Emmanuel Lutheran Church

Sermon for Trinity 26

2 Peter 3:3-14  +  Matthew 25:31-46

We’ve heard a lot about the Last Day in our journey through the book of Revelation on Wednesday evenings, where God teaches us about it in several different pictures. To summarize the events of that day: it will come suddenly, when people aren’t expecting it—though Christians should always be expecting it, knowing, at least in the back of our minds, that it could come at any time. All those who have died will be raised from the dead with new, immortal bodies. Those who are alive, who haven’t died, will be changed and will be given immortal bodies. Those who believed in the Lord Jesus in this life will be gathered to Him in one place. And the rest of mankind will also be gathered together in one place. The final judgment will be pronounced. The heavens and the earth will be destroyed with fire. A new heaven and a new earth will be created. The wicked will go away to eternal punishment, and the righteous to eternal life. That’s a summary of the Bible teaching about the Last Day. And it’s something God warns His people to be ready for, as the main future event we’re preparing for.

Jesus tells His disciples about one little piece of the Last Day in today’s Gospel, painting a picture of the judgment part of the Last Day. It doesn’t describe every detail of the judgment that will be pronounced or everything that led up to that judgment. Instead, it focuses on just one aspect of human behavior that God is keeping record of and that God will reveal on that day. Jesus is keeping track of how people treat His little brothers.

When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then he will sit upon his glorious throne. And all nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate them one from another, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. And he will set the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.

Jesus spoke these words just days before He was crucified. In a few days’ time His disciples would see him hanging from a cross in shame and apparent defeat. But the shame would be short-lived. And on the Last Day, when He finally returns to the earth, it won’t be in shame or defeat of any kind. It will be as the glorious King of this universe. And instead of standing before a judge, as He stood before the Jewish Sanhedrin and Pontius Pilate on Good Friday, Jesus will return as the Judge of all mankind.

Now, if you have a New King James Bible with section headings, this is one of the places you have to watch out for. The heading that the editors chose to place over these verses is, “The Judgment of the Gentiles.” What, do they think there will be a separate judgment of the Jews? Nowhere does Scripture say that. No, the word “Gentiles” is the same word in the Greek as “nations.” All nations will be gathered before Jesus and immediately separated by Him into two groups. Those whom He places on His right are the favored ones, and those whom He places on His left are the disfavored ones.

Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you blessed ones of my Father! Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.”

King Jesus will invite those on His right to inherit a kingdom, the kingdom prepared for them from the foundation of the world. There’s a lot here. Notice, first, He says, “Inherit!” That affects everything that follows. He doesn’t say, “the kingdom is your reward for all the good things you’ve done, which I’m about to list.” It’s an inheritance. The ones on His right did not earn a place in heaven by their good works. They simply showed themselves, by their works, to be children of God. Now, the only way in Scripture to become a child of God is through faith in Christ Jesus, our Savior and Redeemer, who gave His life on the cross to make atonement for our sins, and who received us into His Father’s family through Baptism and faith.

Notice, too, that this kingdom was prepared for them from the foundation of the world. In other words, these are the chosen people, the ones whom God chose or “elected” in eternity, before the world began, to be adopted as His children and to inherit His kingdom. As the rest of Scripture makes clear, God knew in eternity that mankind would turn away from Him toward sin. But He planned in eternity to send His Son to redeem all mankind. He planned to have the Gospel preached, and to work through the Gospel to bring sinners to faith, to justify believers and to sanctify them in love. It’s that sanctification in love that Jesus goes on to recount to these on His right.

I was hungry, and you gave me food; I was thirsty, and you gave me a drink; I was a stranger, and you took me in; naked, and you clothed me; I was sick, and you visited me; I was in prison, and you came to me. This comes as a surprise to those on the King’s right, because the vast majority of them lived on earth when Jesus wasn’t living on earth. Even those who were alive at the time of Jesus didn’t do all these things for Him directly. But He clears up their confusion. Truly, I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these my brothers, you did for me.

