What Are You Waiting For? Get Out!

Genesis 19:15-29

Ge 19 15-29 What RU Waiting 4–Out!

When people read about the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, they always have a lot of questions. What was so bad that Sodom and Gomorrah had to be so horrifically destroyed? Were they so much worse than the big cities of today? Why was turning around so bad that Lot’s wife was turned to salt? How do the heavens rain down sulfur?

In my experience, it’s not difficult to understand why people ask these questions. What’s more, it’s understanding the reasons for the questions that really gives you the answer to them all, too. Why were these cities destroyed? Were they that bad? What’s with the pillar of salt? The real reason for all these questions is judgment. We have trouble understanding God’s judgment.

But God’s judgment is real, and that’s what we really need to understand. What’s more, we need to understand that the reason we struggle with that judgment is because it is so very close to us. We see the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah all the time. It’s as though we ourselves are Lot and his family, as though we’re the ones standing around lazily sighing about the people about to be lost when the messengers of God are right there saying, “What are you doing? I told you what was about to happen here! What Are You Waiting For? Get Out!”

Watching Lot and his family is like watching a bad horror film. The angels say, “Hurry! Take your wife and your two daughters who are here, or you will be swept away when the city is punished.” Yet Lot hesitates! You know yourself what’s about to happen, so you’re reading it going, “Come on! Come on! Move it! Do you want to burn up with the rest of the people?”

But, the truth is I can’t even joke about it. A number of movies come to mind, of course, but that’s just making a funny out of something that isn’t funny. This isn’t a movie. This is real life. The People’s Bible commentary from Northwestern Publishing House says in the Genesis volume: “When the two atomic bombs fell on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, there were survivors. When Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed, there were no survivors, except for the four members of Lot’s family. Moses tells us that the Lord ‘overthrew’ the cities of the plain; the destruction was so thorough that what was left looked as though the cities had been turned upside down. When on the following morning Abraham stepped out of his tent and looked to the southeast, the entire landscape resembled a huge smoking furnace” (John Jeske, Genesis, 2^nd ed., p. 170).

I don’t want to joke about it because I want you to see what happened. I want you to see the reality of it and the seriousness of it. This isn’t just a story. People died. People died and went to hell. Thousands of them. To play it down is a calloused mistake. It would also totally miss the point of it being recorded in the Scriptures in the first place. As Paul said of these ancient accounts, “These things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us, on whom the fulfillment of the ages has come” (1 Corinthians 10:6). This was written to warn us.

So when I see Lot hesitating in his house just before the destruction of Sodom, I’m wrong if all I see is Lot. If it were just about Lot, there would be no reason for me to have to read about it, no reason to preserve the account by God’s miraculous means throughout the last four thousand years. If I read this and yell at the movie screen in my mind, “What are you waiting for? You heard what the angel said! Get out! Get out!” but all the while I don’t see any reason why someone should be yelling that at me, I miss the point. This account was repeated, recorded and preserved so that I would see a parallel and so that I would take warning.

So what are you waiting for? What are you waiting for? It’s Advent. We just got done with the season of End Time and Christmas is soon approaching, so we all say that we’re waiting for the Christ. And, indeed, we are. But if we’re all listening when God gives warning, why haven’t we all left selfishness, shallowness and short-sightedness behind so that we could pursue “his kingdom and his righteousness”? What are we waiting for?

It’s good that we have a season like Advent or a season like Lent. We need these reminders. We need these warnings. God doesn’t want to lose us. “Be careful,” our Savior warned us. “Be careful or your hearts will be weighed down with dissipation….” You know what dissipation is, don’t you? It’s an attitude that’s very common today. It’s a party attitude where you don’t simply have parties to celebrate something but rather to throw caution to the wind and forget about everything for a while. It’s partying to escape from life because you are unhappy with it. Of course, celebrations are good when you are praising God for his good gifts and enjoying them well, but dissipation is staying away from God and living within a self-centered moment.

But our Savior goes on with his warning. “Be careful or your hearts will be weighed down with dissipation, drunkenness and the anxieties of life….” Yes, not just throwing caution to the wind but also being too worried about things that only God can take care of. And what happens? “…and that day will close on you unexpectedly like a trap. …Be always on the watch, and pray that you may be able to escape all that is about to happen.”

There’s the kind of waiting we need to be doing. We are waiting and watching for an escape. We want out of here! We don’t want to be standing around, too concerned about all this stuff that’s going to be burned up and miss our chance at ultimate escape. Who wants to be dragged out of town like Lot and his family were? Get out! This place is destined to burn. Get out from sinful entanglements. Our home is in a different, safe place!

Of course, there are worse things than being dragged out of town because “the Lord was merciful.” There’s staying too close to the destruction even after we’ve been delivered, as was the case with Lot’s poor, poor wife. She was swallowed up in it, encased in the salt that now covers that entire land.

That’s the warning I want you to take more than any other. If you ask me, hers was the greatest tragedy of them all on that sad and horrible day. She was warned about being connected to that evil place and its horrible deeds. She had seen the evil first hand. She was then dragged out of it and saved because “the Lord was merciful.” She knew why those cities were being destroyed and that she was being delivered. But she still clung to them. She stayed too close to the flames and was ultimately burned.

Do you not see yourself here? Do you not see why it is good for us to have seasons like Advent and Lent to prepare us to finally meet our God and our Savior?

We’re just like the nephew of Abraham, just like the children of Israel. We have already been saved. We’ve already been dragged from the eternal death and destruction that is coming to us because of our sins and we have been brought safely to this moment where the messenger of God is now saying, “Flee for your lives! Don’t look back, and don’t stop anywhere in the plain! Flee to the mountains or you will be swept away!”

And we’ve begged the Lord for mercy in this flight because the journey is too much for us. And the Lord has been merciful. But the Lord’s judgment against sin is still coming, and he does not want us caught up in it like Lot’s wife was. It is real. It is deserved. Do not long for that which God must destroy in order to deliver us. It needs to be destroyed or else there will never be true justice, because sin will continue to claim victims. Rejoice for the end of it and don’t look back,

So, what are you waiting for? Get out!

When we were baptized, we were set apart for God. We were like Lot and Abraham being called out of Haran and being promised the land of Canaan as an inheritance. How eagerly such infant faith follows and what blessing those promises of God to us!

But there have been many bumps along the way as we await the ultimate fulfillment of that promise. Read the story of Lot in Genesis this week and see yourself. Like him, we’ve been tested and found lacking. Our eyes for earthly treasure can get pretty big, and we can end up trapped, entangled, but the Lord has also always been right there with the rescue.

But the Final Rescue is still coming. Don’t let the baubles that have gotten to you before entangle you now. Everything has to be left here, because it will all burn, but don’t worry; the Lord will restore to you in greater measure than you could ever imagine!

So, one more time, by the hand: I forgive you. One more time, you are rescued, delivered. You are free. Jesus has paid your ransom with his perfect life and death. So what are you waiting for? Leave immaturity behind for the joys of the new life that God alone provides, as he has already done through his Son. Amen.

Advent 1                                                            What Are You Waiting For? Get Out!                                                                                             November 29, 2009

Pastor Aaron C. Frey    Genesis 19:15-17,23-29

No Sabbath on Providence

Ge 8 20-22 No Sabbath on Providence (CLICK FOR AUDIO)

No Sabbath on Providence

Try out the two links above–especially the NEW AUDIO!
Genesis 8:20-22

Ge 8 20-22 No Sabbath on Providence

Providence is an unnecessarily fancy English word. It sounds sort of scholarly and thoughtful, but all it really is is provide with an -nce on the end. And that’s all it means, too. Providence refers to the way that God provides for us day after day. Providence is all the ways that God brings to us all the stuff that we need for our body and life.

