✠ One Message: Christ crucified and risen for you ✠
The Word of the Lord Endures Forever
Verbum Domini Manet in Aeternum
2. Peter 3,3-14 5516
Drittlezter Sonntag des Kirchenjahres 070
25. Trinitatis
Leonhard, hermit, ✠ 559
Gustavus Adolphus, King of Sweden Confessor ✠ 1632
6. November 2016
1. О Lord God, Heavenly Father, we most heartily thank You that by Your Word You have brought us out of the darkness of Papacy into the light of Your grace: We beseech Your, mercifully help us to walk in that light, guard us from all error and false doctrine and grant that we may not, as the Jews, become ungrateful and despise and persecute Your Word, but receive it with all our heart, govern our lives according to it and put all our trust in Your grace through the merit of Your dear Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, One True God, world without end. Amen. (Veit Dietrich for 25. Sn. n. Trinitatis).
2. First of all you must know that scoffers will arrive in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires. They will say: „Where is the promise of Jesus’ arrival? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation.“ For they deliberately overlook this fact, that the heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God, and that by means of these the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished. But by the same word the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly. But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slow to fulfill His promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. But the day of the Lord will arrive like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed. Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the advent of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn! But according to His promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. Therefore, beloved, since you are waiting for these, be diligent to be found by Him without spot or blemish, and at peace.
3. Depending who you ask, some think 8. November will be the end for America and speak of it in apocalyptic, end of the world language. This year’s election seems to have filled more people with dread, and the political vitriolic is especially course this election cycle. Politicians with high unlikeable numbers, the threat of more warfare in the Middle East, increasing terrorist actions and natural catastrophes further fuel mankind’s uncertainty about the future and longing for the return of Jesus.
4. Some scoff: „Where is Jesus? He promised to return; it’s been nearly 2000 years … perhaps He’s forgotten.“ Fallen human nature is impatient; with all our instantaneous access to news, information and other TV programming, our attention spans are even shorter. Now the 3 minute commercial break on TV shows or broadcast sports seems too long; we want the story and the game to continue now. At the heart of scoffing is unbelief: did Jesus really say He would return? If He did, then does His delay imply He is powerless to fulfill His promise? If He didn’t, then were words put into Jesus’ mouth and passed on as truth? The unbelieving scoffer would settle for either approach for it creates doubt as to Jesus’ truthfulness and power. Furthermore, it underlies the scoffer’s opinion of Christians: they are just fools to believe in Jesus.
5. Others offer false promises of Christ’s return. We average a prediction of Christ’s return once every eight years, and they tend to be bizarre and convoluted theories that often prove the scoffer’s mockery that Christians are fools. Often end-time preachers pick a specific date or astronomical event for Christ’s return, and they are always wrong. Jesus teaches differently. »If anyone says to you: ‘Behold, here is the Christ!’ or ‘There He is!’, then do not believe them. For false christs and false prophets will arise and perform great signs and wonders, so as to lead people astray, if possible, even the elect. For concerning the last day no one knows that day and hour, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father« (Matthew 24,23-24.36).
6. The apostles also teach that the return of Jesus is the end of the world. »The day of the Lord will arrive like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth will burn. But according to His promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.« Just as the Flood in Noah’s day cleansed the earth of sinful men through water, so will the Fire in the last day purge the earth of sin and its curse.
7. The prophets and the apostles tell us that before the world is purged, we ourselves are purged and refined in sanctification. »I will put them into the fire, and refine them as one refines silver, and purify them as gold is tested. They will call upon My Name, and I will answer them. I will say: They are My people; and they will say: The Lord is our God« (Zechariah 13,9). »In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith that is more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire may be found to result in praise, glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ« (1. Peter 1,6-7). Our Liturgy contains numerous rites where we are purged and refined by the Holy Spirit. In the Litany we pray: O God, From all sin, from all error, from all evil; from the crafts and assaults of the devil; from sudden and evil death; Good Lord, deliver us (LSB 288). In our prepatory rite of Confession and Absolution we acknowledge: I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord, and You forgave the iniquity of my sin (Psalm 32,5; LSB 184).
8. We long for the return of Christ Jesus, for we are wearied and burdened by false christs who promise salvation, by false prophets who offer false hope and law burdens disguised as gospel, by those who wear us down with their incessant dating of Christ’s return, by those who persecute our Christian brothers and sisters around the world, by those who ridicule and defame Christians in our society and by the cares and duties of this fallen world that weigh us down as if a millstone were hung around our necks. The pure gospel of the crucified and risen Christ soothes burdened consciences. Every generation sees its share of tribulations that threaten to overwhelm the Church. The gospel brings us this blessed assurance (seligste Versicherung): Fear not, dear Christians, fear not, for we are saved by Christ alone (solus Christus) and no one and no thing can snatch us out of Christ’s redeeming hands: not our sins, not false teachers, not the tribulations of the world and not even the devil himself. We are free; we are forgiven; we belong to Jesus. His vicarious and substitutionary death solves our real, deadly problem: (which is our) sin. There is now full and complete peace between God the Father and us. We are righteous and justified on account of Christ’s merits which have now been credited to us. This is the doctrine of justification that Christ Jesus established for you and your salvation. Let the world and the devil press against us with tribulations, doubts and despair! Our faith is purified in testing; our sins are purged away with the absolution. We have Christ, and He has rescued us from the fallen world and the hordes of devils that surround us. Christ is our Victor and Deliverer. Amen and Amen.
9. Let us pray. O Christ Jesus, whose Divine Fire purifies the world, we give thanks to You, for Your Name is near, and You proclaim forgiveness and salvation so that we can faithfully live in Your Glory unto Your second advent. Amen.
To God alone be the Glory
Soli Deo Gloria
✠
All Scriptural quotations are translations done by The Rev. Peter A. Bauernfeind using the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia, 4th Edition © 1990 by the Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart, and the Novum Testamentum Graece, Nestle-Aland 27th Edition © 1993 by Deutsch Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart.
All quotations from the Book of Concord are translations done by The Rev. Peter A. Bauernfeind using Die Bekenntnisschriften der evangelisch-lutherischen Kirche, 12. Edition © 1998 by Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.
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