ICHABOD, THE GLORY HAS DEPARTED - explores the Age of Apostasy, predicted in 2 Thessalonians 2:3, to attack Objective Faithless Justification, Church Growth Clowns, and their ringmasters. The antidote to these poisons is trusting the efficacious Word in the Means of Grace. John 16:8. Isaiah 55:8ff. Romans 10. Most readers are WELS, LCMS, ELS, or ELCA. This blog also covers the Roman Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodoxy, and the Left-wing, National Council of Churches denominations.
Clergy adultery is not a sin: it's a hobby. Addressing the issue is a sin.
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Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Clergy Adultery Is Not a Victimless Crime":
Mr. Jackson,
You wrote: "No, I did not write this. No, my buddies did not write this. I do not know who wrote it, but I thought it sounded authentic."
You don't know who wrote it and you only "thought" it sounded authentic? But you still printed it anyway? I can now understand why people think you are always breaking the Eighth Commandment. Is this why you're not a pastor anymore?
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GJ - And there's more. See what I mean? This guy must be on disability or collecting a salary for no work done:
Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "See What I Mean?":
A pastor is one who has a call to serve a congregation. Even the Augsburg Confession says so. Who issued your call? Your wife? You can call yourself a "Rev." or even a "Dr.", but not a "Pastor."
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GJ - I suspect he was weaned on a pickle, potty-trained at gunpoint.
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GJ - I do not know who wrote this particular rant, so I suppose by posting it I am again violating the 8th. I heard this so often in WELS that anything said in our house was followed by shouts of "Eighth Commandment!"
"You didn't take out the garbage."
"Eighth Commandment!"
I am a pastor, and I teach students to identify logical fallacies like the double question above: "Is this why you're not a pastor anymore?"
Note the Mr. Jackson sarcasm, etc. Poor fellow. No matter how many stinkbombs he throws, the clergy adultery situation remains the same. I could list the well known cases, like Fred Adrian's congregation losing a $400,000 lawsuit due to vicar adultery. The lawyers for WELS even listed many cases of abuse, and I have that list from the victim's lawyer. During the trial they knew of no cases at all, but the judge thought otherwise when presented with some facts provided by a former WELS pastor. The judge ordered WELS to tell the truth.
Court cases are another symptom of the problem. When the synod leaders cover up and deceive people, lawyers have a chance to make a killing.
Clergy adultery and the WELS-ELS coverup attempts are the reason I am no longer a WELS pastor.
Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Another Obama Mentor: Frank Marshall Davis, Commun...":
Dear Pastor Jackson,
I am in a hotel room tonight. Bad thoughts revolve in my mind. I am broken and dismayed. I read these posts on this blog and wonder why.
I recently had an employee walk into my office. She shared with me her affair with her WELS pastor. It was hard to take the news. I was disappointed but maybe for not the reason you think. I confronted my employee about the seriousness of the situation. She said I could do nothing as her pastor and she had agreed not to pursue a relationship. I asked her how her husband who is the chairman of the school would feel at the next council meeting knowing her (sic) wife slept with her pastor. Again, my friend said I could do nothing. A mistake and nothing more. I confronted the pastor. He too said it was between her and him. How could he go to the meetings with her husband there, I asked?
I work in a WELS ministry. I am broken. 20 years ago a trusted vicar and I thought a friend had an affair with my wife. He got her pregnant. I took my lumps and moved on. I am still married. The vicar now a pastor.
I don't always agree with Pastor Jackson and his views on this site. I also know that this site is viewed more often than it is admitted.
To my pastor, I hope you understand why I now haven't been to church for 8 weeks. The memories are hard again. Maybe you might understand a little more now why I expect more of my pastor than others. I am sorry if I pressed to (sic) hard on you or your associate.
To my employee who now left, go in peace. To the pastor who had an affair with my wife, I hope I can forget you once again with this memory renewed by a different pastor.