The problem with providence—or, should I say, our problem with understanding providence—is that we too easily dismiss everyday things as things that would happen all on their own whether God were willing them to happen or not. That means that, at times, we think that God isn’t personally and actively working for us in any kind of powerful way when we get our food, clothes and other things, as though the earth would spin, the sun would shine, the rain would fall and seeds would grow even if God were to take a vacation or suddenly cease to exist.

We don’t think enough about God’s work of providence, then, because we think of God’s power as only being necessary to accomplish what we classify as “supernatural” things, and not at all necessary to accomplish the starting of a motor or the moving of my arm or the signing of a paycheck.

Shameful, isn’t it? I mean, who gives us arms? Who gives us strength? Where does the seed come from? Why does the seed do what it does? Who gives us the power even to think about or to ask these questions? Do these things come from us “naturally,” or do they happen because it is God’s will for them to happen—his continual, ongoing and active will?

You see, providence—which is just a fancy way to say, “God providing for us”—doesn’t take a break. It is a continual work of God. It is something he is actively and at all times doing. That’s really the point of today’s text. When the Flood was over, Noah wanted to thank the Lord for not wiping out the entire human race despite the fact that they deserved it. So he built an altar and made what I personally classify as a shockingly generous and trusting sacrifice. With only seven pairs of sacrifice-worthy animals available on the entire planet, he burned some of them up. I’d have probably thought to burn velociraptors, but I’m not as trusting. Regardless, when the Lord caught wind of this shockingly trusting sacrifice, he was pleased and said, “Never again will I curse the ground because of man, even though every inclination of his heart is evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done. As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease.”

This, my friends, is the reason why it is so easy for sinners who do not trust the Lord to take their food and daily supplies for granted. It’s because the Lord made a promise, and he never breaks a promise. Do you hear what I’m saying? We take these things for granted because we think of them as happening on their own with or without God’s involvement. But it’s not the unbreakable rules of physics that keep these things going. It is God’s promise. “As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease,” because God actively keeps his promise each and every minute of each and every day, even though it would be just and fair for him to cease because the evil inclinations of our hearts that are always before his eyes.

Tomorrow, as tonight, we will put time aside to honor the Lord for keeping that promise. We will put time aside for giving thanks to him for continuing nonstop in the keeping of that promise minute after minute, hour after hour, day-in and day-out for century after century after century since he first caught the scent of that divinely inspired sacrifice. Tomorrow we take a holiday—a “holy day”—for thanksgiving to the provider of daily providence.

By the way, I inserted that term holiday, or “holy day,” right at that spot in our meditation tonight for a reason. I want to use it as a hook for you to use tomorrow so that you can more easily recall this meditation and use it to enhance your Thanksgiving. I mean, we all know that Thanksgiving is a holiday. We’ll be thinking about it all day tomorrow because most of us will have the day off. That’s how we got the word holiday in the first place, as it so happens.

Just think of the Third Commandment: “Remember the Sabbath Day by keeping it holy.” Or, if I want to translate the commandment much more naturally and fluently for the English-speaking person, I’d simply say, “Observe the Day of Rest by taking it off in God’s honor.” The point of the command, you see, was to take a day off each week as a way of remembering that it wasn’t by your own strength and effort that you provided for yourself and your family. It was by the promise of God, who said he would always and ceaselessly provide seedtime and harvest and all that we need for living off the earth.

You see, providing for you and your family is God’s work, not yours. When you take a day off from working, you demonstrate that fact. You say, “I could keep working. It’s logical that if I get food and clothing and all good things from working, I would have even more good things if I worked on every possible day that I can work.” But that’s a godless attitude that does not acknowledge this promise from God in Genesis 8. The logic of the Sabbath Day is, “I work because it is a privilege from God to be involved in the actions of his providence, but I am not the Provider. So if my loving Provider, who wants only the best for me, tells me to take a day off, I will happily do so knowing that I will have even more of the good things he desires to give me when I don’t work at his command, just as I trust that I will have all that I need when I do work at his command.”

Do you follow that? Is that making sense? A Sabbath Day is a holy day, a day that God has “set aside” (that’s what holy means) for his purposes—in this case, the purpose of remembering that he provides for you through his work, not you through yours.

Genesis 8 has an interesting way of bringing that to light, actually. When it says, “seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease,” it uses the Hebrew word for Sabbath. Do you see where? “…seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease.” Do you see it?

That’s right. It’s the word cease. We take days off, and God wants us to take days off. These are good things. The point of this promise, however, is that God never will! We get seedtime and harvest, day and night, season after season not because things have to work that way. They didn’t during the Flood. We have these because God never takes a Sabbath—never takes a day off or holiday—from making it happen. There is no Sabbath, no day of rest, for God’s providence, and he loves it that way!

So what does that mean for your day off tomorrow? It means everything! It gives real meaning to the day! In fact, it gives meaning to every day, whether it’s a “Sabbath Day” or a working day. Why? Because we will have peace on all days knowing that it is not we who provide happiness, blessing and daily supply to the people in our lives. We can rest secure without worries no matter what the day holds because there is no Sabbath—no ceasing, no rest—for the providence of God!

And do you know what’s the best way to illustrate that? It’s right in front of you, right at the front of this church. For just as you are powerless to make a seed grow if God does not bless it and bring it forth from the ground as a plant of providence, so you are completely powerless to break free from sin, distrust and rebellion toward God. Now, he can describe to you the way that a spiritually alive and trusting soul behaves, but you cannot be by your own efforts like the person he describes. Even our best efforts by nature are little more than make-up on the deceased. Make-up and embalming is not life.

But God is, and there is no Sabbath for his providence, no rest for the God who supplies our life. Look to the front of our church! Look at that cross! Jesus would not quit until he had lived that life in your place and died the death of a sinful rebel in your stead. He took no days off from his mission. He shunned every easy path. Why? Because that’s who the One, True God is. He enjoys working ceaselessly at giving you what you need, whether it be food, rest, or forgiveness and salvation. He never gets tired of it, and that’s why you are forgiven, why you are provided for.

Your Thanksgiving, brothers and sisters, is more than a holiday; it is a Sabbath. Set aside a day with his blessing to enjoy being well and unceasingly provided for, to his glory. Amen.

Thanksgiving Eve                                                        No Sabbath on Providence November 25, 2009

Pastor Aaron C. Frey    Genesis 8:20-22 

The Great Upset

The Great Upset (click for originally published pdf)

Mark 13:24-27 (NIV)

²⁴“But in those days, following that distress,
” ‘the sun will be darkened,
and the moon will not give its light;
²⁵the stars will fall from the sky,
and the heavenly bodies will be shaken.’ ²⁶“At that time men will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory. ²⁷And he will send his angels and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of the heavens.

Everybody loves an upset. Well, everyone except the favored team, of course. But we love it when the underdog takes everyone by surprise. We love it when the team that everyone was dismissing suddenly rises up and takes the championship. They talk about it for decades. They make movies about it. Everyone involved looks back on it as a defining moment in their lives.

I guess we love the great upsets because they give us hope when the odds are stacked against us, too. We loves those stories because we ourselves so often feel like underdogs. We love the big upsets because we’re always hoping that we ourselves will take people by surprise, that there’s some hidden and extraordinary talent deep inside of us that people haven’t acknowledged, that somehow, someday, we, too, might just win, despite having such a powerful enemy.

Well, I have good news for you. It’s going to happen. I know it always looks like we’re losing. It always seems like evil has the upper hand. The enemy is powerful, smart and practiced. He has an army of trained warriors. He has the whole world as his ally, and even our own flesh betrays our cause with its lust for sin. And we’ve lost the battle against our sinful flesh and its allies so many times before.