One of the main things Jesus commanded His disciples to do was to “love one another.” And by “one another,” He meant your fellow Christians, your brothers and sisters in Christ. That’s what Jesus and the apostles almost always meant when they used the word “brothers,” those who became brothers of Jesus through faith in Jesus. As Jesus said, For whoever does the will of My Father in heaven is My brother and sister and mother. And the will of God the Father is that, first and foremost, all men should repent and believe in Christ Jesus and so become His brothers in the Father’s family. After that, the will of God is the sanctification of Jesus’ brothers, and, again, our sanctification is practiced above all in loving our brothers and sisters in Christ—loving them, not just in our hearts, but in tangible ways, simple ways, like giving food to the Christian who is hungry, a drink of water to a Christian who is thirsty, and so on. And it doesn’t have to be for an “important” Christian, but for the least of Jesus’ brothers. As He said in another place, whoever gives one of these little ones only a cup of cold water in the name of a disciple (that is, because he is a believer in Jesus), truly, I say to you, he shall by no means lose his reward. Those who believed in Christ Jesus and showed mercy and love toward their fellow Christians will be recognized by Jesus on the Last Day, because He keeps track of how people treat His little brothers. He calls them the blessed ones of His Father. He calls them “the righteous,” righteous first by faith, and then righteous in how they lived in this world, especially in how they treated their fellow Christians.

Then there are those who didn’t end their life as children of God, but as unbelievers, as those whom the judge counts as unrighteous. Depart from Me, you who are cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels. Notice, first, that these on the King’s left are cursed. As St. Paul says, all who have sinned are under God’s curse. Or, I should say, all who have not been brought out from under the curse through faith in Christ. We all started out life under the curse. But, as Paul writes, Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us (for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree”), that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the nations in Christ Jesus. But all those in “the nations” who didn’t believe in Christ Jesus remain under the curse.

Also notice, the everlasting fire of hell wasn’t prepared originally for men, but for the devil and his angels. Because God’s purpose in eternity wasn’t to condemn sinners, but that all should come to repentance and to faith in His Son. But, since most people don’t believe in His Son, they will have to answer for their sins. They will taste that everlasting fire together with the devil, for whom it was originally prepared.

Now, the sins committed in the world are beyond measure; they can scarcely be recounted. But here Jesus doesn’t even mention any of the terrible, violent deeds done by men. He only mentions the good deeds that unbelievers failed to do for His little brothers, for His beloved Christians. I was hungry, and you did not give Me food, thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, etc…Whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me. Jesus takes it personally when unbelievers fail to help His little brothers. Imagine how personally He takes it when they abuse, harm, ridicule, and falsely accuse His brothers! He wants us to know that He will hold all people accountable for all the mistreatment that we have suffered, as well as for all the good treatment we didn’t receive because we remained faithful to our big Brother, Jesus.

And these will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.

Now, if all that is true, if as Peter says in today’s Epistle, all things here, all things in this universe are destined for destruction by fire, if Jesus is really coming again to pronounce judgment on all mankind, and if He’s keeping track of how people treat His little brothers, then, as Peter writes, What sort of people ought you to be? You ought to practice holy living and godliness, awaiting and yearning for the coming of the day of God…Therefore, beloved, since you await these things, make every effort to be found spotless and blameless before him in peace. Work on this, above all things! Work on being found spotless and blameless before God when He comes to judge the earth. Work on behaving in the world like children of light and not like everyone around you who still lives in darkness. Work on treating your fellow Christians with love and respect at all times, remembering at all times that the King is keeping track of how people treat His little brothers. But as you work on those things, don’t put your faith in how well you’ve treated anyone. Put your faith only in the Lord Jesus, and eagerly wait for His coming! Amen.

Sermon for Third-to-last Sunday (Trinity 25)

1 Thessalonians 4:13-18  +  Matthew 24:15-28

Today the lectionary begins turning our thoughts to the end times, to the state of the world and of the Church leading up to Christ’s return. It isn’t a pretty picture. But there is hope in it! Not the hope of a better world here, but the promise of God’s protection and help as we live through the dark days of the great tribulation. Alongside that promise, though, comes a warning from the Lord Jesus, an urgent warning to flee from the idolatry that will afflict the Church as we wait for Him to return.

