No, he hung his head in shame and beat his breast and said, God be merciful to me, a sinner. Now, clearly, it wasn’t just words. Jesus clearly implies that he means those words. He knows his sin. He isn’t proud of it. He isn’t comparing himself to anyone at all (although surely he could have found a worse tax collector than he was, or an outright murderer or rapist or something). Nor does he intend to keep stealing from people, because it isn’t genuine repentance to plan on continuing in the sin that you’re supposedly sorry for and asking forgiveness for. No, this tax collector has been crushed by the weight of his sins and by the threats of God’s judgment. That’s called “contrition.” He has changed his mind about his sins, has turned away from them in his heart, and now seeks nothing from God but mercy. That’s called “repentance.”

And you know God’s answer to his request, because Jesus tells His hearers what it is: I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but whoever humbles himself will be exalted. The tax collector, the lowest of the low, was justified, received a “not guilty” verdict in God’s courtroom. How? Did God not know how bad He was? Of course He knew! But this is why Jesus came, to provide sinners with the one way to escape condemnation, to be justified before God: by contrition and repentance, which is to say, by faith in God’s promise to show mercy to sinners for Jesus’ sake.

Now, how does that work? Because the sinner is still a sinner, and the Judge has to recognize that. This is how God made it work: He gave His only-begotten Son into our humanity to be righteous in our place, and to take the punishment for our unrighteousness on Himself. As Paul said in today’s Epistle, Christ died for our sins. And as he writes later on to the Corinthians, God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that, in Him, we might become the righteousness of God. In His justice, God couldn’t let sins go unnoticed, or unpunished, nor could He ignore His own requirement for righteousness in His human creatures. So, He provided both the righteousness and the punishment in the Person of His Son. And now He’s opened up another courtroom, as it were, the courtroom of the Gospel, where He invites sinners to enter, in contrition and repentance, seeking His mercy and grace in Christ, the Throne of Grace, which is exactly what the tax collector was doing, seeking mercy from God in the place where He had promised to be merciful, in His temple, which was a type, a picture, of Christ Himself.

Now God calls out to all people, to Pharisees and to tax collectors, to the outwardly religious and to the complete pagans: Acknowledge your sins and turn away from them! Stop pretending to be righteous by your own right! You aren’t! And if you continue to exalt yourself, you will be humbled. Eternally humbled. So, everyone, learn from the tax collector to repent, to humble yourselves before God, and to hold nothing up to Him except for His promise to be merciful to sinners for the sake of Christ and the blood He shed for us on the cross. Everyone who humbles himself in that way will be exalted, will be justified, will be forgiven and accepted into God’s favor and into eternal life, not because of what we’ve done, but because of who Jesus is, in whom we trust. Amen.

 

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The Seventh Vision: Intro to the Seven Plagues

Posted on August 16, 2023 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Midweek of Trinity 10

Revelation 15:1-8

Last week, in the sixth vision of the set of seven visions, we heard about the harvesting of the earth, both the wheat and the grapes, the believers and the unbelievers, the believers for eternal joy and peace in God’s home, and the unbelievers for eternal crushing in the winepress of God’s wrath.

This evening, we bring to a close the set of seven visions with the seventh vision, which, as in the previous three sets of visions, serves as an introduction to the next set of visions, which will be the visions of the seven bowls filled with the final seven plagues of God’s wrath.

John sees something like a sea of glass mingled with fire. He had seen this sea of glass earlier in the book, too, where it was “before God’s throne.” This isn’t the turbulent sea of this world in which we live at the moment. It’s the smooth, calm, surface of perfect peace in God’s presence. Standing on that perfectly peaceful sea were those who have the victory over the beast, over his image and over his mark and over the number of his name. Remember, in an earlier vision, we encountered this beast, along with the other one. The beast from the sea, which stood for the secular forces, led by the governments of the world, which persecute Christians in any number of ways, from physical torture, imprisonment, and execution, to promoting falsehood, to marginalizing the Christians who refuse to go along with the falsehoods; and the beast from the earth, which stood for the Antichrist and all the false teachings that are designed to lead God’s people astray from Christ and His Word, even within the outward Christian Church. Earlier, John saw the beast being victorious over the saints, that is, succeeding in making life miserable for the saints and in executing them, too.