But it’s coming. The Great Upset is coming! I am here to tell you that The Day is coming when 1. Evil finally falls. The Day is finally coming when 2. The elect stand victorious!

I can’t wait. I can’t wait for that day to come! I so sympathize with the wording our Savior used in Mark 13:24: “But in those days, following that distress.” I mean, I can’t say that I understand that distress the way the disciples did, but I still sympathize. For them Jesus was talking about being arrested for being Christian, being flogged and being imprisoned. He was talking about the siege and destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD, which was truly horrifying for the inhabitants of Jerusalem and truly unequaled by anything we have experienced.

Nonetheless, I believe I can say that I sympathize. I may not know what it feels like to live through a Roman siege or state-sponsored persecution, but I still know some of the distress that Jesus is talking about. Even without a life-threatening persecution to live through, I still know tribulation, which is the word you find in Revelation as a translation for the word distress in Mark.

And some of you may be aware that tribulation is a buzzword among people who are counting down to the days to a Millennial Kingdom of Christ on earth, but that’s got nothing to do with this. I’ve got to make that clear not only to all of you assembled here in the church, but to anyone who hears this over the radio or reads about it on the internet or anything. The immediate context for this tribulation is the events leading up to the destruction of the temple in 70 AD. The wider context is the tribulation that Christians have experienced in their struggles against this hostile world ever since that time, as well. Just read Mark 13 and the parallels from Matthew 24 and Luke 21 for yourselves. We’re talking about a tribulation here that has already taken place and is continuing to take place. That’s why every generation feels like the End is close at hand. These words are here to remind us of our own times as well as times passed, so that we always feel the End is imminent, and so that we are therefore always prepared for it.

Just as the disciples of the past saw evil winning through arrests and executions, so we see evil winning today in the way that those who take the Bible literally are so quickly dismissed these days. If you take it so literally as to actually honor God’s Word regarding the order of gender roles and regarding sexual relations only within the context of a one-man-one-woman marriage, well, then, you are regularly mocked and despised on television, in print and in the movies. You’re a bigot for calling sin a sin.

But you should also be aware of the part of the struggle against sin that hits much, much closer to home. You should know that struggle because you are so intimately and horrifyingly connected with one of Satan’s most powerful allies: Your own sinful heart. And if you don’t recognize that deadly coldness at work in your own flesh, then, believe me, it’s not because you’ve overcome your sinful flesh. It’s because your sinful flesh has blinded you while it sows the seed of hypocrisy in your life.

There’s no denying the truth. That’s why I paint a bleak picture of our condition as sinners in a sinful world. On the other hand, the other reason I paint such a bleak picture is to put the victory of the underdog on the Last Day in its proper perspective. In other words, I paint a bleak picture so that you may see just how miraculous and glorious your victory in Christ is going to be!

I had said earlier that this text is about a great upset, and indeed it is. We are right to paint the general situation of things as very, very bleak, for that is the way that God himself describes things, with death and corruption permeating every aspect of life in this broken world. Meanwhile, Satan takes advantage of the sinful flesh in all of us to cultivate the seed of distrust toward God and selfishness toward each other. The world grows more and more evil and we mourn as our sinful flesh plays its own part in the corruption. Evil seems to have the upper hand at every turn!

And yet it doesn’t have the upper hand, and that’s the point. Evil looks like the great champion now, but this terrifying Goliath is in for a great fall. People say that you might as well give in to evil urges, but they’re betting on the wrong team. Evil will finally fall. It’s a given. Evil will finally fall!

When Christ returns, he is going to eliminate every supposed advantage that Satan seems to have, even the corruption that has become a part of the fabric of the very universe itself! “But in those days, following that distress, ‘the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from the sky, and the heavenly bodies will be shaken.’”

Do you see it? It is true that the corruption of sin has become a part of this very universe. Just read Genesis 3 and Romans 8; it has permeated the very make-up of Creation! But those who bet on evil to win and give in to the urgings of their sinful flesh are forgetting that God is still more powerful than anything in this universe. They are forgetting that God’s Word, which seems to be stuck in a losing battle as everyone and everything “progresses” down the path of godlessness, has the power to take this universe apart, disassembling whatever power stands opposed to it!

“At that time men will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory.” Yes, they will see the Carpenter from Nazareth, whom they thought they could destroy through their evil plotting, alive and glorious, returning in the clouds “with great power and glory. And he will send his angels and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of the heavens.”

That’s the victory. Do you see it, brothers and sisters? It is the Great Upset, the Saints Triumphant. The Son of Man will return in power and glory. Evil will finally fall, and the elect will stand victorious!

But how do you know? I mean, you know Jesus will win. Not even death could hold him down. But how do you know that you will win with him? How do you know that you will be among the Saints Triumphant? How do you know that you will stand with him on the Day of His Victory despite the fact that you have given in to the tide of evil that not only flows at you but even from you, right out of your own naturally sinful heart?

It’s that little word elect. It means chosen. It doesn’t mean that you first chose him. In that case, credit for the victory would be ours, and we know that it isn’t. The word elect means “those who have been chosen.” And how do I know that I can count you in that elite group when you have so often failed under trial?

I know because I know so well that God sent me here today to say to you who are gathered here, “I forgive you.” I know because God brought you here, and I know because he gave me this message of forgiveness to share with you, a message that is backed up by the sacrifice and resurrection of the Son of Man himself. If it was valuable enough to pay the debt the world owed, then it is valuable enough for you: My friend, your sins are forgiven.

What we have here, you see, is a preview of the glorious gathering that the angels will perform in every corner of the earth. Angels are messengers, but today it is the power of the Message itself that has gathered us together. Sin has already lost because the Message of Forgiveness through Christ’s death and resurrection has stolen sin’s power to condemn. Therefore I know evil will fall. I know because it already has. I know because his forgiveness has forever marked us as Saints Triumphant. Amen.

End Time 3: Saints Triumphant   The Great Upset November 15, 2009

Pastor Aaron C. Frey    Mark 13:24-27

Receive His Life Sentence

Receive His Life Sentence (click for originally published pdf)

John 5:19-30 (NIV)

¹⁹Jesus gave them this answer: “I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does. ²⁰For the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does. Yes, to your amazement he will show him even greater things than these. ²¹For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son gives life to whom he is pleased to give it. ²²Moreover, the Father judges no one, but has entrusted all judgment to the Son, ²³that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father, who sent him. ²⁴“I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life. ²⁵I tell you the truth, a time is coming and has now come when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live. ²⁶For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son to have life in himself. ²⁷And he has given him authority to judge because he is the Son of Man. ²⁸“Do not be amazed at this, for a time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice ²⁹and come out—those who have done good will rise to live, and those who have done evil will rise to be condemned. ³⁰By myself I can do nothing; I judge only as I hear, and my judgment is just, for I seek not to please myself but him who sent me.

There is very little that anyone takes seriously anymore. It’s just the way that western civilization has turned. For the United States, it seems that things started turning that way a little over fifty years ago. It seems to have been a strong reaction on the part of young people to the attitudes of parents who had experienced World War II. The sternness of those who had been a part of a global conflict in which the very fate of the world literally hung in the balance seemed odd and out of place to those who grew up in an age of unprecedented ease and prosperity.

And with each successive generation the irreverence has only increased, making those who take anything seriously seem more and more out of place. Even the ultimate in sobering realities, the death of a loved one, has become an opportunity for levity, and funerals aren’t really considered good anymore unless they are filled with jokes, funny stories and laughter.

I have noticed, however, that the legal system still seems to take itself pretty seriously, even more so when someone’s life is quite literally on the line. When there’s the possibility that someone might receive a sentence of life in prison, it’s usually not too hard to get people to take things seriously.