I sit in my hotel room tonight and wonder. I think of my failings. I think of my daughter and my wife. I think of ending it. But I will not. I will press on. I wonder if those pastors on my board, if they really knew of the pastoral pain caused on me would look different upon me if they really knew my story. They are kind and supportive but I also guard myself against them. I don't want to be hurt again. Maybe it is time for me to move on in my work. Maybe it is time for a new church although I know they have all the same faults.
So I guess I will go back...and listen again to the Word...but when he preaches on the 6th I will look at him...and try my best to make it through...if my pastor only knew.
This will be my last post on this blog. To all of you who seek to reach out with the word of God and save souls for Jesus, God be with you. For those of you who whine about members lack of support or help or criticism of you not getting your work done, well maybe it's time to look deeply into your members (sic) eyes. Maybe, just maybe, you have no idea of the pain they have because of no less, the church.
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A WELS Pastor has left a new comment on your post "Another Obama Mentor: Frank Marshall Davis, Commun...":
This note has got to be a fake....If this person was (sic - contrary to fact, at least in the writer's mind) involved in WELS ministry, he would know exactly who (sic) to take this to, and this pastor would no longer be in the ministry...This is a fake that you or one of your buddies put on here in order to lambast the WELS again! Sorry, Greg, but I simply don't believe your commenter!
[GJ - Proofreading indicates that both authors are WELS-trained.]
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GJ - I am posting this in the hopes it will convince synodical leaders that covering up for adulterous pastors is sinful, wrong, unethical, and damaging to far more people than anyone suspects.
I see that someone has already posted the allegation that I or one of my buddies made this up. The slander-machine is set on high volume today: slandering in the name of citing the 8th Commandment. No, I did not write this. No, my buddies did not write this. I do not know who wrote it, but I thought it sounded authentic. I have seen similar accounts of husbands damaged by adulterous clergy.
When I tried to raise this issue in Columbus, Wally Oelhaven accused me of "taking cheap shots" at the three divorced pastors (three out of six) in the area. I thought adultery and husband of one wife were topics addressed in the pastoral epistles. I must have been wrong. The cover-up artists, who had to deceive a lot of people, painted themselves as compassionate and evangelical. They were evan-jellyfish, apparently soft but really poisonous and dangerous.
Long ago an LCA district president pointed out how dangerous pastoral counseling could be. Vulnerable women can look for confirmation of their worth and flatter a minister at the same time. No other professional can knock on a door without an appointment and expect to be welcomed. That can be very useful or extremely dangerous. The pastoral epistles discuss these dangers. False doctrine and adulterous behavior go together. Adulterating the Word makes it easier to adulterate the marriage vows.
Covering up for clergy adultery has been especially damaging to the Christian Church. The laity know of many clergy who have had affairs, divorced, married their mistresses, and stayed in the ministry, sometimes after leaving briefly to sell frozen food or repair furnaces. Some adulterers get promoted immediately when caught, if they have the correct false doctrine. One Michigan District VP had his affair covered up by his buddy the District Pope. When the affair was uncovered, the VP became a WELS nursing home administrator. A member of the VP's congregation ceased his plans for becoming a pastor. He was disgusted by the affair, the coverup, and the promotion. Multiply that a few hundred times over and the results are not church growth.
Contrary to what A WELS Pastor said, it is usually hopeless to go to anyone in authority in WELS. That may change, but it will take a long time. The first loyalty is to seminary classmates, not to the Scriptures. Secondly, Holy Mother WELS must be protected. Thirdly, no one is allowed to disagree with the District Pope. Trying to get past that thicket of corruption, arrogance, and deception is a chore. The ELS is exactly the same. Bethany Seminary president spoke in his class against discussing these issues becase "it hurts the face of the church." Image first - families be damned. That can only come from the Little Sect on the Prairie, whose buildings were all funded by a man who divorced to marry the wife of his manager. She divorced, became a Lutheran, and went back to Rome when St. Marvin of Schwan died. Money can convert someone to the Lutheran cause, as she proved.