Jesus is talking with His disciples about the signs leading up to His coming at the Last Day. He foretells a horrible event from the beginning of the New Testament period—the destruction of Jerusalem in the first century. And He uses that same event as a metaphor for the last days.

Therefore, He says, when you see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by the prophet Daniel, standing in the holy place (let the reader understand), then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. The Old Testament prophets often refer to idols as abominations, things that God truly hates. A desolation is something that lays waste to an area. Daniel, who lived about 600 years before Christ, prophesied that an idol would be set up in the holy place, in the innermost part of the temple in Jerusalem, right next to the place where God had promised to dwell. That prophecy was partially fulfilled some 400 years later when Antiochus Epiphanes, the commander of the Greek forces in Syria, would oppress the Jews over the course of about three years, banning their religion and literally setting up an idol in the temple. But Jesus applies Daniel’s prophecy to another event yet to come, to the idolatry of the Jews who would reject Him, who would still use the temple in Jerusalem to make sacrifices for sin, mocking the sacrifice of Christ that had already been made once for all on the cross. That idolatry was the reason why God allowed the Roman armies to come in in 70 AD to cause desolation, to besiege and finally destroy Jerusalem.

Just as Scripture often uses the literal kingdom of Israel in the Old Testament as a figure of the spiritual kingdom of Christ in the New Testament, so Jesus uses that literal idol in the literal holy place and the resulting desolation in the literal city of Jerusalem to represent a spiritual abomination, a spiritual idol (or idols) in the spiritual temple of God, which is the Holy Christian Church. As He says here when he refers to the “holy place,” let the reader understand. There’s something figurative in this saying that Jesus wants us to notice.

The idolatry that grew in the holy place of the Holy Christian Church over the centuries was the papistic idolatry, the idolatry of the Roman Church, as the hierarchy began to set the saints and their merits next to Christ in the holy place of the Church, setting the penances and satisfactions of the Christian next to the atonement made by Christ, setting the pope and the Church’s hierarchy next to Christ and actually above Christ because the pope’s teaching contradicted the word of Christ, and yet he was to be believed instead of Christ, which is why Lutherans refer to the papacy as the Antichrist, or at least as the ultimate Antichrist. Because not all the idols that have been set up in the Church can be traced directly to the papacy.

Or maybe they can, in a way, if “popery” is considered more generally. Every time a teaching is set up in the Church that contradicts the Word of Christ and is supposed to be believed instead of Christ, you have a little pope there, don’t you? Every time a man (a pastor or a priest or a minister) insists on being obeyed in the Church when he’s teaching something other than the word of Christ, you have a little pope there. Every time a synod or a church body or diocese demands your loyalty, regardless of the Word of Christ, or every time Christians give their loyalty to a synod or a church body or a minister, regardless of the Word of Christ, you have a little pope there, a little antichrist, an idol, an abomination that will cause desolation.

So, “Flee!” Jesus says. Fleeing ahead of the Roman armies was a physical fleeing, and all those who listened to Jesus’ warning were able to escape Jerusalem before the desolation came. Fleeing from all these other idols is a spiritual kind of fleeing, although there may be some physical fleeing involved, too. Run away from that church or that church body that has set up an idol where only Christ belongs. Get out of the assembly where idolatry, even secret idolatry, is being openly practiced. Run away in your heart from every idol that you might fear, love, or trust in more than God.

Flee! And do it without delay! That’s what Jesus’ instructions boil down to. Let the one who is on the housetop not come down to get anything out of his house. And let the one who is in the field not turn back to get his clothes. But woe to the women who are with child and who are nursing in those days! Pray that your flight is not in the winter or on the Sabbath! In other words, anything that hinders your flight from where idolatry has taken hold in the Church will harm you! Getting away from it is urgent, and all the more urgent as the Last Day approaches, when the tribulation will be at its greatest.

