The Twenty-Fifth Sunday
after Trinity, 2013
Pastor Gregory L.
Jackson
Bethany Lutheran Church,
10 AM Central Time
The Hymn # 4 God Himself 4:93
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
The
Gospel
Glory be to Thee, O
Lord!
Praise be to Thee, O Christ!
The Nicene Creed
p. 22
The Sermon Hymn # 268
Zion Mourns 4:98
Abomination of Desolation
The Communion Hymn
#305 Soul,
Adorn Thyself
4:23
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 #
657 Beautiful
Savior
4:24
1
Thessalonians 4:13-18
King
James Version (KJV)
13 But I
would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep,
that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope.
14 For if
we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in
Jesus will God bring with him.
15 For
this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and
remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep.
16 For the
Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the
archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first:
17 Then we
which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds,
to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.
18 Wherefore
comfort one another with these words.
Matthew
24:15-28
King
James Version (KJV)
15 When ye
therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the
prophet, stand in the holy place, (whoso readeth, let him understand:)
16 Then
let them which be in Judaea flee into the mountains:
17 Let him
which is on the housetop not come down to take any thing out of his house:
18 Neither
let him which is in the field return back to take his clothes.
19 And woe
unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days!
20 But
pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the sabbath day:
21 For
then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the
world to this time, no, nor ever shall be.
22 And
except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for
the elect's sake those days shall be shortened.
23 Then if
any man shall say unto you, Lo, here is Christ, or there; believe it not.
24 For
there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs
and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very
elect.
25 Behold,
I have told you before.
26 Wherefore
if they shall say unto you, Behold, he is in the desert; go not forth: behold,
he is in the secret chambers; believe it not.
27 For as
the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west; so shall
also the coming of the Son of man be.
28 For
wheresoever the carcase is, there will the eagles be gathered together.
Abomination of Desolation
15 When ye
therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the
prophet, stand in the holy place, (whoso readeth, let him understand:)
16 Then let
them which be in Judaea flee into the mountains:
Few resist the temptation to predict the end of the world. One
part of my family become Adventists, a group that grew from two failed
prophecies about the end of the world. Since Miller was the teacher, the
Adventists were called Millerites. Many of them were in Battle Creek, Michigan,
and they influenced Kellogg and cereal manufacturing.
Some of the Noel clan moved to Iowa and began making a living with
hog farming, so they could no longer be Adventists. They became Evangelical
Protestants, a name that once meant inerrancy of the Scriptures, Creation, and
the articles of faith found in the Apostles Creed.
Living in the South is a time shift, reminding me that we have
many Americas. In one week I talked to two college students about the Bible
Bowls, where children compete in memorizing entire books of the Bible. That
sort of activity was once known among Pietists, who have advanced to
rationalism and social activism.
This passage in Matthew is a two-fold warning. One part consists
of signs that the end is coming, so that every believer will be aware and
fore-warned. This is the global version of what happened in Jesus’ ministry,
when He warned the disciples to “watch and pray” (literally stay awake and
pray) while they fell into deep slumber. Jesus was facing His torture and
death, praying to the Father, but they were too tired to do the same.
The other part of this lesson
warns against following false Messiahs, who will definitely spring up.
23 Then if
any man shall say unto you, Lo, here is Christ, or there; believe it not.
Rationalists dismiss Jesus predicting the future, making up
various excuses, but they have to admit. This is exactly what happened. The
first Jewish rebellion against Rome began about 70 AD, and that meant:
1.
The population of Jerusalem was starved and
enslaved.
2.
The Temple was utterly destroyed.
3.
Rome celebrated the victory with a special
coin.
Only a few decades later,
another rebellion began, a Jewish Messiah leading his forces into another
debacle, which was equally devastating to the Jews.
24 For
there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs
and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very
elect.
25 Behold,
I have told you before.
Messiah means king, so the ideal was always to be a powerful
political, religious, and military leader like David. Son of David is another
term for the Messiah, since Messiah means the anointed king. Christ is the
Greek version of Messiah.
But God did not give Israel a Messiah like David, but one beyond
their hopes and imagination. Military and political heroes fail. Their reign is
limited. Their power is often taken away in an instant.
But the real Messiah – His reign has extended ever since public
ministry took a heavenward turn and the Spirit began Gospel work through the
Word, through the Gospels.
The false messiah warnings were even more important in subsequent
centuries, since Christianity took over the Eastern Roman Empire (a fact we
forget) and then the Western European part of the Roman Empire. Many deceptive trends and frauds enticed
people who no longer studied the Word of God.
26 Wherefore
if they shall say unto you, Behold, he is in the desert; go not forth: behold,
he is in the secret chambers; believe it not.
Luther’s sermon reminded me of an important
development, which is still with us. The monastic tradition grew out of the
practice of going out alone in the desert. Qumran was one of those communities.
St. Jerome wasted away in the desert, and Augustine almost
worshiped this tradition. The idea was to have people abandon a normal family life
and save the world by prayer, meditation, and fasting.
The Greeks have an independent little area reserved for this
today.
In a
few words, this prophecy is seen so revealed in the action of the works-saints.
They will find Jesus in the desert! Most of the tales of monasteries involve
someone trying to save his soul by joining. That is what happened to Luther,
whose time in Augustinian monastic life gave him the authority and experience
to expose it as a fraud.
Luther’s
essays on monastic life, on marriage, empties the convents and monasteries.
Former bachelors became husbands and fathers, leaders of the Lutheran
Reformation. Luther reluctantly joined, joking about marriage to his father,
and hearing his father ask why not.
“Not
in the secret chambers” – There are so many ways that false versions of
Christianity displace the Gospel of the Scriptures. They always involve leaving
the world God has given us and creating a new secret world for the elite. Some
do that with excessive prayer, others with devotion to a secret agenda. Nothing
is so exciting as a secretive group. As Dickens observed, a secret group will
enroll 200 people while an open volunteer group can barely gain two or three
members.
So
it is – everyone wants to know the real origins of the Masonic Lodge, but the
clear text of the Bible – they take that for granted. The Bible is so easily
accessed now that hardly anyone knows it or understands it.
Contemporary
worship – that great hunk of bait to snag the unwary – has songs where the
content could just as easily be Buddhist as Christian. There is no confession
of truth at all.
Or
an entire hymn is sung to the Holy Spirit without an indication that the Spirit
is always united with the Word. And because of this confusion and ignorance,
the Spirit hymn is a hope for some ecstatic
experience, as if we will this upon ourselves instead of hearing/reading the
Word as the normal part of the Spirit’s work.
For
example, many college students have said, “No one taught us how to write a good
essay.” I am sympathetic because no one gave me the formula. I learned on my
own and found out that everyone had the same answer.
There
is a same answer for every Christian question, because the true Church has
always existed and will always remain until the end. But to separate the good
from the bad, we have to be discerning and wise rather than blindly naïve.
27 For as
the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west; so shall
also the coming of the Son of man be.
28 For
wheresoever the carcase is, there will the eagles be gathered together.
This
warning, based on weather patterns, is vivid and memorable. We look at “accuweather”
and take the predictions as an eternal maybe.
Sudden storms rise up, like the windstorm yesterday. The weather began cold,
warmed up, then combined that warm weather with high winds and a tiny bit of
rain.
At
times the storms come to rest over the area and lightning bolts precede thunder
by moments, while pets shiver in bed.
We
will not know the end of time until the actual appearance of Christ. Then the
evidence will be so abundant that no one will doubt He is the Son of God and
Savior.