Thinking about that, then, might help some people to take the text before us more seriously, because it really is about a courtroom and a life sentence—an eternal life sentence, that is. And it is about a judge that is fully prepared to hand out an eternal sentence, which we ourselves must be fully prepared to accept. We must be fully prepared to Receive His Life Sentence, because 1. Contempt for our Final Judge means eternal death, but 2. Honoring our brother is the gift of eternal life.

If the people around Jesus that day had only understood his role as judge of all mankind, they would have reacted very differently toward him. They would have treated him with the highest honor. But they obviously didn’t get it. They were apparently too upset about the fact that Jesus was “calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God,” according to John 5:18, which is the verse that comes immediately before our text. So instead of treating him with great honor, they treated him with contempt.

Now, imagine doing that if you were actually on trial! Imagine showing contempt for the judge of an earthly court when the way that you treat that judge in court can make the difference between going home a free person and going to jail for the rest of your life! That would be crazy, wouldn’t it? That wouldn’t make any sense at all! When that judge literally holds your life in their hands, you address them with “Your honor,” and when they bang the gavel looking for order, you quiet yourself down. Even if you know the guy on the bench personally and don’t particularly like him, you still treat him with some respect. Why? Because, as I said, that person still holds your life in their hands. You have got to respect that.

But they did not respect Jesus. They treated him with contempt. They treated him with contempt, even though he warned them: “Moreover, the Father judges no one, but has entrusted all judgment to the Son, that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father, who sent him.” And, of course, if you refuse to show honor to the judge in court, you are held in contempt of court—in this case, in contempt of the court that decides your eternal fate.

Now, how do you avoid being held in contempt of this court and losing your freedom from sin, death and the devil for all eternity? Perhaps that’s a bit of a silly question to ask you. We just had Reformation Sunday, so you know that we are saved by faith alone. So all you need is to believe in Jesus as your Savior, and you are not held in contempt or condemned to eternal death, right?

This is true, but I want you to pay special attention to how Jesus describes what it means to honor the Son of God: “I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life.” To honor the Son of God is to listen to his Word and to believe what it says.

I stress that because I don’t want anyone here to miss it. “I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned.” I stress that because I think that most of us don’t even hear the warning that is there for us. We assume that because we gather here in this Lutheran church that our gathering is all about faith, faith that saves.

But genuine faith, saving faith, is more than saying that God truly exists and that Jesus is his Son. Saving faith is an attitude of the heart toward God that can be recognized by one particular outward action more than any other: Responding to the Shepherd’s voice, hearing and being changed by the Word of God. “I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned.” The one who listens to the voice of Jesus “has crossed over from death to life.” Those who do not listen dishonor the Eternal Judge and will be justly condemned for clinging to their evil practices on the Last Day.

These are hard words to share, but I would be a fool not to share them since I would then not be responding to the Word of the Eternal Judge. It’s just hard because I have written many sermons on texts that encourage us to make the hearing of the Word the most important thing in our lives, yet Sunday School attendance has not noticeably improved—not even among those who for various reasons are unable to make use of our day school.

And have we stopped talking about the sins of others when they are not around and cannot be helped by it? Have those engaged in activities condemned by God as sexually immoral put it all behind them? Are we all the more fighting hatred and the urge to hold grudges? Has the taking of the Lord’s name in vain ceased?

These are all crimes for which our Final Judge promises a sentence of eternal death! Yet I myself would be a faithless teacher who does not listen properly to the Word of Christ if I did not respond to that eternal threat within us with the promise of eternal life.

The Word of Christ is this: not that God has decided to ignore his own Law and Word just because we all failed to listen, but that he carried out the eternal death sentence that the Law of God promises to all sinners by condemning his own Son as the one guilty of all sin. Though under no obligation, he condemned his own Son to the fires of hell—and his Son willingly and, according to Hebrews 12:2, even joyfully went—so that you could receive a sentence of eternal life on the Last Day and be finally delivered from sin, death and the devil. He received your eternal death sentence, and you are receiving his eternal life sentence.

In fact, that more than anything else is the “life sentence” that this sermon is all about. A sentence will be spoken on the Last Day. By that I mean an actual sentence made up of words, not necessarily the kind of sentence a condemned criminal receives in court. A sentence will be spoken on the Last Day of this earth. I don’t know exactly what the words in it are, but I know the effect it will have when it is spoken: “I tell you the truth, a time is coming and has now come when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live. For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son to have life in himself. And he has given him authority to judge because he is the Son of Man.”

Jesus commanded the crowd, “Do not be amazed at this”—I mean, after all, they had already seen Jesus call back the dead with his voice, hadn’t they? “For a time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice and come out.” I don’t know just what it is he is going to say, but I properly call it a “life sentence.” Just as at the creation of the world, he will speak, and it will be so. Billions of people long since crumbled into dust will be reconstituted, and those who fell asleep in Christ will be glorified to eternal life. “Life sentence,” indeed!

But even in this End Time season, I don’t want you to lose sight of the significance of this truth for the here and now. Do you know what I’m saying? There is so much comfort in this plan to pronounce a sentence of life over us!

I mean, look at how he says that the time for this life sentence has already come. We have heard it, haven’t we? And it has given us new life in the Spirit of God, right? Of course! There is power in the message that our Final Judge is the Son of Man, one of us, our brother. Our brother’s life sentence is our own. Amen.

End Time 2: Final Judgment  Receive His Life Sentence November 8, 2009

Pastor Aaron C. Frey    John 5:19-30

Fiery Confession

Fiery Confession (click for originally published pdf file)

Daniel 3:16-28 (NIV)

¹⁶ Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego replied to the king, “O Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you in this matter. ¹⁷ If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to save us from it, and he will rescue us from your hand, O king. ¹⁸ But even if he does not, we want you to know, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up.” ¹⁹ Then Nebuchadnezzar was furious with Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, and his attitude toward them changed. He ordered the furnace heated seven times hotter than usual ²⁰ and commanded some of the strongest soldiers in his army to tie up Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego and throw them into the blazing furnace. ²¹ So these men, wearing their robes, trousers, turbans and other clothes, were bound and thrown into the blazing furnace. ²² The king’s command was so urgent and the furnace so hot that the flames of the fire killed the soldiers who took up Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, ²³ and these three men, firmly tied, fell into the blazing furnace. ²⁴ Then King Nebuchadnezzar leaped to his feet in amazement and asked his advisers, “Weren’t there three men that we tied up and threw into the fire?”
They replied, “Certainly, O king.” ²⁵ He said, “Look! I see four men walking around in the fire, unbound and unharmed, and the fourth looks like a son of the gods.” ²⁶ Nebuchadnezzar then approached the opening of the blazing furnace and shouted, “Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, servants of the Most High God, come out! Come here!”
So Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego came out of the fire, ²⁷ and the satraps, prefects, governors and royal advisers crowded around them. They saw that the fire had not harmed their bodies, nor was a hair of their heads singed; their robes were not scorched, and there was no smell of fire on them. ²⁸ Then Nebuchadnezzar said, “Praise be to the God of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, who has sent his angel and rescued his servants! They trusted in him and defied the king’s command and were willing to give up their lives rather than serve or worship any god except their own God.

Today is a day of amazing stories, stories about heroes, stories about the faith of heroes and their Fiery Confessions that put their lives in danger but ultimately changed the world forever.

That may seem a little odd for a Sunday where the theme for the day is “Safely Home in His Word,” but not really. To be safely home in the Word of God doesn’t refer to sitting at home where it’s safe doing nothing. Quite the opposite. Being “at home” with the Word inherently means being at conflict with others who by nature were born with rebellion against God in their hearts. But being at home with the Word of God also means being able to face that conflict and recognizing that you are safe because you are on the right side of the conflict—God’s side. What did Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego say? “O Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you in this matter. If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to save us from it, and he will rescue us from your hand, O king. But even if he does not, we want you to know, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up.”