I offer as Exhibit A for the defense -
Floyd Luther Stolzenburg is still serving as a Lutheran pastor in Columbus, Ohio. His LCMS District President forced him to resign "for cause" on a Saturday and preached as Floyd's replacement on Sunday. Floyd followed his ex-wife to Columbus and settled into St. Paul's (faux-WELS at the time, now a member of WELS). Soon he got a wealthy member to fund an organization to make him a faux-pastor. Wally Oelhaven told me, more than once, "The plan was to move Floyd into the WELS ministry after five years." DP Robert Mueller and VP Paul Kuske set up the organization. After Floyd had caused enough trouble through LPR, and remarried, VP Kuske recommended him for a parish, Emmanuel, which had left the ALC. Another WELS pastor also recommended Floyd. Both WELS men wrote letters in favor of Floyd. His old LCMS DP did not. Note Ichabodians that Floyd never joined WELS, never went through colloquy, and swore he would never be WELS. Yet WELS lined up to flatter him into this clergy position. The initial contract was for one year, which Floyd neglected to tell Kuske and Mueller. Then the job was extended.
Roger Kovaciny helped raise money for Thoughts of Faith through Floyd's church, which had an embezzlement scandal. ELS Pastor Jay Webber had no problem with Kovo working through Floyd. ELS Pastor (now ELCA) John Shep had no problem with this lucrative arrangement. People challenged Shep about this, so his response was to slander me. Funny - he praised me to one supporter of Thoughts of Faith while attacking me when writing to another person. When the attack email was quoted to him by the supporter, he refused to answer. That is how to make the big bucks in the ELS.
Floyd had nothing but support from the entire Michigan ministerium and especially from the Columbus clergy. And yes, I went to all the authorities, whose response was to take action - against me. They did me a favor in their spite and vindictiveness. And now I can post so others can have a hearing.
Kevin Leman, a fine Christian writer, has this interesting take on adultery - it never turns out well. Clergy should stop romanticizing an utterly destructive sin.
On a positive note, there are some new WELS leaders who can make a difference if they have the support of faithful members. There are plenty of unrepentant laity who will always support false teachers among the clergy. The faithful pastors and leaders need support too.
Will The Keys to Your Church Belong to The Episcopal Church in 2009?
News Analysis
By David W. Virtue
www.virtueonline.org
10/8/2009
If Katharine Jefferts Schori and her attorney David Booth Beers have their way a resolution will be put on the table at GC 2009 forcing all parishes to reconstitute their legal titles to reflect irrevocable trusts with their respective bishops as beneficiaries, and by extension, The Episcopal Church, VOL has learned.
According to a canon lawyer and bishop, the Dennis Canon does not currently (nor can it) require a reconstitution of deeds and local church titles. However, there MIGHT be a move to amend the canons to make new requirements. "It does appear that massive amendments on a number of issues is in the wind," he told VOL.
Although the Episcopal Church does not have a corporate identity beyond New York State, remaining orthodox' bishops will be hamstrung, unable to exercise their ecclesiastical prerogative regarding negotiating settlements with any parish wishing to realign.
Such an outcome will render any notion of "tolerance" within TEC the Big Lie.
In a comment during debate on resolutions, South Dakota Diocesan Chancellor Steve Sanford mentioned that he had spoken with Episcopal Church Attorney Beers about this issue. Beers replied that they would deal with this "exposure".
Beers apparently told the Chancellor that lawsuit problems would decrease in the future because TEC would deal with "the exposure issue."
TEC leaders are hoping GC2009 will give TEC the keys to your church. This makes it almost certain that there will be some new legislation for the 2009 General Convention.
Is this the springtime for Mrs. Jefferts Schori and David Booth Beers?
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Obama didn't write 'Dreams from My Father'
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Posted: October 13, 2008
1:00 am Eastern
Jack Cashill
The emergence of a previously unseen writing sample proves all but conclusively that Barack Obama did not in any meaningful way write "Dreams from My Father," the book Time Magazine has called "the best-written memoir ever produced by an American politician."
The emergence of a second writing sample, this one by a legitimate author, provides convincing evidence as to who did.
In 1990, the University of Illinois at Springfield published a collection of essays called "After Alinsky: Community Organizing in Illinois." Obama contributed a chapter, titled: "Why Organize? Problems and Promise in the Inner City."
