First Advent Midweek Service, 2017. 7 PM Central Standard Time

First Midweek Advent Service, 2017

7 PM Central Standard Time

Pastor Gregory L. Jackson

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/bethany-lutheran-worship

Mid-Week Advent, Wednesday, 7 PM Central Standard

The Hymn #81 Gerhardt       O Jesus, Christ, Thy Manger Is  
The Order of Vespers p. 41
The Psalmody  Psalm 2
The Lection - Isaiah 40 KJV
The Sermon Hymn #61     Comfort Ye My People  

Faith in the Promises

The Prayers and Lord’s Prayer p. 44
The Collect for Peace p. 45
The Benediction p. 45
The Hymn #552                                  Abide with Me

Isaiah 9

6 For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.
7 Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this.

Faith in the Promises

I have been intrigued lately by the emphasis upon covenant among my Old Testament students, so I asked them about Justification by Faith. Often someone has no idea about this. Many times they are reminded all the time of their covenant with God and how often they have failed their side. That is, their confession is long on sin but not balanced by faith in God's mercy and forgiveness.

So I ask each class about Abraham and Genesis 15, Abraham as the example of faith in the New Testament - Romans 4, Galatians, James, Hebrews.

I noticed that some stop where I used to stop. Abraham believed God would give him his own son, born of his wife. "He believed God and it was counted as righteousness."

Later, it was pointed out that Abraham's faith concerned far more than a son. God promised him that his descendants would be like the stars in the sky.

Isaiah 9 proclaims that unique Kingdom of God clearly. No other kingdom has grown steadily and continues forever. This is the child of promise, not the son of a ruler, but the Son of God. He is called "The Mighty God." As we will read in Colossians - The fulness of the godhead dwelt in Him. Jesus is not 1/3 of the Trinity - He was and is The Holy Trinity, God in the flesh - the Incarnation.

Genesis 3:15 predicted Satan's conflict with the Savior. Genesis 15 predicted the effect of the Savior. Isaiah 7 and 9 predicted the Virgin Birth and reign of the Son of God.

We can see how powerful this is by looking at the opposite - lack of faith in the Savior. As we can see in the libraries, the great and wise began writing against the Scriptures about 200 years ago. They had a great vantage point - the state subsidized university programs for ministers. Those who lose faith in the Word of God could live in peace and comfort while teaching others to disbelieve as they disbelieved.

There is a library worth of literature about this called The Life of Jesus Movement - scholarly books and journal articles, even summaries of the major arguments in long, windy journals.

Gradually, like a frost that moves across the nation as a cold spell looms, this rationalism took over. The ambitious students went to Europe and studied with the rationalists, bringing back elite European degrees and the ideas that went with them. They trained their seminary students to study the Scriptures and disbelieve what they studied.

People write me and say, "The pastors do not care about doctrine anymore and do not teach it."

"I asked our pastor to teach from the Book of Concord, to give some lessons, and he snorted. No chance."

"I see the same sermons preached by different men, so they are copying each other or using a common source."

To make up for the loss of doctrine - and interest in that doctrine - these rationalists substitute social activism. They become an ardent do-gooder society.

Gloria Steinem wrote a book about her life, which began in a very strange way, as her family bought and sold items as they worked their way across the US. However, most of the book is devoted to all her political campaigns and everything possible detail about them. Everything is very earnest and busy, reminding me that it was also the era when America went to pieces because of social activists like her.

I opened up a brochure about the United Church of Christ in New Ulm, because we bought their church. The brochure said, "It is difficult to get people to join our church." I thought - "No wonder - you do not believe in anything except all the world religions are the same. Why worship that?" So all they do is work on social activism.

All that leaves people with heavy hearts and no peace. All the good works in the world will not earn absolution. Christ has done that. But if the preacher points at the cross and says, "Jesus expressed solidarity with the poor," then the meaning of His suffering, death, and resurrection are lost.

It like hearing that one medicine alone will cure the malady, then seeing that one medicine taken away and replaced with colored water or a sugar pill.

a child is born, unto us a son is given
This is clearly the prediction of the Savior, a son. In Isaiah 7, the great and unique miracle will be the Virgin Birth. One can say this is about Jesus or simply wonder - because it only makes sense with one person.

and the government shall be upon his shoulder
He is the visible sign of God's reign, the face and voice of God, so He will ultimately govern after establishing His Kingdom.

 and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor
As we know from the Gospels, people ran to be near Him, to follow Him, to have dinner with Him, to hear Him speak.

