Charlie Sue Had Three Playtimes in the Snow Today

 

Charlie Sue loves the backyard, not only the space for racing and chasing balls, but also visiting her dog friends along the South, West, and North fences. 

I went out with her twice to have some fun. She also had a third romp much later.

She loves to race full speed toward me and change course instantly. She also runs on her back legs for a short distance, no doubt to find prey. She loved the snow fell asleep after each adventure.

All the dogs stayed inside.

Roll of Honor - Kick-Offs - No Particular Order

Hale, Calvin, and Knapp - Phil removed me from the link to Christian News, saving me five minutes every time a new issue comes off their antique printing press in New Haven. CN boasts they had a book about Walter Maier, even though the business rejects Biblical inerrancy (Bogus Beck Bible) and the statement by Maier on the Otten book cover about Justification by Faith.



Confessional Lutheran FB ___ (fill in the blank, there are many) 

Everyone in a Lutheran sect is Confessional. Everyone! I told the host, a graduate of ELCA's Southern Seminary, "That explains everything." I was kicked off.

George Borgwardt kicked me off his FB forum, and then kicked my wife off, even though he taught that everyone is already forgiven. Everyone!

Matt the Fatt removed me from his FB as soon as he was elected.
 Former LCMS President Jerry Kieschnick has remained my FB friend.

The WELS Intrepids were gathered by Pastor Steve Spencer, who asked me to name people for the group. They did not want me listed, but they borrowed my materials and were shocked to find out I was correct. That shed light on Justification by Faith. Steve was the first Intrepid to run away. Soon the rest were gone, but the website is still up. ELS Pastor Jay Webber popped in, at the time, to promote his Objective Justification fallacies but got shut down by a layman.

LutherQuest

LQ invited me to say hello on their blog, following their invitation with a barrage of caustic and vituperative comments. Two of my friends joined to offer some counter-battery artillery. One of my comments about who was posting with a pseudonym elicited a threat to kick me off if I did not apologize for guessing the coward's name correctly! This strange coven of Objective Justification partisans once published a series of Paul McCain's plagiarized Roman Catholic saint articles. Who pointed out the plagiarism and suggested they stop? Ichabod. They are now republishing McCain, perhaps as a modern CFW Walther.  

LCMS slobbers over this nonsense, always avoiding the fact that Edward Preuss joined the Roman Catholic Church after seeing a red sunset. 

The Ovaltines

I admit to making up a name for the very senior pastors on the American Lutheran Publicity Bureau's Online Public Forum. Readers taunt me into repeating the words, almost as long as Lincoln's Gettysburg Address. I can picture the Ovaltines at their desks, sipping their elixir, avoiding significant news or facts or doctrinal issues. The same small gang dominates. They consist of LCMS Seminex retirees, ELCA, and Roman Catholic wannabees. They love to tag themselves S.T.S. - Society of the Holy Trinity - to make sure everyone knows they are very high church, smells and belles. Not long ago their most prolific poster, an ELCA pastor with 10,000 posts, was convicted and sent to prison. No one mentioned it. 

ELCA Pastor Tibbets, STS, former ALPB Online Forum contributor

The CLC (sic) 

Donkey basketball is CLC school fun - bring your own mop bucket.

The Church of the Lutheran Confession (sic)

Believe it or not - someone in Nicolet decided that a Shrove Tuesday pancake supper was the greatest possible sin, an abomination. Father and son went around stirring up trouble. Various clergy weirdos participated, including the CLC's president and the Circuit Counselor. 

We started an independent congregation, with land and a chapel in New Ulm - Bethany Lutheran Church. We moved to Phoenix, discovering online education, and then Arkansas. I borrowed motel bandwidth to teach online on the trip to Arkansas.

I am thankful to God for the synodicals and their dysfunctional buddies who made independence possible. All of them were devoted to the Church Growth Movement. They had a hatred for the Reformation - Luther, Melanchthon, Chemnitz - Justification by Faith, and basic honesty. I learned even more from them when I explored the errors of Lutheran sectarian pride. 

Liberalism: Its Cause and Cure - Plus CLP

Herman Otten suggested that I send my manuscript to the WELS publishing house, so I did - and they accepted it. Soon after I gave a presentation at a WELS circuit on the Means of Grace. Pastors Roger Kovaciny, Wally Oelhafen, and Fred Adrian shouted their opposition, truly a sight to see. I thought, "That will be my last chapter in Liberalism!" NPH delayed the book for about a year, apparently because the Fuller Seminary faction wanted it stopped altogether. However, the book was printed and the same kind of raving was set up for the church council meeting. One member of the council grilled the other members and made them retract their madness. The book sold like hotcakes.

I wrote Catholic, Lutheran, Protestant and had a similar experience. NPH accepted the book, scheduled it for printing (the final step), and then said, "We will not print this until you change your attitude." That was rather vague - Stop being Lutheran? Start worshiping Fuller Seminary? Repudiate the Reformation? Otten suggested a local printer and CLP came out. NPH promoted it (?!) to all their customers, and it sold very well. Along the way I got Otten involved in selling NPH books and he sold off all their musty unsellable books, plus mine.

The skirmish got me into independent printing. If anyone wonders why the LCMS-ELS-WELS-CLC are so weak, anti-Lutheran, and crumbling, just consider the appalling leadership of their Church Growth zombies and vampires, who hate the Gospel of Faith in Jesus Christ. 

Christina was always encouraging about the books and enjoyed the blog battles immensely. She forced me to add up the books, small and large, 31. Many Lutheran friends have also urged more publishing, blogging, and videoing.