The year 1990, by the way, was when Obama, the newly elected president of the Harvard Law Review, received a six-figure advance from Simon & Schuster to write what would become "Dreams from My Father."
The publishers must not have read "Why Organize?" Although the essay covers many of the issues raised in "Dreams" and uses some of the memoir's techniques, it does so without a hint of style, sophistication or promise.
Indeed, the essay is clunky, pedestrian and wonkish – a B- paper in a freshman comp class. The following two excerpts capture Obama's range, or lack thereof:
Moreover, such approaches can and have become thinly veiled excuses for cutting back on social programs, which are anathema to a conservative agenda.
But organizing the black community faces enormous problems as well … and the urban landscape is littered with the skeletons of previous efforts.
These cliché-choked sentences go beyond the merely unpromising to the fully ungrammatical. "Organizing" does not "face." "Efforts" do not leave "skeletons." "Agendas" do not have "anathemas."
In "Why Organize?" Obama makes use of the fully recreated conversation, a technique used to somewhat better effect in "Dreams." Here, his ungainly conjuring of black speech makes one cringe:
"I just cannot understand why a bright young man like you would go to college, get that degree and become a community organizer."
"Why's that?"
"'Cause the pay is low, the hours is long, and don't nobody appreciate you."
Obama asks us to believe that five years later, without any additional training, he was capable of writing passages like the following from "Dreams":
Winter came and the city turned monochrome-black trees against gray sky above white earth. Night now fell in midafternoon, especially when the snowstorms rolled in, boundless prairie storms that set the sky close to the ground, the city lights reflected against the clouds.
To read "Why Organize?" in its entirety is to understand the fraud that is Obama, the literary genius. As the reader will see, one does not need forensic software to sense the limits of Obama's skills.
Allow me to reconstruct how Obama transformed himself in a few short years from an awkward amateur into what the New York Times has called "that rare politician who can write … and write movingly and genuinely about himself."
There is an element of speculation in this reconstruction, but new evidence continues to narrow the gap between the speculative and the conclusive.
One clue comes from an unexpected source: Rashid Khalidi, the radical Arab-American friend of Obama's and reputed ally of the Palestinian Liberation Organization.
In the acknowledgment section of his 2004 book, "Resurrecting Empire," Khalidi pays tribute to his own literary muse, the man who has made "unrepentant" a household word, Bill Ayers.
Writes Khalidi, "Bill was particularly generous in letting me use his family's dining room table to do some writing for the project." Khalidi did not need the table. He had one of his own. He needed the help.
Khalidi had spent several years at Chicago University's Center for International Studies. At a 2003 farewell dinner on the occasion of his departure from Chicago, Obama toasted him, thanking him and his wife for the many dinners they had shared as well as for his "consistent reminders to me of my own blind spots and my own biases."
Chicago's Hyde Park was home to a tight, influential radical community at whose center was the charismatic Bill Ayers and his wife, Bernadine Dohrn. In this world, the Ayers' terrorist rap sheet only heightened their reputation. Obama had to know.
The couple had given up revolution in 1980 for the long, slow march through the institutions. By 1994, if not earlier, Ayers saw a way to quicken that march.
(Column continues below)
I believe that after failing to finish his book on time, and after forfeiting his advance from Simon & Schuster, Obama brought his sprawling, messy, sophomoric manuscript to the famed dining room table of Bill Ayers and said, "Help."
With all due respect to Sarah Palin, Obama likely saw Ayers and Dohrn less as "pals" and more as parents. Dohrn and Obama's mother, Ann Dunham, were born the same year, 1942.
In fact, as young women, the two looked enough alike that I had to double check before disproving that a photo floating around the Internet of Dohrn with Ayers was not a photo of Dunham with Ayers.
As to Ayers, envision him as the seafaring Odysseus to Obama's father-hungry Telemachus. By Obama's own admission, "Dreams" would become "a record of a personal, interior journey – a boy's search for his father."
The question is often asked why Obama associated with Ayers. The more appropriate question is why the powerful Ayers would associate with the then-obscure Obama.