Martin Luther, like other prominent figures in the Reformation that would follow him, faced the very real threat of being burned at the stake as heretics. Indeed, it had happened to John Hus before Martin Luther, and it would happen to others for nearly a century to follow. But what did Martin Luther say when ordered by Emperor Charles V to give a simple yes-or-no answer to the question of whether or not he would reject all the things he had written about the gospel of Christ?

Since then your serene majesty and your lordships seek a simple answer, I will give it in this manner, neither horned nor toothed: Unless I am convinced by the testimony of the Scriptures or by clear reason (for I do not trust either in the pope or in councils alone, since it is well known that they have often erred and contradicted themselves), I am bound by the Scriptures I have quoted and my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and I will not retract anything, since it is neither safe nor right to go against conscience. I cannot do otherwise, here I stand, may God help me, Amen.

Maybe that causes you to think a little bit about whether or not you have the guts to hold to a fiery confession. Maybe you don’t have a fiery personality or you don’t especially like conflict.

Well, who says Luther or the three men in the furnace had fiery personalities. Fiery personalities weren’t necessary for the roles that God gave them to play in the world. All that was needed was their fiery confession, which was more the result of what God was doing than something that they would have done themselves as a result of their particular personalities.

A fiery confession—assuming that by “fiery confession,” we mean a godly confession and not just the words of someone who enjoys conflict—is not at all the result of a person’s inborn personality. A true confession, that is, a confession that is fueled by the fire of the Spirit and not just a love of debate, can come from any one of us at any time, so long as we speak from the Word of God and the fire that the Spirit put in us at our baptisms.

Indeed, what I’d like for all of us to see this morning is that fiery confessions aren’t about you and me. Fiery confessions aren’t about Martin Luther, John Hus, or Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. In fact, what makes fiery confessions so fiery is that the confessions themselves are the refining fire of Christ that the last prophet of the Old Testament, Malachi, had prophesied about: “But who can endure the day of his coming? Who can stand when he appears? For he will be like a refiner’s fire or a launderer’s soap. …So I will come near for judgment. I will be quick to testify against sorcerers, adulterers and perjurers, against those who defraud laborers of their wages, who oppress the widows and the fatherless, and deprive aliens of justice, but do not fear me,’ says the Lord Almighty” (Malachi 3:2, 5).

Do you see what that’s saying? We celebrate the Reformation year after year and sometimes we even call it Luther’s Reformation. But the Reformation wasn’t really about Martin Luther. It was about the power of his confession, which, by definition, is really about someone else. Confessions by definition are agreeing with something that someone else says, not about your personal opinions. So it’s not Luther’s Reformation; it’s Christ’s. Likewise, what made Luther’s bold confession that I read earlier so fiery was not the broken little monk’s personality but the rather the fire of the Spirit that led him to seek the safety of the Word of God rather than trying to find refuge in the shifting sands of human opinions (“for I do not trust either in the pope or in the councils alone, since it is well known that they have often erred and contradicted themselves”).

The same goes for Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. The most noteworthy fire in their story is not the fire from the furnace that was so hot that it killed the guards who tossed them in. The most noteworthy fire in their story is the fire of the Spirit who stoked the flame of their fiery confession: “If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to save us from it, and he will rescue us from your hand, O king. But even if he does not, we want you to know, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up.”

Now, Christians, where is your fire? Was it the fire of the Spirit that was stoked when we talked about the gospel of Christ being more important than all your money and all your things? Or was it the fire of anger and rebellion against the truths of God’s Word? Did your love of hunting get you stuck on the fact that I sounded like I might be saying that you have to be in church on the morning of the first day of hunting season, or did your love of the truth help you to hear that it truly was possible to worship anywhere without rebelling against God’s will but that if Christ were to issue such a command it might well reveal where your heart truly was?

Where is your fire? Is your confession fiery like Luther’s, or fiery like the devil’s?

Oh, dear brothers and sisters, if questions like that ever bother you, then there is only one thing we can do: Repent. Repent and believe the good news!

Good news, brothers and sisters! That’s what this whole day is about! Reformation Day isn’t about the self-confidence that Martin Luther demonstrated in 1521 when he made his lonely stand against the Emperor. Man, that’s really missing the message. The point of Reformation Day is the good news that we never stand alone when we stand on Jesus’ promise of forgiveness and salvation.

Likewise, today is not about the bravery that Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego were able to drum up out of themselves as they made their lonely stand against King Nebuchadnezzar. That’s totally missing it! Today is about the promise of God that is more powerful than earthly fire. Today is about standing in the middle of persecution and danger, sin and death, and saying, “I’m not strong enough to stand against this on my own. And I really don’t know if my God will spare me of this or not. But I do know that God is all-powerful and that, according to his unbreakable Word, the waters of my baptism have quenched the fire of his anger against my sins through the power of Jesus’ sacrifice. So if I must suffer through the fire of trial, I know I will not do it alone. And I know that it will only be because the Lord has planned blessing through it for me and for others who witness it.”

Look into that furnace, brothers and sisters. You will not see three strong men of impressive fortitude. You will find three weak sinners walking around in a horribly deadly fire. You will see three weak sinners standing by one powerful God.

Here’s the truth. You don’t drum up a fiery confession out of yourself, so stop thinking that you’re not strong enough or not brave enough or not smart enough to make a stand like Martin Luther or the three men in our text. Fiery confessions don’t come from men like that and they don’t come from you. Fiery confessions come from the Spirit of God, and the Spirit of God comes from the Word of Christ’s forgiveness. And you know what? I forgive you your sin and weakness for Jesus’ sake.

That truth conquers all. It may not spare you all, but it conquers all. It conquers all because those with the forgiveness of God on their side never stand alone in their confession. They stand with him—forever. Amen.

End Time 1: Reformation       November 1, 2009

Pastor Aaron C. Frey    Daniel 3:16-28

Library and Resource Management, Conclusion

I had a real love/hate relationship with My Library and Collections in the old Logos. I loved that there were multiple ways to find a particular book in my library but hated all the duplicate entries. I loved being able to do searches on subsets of my library that I myself could define, but I sure hated trying to find books for those collections in that little dialog box that you couldn’t resize. I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw Logos 4’s Library and dynamic collections.

Here’s the new Library:

The Logos 4 Library.

Pretty, isn’t it? Well, except for the missing cover on those Dog notes. What kind of lazy bum is responsible for that?

The new Library lets you see a fuller bank of information for the books in your library. You can also rate them according to how often you use them and even tag them for easy reference later. Tags also become a kind of collection, since you can search through books with certain tags that you have added if you so choose.

Creating a collection of Wisconsin Lutheran Quarterlies.

Speaking of collections, thanks to the new way of creating collections for your library, Logos 4 can keep your collections up to date even as you expand your library through multiple purchases. How, you ask? Well, whereas before you used to type things into the dialog box and hit the Add button for each of the results until your collection was done, now all you have to do is run the search and the results are saved automatically. All you have to do is tell Logos if there are some other stray titles you want to add of if some of them came through on the search that you don’t really want.

In the collection of Wisconsin Lutheran Quarterlies above, all I had to do was tell Logos I wanted all the resources that had that name in this collection, and there it was, all 40 volumes. Nothing more to do.

Conclusion

No one has to tell me that by ending my little look at Logos here I’ve only just scratched the surface, but, then again, as I said at the start, I really only have been given the chance just to scratch the surface! Be prepared to spend some time, some CPU cycles and some hard drive space on this upgrade. It really does take a while to run the indexing cycle that makes the new searches so much faster than the searches in 3.x. Also keep in mind that you could simply not upgrade for a while or, since this is a completely new system built from the ground up (without the help of Internet Explorer–thank you, Lord!), you can even run both Logos 3 and 4 at the same time. I’m doing it right now, in fact.

