Grace Evangelical-Lutheran: Jeremiah 23,16-29. 1. Sunday after Trinity

✠ One Message: Christ crucified and risen for you ✠

The Word of the Lord Endures Forever

Verbum Domini Manet in Aeternum

Jeremiah 23,16-29 3118

1. Sonntag nach Trinitatis 046

Caecilius, Pastor at Carthage 211.

Franz August Otto Pieper, Pastor and Theologian. ✠ 1931

3. Juni 2018

1. О Bountiful and Gracious God, how great and glorious You are, make us rich in our soul and give us a Godly heart, so that we may live as the new creation Christ our Lord has made us to be. Amen. (Starck 118)

2. »Thus says the Lord of hosts: „Do not listen to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you, filling you with vain hopes. They speak visions of their own minds, not from the mouth of the Lord. They say continually to those who despise the word of the Lord: „It shall be well with you“; and to everyone who stubbornly follows his own heart, they say: „No disaster will come upon you.“ For who among them has stood in the council of the Lord to see and to hear His Word, or who has paid attention to His Word and listened? Behold, the storm of the Lord! Wrath has gone forth, a whirling tempest; it will burst upon the head of the wicked. The anger of the Lord will not turn back until He has executed and accomplished the intents of His heart. In the latter days you will understand it clearly. I did not send the prophets, yet they ran; I did not speak to them, yet they prophesied. But if they had stood in My council, then they would have proclaimed My words to My people, and they would have turned them from their evil way, and from the evil of their deeds. Am I a God at hand, and not a God far away? Can a man hide himself in secret places so that I cannot see him? Do I not fill heaven and earth? I have heard what the prophets have said who prophesy lies in My Name, saying: „I have dreamed, I have dreamed!“ How long shall there be lies in the heart of the prophets who prophesy lies, and who prophesy the deceit of their own heart, who think to make My people forget My Name by their dreams that they tell one another, even as their fathers forgot My Name for Baal? Let the prophet who has a dream tell the dream, but let him who has My Word speak My Word faithfully. What has straw in common with wheat? Is not My Word like fire, and like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces?“«

3. Everyone boasts in proclaiming the Word of the Lord. Everyone claims to be speaking the truth. But not everyone who claims to speak for the Lord, in fact, does. In Moses’ day, his own brother, Aaron, made a golden calf to represent the gods who brought them out of Egypt (Exodus 32, 1-4). In Jeremiah’s day, false prophets said all would be well for Judah, but Jeremiah spoke for the Lord who said those false prophets are like their ancestors who forgot the Name of the Lord and instead remembered him as the golden bull Baal that Aaron had made for them. In the days the apostles, Christians claiming to speak for James, the bishop (leader) of the Jerusalem church, said the Gentile Christians must be circumcised and follow the Mosaic dietary laws. 100 years later, Marcion rejected the Old Testament and declared the God of Israel to be an angry and wrathful God, but he taught an edited New Testament of Luke’s Gospel and 10 of Paul’s Epistles were the true scriptures that proclaimed God to be a loving and forgiving God. Those who speak for God have always contended against the false prophets.

4. Nothing has changed within the Church of the 21. century. False teachers rise up and seek to proclaim a false gospel. The Lord’s words to the false prophets in Jeremiah’s day apply to the false teachers in our day: »They speak visions of their own minds, from the mouth of the Lord. They continually say to those who despise the word of the Lord: „It shall be well with you“; and to everyone who stubbornly follows his own heart, they say: „No disaster will befall you.“« Our sinful human nature does not want to hear the law accusing us of sin and wickedness. Our flesh would prefer to hear the sweet words that all is well. The false gospel of „Jesus plus something we do“ makes sense to our corrupted minds; surely I must add something to this gospel to earn it and be blessed by it; nothing in life is free, so neither is the gospel. Thus goes the argument of the false teachers. The Apostle Paul deals with some false teachers in his Epistle to the Galatians.