You see, fleeing from Rome and from all the idols that are set up within the visible Church is essential to avoid the desolation it will cause—the desolation of souls! But it doesn’t get you out of the great tribulation. Jesus says, For then there will be great tribulation, such as has not happened since the beginning of the world until now, nor will there ever be. Indeed, if those days were not shortened, no flesh would be saved. But for the sake of the elect those days will be shortened. The Book of Revelation talks about the saints who were even then “coming out of the great tribulation.” So, in a sense, it’s been going on since the first century. But just as the first abomination of desolation was literal and the second is spiritual or figurative, so might the tribulation be. The great tribulation of the first century involved severe physical persecution and torture of the saints. The great tribulation near the end of the world may be much more of a spiritual tribulation, trouble and affliction of the spirit, the trouble of being surrounded and assaulted by false doctrine, the trouble of having a hundred different Christian church bodies, the trouble of a world that completely and thoroughly rejects God’s Word, natural law, and justice. The public schools of our country (and in most of the world) teach a sort of “gentle atheism.” They don’t come right out and say God doesn’t exist, or that all religion is evil. They just unteach everything the Bible teaches and replace it with a false history, false morality, false authority, and a false purpose for mankind. They train generations of citizens not to rely on God’s word, but on “science” and the ingenuity of the human race. Practically all the world powers deny Christ, if not by name, then by policy and by action. This is all part of the great tribulation, the work of the Antichrist, and it would be too much even for the elect to withstand, if God didn’t shorten the days for us. But Jesus promises here that those days will be shortened.

Now, sometimes He shortens the days by giving us a brief reprieve, a few moments of sanity and normalcy. But those reprieves are temporary. Sometimes He shortens the days by bringing believers out of this life, so that we finish our race in faith and win the battle by leaving the battle with our faith intact. But in the end, only the coming of Christ will truly shorten the days of the great tribulation.

Jesus has further warnings for those who live in the great tribulation: “Then if anyone says to you, ‘Look, here is Christ!’ or ‘There!’ do not believe it. For there will arise false christs, and false prophets, and they will perform great signs and wonders, so as to deceive even the elect, if that were possible. See, I have told you ahead of time. False prophets pointing to false christs. Isn’t that exactly what we see in the Church at large? False prophets pointing to evolutionary Jesus, who didn’t create the world in six days; pointing to LGBT Jesus, who didn’t create them male and female and institute marriage between a man and a woman; pointing to socialist Jesus who compels people to charity by force; pointing to tolerant Jesus who would never dare judge anyone for anything—except for intolerance.

That’s the false Jesus on the liberal side. But then there are plenty of false prophets on the more “conservative” side who point to American patriot Jesus; or to contemporary worship Jesus on the one hand or to strict traditionalist Jesus on the other; or to the Jesus who forbids the little children to come to Him through Holy Baptism; or to rapture Jesus who still supposedly calls on Christians to support the Israel that rejects Him as Lord. The list goes on.

Therefore, if they say to you, ‘Look, he is in the desert!’ do not go out; or, ‘Look, he is in the inner rooms!’ do not believe it. For as the lightning comes out of the east and is visible in the west, so also will be the coming of the Son of Man. There is only one true Jesus Christ, who has ascended into heaven and will not return until the very Last Day of this world when every eye will see Him. Until then, He has left a sure and dependable witness of His teaching: His words faithfully recorded in Holy Scripture and faithfully confessed in the ancient creeds of the Church. And He has left a ministry of the Word that carries His blessing and His authority. If you go seeking Jesus apart from His Word and the ministry of it, you will only find a false christ.

Our Gospel concludes with that rather strange saying: For where the carcass lies, there the eagles will gather. It’s actually a paraphrase from the book of Job, where God is scolding Job for thinking himself wiser than God. And God has to remind him that God is the one who gave the eagle the nature and the ability to spy out the landscape from afar, to pinpoint where the dead body is, and to gather there. So it is with God’s children. We won’t miss Jesus at His coming. We won’t miss out on the eternal life He will bring. Instead, St. Paul describes the scene of the Last Day beautifully in today’s Epistle, when both those believers who have died and those believers who are still alive on that day will all be gathered around the Lord Jesus: For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will always be with the Lord.