You can get a look at a few more of the cool features of interest to the exegetical crowd here. Go to Logos.com and check out the intro video and the new box sets.

God bless your studies.

Logos 4 Initial Impressions
Text Studies, Guides and Searching
Library and Resource Management, Conclusion

Text Studies, Guides and Searching

Logos 4’s new home page with the “Type passage and hit Go!” pane at the top left.

I’m not a big “Type in a passage and hit Go” person. Logos 3.x’s default arrangement with reports on the left half of the screen, an English Bible at the top right and original language Bible at the bottom right just doesn’t suit me terribly well. My Logos 3.x opens to a blank page so that I can choose a more personalized arrangement from among my workspaces that makes it easier for me to work between multiple lexicons, translations, critical notes and my notefiles. In fact, the only thing I use the Logos 3.x home page for is looking up the next Sunday’s lectionary selections from Christian Worship: A Lutheran Hymnal. My old Bible Study Starter element is usually minimized.

Greek text study Layout.

With Logos 4, I’ve been using the Go button. The new arrangement is much more useful, much more informative, much more impressive. Now, that may change for me. The truth is that I haven’t been able to play around with customization features enough to make it work in just the way I want it to. Nonetheless, I won’t be brokenhearted while I figure more of that stuff out. The current arrangement works well–except for the annoyance that, by default, it doesn’t actually open up a Greek or Hebrew Bible. I guess with a “click Go” maneuver I shouldn’t expect that, but I do. It could at least be one of the tabs. Oh, well. It’s simple enough to add to the middle-top pane just by clicking that little “+” button to the right of the tabs. That calls up a parallel resource selector and I can grab the NA27 from the list.

Parallel Resource selector.

You’re already seeing some of the vast improvements in the way that selecting and displaying resources is handled in Logos 4. More on that later.

It’s hard to say at this point how much of my workflow is going to change due to the big, new changes to the Guides in Logos. And here I’m not talking about the improvements to various elements of the Passage and Exegetical Guides. I’m talking about whether or not I will change my approach to taking notes while I’m doing a text study. The big change in Logos 4 is that when you produce a Passage Guide or Exegetical Guide (or a customized mix of the two that you can create–cool, huh?) you can take notes in the actual Guide that is produced and save that as a document in Logos.

I had gotten the impression long ago from one of the guys at Logos (this was well before the NDA’s about the next version started appearing), that these saved guides would not be dynamic. They would become a static document that you could call up as a representation of what you were looking at back when you first did your study on that text. That does not, however, appear to be the case in the final version. Many of the elements of saved guides, such as hits on commentaries and grammars, seem to be recreated every time you open up the document so that they are up to date with your current library. Notes taken on those sections are not attached to particular hits (although you can “star” ones that you feel are exceptionally important). Rather, there’s a spot for taking notes in the guide right underneath those hits.

Passage Guide notes on hits.

In the Exegetical Guide, on the other hand, I can take notes on individual words in the Word by Word section and those notes will stick to that one element of the guide and will be retrievable in the future whenever I run a guide on an intersecting text.

Exegetical Guide note on a word.

Note in the last image the integration of the ESV Reverse Interlinear into the guide. Every word listed is also listed with its English equivalent from the ESV-RI. That’s pretty handy when you’re comparing translations in a difficult section. It helps you keep your place in a long section, as well.

The approach to searching has been simplified, as I mentioned in my description of the Search Button. All the different search dialogs of Logos 3.x have been combined into a single search pane that can be used for Basic, Bible, Morphological and even Syntax Searches.

Logos 4 Basic Search pane.

You click in the upper right corner to change the type of search and thus get a different set of dropdown lists in that area right above the text box. For instance, here are the Morphological search options:

Morphological search–selecting form.

Even the Syntax search can be accessed through this simple method, although you can also call up the new graphically-oriented syntax search window for the kind of stuff that you were used to doing in 3.x–assuming, of course, that you used the rather difficult syntax engine in 3.x.

Graphical version of the syntactical search.

Sorry, but I didn’t have to do any complex syntax searches this week. I just threw that one in there.

I found the new “untransliteration” engine to be simple to use and a lot less frustrating than the old method of switching your language keyboard with F2. Logos includes full Unicode support in all the text boxes, as well, so you can just change your Windows keyboard the way you do in other programs if you prefer.

Untransliteration engine.

Logos 4 Initial Impressions
Text Studies, Guides and Searching
Library and Resource Management, Conclusion

Logos 4 Initial Impressions

The new Logos 4 is an extraordinary departure from the Libronix Digital Library System’s Logos 3.x. It’s hard to know where to begin. Since I blog in my spare time, there’s no way I can do a thorough analysis. I’ll focus instead on the big questions that will be on the mind of most exegetical users: How does it work for exegetical studies, and do I want to upgrade?

By the way, if you would like a less focused overview of the by someone who ran it longer than I did, I would suggest this blog.

Bear in mind that one issue I’ll have with answering those questions is that I’ve really only had one week to really test the system. Though Logos HQ graciously allowed me into the private, super-secret, NDA-bearing beta testing group, I joined late, and the initial slowness and various operational issues of the early beta releases were too much when combined with the fact that I was also using the install in a virtualized PC environment running on my early-2008 Mac Book. For the first two weeks I had display driver issues that made it impossible to use. Some searching in the private beta forums helped me to resolve the issue, but that took time. And when I had solved that issue, running the software inside the virtual machine was still too inefficient to be useful to me in regular studies. A few automatic updates later, however, I finally had what was essentially the release candidate, and that ran just fine. It’s just that I really only had it for a week prior to the release date, so I am still learning on a system that didn’t even have help files until very recently.

That said, I will start by saying that the new software is quite cool. The interface has been completely reimagined. Is that a good thing? I’m going to have to give that one a yes overall, even though I have some reservations. More on my reservations later.

The menu system is quite nice. It has been changed to a kind of hybrid between traditional menu bars and the new MS Office ribbons. There are but three main tabs and three main menus on the main screen.

Screen shot of the new Logos 4 menu bar.

Very efficient use of space with a clear classification system for the different sets of commands, as you can see. Well done.

The three buttons on the right are:

• The Home button. The home page has been completely reimagined into a huge news feed full of Logos blog posts, pre-pub announcements and interesting tidbits from books in your own library.
• The Library button. This has been so extensively enhanced that you’re going to want a better look at it.
• The Search button. This calls up a search window that combines the capabilities of Basic, Bible, Morphological and Syntax searches all into a single pane that does not require a separate dialog box to use.

Most of everything else you’re used to finding in Logos 3 you’ll find in the three menu buttons just to the right of the Home, Library and Search button, which are labeled File, Guides and Tools. One major exception as far as my personal workflow is concerned is that there is no place under any of these for Workspaces. The functionality of Workspaces in Logos 3 has been replaced by a new approach to remembering desktop arrangements. The new system, called Layouts, is more tightly integrated into Logos’ regular automation.

Screen shot of the Layouts menu.

The only problem with the Layouts menu was that it was so automatic that I didn’t know what to do with it at first! It’s hard for me to trust something when I don’t have to click anything or press any buttons to make it work. But from the very start, the Layouts button proved its worth over the old system. You can make “workspaces” just like you used to, but the system is also taking snapshots of your workspace over time, and you can return to previous layouts just by looking through these snapshots. Saving a workspace that you like is simply a matter of giving a name to one of the snapshots. So far, it’s worked like a charm.

