Luther on Prayer - Especially Good for Times of Sorrow, Despair

 

From Day by Day We Magnify Thee, 1950, Muhlenberg Press, the same version reprinted by Fortress Press.

Used copies abound.

Abound.

Ascension Day Is Thursday - Holy Communion at 7 PM Central Daylight Time.Faith or Numbers?

Walther learned Objective Faithless Justification from his syphilitic bishop, Martin Stephan, and enforced OJ his entire life.

The big issue today is numbers, not faith. Readers may recall the loss of 500,000 Southern Babtist members in the last year alone, almost triple that in the last few years.

 Jeske to college students, "We ran out of Germans. Seriously!"

The denominations have definitely chosen numbers over faith, losing both at the same time. The ironic twist of the century came from Fuller Seminary, which repudiated its weak version of Biblical inerrancy while plowing head with the pro-abortion, liberal activism of Donald McGavran. One WELS pastor had this as his argument for spoiling the Egyptians - "I know all the problems but we need their statistics for world missions."

That reminded me of the pastoral plea to drop Advent/Lenten mid-week services: "Our numbers are too low." 

If people seek numbers, accepting any solution to increase those numbers, faith in Jesus Christ as the Savior will steadily diminish. The true Church can only serve one Master. 

KJV Matthew 6:24 No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.

I often speed-read the latest from denominations and synods, to see which master is being served. One clue is "The Gospel compels us to..." No one can question this vague Law demand, but it does suggest that there is only one thing to do, involving quotas, shifting budgets items, erasing standards of the past, trying out exciting new excitements. Soon the pastor will sigh and say, "My mission was to close this congregation."

It does not help that most of the Lutheran pastors today are a version of ELCA, having a vision that compels them to follow their leaders down the road to perdition.

 Jeske was a pioneer in promoting women pastors teaching LCMS-WELS pastors the glory of ELCA. Fashion hint - try sleeves. No, really.

On the positive side, the actual Gospel - not the WELS-ELCA-LCMS-ELS-CLC-ELDONUT version - works very well. God provides whenever the Gospel is believed and proclaimed, with no shame attached to the Trinity, the Two Natures of Christ, the miracles, walking on the water and raising the dead, atoning for the sins of the world, rising from the grave and ascending to Heaven.

Lawrence Otto Olson, DMin Fuller Seminary, could not make any progress with his one and only pastoral call, so WELS made him their Professor Church Growth. All his buddies have participated, one way or another.

Daily Luther Sermon Quote - "Who Authorized Them To Make That Insertion? Do You Think the Holy Spirit Was Too Stupid To Make It?"

 

Complete Ascension Sermon - Day of Christ’s Ascension Into Heaven. Mark 16:14-20. Christ Commissions his Disciples to Preach the Gospel

7. And this is the trend of all those passages in the prophets where God boasts that he will establish a preaching that will show forth his praise; as when he says in Isaiah 43:21: “The people which I formed for myself, that they might set forth my praise.” As if to say: You hypocrites do no more than praise yourselves in your hearts and thus my praise must perish; for you make me a stern judge and an unfriendly God, so that secretly the people hate me and think within themselves: Ah, if we but had another God, one that would not require so much of us; such a one we would love.

Therefore, I will form for myself another people, which shall know me and love me. When they see that I will not regard their works but will give them every good thing freely, their hearts will teem with joy and will never weary of my praise.

8. Therefore, beware of glossing the text and seeking to improve upon the words of Christ. Our doctors and colleges have tried to better them and have said these words must be understood thus: “He that believeth” (understand: and doeth good works), “shall be saved.” Who authorized them to make that insertion? Do you think the Holy Spirit was too stupid to make it? Thus they have utterly obscured, yea, perverted, this precious statement with their insertion. Therefore, take heed and let no one make an insertion for you, but abide by the text as it reads and understand it thus: “He that believeth shall be saved” without his merit, without any works.

Why? For this reason: because God has caused to be preached and proclaimed unto us that he had his Son Jesus Christ come and take away sin and all evil. For he saw that we were not able to do it, that it was an impossibility for us to blot out sin with our works and powers. Otherwise he could have saved himself the trouble and expense of delivering up his own Son to suffer and die; and he has this preached to us in the Gospel.