Such is the wisdom of God, to allow His visible Church to falter and to embrace the idol, and to allow His true believers, His invisible Church, to suffer much during this great tribulation. But rather than question God’s wisdom as Job did, let us embrace it and acknowledge that God knows far better than we do what is right and necessary for this world and for His beloved Church, including each one of His dear children. Trust in Him. Watch out for idols and flee from them, wherever they are set up. Seek Him in His word and the ministry of it during this great tribulation. And eagerly expect His coming! Amen.

Sermon for Trinity 22

Philippians 1:3-11  +  Matthew 18:23-35

The forgiveness of sins is at the heart of the Christian Gospel. But many people, including many Christians, don’t pay attention to how God forgives sins. They think that God just forgives everyone, because He’s an old softy and wouldn’t think of withholding forgiveness. And, because they think that’s how it is with God, they think that’s how Christians should be, too. Christians are sometimes scolded by atheists, in fact, if they don’t just forgive everything to everyone all the time.

But that’s not how it works. That’s not the Scriptural pattern of forgiveness. We’ve talked about this for the last several weeks. God is merciful toward all men. He wants to forgive everyone. He wants to be reconciled with everyone. He gave His Son to die on a cross so that all might be forgiven. But forgiveness is not the first step for God. God rebukes sinners for their sins. He calls them to repentance. And then, to those who repent, He offers the free forgiveness of sins won by Christ on the cross. Those who believe in Christ are forgiven.

It’s a simple pattern. God rebukes sin. He calls sinners to repentance. And He forgives the sins of those who repent. That’s the pattern God dependably follows. And, as we learn in today’s Gospel, it’s the pattern He expects His forgiven children to follow with one another. As Jesus said in another place, If your brother sins against you, rebuke him; and if he repents, forgive him.

Simple, right? If your brother sins against you, show him his fault. If he repents, forgive him. If he won’t repent, then keep trying to get him to repent by confronting him with one or two others. If he still won’t repent, keep trying to get him to repent by taking the matter to the Church. And if he won’t listen to the Church, then, as Jesus says earlier in Matthew 18, “let him be to you like a heathen and a tax collector.”

Fine. The pattern is set. But then, in the words right before our Gospel, Peter suggests that there may be a loophole in the pattern. Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Up to seven times? In other words, what if this whole pattern plays out seven times. Seven times my brother sins against me, hurts me, causes me pain. Seven times I confront my brother with his sin. Seven times he repents. Do I really have to forgive him the seventh time? Haven’t I done more than enough in forgiving him six times? After that, should I (may I please?) tell him he’s reached his quota of forgiveness and then be done with him?

Jesus’ answer? I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven. In other words, you shall never refuse to forgive your brother—if he repents! Far be it from you to withhold forgiveness from the penitent! And then He tells the parable that drives this pattern home.

The king wants to settle accounts with his servants. He brings in the one who owes him 10,000 talents—an astronomical figure, let’s call it the equivalent of $150 million. The king demands payment, and severe punishment if payment can’t be made. That’s the Law, telling the sinner he has sinned against God and must suffer eternal death, because he can never repay his debt.

The servant begs for patience on the king’s part and promises to pay it all back. That’s repentance. The sinner acknowledges the enormous debt he owes. He knows he deserves to be thrown in prison forever, because he can’t pay his debt. So he throws himself at the mercy of the king. In the parable, the man doesn’t ask for forgiveness. He asks for mercy, for a postponement of the punishment, for time to repay. The point of this parable isn’t to explain how Jesus would actually be the one who would offer His righteousness and His own blood as the payment for our sins, how He now says to us, “Here, use this! Use this to settle accounts with My Father, the King! He will accept this payment, because it’s the reason why I was sent in the first place, to give My life as the payment for sins, so that all you debtors might have something to pay back your debts with. Not with your own money, not with your own works, but with My works and with My blood.” That’s how God actually forgives sins. But the point of this parable is to show those who have been forgiven by God how they are to do with their brothers and sisters as God has done with them. And He doesn’t expect you to give your son into death for the sins of others. He does expect you to forgive the penitent as He has done.