Look in the lower left of the Layouts menu and you’ll see that there are also a number of default layouts that can be applied to the resources that are open. I think you’ll be pleased with the whole arrangement (no pun intended). What used to be an optional Power Tool, the Stacked Window Tabs, has become an integral part of desktop arrangements and has been significantly enhanced. Each pane on the screen can have multiple books stacked up within it with tabs along the top. When you grab a border between panes, you’re moving the border of all the books at once. It keeps things neat and simple. At any time, you can also grab a particular resource or pane and “float it.” That means that you are removing it from the arrangement and sticking it in a wholly independent window that behaves as a whole other program within Windows, allowing you to Alt+Tab to it, minimize it or move it to another monitor. Good thinking, Logos.

Logos 4 Initial Impressions
Text Studies, Guides and Searching
Library and Resource Management, Conclusion

And Submit

And Submit (click to view/download originally published pdf file)

Ephesians 5:21-6:4

²¹Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.

²²Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. ²³For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. ²⁴Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.

²⁵Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her ²⁶to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, ²⁷and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. ²⁸In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. ²⁹After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church— ³⁰for we are members of his body. ³¹“For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” ³²This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. ³³However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.

¹Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. ²“Honor your father and mother”—which is the first commandment with a promise— ³“that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth.” ⁴Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.

That’s quite a text. It’s long, yes, but that’s not what I mean. I was referring to that one part that people often balk at. I’m referring to the part that, when I read it in wedding ceremonies, causes people to roll their eyes and even to snicker. I’m referring to the line, “Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord.”

This text is long for a reason. It’s long because that one line is not its main feature, despite how much attention it gets. The original Greek presents this submission as a very natural, very flowing application of a broader encouragement, one that applies not only to wives, but to all Christians everywhere. What is that broader encouragement? “Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.” I repeat: That’s for everyone, not just for wives. “Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.”

Submit. That’s what the Spirit of God has to say to the children of God this morning. Submit. All of you. In your minds, arrange yourself under others, subservient to others. Submit.

That submission is an essential part of being a Christian. In fact, that submission is just the last part of a long list of things that Christians who are filled with the Spirit will want to do. Verse 18 says, “Be filled with the Spirit.” Then Paul lists activities that would be connected with being full of that Spirit: “Speak[ing] to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual song,” “Sing[ing] and mak[ing] music in your heart to the Lord,” and “giving thanks to God the Father for everything.” AND, of course, “Submit[ting] to one another out of reverence for Christ.”

Be filled with the Spirit, talking to one another in worship songs, singing and making music in your heart to God, giving thanks to God for everything and submitting to one another. We need to get used to tagging that on to the end of our list of things that Christians should typically be doing, just like the Spirit inspired Paul to add it. No matter what others things we might say Christians should be doing, this should be part of the list.

So, do you think Christians should praise God more? Me, too! They should praise God And Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. Are you concerned, perhaps, that Christians aren’t serving the community enough? Fine. Me, too. I think they should serve the community more and submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. Pray more? Yes. And submit. Praise, serve, pray and submit. I think you’re getting the picture, right?

When you start thinking like that, thinking of submitting as being as much a part of the Christian’s life as singing praises to God and giving thanks, then nothing in this section will sound odd to you. Then you will be thinking of submitting in exactly the same way that the Apostle Paul did when he added submitting as one of the things that Spirit-filled Christians will do. Then when you read, “Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord,” that won’t sound any stranger than “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.” And you won’t be surprised to see submission to one another in “However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.” That is submission, too.

“Of course!” you will think. “Every Christian will submit to the needs of all others no matter what role they are in!” Therefore “Children, obey your parents in the Lord,” will make perfect sense when coupled with “Fathers, do not exasperate you children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.” “Of course!” you will think. “Once you understand that every Christian is called to do as Christ did, putting his own needs aside to serve others, submission easily becomes just as central as praise and worship, singing and giving thanks!”

And Christ himself is the key there, isn’t he? That’s especially true when you focus on what Paul said about the submission of the husband. The husband would rank number one in the family if we drew up ranks from these verses based on the pecking order of authority given to the individual roles, wouldn’t he? Children aren’t listed as having any authority but must obey their fathers and mothers. Wives, then, have authority over children, but not over their husbands, for it says, “wives should submit to their husbands in everything.”

But then look. In all those roles with all those levels of authority, which one of them is saddled with making the ultimate sacrifice? If you said the husband, you’re close, but you’re still not quite getting this. It’s a bit of a trick question.

Indeed the husband’s role is compared most intimately to that of Christ. But “saddled with sacrifice” is hardly the way to describe Christ’s mission. “Christ loved the church,” Ephesians says, and he “gave himself up for her.” “Gave himself up” is certainly an expression for sacrifice, but “saddled with it”? Christ loved the church! He would gladly and willingly give anything for her! It’s in his heart, in his nature! Remember what it says in Hebrews about Christ’s sacrifice? “…who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame” (Hebrews 12:2).

So how rightfully ashamed children should feel for being angry about “having” to obey their parents! God gave those parents and children know it. Feeling forced to obey them and ungrateful for all they provide is sitting in judgment on God!

How rightfully ashamed the wife should feel when she misconstrues the loving instruction of our Savior as some church law she has to obey or some arcane rule in need of overturning! Is Christ, who gave us these roles, dumb and arcane? Are you above Christ so that you can decide what principles of his are good for your life and happiness and which ones aren’t?

And, oh, how shocking and sad it is when a father abuses his position of authority either by beating or insulting his children into submission or by looking down upon his precious wife as a servant put there to obey his whims! Such a man does not know his Father in heaven.

There is no reverence for Christ in any of these attitudes. There is only selfishness and lust for power—selfishness and lust for power. This is not the heart of Christ in action, Christ who married himself to us when we were nothing but evil and filthy in his perfectly holy eyes. Looking at this bride and the evil she had brought upon herself, Christ “gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word… to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.”

That is our Savior. That is the Christ. That is a God who has at his very heart the desire to serve his people even when they deserve his scorn. He submitted himself to the death we deserve. Though he never ceased to be God and always retained the power to end his mission and leave us to our own eternal disaster, he left his Father and married himself to our race. That is love. That is our life!

And though it seems simple enough for me to say this and it is nothing that hasn’t been heard here before, please remember the price our loving Savior gladly and graciously paid so that I could say this to you, his bride: You are forgiven this day. Today you are cleansed and made knew in Jesus’ love and mercy. Hear it as though for the first time, bride of Christ! You are cleansed! You are holy! For the joy set before him, he has made you his own!

So rejoice! Speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs! Sing and make music in your hearts to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ!

And submit. Joyfully submit to one another now out of reverence for Christ, our bridegroom. Remember the love that was happy to make you whole and new at the cost of his own blood. Remember it as you partake of the body given and the blood shed. Remember and be forever changed, so that a new heart that beats with the very love of Christ may rise and go home from this sanctuary. Let a new heart that trusts in God to bless as we give of our very selves go into the world through those double-doors today!

The world will say we’re crazy. They may like to sing songs like we do, and they certainly wouldn’t mind hearing that they are cleared of all charges in heaven so that they can go on living for themselves with impunity. Their natural religiosity may even lead them to sing certain songs of praise.

But on top of all those things, you would add something they never would: “And submit. Submit to one another as Christ has submitted himself in love to us.” They will mock you, tell you that you need to grab all the power and pleasure for yourself that you can. But you have Christ. You have forgiveness. You have life. We will submit to one another gladly, for his sake, looking forward to the eternity of selfless, joyful love still ahead. Amen.