Before Obama's ascendancy, it was Ayers who had the connections, the clout and the street cred. Ayers could also write, and write very well. By the mid-1990s he had several books published.
My suspicion is that Ayers saw the potential in Obama, and he chose to mold it. The calculation in "Dreams" is palpable. Nothing about the book would deny a black Democrat the White House. And if "Dreams" were beautifully written, it could launch a career.
As I have documented earlier, one thread that ties Ayers to "Dreams" is the repeated use of maritime metaphors throughout both books, a testament to Ayers' anxious year as a merchant seaman.
There is, however, a deeper thread, namely a shared postmodernist perspective. A serious student of literature, Ayers has written thoughtfully on the role of the first person narrator in the construction of a memoir.
In true postmodernist fashion, Ayers rejects the possibility of an objective, universal truth. He argues instead that our lives are journeys with "narratives" we "construct" and, if we have the will and the power, impose on others.
Thus, "Fugitive Days" is laced with repeated reference to what Ayers calls "our constructed reality." So, curiously, is "Dreams."
"But another part of me knew that what I was telling them was a lie," writes Obama, "something I'd constructed from the scraps of information I'd picked up from my mother."
The evidence strongly suggests that Ayers transformed the stumbling literalist of "Why Organize?" into the sophisticated postmodernist of "Dreams," and he did so not by tutoring Obama, but by rewriting his text.
Ayers' quotes that follow come from an essay of his, "Narrative Push/Narrative Pull." The Obama quotes come from "Dreams":
Ayers:
"The hallmark of writing in the first person is intimacy. … But in narrative the universal is revealed through the specific, the general through the particular, the essence through the unique, and necessity is revealed through contingency."
Obama:
"And so what was a more interior, intimate effort on my part, to understand this struggle and to find my place in it, has converged with a broader public debate, a debate in which I am professionally engaged … "
Ayers:
"Narrative begins with something to say – content precedes form."
Obama:
"I understood that I had spent much of my life trying to rewrite these stories, plugging up holes in the narrative …"
Ayers:
"Narrative inquiry can be a useful corrective to all this."
Obama:
"Truth is usually the best corrective."
Ayers:
"The mind works in contradiction, and honesty requires the writer to reveal disputes with herself on the page."
Obama:
"Not because that past is particularly painful or perverse but because it speaks to those aspects of myself that resist conscious choice and that – on the surface, at least – contradict the world I now occupy."
Ayers:
The reader must actually see the struggle. It's a journey, not by a tourist, but by a pilgrim.
Obama:
"But all in all it was an intellectual journey that I imagined for myself, complete with maps and restpoints and a strict itinerary."
Ayers:
"Narrative writers strive for a personal signature, but must be aware that the struggle for honesty is constant."
Obama:
"I was engaged in a fitful interior struggle. I was trying to raise myself to be a black man in America."
Ayers:
"But that intimacy can trap a writer into a defensive crouch, into airing grievances or self-justification."
Obama:
"At best, these things were a refuge; at worst, a trap."
Although I cite one example for each, "Dreams" offers many more. There are 10 "trap" references alone and nearly as many for "narrative," "struggle" and "journey."
To be sure, there are other postmodernists in Chicago, but few who write as stylishly and as intelligibly as Ayers. There are fewer who make their dining room tables available to would-be authors, and fewer still who write as poetically about the sea as Obama seems to do.
Of course, too, no one but Ayers got Obama named chair of the multi-million Chicago Annenberg Challenge months before his book was published, and no one else hosted his political debut months afterward, all in the magic year of 1995.
Two years later, in his 1997 book, "A Kind and Just Parent," Bill Ayers walks the reader through his Hyde Park neighborhood and identifies the celebrities therein.
These include Muhammad Ali, "Minister" Louis Farrakhan, the "poet" Gwendolyn Brooks and "writer" Barack Obama.
The "writer" identification seems as forced as the listing of Obama among the notables. It is almost as Ayers were constructing his own narrative, one designed to climax in the White House, one that he may have the will and power to impose on America, truth be damned.
Life is all "a lie" anyhow.