The King in the parable has compassion and forgives the entire, enormous debt of that servant. The sinner no longer has to suffer anything in punishment for his sins. The sinner no longer has to come up with his own atonement, because the Father accepts the atonement made by Christ and applies it to the believer’s account. You no longer owe anything. You’re free to go, free to live as children of God. There it is: the pattern of forgiveness.

But the pattern breaks down when the forgiven servant leaves the presence of the king. It starts out the same; the servant finds a fellow servant—his brother in Christ—who owes him a hundred denarii—let’s say $5,000, which is nothing compared to the $150 million that the first servant owed the king. But the forgiven servant doesn’t just demand repayment from his fellow servant. He seized him and began to choke him. Already you see a great difference between the behavior of this servant and the behavior of the king. The servant is angry. He’s enraged. He isn’t simply settling accounts. He certainly isn’t desiring the repentance of his fellow servant, but wants to see him burn.

Now, the fellow servant pleads for patience and time to repay, with the same exact words the first servant used to plead before the king. The man’s brother is sorry for having sinned against him. He admits his fault. He asks for a chance to make it up to him.

But the first servant refuses and throws his fellow servant in prison. No mercy. No compassion. No desire to forgive. And no forgiveness is given to the penitent. Understand what that means. Now the first servant, who was at one time penitent and believing, has fallen from grace, has returned to impenitence and unbelief.

What happens to that unmerciful, unforgiving servant? The king is informed of the servant’s behavior and is appalled by it. You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. Should you not also have had mercy on your fellow servant, even as I had mercy on you?’ And his lord was angry and handed him over to the torturers, until he should pay everything he owed to his lord. “So also will my heavenly Father do to you, if you do not—each one of you, from the heart—forgive your brothers their trespasses.”

You can’t reject the pattern of forgiveness toward your fellow Christian and at the same time keep enjoying the pattern of forgiveness for yourself. If you refuse to forgive the penitent, then you have fallen from grace. You have become impenitent and unbelieving. Now, your brother’s sins against you may be serious. They may hurt. (Or in other cases, they may not be very serious at all and yet you’re still inclined to take offense and stay angry and to refuse forgiveness!) In any case, Jesus puts it in perspective for you. Your sins against God cannot be counted, cannot be measured. They are far more serious than anything any man could do to you. Take the most heinous crime a human being can commit against another human being, and then realize, your crimes, your trespasses against God, in His judgment, are many thousands of times worse than that, to use Jesus’ analogy. Your only hope of salvation is in the mercy of God and in the pattern of forgiveness He Himself has established and embraced.

That pattern never fails, because God never changes. It must not fail for you, either. That means that, if someone has sinned against you and he isn’t sorry for it, forgiveness is not the step required of you at that point, but a heart of mercy still is, the readiness to forgive if that person repents—that’s required of you. And if the person repents, then forgiveness, from the heart, is the step required of you. Now, that forgiveness, when it’s given, may not mean that everything goes back to exactly the way it was before; there are sometimes lingering consequences here on earth for certain sins. But forgiveness must be given, nonetheless, or else you’re, in effect, turning toward Jesus and saying, “You are not my Lord! You are not my Master! My brother’s offense against me is greater than Your forgiveness toward me and more important than Your command.”

No, if your brother has sinned against you and you realize that you have no desire for your brother to repent, no desire to forgive him for the wrong he’s done to you, if you realize that you have been withholding forgiveness from your brother who is penitent, then recognize your own impenitence, and turn from it. Turn from your hardness of heart, before it’s too late, and take refuge in the blood of Christ, which was shed just as must for your sins as for your brother’s sins. Take Jesus’ warning seriously. Take the pattern of forgiveness seriously. Because already in Holy Baptism your immeasurable debts to God were cleared. And here in the Gospel, here in the Sacrament, full and free forgiveness of all your debts is offered to you again today. Go forward with it in peace, and take care to put it into practice with one another. Amen.