But here John sees the reality. The saints are actually victorious over the beast. By refusing to give in to the world’s requirement that we abandon the true God, by refusing to be led astray by the lies of the Antichrist, by clinging to Christ and His Word, the saints prevailed. They won. They now stand in the presence of God in perfect peace. As Paul writes to the Romans, we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.

John sees them here with the harps of Gods, singing the song of Moses and of the Lamb. Harps signify music and joy and praise. These harps are provided by God Himself. He is the One who inspires our thankfulness. He is the source of our eternal joy. The words sung by the saints echo the words of Moses in the book of Exodus and again in the book of Deuteronomy. He sang to the Lord after the Lord brought Israel safely across the Red Sea on dry ground, having destroyed their enemies, the Egyptians, by the waters of that same sea. That’s reminiscent of the Flood, too, isn’t it? By those waters God saved Noah and his family as the waters lifted them up to safety, even as the same waters drowned the unbelievers in the world. Which, as Peter writes in his first Epistle, symbolizes what God does for us in Holy Baptism, saving believers by those waters, even as the unbelieving world will be wiped out with fire. So, too, the saints in heaven sing for joy about how God gave them the greatest deliverance, washing them in the blood of the Lamb through Holy Baptism and granting them final salvation in heaven as their enemies in the world are about to be destroyed.

Great and marvelous are Your works, Lord God Almighty! Just and true are Your ways, O King of the saints! Who shall not fear You, O Lord, and glorify Your name? For You alone are holy. For all nations shall come and worship before You, For Your judgments have been manifested.

Right now, in these days before the end of the world, it’s hard for the saints confess that the Lord’s ways are just and true. The righteous don’t always prosper here, while the wicked often do. Christians who do the right thing are often punished for it by the unbelieving world, while evildoers go free. Such is the way of things here, and that’s not justice. It’s injustice. But we will finally see. We will finally understand what the Lord was doing as we look back, after the fact. As the world meets its doom, the saints will see how the Lord God Almighty worked everything out perfectly. And justice will then be done.

Then John sees the heavenly temple being opened. Right now it appears closed. In other words, right now, we can’t see God’s justice. Right now, we have God’s Word proclaiming His Law and His Gospel. But the wicked don’t listen. The wicked go on in their wickedness, thinking that God’s Word is untrue, thinking that God doesn’t see, that God doesn’t care, or even that God doesn’t exist. But in the end, God will make Himself known to the world. And when He does, it won’t be for another chance at salvation. When He finally opens His heavenly temple, it will be for the final revelation of His wrath against impenitent sinners.

And out of the temple came the seven angels having the seven plagues, clothed in pure bright linen, and having their chests girded with golden bands. These angels seem to symbolize heavenly angels, not the human preachers of God’s word, like the seven angels of the seven churches, although some think they do represent preachers of the Gospel. These are clothed like the angels who appeared at Jesus’ resurrection, but with golden bands wrapped around their chests signifying their divinely given authority to carry out the work they’re about to do.

Then one of the four living creatures gave to the seven angels seven golden bowls full of the wrath of God who lives forever and ever. If the four living creatures represent the prophets and apostles, as we’ve surmised, then it makes sense with what John says here, because throughout Scripture, the prophets and apostles have prophesied the coming of the day of wrath and the destruction of the wicked. That’s why we see the four living creatures handing over the bowls filled with God’s wrath to the angels who will implement the will of God.

The temple was filled with smoke from the glory of God and from His power, and no one was able to enter the temple till the seven plagues of the seven angels were completed. When the glory of the Lord fell upon Solomon’s Temple at its dedication like a bright cloud of smoke, the priests weren’t able to minister in the temple until the glory of the Lord lifted. So at the end of the world, when God opens His temple and determines that it’s time to bring final judgment and destruction on the wicked, no one will be able to intercede for them or delay God’s wrath any longer. When it’s finally time for the day of wrath to come, there will be no stopping it.

So, look forward to that day, as those who have been brought to repentance and faith. Keep hearing and learning God’s Word. Cling to His promises. Hold on as the world spirals to its demise. And, instead of having God’s wrath poured out on you, you will be saved, by faith in Christ Jesus, and you will join the endless worship of the victorious saints on the sea of glass. Amen.

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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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