How To Enjoy Luther and Learn Biblical Theology

Almost all the discussions about Luther are stuck in the About stage. Individuals take a concept or a book about Luther and waste everyone's time on superficial repetition. That is why the Big Four - ELCA-WELS-ELS-LCMS continue to teach Universalism with the fire of their Father Below. The irony is profound - The Church of Rome teaches that no one is forgiven, so even the best of the best spend a few days in Purgatory. The Big Four teach that everyone is forgiven - "Everyone! Everyone!" - so grace without faith is taught without any comprehension, contrary to Romans and the entire Bible.

George cut me off his Facebook page, and he kicked out my sainted wife as well.

The untouched volumes behind George Borghardt show absolutely no wear - his roaring and posturing cover his message while uncovering his lack of scholarship.

The best way to learn Luther is to study and wear out his sermons, instead of flipping through his books - or more often - glancing at bloated books about him. That is so far into The About Mode that the same quips are circulated shamelessly.

I feature the Lenker edition of Luther's Sermons because the preached sermon was especially important to the Reformer and most edifying for his readers. I post Daily Luther Sermon Quotes so people can read parts and study separately the entire sermon for the next Sunday. That label has been used 205 times.

Here is today's 

I make the text bold and blue to point out some of the most significant statements.

The sermons were gathered as examples of sermons about that particular reading, which is why so many of them go far beyond the limits of a sermon preached at a church. They are Scriptural proclamations with great insights, so much to teach us, so horrible for the false teachers who scream and rage, using all the tools of logical fallacies. 

Daily Luther Sermon Quote - Epiphany 3 - "For this centurion also has a heartfelt confidence in Christ, and sets before his eyes nothing but the goodness and grace of Christ; otherwise he would not have come to him, or he would not have sent to him, as Luke 7:3 says."

 

Complete Sermon -> Third Sunday after Epiphany. The Leper and Healing the Centurion's Servant

8. The other example is like it in respect to faith and love. For this centurion also has a heartfelt confidence in Christ, and sets before his eyes nothing but the goodness and grace of Christ; otherwise he would not have come to him, or he would not have sent to him, as Luke 7:3 says.

Likewise he would not have had this bold confidence, if he had not first heard of the goodness and grace of Christ. In this instance also the Gospel is the beginning and incentive of his confidence and faith.

9. Here we learn again, that we must begin with the Gospel and believe it and not look upon any merit or work of our own as this centurion also advanced no merit or work, but only his confidence in the goodness of Christ. So we see that all the works of Christ exhibit examples of the Gospel, of faith and of love.

10. We also observe the example of love, how Christ freely shows him kindness, without any request or reward, as was said above. Moreover, the centurion also shows an example of love, in that he took pity upon his servant as upon himself, even as Christ also has had compassion upon us, and did the good deed freely, solely for the benefit of the servant, as Luke 7:2 says, he did it because the servant was dear to him; just as if he said: The love and affection, which he bore to him, impelled him to consider his need and to do this. Let us also do likewise, and see to it that we do not deceive ourselves and rest satisfied in that we now have the Gospel, and yet have no regard for our neighbor in his need. This having been said of these two examples, we will now also examine some details of the text.

II. THE EXPLANATION OF TWO THOUGHTS IN THIS GOSPEL.

11. When the leper here limits his prayer and says: “Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean.” it is not to be understood as if he doubted the goodness and grace of Christ. For such a faith would be of no value, even if he believed that Christ was almighty, and was able to do and know all things. For that is living faith, which does not doubt that God is also good to us and is graciously willing to do what we ask. But it is to be understood in this way: faith does not doubt the good will God has toward a person, by which he wishes him every good; but it is not known to us, whether what faith asks and presents, is good and useful for us; God alone knows this,. Therefore faith prays in a way that it submits all to the gracious will of God, whether it is for his honor and our good, and yet it does not doubt that God will grant it, or, if it cannot be granted, that his divine will withholds it in great grace, because he sees it is better not to bestow it. But in all this faith nevertheless remains certain and sure of God’s gracious, will, whether he gives or withholds, as St. Paul also says in Romans 8:26, we know not how to pray as we ought, and as the Lord’s Prayer bids us to prefer his will and to pray for it.

12. This is what we have often said: we ought to believe without doubting and without limiting the divine goodness; but we ought to pray with the limitation, that it may be his honor, his kingdom and will, in order that we may not limit his will to time, place, measure or name, but leave all that freely to him. For this reason the prayer of the leper pleased the Lord so well and was soon heard. For where we submit to his will, and seek what is acceptable to him, he cannot refrain from doing in return what is acceptable to us. Faith inclines his favor to us, and submissive prayer inclines him to grant us what we pray for. As to the sending of the leper to the priests, why it was done and what it signified, enough has been said in the Postil of the ten lepers.

13. However, the saying of Christ: “I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel,” has been discussed with solicitude, lest it should imply that Christ did not speak truly or that the Mother of God and the apostles were inferior to this centurion. Although I might say here that Christ is speaking of the people of Israel, among whom he had preached and to whom he had come, and that therefore his mother and disciples were excluded, because they traveled with him and came with him to the people of Israel in his preaching, nevertheless I will abide by the words of the Lord and take them as they stand; and for the following reasons. First, it is contrary to no article of belief that this faith of the centurion was without a parallel among the apostles or in the Mother of God. But whenever no article of faith openly contradicts the words of Christ, they are to be taken literally, and are not to be adapted and bent by our interpretation, neither for the sake of any saint, or angel, nor of God himself. For his Word is the truth itself above all saints and angels.