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Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Obama Had a Bomb-Throwing Ghost Writer":
Boring. Like everyone else, I'm not interested. Hysterical desperation! Get a life foe (sic) goodness sake. And while you're at it, get some self respect.
Natasha
The Twenty-first Sunday After Trinity
Pastor Gregory L. Jackson
Bethany Lutheran Worship, 8 AM Phoenix Time
The Hymn #292 by Selnecker Ach bleib bei uns
The Confession of Sins
The Absolution
The Introit p. 16
The Gloria Patri
The Kyrie p. 17
The Gloria in Excelsis
The Salutation and Collect p. 19
The Epistle and Gradual Eph 6:10-17
The Gospel Luke John 4:46-54
Glory be to Thee, O Lord!
Praise be to Thee, O Christ!
The Nicene Creed p. 22
The Sermon Hymn #370 Magdalen
Armor of Christ
The Hymn #304 by Loy, St. Crispin
The Preface p. 24
The Sanctus p. 26
The Lord's Prayer p. 27
The Words of Institution
The Agnus Dei p. 28
The Nunc Dimittis p. 29
The Benediction p. 31
The Hymn #202 Sei du mir
Note - The qwest.net email will no longer work after Monday morning. I am switching back to cox.net. The last name of the Second Martin is the address for now.
Alicia Meyer will have foot surgery on October 14th. Remember her in your prayers.
Today is the anniversary of Walter and Norma Boeckler. Walter died after many years of disability.
KJV Ephesians 6:10 Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might. 11 Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. 12 For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. 13 Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. 14 Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness; 15 And your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace; 16 Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked. 17 And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God:
KJV John 4:46 So Jesus came again into Cana of Galilee, where he made the water wine. And there was a certain nobleman, whose son was sick at Capernaum. 47 When he heard that Jesus was come out of Judaea into Galilee, he went unto him, and besought him that he would come down, and heal his son: for he was at the point of death. 48 Then said Jesus unto him, Except ye see signs and wonders, ye will not believe. 49 The nobleman saith unto him, Sir, come down ere my child die. 50 Jesus saith unto him, Go thy way; thy son liveth. And the man believed the word that Jesus had spoken unto him, and he went his way. 51 And as he was now going down, his servants met him, and told him, saying, Thy son liveth. 52 Then enquired he of them the hour when he began to amend. And they said unto him, Yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him. 53 So the father knew that it was at the same hour, in the which Jesus said unto him, Thy son liveth: and himself believed, and his whole house. 54 This is again the second miracle that Jesus did, when he was come out of Judaea into Galilee.
Twenty-First Sunday After Trinity
Almighty and everlasting God, who by Thy Son hast promised us the forgiveness of sins, righteousness, and everlasting life: We beseech Thee, do Thou by Thy Holy Spirit so quicken our hearts that we in daily prayer may seek our help in Christ against all temptations, and, constantly believing His promise, obtain that for which we pray, and at last be saved, through Thy Son Jesus Christ, who liveth and reigneth with Thee and the Holy Ghost, one true God, world without end. Amen.
ARMOR OF GOD
We can see from this lesson that there are two kingdoms only, the Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of Satan. They are the only superpowers. There are no others. One cannot be partly in one kingdom and partly in another. That is impossible. The Bible only teaches us about believers in Christ and unbelievers. Believers belong to the Kingdom of God. Unbelievers belong to Satan.
God constantly works through the Word and His appointed servants to claim people from the Kingdom of Satan. We are conceived as unbelievers and born as unbelievers. Baptism makes a child a member of the Kingdom of God. Our heavenly Father first claims us for His Kingdom, then nurtures us in faith through the Word. Just as ministers are appointed to preach and teach the Word of God and administer the Sacraments, so are parents appointed to teach the child the Word in the home and apply it day by day.
Unfortunately, Satan also works hard to convert people. He does not tempt his own. Unbelievers do whatever they wish and find a certain amount of peace, security, and prosperity in doing so. But Satan never stops tempting believers, not in this way or that way, but in any way necessary for a particular person.
