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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| This Friendship Sunday was really going to bring them in. |
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| Previous Friendship Sunday in WELS - The greeters asked, "Were you born in Wisconsin?" |
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| Bad timing. Stay optimistic! "We just bought a new program from the Disciples of Christ. They will be jumping into the net and breaking it." |
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President of the Joint Synod of Ohio, the Columbus Seminary and Capital University, and edited the Lutheran Standard and the Columbus Theological Magazine. In 1881 he withdrew the Joint Synod from the Synodical Conference as a result of Walther’s teaching about predestination.
The passage of time can make us more aware of trends or oblivious to them. Synodical cheerleaders remind me of the book title - Wishful Drinking, by the late Carrie Fisher, the princess who died too young.
I was baptized as a baby at Plymouth Congregational Church, Moline. The parish became United Church of Christ perhaps, before closing. My parents moved us to First Christian Church, Moline, also called Disciples of Christ. That church no longer exists. I left the Church Growthism at First Christian to join Salem Lutheran Church, formerly Augustana Synod, then LCA, and now ELCA.
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At the age of 16 I was suddenly exposed to liturgical services, classical hymns, and sermons. Imagine my surprise when I discovered the clown acts of the Disciples of Christ parish a feature in the Missouri Synod, the Wisconsin Synod, and other places of ill repute.
No matter what they claimed from the Book of Concord, the LCMS-WELS-ELS-CLC (sic) leaders became completely unfaithful. There are three basic options in all of Christendom:
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| They destroyed more congregations than the Chicago Fire, but were protected, praised, and encouraged to spread their two-bit Calvinism. |
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| Waldo Werning, LCMS, went all over his synod, WELS, and the ELS to spread the fanaticism of Fuller Seminary while denying it. I quoted his own words to him on the phone - and he flew into a rage. I used to take notes, date and quote them for future reference. |
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| Fifty pounds ago, "Dr" Matt Harrison posed with Mirthless Mark Schroeder and a Photoshop of Archbishop Liz Eaton (ELCA). "Confessionalism is told to whisper low in Jerusalem lest she be heard in the streets of Gath." 2 Samuel 1:20 |
Click here for complete sermon ->SEVENTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY. SECOND SERMON: MARK 8:1-9.
8. Behold, this is the punishment for despising the office of the ministry, when such punishment was the most gracious as it has been still in our day, and I would to God, that it might continue so. But when we esteem the Word of God so lightly and the ministers and preachers are so poorly supported that they are compelled to forsake their office and seek their bread through other occupations, and thereby also discourage others from entering this office, who otherwise are gifted for it and inclined to it; God not only sends famine and other great national calamities as now appear before our eyes, in order that no one’s purse may retain anything and no blessing and no provisions remain. But he takes the Word and the true doctrine entirely away, and in their stead permits fanatical spirits and false teachers to enter among them, by whom they are led astray and deceived before they are aware of it both as to their souls and property, and for their neglect they must contribute richly and most bountifully.
9. Therefore the world should be advised, if it will take advice, that the lords, the princes, the countries, the cities and all in general make efforts to provide a little for the necessaries of the house of God and the kingdom of God, as they must do for other offices and arts, in order that they may give their whole attention to them and obtain their daily bread from them, which are needed much more than other offices and arts. While one officer or judge is sufficient, likewise one jurist or physician can meet the needs of one city or more, and for a time of the entire country; we must have thousands of preachers for the various countries since the parishes and districts are so many; for children are daily born who must be baptized and educated, learn God’s Word and become Christians. From what source can ministers be had, if they are not reared and educated? Then the churches must either stand vacant and the people scatter and go astray, or the people receive and suffer from coarse mulelike characters and corrupters of the Word.
10. But woe unto all who contributed to bring about such a state or have not tried to prevent it, that God’s house had to become desolate; much more, however, those who have discouraged and hindered others from entering the ministry, or continuing in it; for such characters are worse than the Jews or Turks. However they are not to be excused because they allowed themselves to be discouraged from entering the ministry on account of poverty, for their greatest lack was in faith that Christ would notwithstanding give them their daily bread or nourishment for their bodies, which, although at times may be scanty and bitter, yet, you are to remember on the other hand how very much greater treasure it is that one receives a piece of bread into his hands in an exceptional way and through the special blessing of God, than all the riches and fullness of the world.
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| Objective Faithless Justification is a springboard into synodical honors and state prison. |
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| WELS denies faith and shrinks faster than cheap wool socks in the dryer: catchy title, though a bit off the mark. |
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| The lopsided smile is a WELS feature. |
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| Francis Pieper was not very bright, so that may be why CFW Walther borrowed him from WELS. Valleskey, Bivens, the whole enthusiast gang worshiped at Fuller and denied it - wink, wink. |