Pentecost 20      And Submit October 18, 2009

Pastor Aaron C. Frey    Ephesians 5:21—6:4

Hard Hearts Demand Miracles

Hard Hearts Demand Miracles

Exodus 7:8-13

⁸ The LORD said to Moses and Aaron, ⁹ “When Pharaoh says to you, ‘Perform a miracle,’ then say to Aaron, ‘Take your staff and throw it down before Pharaoh,’ and it will become a snake.”

¹⁰ So Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and did just as the LORD commanded. Aaron threw his staff down in front of Pharaoh and his officials, and it became a snake. ¹¹ Pharaoh then summoned wise men and sorcerers, and the Egyptian magicians also did the same things by their secret arts: ¹² Each one threw down his staff and it became a snake. But Aaron’s staff swallowed up their staffs. ¹³ Yet Pharaoh’s heart became hard and he would not listen to them, just as the LORD had said.

Plainly Jesus’ words in Capernaum were difficult for many people to swallow, but he would not back down from them. As you read through John 6, it’s kind of like watching one of those suspenseful movies where you know what’s about to happen and you just want to scream out, “Don’t do it! Don’t go into that room! Don’t open that door!” But, with John 6, instead of screaming about a trap to be avoided, we hear a quiet (but no less urgent) voice in our heads. It doesn’t scream because it feigns trying to be as polite as it can be to our Lord. Rather than scream in horror, it simply tries to offer God some gentle, nudging advice. “I know you’re God and all,” it says, “and that you know all things and that you are way smarter than I am, but in this case it seems possible that your people skills could benefit from a little work.”

Do you know what I’m talking about? With all those people who walked all that way to see Jesus, you’re thinking, “Would it really take that much to turn them into followers?” So you’re reading along and there’s that voice in the back of your mind saying, “I know these people are annoying you with they’re challenges and doubts, but could you possibly consider just doing one miracle for them? You made enough food to feed more than five thousand people yesterday. Would it be so bad just to give them a little sign, a little indication of your true identity, so that they can believe? I mean, they’re asking you for a sign! They’re willing to follow you if you can just show them a little bread!”

But you know what? They weren’t. I guarantee it. Their question did not come from faith or readiness to begin believing. In fact, I believe that’s the whole point of this story, as well as hundreds of others in Scripture. The point is that hearts of faith aren’t hearts that demand miracles and signs from God. Hard Hearts Demand Miracles and signs from God. Hearts of faith don’t.

Let that sink in for a minute: Hard hearts demand miracles. It goes against conventional wisdom because conventional wisdom does not understand the true nature of our hearts. You would think that a person who is willing to ask for a sign from God would be a person who has an open heart toward God. You’d think that they asked the question because they were willing to entertain the possibility of faith and were open to persuasion. But have you ever noticed how Jesus responded to demands for miracles? Twice in the gospel of Matthew, when Jesus was asked by the religious leaders of Israel for a miraculous sign, he called those who demanded such miracles “a wicked and adulterous generation” (Matthew 12:39; 16:4), and he refused to give them anything but a speech.

The same attitude is obviously at work here in Capernaum. The crowd that had been miraculously fed on the other side of the lake came into the synagogue at Capernaum demanding another sign. Jesus responded not by using the miraculous powers that were his in order to produce some more food for them, but rather by giving them a speech which we have been reading through for several weeks now—a speech that, as we’ve noted before, almost seems like it’s designed to drive them away!

Of course, “God, our Savior, wants all men to be saved and to come a knowledge of the truth,” (1 Timothy 2:3,4) so we know that Jesus’ words were not intended to get rid of anyone. To the contrary. He wanted to save them by bringing them to a knowledge of the truth. The truth is, however, that hard hearts are the ones that demand miracles, not hearts that believe or are eager to believe in the one, true God.

There’s an even simpler truth underlying this that makes it all pretty clear, and that is that you do not demand proof of something that you readily believe to be true. Get it? So, if you told me, for instance that a certain person was in a coma at the hospital but I had reason to believe that they were faking it as part of some elaborate insurance scam, I’d probably head down there and try poking their fingertips with a little needle or something to see if I could get a response.

On the other hand, if I was actually in a horrible accident with that person and saw them receive a massive trauma to their head, I would tend not to want proof that they were truly unconscious in that hospital bed. In fact, I would consider someone poking around at their fingertips rather disrespectful, even though I would be convinced that there would, in fact, be no response. The difference is whether or not I believe the coma is real.

Now what about miracles and signs? That’s where we turn to today’s First Lesson. That’s the actual text for today, not John 6. I just wanted you to see how common this theme is to various texts in Scripture, and how key it is to understanding what was really going on in the crowd we’ve been hearing about all this time.

But now to Exodus. Really, these few verses are a picture for how the whole Exodus from Egypt went. God performed miracle after miracle for Pharaoh, but it always seemed to take just a little more to convince him. Even when his heart was actually broken in two by the loss of his own firstborn child at the first Passover, he still ultimately hardened his heart and chased the Israelites down to the Red Sea in order to bring them back again as slaves!

Yet even a heart that hard still asks for proof, still asks for miracles. The Lord not only knows this as a general fact, but he specifically predicted it in Pharaoh’s case. He knew that Pharaoh’s hard heart would demand a miracle, even though he not only did not believe but also would not believe, no matter what miracle was ultimately performed in his presence. He told Moses this.

And before you think, “Well, his magicians were able to do the same thing with their staffs,” think again. Moses’ words describe these guys as Las-Vegas-style illusionists at best and practitioners of satanic arts at their worst. However, even the most gullible and deluded among them would know the difference between what Aaron did by the power of the Almighty God and what Pharaoh’s magicians did, because Aaron’s staff made a meal out of theirs! And don’t forget, either, that there were many miracles done during the days of the ten plagues in Egypt that even Pharaoh’s clever magicians couldn’t imitate.

Now, are we supposed to learn something from this other than what is wrong with the hearts of other people who are not interested in coming to hear God’s Word in church? We surely are, especially if we think that this illustrates something that is only wrong in other people’s hearts!

Consider, for instance, that voice that we so naturally hear as we read John 6, that voice that wants to give God advice, to tell God what he hasn’t yet tried that would surely turn more people to faith in him. We’ve all heard it in one form or another, and you need to realize that such a voice does not speak from the living heart of faith that God provides us through baptism and the hearing of the gospel. Such a voice come from the calloused, superstitious and faithless hearts of our old, sinful natures.

Not only does that voice that wants to correct God’s ways speak up when we read something like John 6, but it also speaks up whenever we become frustrated with the lack of growth that the church demonstrates—or when we are impressed with the growth that false teachers experience as they employ means other than the gospel to draw people in. A concern for the church that desires to do God’s work in ways other than those that God himself has ordained does not speak from the new heart of faith, no matter how much it clamors about the glory of God and the salvation of the lost! Will not God save his people, and will he not do it without being faithless toward his own Word?

Pay special heed to the voice of God revealed in his Word, brothers and sisters, for this is the only way to recognize the deceit of the hardened heart. The new life within you does not question God’s ways nor believe that any evil or faithless thing must be done in order to accomplish what is good. Repent today of faithless thoughts and considerations and demand not from God what he grants freely where and when it pleases him—especially when you know full well from his Word that what pleases him is your rich blessing and the salvation of everyone!

Here again the ministry and cross of Christ come to our rescue. In his life and death we see the depth of his love and the reach of his healing power—and that with no need of any help or advice from the like of us! Even more importantly, we see in his work here on earth and in the miracle of his resurrection our forgiveness, our new life and the very heart of our God who obviously desires to show love even to stubborn, weak and faithless people like us!

Leave empty and foolish demands behind. Our God knows our need and supplies our salvation for his name’s sake. Amen.

Pentecost 14     Hard Hearts Demand Miracles September 6, 2009

Pastor Aaron C. Frey    Exodus 7:8-13