We should feel very much intimidated by the warfare that goes on because of our immortal souls. We are like the tiny countries fought over by the superpowers, significant in one way, but overwhelmed by the power on each side.
Paul’s exhortation to us is to be strong in Lord and in the power of His might. Unlike the gurus around us, he does not order us to trust in our own powers or to find resources within ourselves. Instead, the Holy Spirit tells us through Paul to put on the whole armor of God.
Children can learn the armor of God very easily, because each part represents the armor used by soldiers of that time (and ours). It is vivid and easy to picture in our minds. You can count up the six parts of the armor. As I have mentioned many times before, God’s work is done or described in groups of three (faith, hope, and love; 9 fruits of the Spirit).
The six pieces of armor are:
1. The belt of truth.
2. The breastplate of righteousness.
3. Shoes – preparation of the Gospel of peace.
4. The shield of the faith.
5. The helmet of salvation.
6. The Sword of the Spirit, the Word.
Those few who know Greek will note that the these are middle verbs, emphasizing the self. Gird yourself with the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness… English uses the reflexive pronoun. God chose the eloquence of Greek for a reason. Robertson and Lenski say, “There are sermons in tenses.” (Ephesians, p. 663)
Wear the Belt of Truth
The belt of truth stands for the truth of God’s revelation. Knowing that God’s Word is truth and trustworthy guards us against all kinds of daily assaults. If I make science and technology “truth,” then I must judge the Bible by science and technology. Doubts creep in right away, because the standard has changed, and the standard itself changes every day.
Assurance of God’s truth makes other claims funny or petty. Whenever we tour a wonder of Creation, the guide tells us, “This happened exactly 300 million years ago.” They fret over the disappearance of the dinosaurs – some but not all. An asteroid hit the earth exactly 65 million years ago, right where Iceland is. No, right off the coast of Mexico.
At the Phoenix Zoo we learned that animals take care of the environment because they know that is the only environment they have. This puzzles me, because I have never met an animal that thinks. A few of us laughed, but not enough.
No scientist can answer the question of purpose. Animals and plants clean the environment because they were created by God to do so. Their relationships with each other represents complexities within complexities. Within each animal, even the simplest, such as a lowly slug, one little thing wrong will end its little life. The slug to a Michigan gardener is terrible predator, marring the crop, leaving its slime trail, but one little nick in its skin ends his life.
So man, blinded by doubts, creates a phony explanation for what God has done in His infinite wisdom, power, and might. When we gird ourselves with the truth, the Holy Spirit reveals these things to us through the Word.
Human reason, used to prove God’s truth, is more dangerous than secular doubts. If man’s wisdom is needed to prop up the Bible, God’s Word is very weak indeed. But God urges us through Paul to gird ourselves with His truth, not with man’s truth.
The Breastplate of Righteousness
Once it was a metal plate over the chest to protect the heart and lungs. Now the US Army uses Kevlar for the same purpose. The breastplate of righteousness is not our righteousness that we earn or created, but the righteousness of Christ.
How does this forgiveness of sin, received from the crucifixion of Jesus, protect our vital organs? If we think forgiveness is based upon our own works or merit, then we are unprotected against Satan’s mortal attacks. He drives some to despair over their worthiness, others to incredible hardness of heart. Satan can destroy people with anxiety or arrogance.
As we sang last Sunday, “clothed in His righteousness alone, faultless to stand before the throne. On Christ the solid rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand.” TLH, #370.
Shoes – Preparation for the Gospel of Peace
No one needs to ask about shoes in Phoenix. There are many reasons to wear them. On a pleasant sunny day in July, the sidewalks are so burning hot that a barefooted person is tempted to jump into the grass for relief. There dozens of goats-head thorns wait to imbed themselves into bare feet.
In the spiritual battle we all face daily, the Gospel of peace gives us a sure footing. The Gospel of peace makes eager to go to battle. That peace, the peace that passes all understanding, is the peace of God from salvation.
In the Battle of the Bulge, toward the end of WWII, the American soldiers simply could not go on because of constantly wet, cold feet, leading to gangrene. Once they got the proper boots, one soldier said, “We could fight all day and not feel cold.”