5. „The preachers of another gospel did not come straight out against Christ. The Apostle Paul says, “Watch out—they are not straight-forward.” He gives some clues to help us recognize what is going on. “They make much of you”—persuasive talkers. What are they working you toward? They may indeed say lots of nice things in praise of Christ. Then comes the hook: “Oh, how I love Jesus, oh, how I love Jesus.” Then if you want to make sure of Christ, there is something you better see you to, you better work on. Christ plus something more. That “something more” that is added to Christ is clearly from people. This is quite clear when it is referenced to humans, evidenced by humans. The history of the church tells of the unapostolic succession of things added to Christ as “Christ clinchers,” evidences that can show that Christ really works. What is it you look for it to make Christ for sure? The preachers of another gospel in the churches of Galatia were thumping circumcision. Christ is great. We don’t deny all the good things that Paul has been telling you about Him, but if you want to be sure it is okay with you before God, you jolly well better be circumcised, for that is undoubtedly commanded by God. So they had God and His Law on their side—it is in the Bible. The preachers nowadays who preach another gospel, what are they thumping as additions to Christ to make sure that it is okay with you before God? If He is blessing you, why is that? If you want to be sure of God’s blessings, what is it you had better be doing? Are you tithing? Are you happy? Here is how to make it happen with Jesus“ (Nagel 159-160).

6. So the televangelists’ promise: „Send in your love offering and God will bless you“ brings a comfort to our itching ears. Or: „If you support the nation of Israel, then God will look favorably upon you.“ They even quote the Bible with that one: »Abraham, I the Lord, will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed« (Genesis 12,2-3). You don’t want God’s curse do you? Then you better support Israel without question or criticism so you are guaranteed of His blessing on your life.

7. That’s how the false prophets of Jeremiah’s day argued. God won’t curse us; we are the descendants of Abraham. He must bless us; He promised to do so. They reasoned: yes, we have a problem with idols and we hold Baal in high esteem along with the Lord, but He isn’t going to punish us. He isn’t going to actually curse us. All will be well. Except God was indeed going to curse Israel for their long-standing sin of idolatry that had persisted generation after generation. Israel had ceased to be Israel for they had forsaken the God of their father Abraham.

8. The nation of Israel today is not the Israel of Jeremiah’s day and it is not the Israel of Jesus’ day. In 2018, all Israel has is the land, but they do not have possession Mt. Zion, they do not have the temple and the covenant of Sinai is no longer valid as they have no sacrifices. If God is blessing Israel today, then He is not doing a very good job of it: they have no temple, no priests and no forgiveness as mandated through Moses at Sinai. The promise of false teachers of certainty and blessing by Christ plus something more is always bad news.

9. „Faith plus obedience is not faith alone. It is not Christ alone. The Apostle Paul makes it clear that another gospel is not the gospel at all. And what is not the gospel is then clearly recognizable as the law. And if that is how you want it with God, there is no bad news worse than that“ (Nagel 160).

10. Certainty and blessing are grounded upon Christ alone. Jesus is the True Israel blessed by His Father; He is the Faithful Israel who kept the law in its most minute detail for us. Our certainty is grounded upon Christ. At one point in His ministry Jesus asked His apostles: who do you say that I am? Simon Peter answering for all the apostles in unison said to Jesus: You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God. Jesus’ response to that confession was: »Blessed are you Simon Peter! Flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven has revealed this to you« (Matthew 16,15-17). This is the confession of the new testament which fulfills and has replaced the Old Testament.

11. The gospel is: we are blessed on account of Christ. We don’t need to add anything to Christ to get His blessing, for He gives us His blessing in full by grace through faith. „We were baptized into Christ. Christ has set us free. Stand fast, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery“ (Nagel 160). Rejoice in the gospel. Amen.

12. Let us pray. O Lord Jesus Christ, Your testimonies are righteous forever; keep safe and pure among us the pure gospel, so that we may the assurance of eternal life. 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, 4^th Edition © 1990 by the Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart, and the Novum Testamentum Graece, Nestle-Aland 27^th 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.

Grace Evangelical-Lutheran

Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church

Saturday, June 9, 2018

Jeremiah 23,16-29. 1. Sunday after Trinity

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