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.
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| Norma won the Purchase Prize. |
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| Norma A. Boeckler's "Single Pink Peony" close up illustrates the beauty of God's Creation. |
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| This is the Midland area group that won prizes for their art. |
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| Christians in India recognized Norma A. Boeckler for her beautiful religious art. |
Link to Cantate Sermon 2 - Fourth Sunday after Easter
5. What will now become of all the priests, nuns and monks who, wishing to escape sin, run into cloisters and undertake to do many good works without this faith? Unbelief is called sin, as I said, but to believe on Christ — that he takes my sins upon himself, reconciles me to the Father and at the same time makes me his heir of all that is in heaven and earth — this is good works. In John 6:28-29, the Jews asked Christ: “What must we do, that we may work the works of God?” Jesus answered: “This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent.” Yea, and should we preach thus, who will then enter the cloisters or contribute anything for them? The purses of the monks would then surely become flat, their kitchens scanty, their cellars empty and neglected. For this reason they will not allow faith to be preached; nay, they condemn this doctrine and banish its preachers. Indeed they have already set about it in good earnest. Christ further says: “Of righteousness, because I go to the Father.”
II. THE HOLY SPIRIT CONVICTS THE WORLD OF RIGHTEOUSNESS.
6. Here all the learned come armed, yea, the whole world besides, and tell us what kind of righteousness this is. Yes, and they shall err. For the world has never known this righteousness; it does not yet know it, and it does not wish to know it. Hence, the Lord says here that the Holy Spirit will convict the world of this righteousness.
7. But what are we to understand here by “the world?” We dare not understand by it the coarse, outward sins, as adultery, murder, stealing and theft. There are instituted for such characters the wheels and gallows, with which the worldly powers, the kings, emperors and princes, have to do.
But we will interpret “the world” as the subtle and secret sins, of which the Holy Spirit convicts, which the world does not know as sin. Yea, it pronounces them divine works; it applauds them and will not permit them to be called sins. How else can unbelief and other secret sins live in the heart while the heart itself is not conscious of them and knows not that they are sins? But those who convict the world must, on that account, be reviled as heretics and be banished from the country, as we see at present.
Therefore, the Holy Spirit must convict the world.
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| Has anyone else noticed that the King James Version costs so much less than the Evil Four plus One - NIV, ESV, RSV, NRSV + Beck? The synods put their "Bible" profits into their nasty little pockets. |
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| Listen to the short YouTube about the hilariously bad NASB, which the rich sponsor had to reject, much like the Revised KJV of 1881 being dumped by its own apostate promoters. |
The United World Religion Corporation teaches one thing - assuming we are all simpletons who cannot read - Everyone Is Born Forgiven. They have turned the atoning death of Jesus Christ into universal forgiveness, universal grace, universal salvation. While waving their "sola" signs on Reformation Sunday, they are picking your pockets, emptying your purses, and stealing your mother's estate (Irrevocable Charitable Trust, aka, there goes the farm forever).
The only thing they preach with clarity and energy is We Need More Money To Do His Work. But His means - Their Father Below.
The abusive sects - especially the abusive Lutheran sects - teach grace. They sing Amazing Grace all the time, which may explain why everything and everyone is amazing today. How do we get this amazing grace, some wonder. Simple! Everyone has grace, even before grace, called prevenient grace, that grace which comes before grace, like "Your frozen pizza is coming" although it is not there yet and nobody knows where it is.
The Abusive Lutheran Sects, aka Thrivent victims, claim everyone in the world was forgiven
That may sound as confusing as it really is, but the key factor in those claims is this - forgiveness without faith = grace = salvation.
Even the greats - Sam Nafzger and David Valleskey and Mirthless Mark Schroeder - agree to the formula handed down by Calvin and Halle University.
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| Didja know Halle University, founded on Pietism, was the hotbed for moving away from faith in the Scriptures and into pure rationalism? ELCA calls that "Biblical scholarship" and LCMS-WELS-ELS calls it Universal Objective Faithless Justification. |
The Real Message of Grace in Romans
The abusive Lutheran sects are hotter than Georgia asphalt for grace, so why not find out how we obtain grace in Romans (the recent site of New NIV apostasy in Romans 3 - all are justified)?
KJV Romans 5:5 Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ: 2 By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.
I realize many in the readership do not have a decent Bible, like the KJV. However, most people understand these two verses.
Link to Cantate Sermon 2 - Fourth Sunday after Easter
The Lord addresses his disciples thus: “When the Comforter is come, he will convict the world in respect of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment; of sin, because they believe not on me.”
2. Here we must let that be “sin” which is ascribed to, and included in, sin by the high majesty of heaven. In the text only unbelief is mentioned as sin, “because,” says the Lord, “they believe not on me.”
3. But what is it to believe on Christ? It is not simply to believe that he is God, or that he reigns in heaven in equal power with God the Father; many others believe that: But I believe on Christ when I believe that he is a gracious God to me and has taken my sins upon himself and reconciled me with God the Father, that my sins are his and his righteousness mine, that there is an intermingling and an exchange, that Christ is a mediator between me and the Father. For the sins of the whole world were laid upon Christ, and the righteousness of the Father, that is in Christ, will swallow up all our sins.
No sins dare and can remain upon Christ. Such faith makes me pure and acceptable to the Father. Of this faith the pope and our highly educated leaders know nothing to speak, much less to believe. They teach that man should do many good works if he is to be acceptable to God and be free from sin, and that then God imparts to him his grace.
4. However, here the Lord speaks quite differently, and says: “The Holy Spirit will convict the world in respect of sin, because they believe not on me.” Unbelief only is mentioned here as sin, and faith is praised as suppressing and extinguishing the other sins, even the sins in the saints.
Faith is so strong and overpowering that no sin dare put it under any obligation. Although sins are present in pious and believing persons, they are not imputed to them, nor shall their sins condemn them. This is Paul’s meaning when he says in Romans 8:1: “There is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.” Their hearts are cleansed by faith, as Peter writes in Acts 15:9. Therefore, whatever they do in this faith, in this assurance is all good, pure and pleasing to God. On the contrary, without this faith all their doings are sin and destruction, though their good works may shine and glitter as beautifully as they will, and ever though they raise the dead. For Paul says: “Whatsoever is not of faith is sin,” Romans 14:23.
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| Installation of Andrew Preus, Trinity, New Haven, Missouri, 2021. Sam Nafzger is on the far left, back row. Walter Otten is almost on the far right, back row. Andrew is flanked by his brother and his father Rolf, front row. Herman Otten died in 2019, closely tied with the Robert Preus clan but not with the Jack Preus side. We were discussing LCMS names when someone asked about a well known person who participated in the fake Luther's Large Catechism - $40 - from CPH. I had to look it up because the name was somewhere in my mental Rolodex. Sam Nafgzer! He was one of many doctrinal board chairs in various synods (WELS, ELS, CLC sic) who championed false doctrine. Next discussion point - There is another KJV-hating book out there? Yes, I found it when searching for a pro-KJV book and landing a real hater - One Book Only? Examining Exclusive Claims for the King James Bible Roy Beacham and Kevin Bauder (D.Min. but Ph.D. candidate!), editors, 2001. The classic, spewing hatred for the KJV - James White, D.Min. |
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| Norma A. Boeckler Christian Art Books |
| King Henry VIII had Tyndale killed for trying to give us the Bible in English. The Lutheran synods are killing the Bible by marketing corrupted texts and paraphrases. |
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| This is the official photo for re-election in 2023. |
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| Uneasy lies the head that wears the cheese. Luther called false teachers "belly-bursters." |