How many people have been ready to stand up for the truth and said, “I got cold feet.” I went to the meeting and I got cold feet. One pastor got 10 ministers lined up to support him at a ministerial meeting on a doctrinal issue. They all got cold feet, he said.
Why do we get cold feet? Because we step out without the Gospel of peace. The Gospel belongs to God and His power, not to man. Apparent losses are often victories in retrospect. Apparent victories are often long-term losses. When Luther was in danger of burning at the stake, year after year, and locked in a castle, he seemed to be the tiniest person in the world. He was. He experienced the terrors of Hell, virtually alone with his doubts in the Wartburg Castle. But he used the time to translate the New Testament into German in a few months.
The Shield of the Faith
Faith can be used in different ways in Greek, just as it is in English. When James says that faith without works is dead, he means that faith without works is not faith at all, just knowledge. God creates faith, and it is a living, active faith that never stops to wonder what is God’s will but does it. The Gospel bears fruit in good works, so faith is active in love.
Faith is also used in the sense of trust in God. When the Holy Spirit proclaims, “Since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through Jesus Christ,” faith is trust in the merits of Christ.
The New Testament also speaks of The Faith, as we do, all the doctrines of the Bible. The grammar of the passage helps us understand what is meant. Here Lenski argues for The Faith, and it makes sense in the context. The Faith is a shield against the weapons of Satan, his fiery darts. When we know and believe what the Word of God teaches, and we are sure from many trials, the Christian faith is a shield to protect us.
The blessings of the Christian faith become apparent to us over time, when we see that grounding our lives upon the Word of God and the forgiveness of Christ will give us blessings beyond our imagination, as God has promised.
The Helmet of Salvation
When the US Army improved its body armor through the laboratory at Natick, Mass, they designed a new helmet to protect the head. Football helmets became so safe and comfortable that for a time the players were using their heads as weapons, until it was called “spearing the opponent.”
God Himself puts on a helmet of salvation in Isaiah.
Isaiah 59:17 For he put on righteousness as a breastplate, and an helmet of salvation upon his head; and he put on the garments of vengeance for clothing, and was clad with zeal as a cloke.
No one would arm himself for battle and omit one article protection. So we are urged to put on the whole armor of God, to be able to stand in battle. Salvation is the result of having our sins forgiven through Christ.
The Sword of the Spirit, the Word
The Word of God is compared to a sword in several places. In this passage it is the only weapon, but of course it is both an offensive and defensive weapon. The other parts of armor are passive in nature, protecting the body.
The Sword of the Spirit is wielded to smash the weapons of Satan and to kill diabolical opponents. Whenever someone uses the Word of God, he is brandishing God’s only method means for accomplishing His will.
Whenever man’s word is used, God’s will cannot be accomplished. So people build larger church buildings, thinking a building converts people. They build larger parking lots, and brag about them, although parking lots are the Means of Grace. They air-condition and increase social events. It is possible that people who join a church because of social events are there for the wrong reasons.
We also see that people win in church disputes with threats, appeals to loyalty, or citations of blue-blood (synodical in-breeding, which often produces idiots).
Luther’s crime, in the eyes of the Church of Rome, was not that he proclaimed the Gospel. Others had done that for centuries. Luther’s terrible sin, and it has not been forgiven, was that he identified false doctrine and contrasted it with the whole counsel of God.
For instance, any pagan will agree in various ways with the concept that Jesus is the Son of God. So we can have peace and unity if we all say, God is love; Jesus is the Son of God. But if we say that Jesus is the only source of salvation, that we cannot be saved by works, then no false teacher will agree. In fact, they will scream while covering their ears (Acts; stoning of Stephan) and kill us.
Stephan was stoned to death, but he proclaimed the Word of God before he died. It must have seemed to be a waste of time, especially to Saul, who held the cloaks of others while people stoned to death the first Christian martyr. The opponents of Christ seemed to win at that moment, but soon after, Saul was converted to Christ by the risen Lord Himself, and became the greatest and most productive apostle.