The mighty God, The everlasting Father,
A child is called God and Father. Who could that be, except Jesus. As He said in many ways, "I and the Father, We are One." That is a mystery revealed by the Holy Spirit. In any language, it would be a contradiction, except it is the teaching of the Spirit. When Jesus speaks, the Father is speaking. There is no difference between the will and the Word of the Father, and yet they are two Persons witnessed by a third Person - the Spirit.

Jesus Is Kind and Loving, God the Father Is Kind and Loving
As I wrote many times before - what we hear from Jesus and see in Jesus is also true of the Father. The Father is not mean, angry, and vindictive, because He sees the Son in us.

The Prince of Peace.
My high school classmate wrote we should all pray for peace in this world. I said, "Peace exists wherever people believe in the Gospel."

Peace and forgiveness in Christ go together. There is no peace without forgiveness and no Christ without faith in Him. These passages are given to us to kindle faith and to renew and strengthen faith.

Why So Many Promises?
God knows how much we can be battered by the pain, loss, unwelcome tribulation. I hear about many examples and I pray for their specific problems.

These many Promises are revealed to us to show the great majesty, glory, and wisdom of God. Our first hymn, by Paul Gerhardt is a good example. He saw the irony of God's great work taking place in such modest circumstances.

O Jesus Christ, Thy Manger Is
By: Paul Gerhardt, 1607-76

O Jesus Christ, Thy manger is 
My paradise at which my soul reclineth.
For there, O Lord, Doth lie the Word Made flesh for us; 
here-in Thy grace forth shineth.

He whom the sea And wind obey 
Doth come to serve the sinner in great meekness.
Thou God’s own Son, With us are one, 
Dost join us and our children in our weakness.

Thy light and grace Our guilt efface, 
Thy heavenly riches all our loss retrieving.
Immanuel, Thy birth doth quell 
The power of hell and Satan’s bold deceiving.

Thou Christian heart, Who ever thou art, 
Be of good cheer and let no sorrow move thee!
For God’s own Child, In mercy mild, 
Joins thee to Him; how greatly God must love thee!

Remember thou What glory now 
The Lord prepared thee for all earthly sadness.
The angel host Can never boast
Of greater glory, greater bliss or gladness.

The world may hold Her wealth and gold;
But thou, my heart, keep Christ as thy true treasure.
To Him hold fast Until at last 

A crown be thine and honor in full measure.

Mainline Protestantism Declared A Safe Space For Those Offended By The Gospel. Babylon Bee Speaks the Truth to the UniSynod - WELS-ELCA-LCMS-ELS-NALC-LCMC-CLC (sic)

Selective outrage is the theme for the media
and the mainline denominations, which include:
WELS-ELCA-LCMS-ELS-LCMC-NALC,
aka the UniSynod. Lutheran officialdom has
decreed the Gospel null and void through their precious Universal Objective Justification - UOJ.

Mainline Protestantism Declared A Safe Space For Those Offended By The Gospel:

"LOUISVILLE, KY—While some college campuses have established safe spaces where the disenfranchised can avoid the pressures, biases, and judgement of the world, mainline Protestant denominations are taking it one step further. The entire umbrella group has now been designated a safe space for those who would otherwise be offended by the gospel, sources confirmed Wednesday.

Speaking on behalf of a plethora of denominations including the Presbyterian Church (USA), the Episcopal Church, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, and the United Methodist Church, a spokesperson issued the following statement: “We are in agreement that there is a great need for churches to rise up and create spaces that are safe for questioning and accepting our identities, doubts, fears, failures, and blatant sins. Effective immediately, we are declaring all mainline Protestant churches safe spaces, where there are no judgments, conviction, repentance, or gospel presentations whatsoever.”"

 Get on board if you want to be part of the
dying, killing UniSynod. They fund abortions
and voice their selective outrage toward anything
Christian or conservative.

'via Blog this'

 Some WELS pastors think she is cool, but Nadia represents the very dark side of ELCA apostasy.

I linked information about ELCA radicalism here, but that only means the weed has finally bloomed. What was once implied in the Leftwing euphoria of ELCA and its sisters in the UniSynod is now a documented fact. Watch the ELCA higher education appointments turn into Sherman's March through Georgia.

One by one, the LCMS-ELS-WELS made universal forgiveness and universal salvation their Chief Article. I am not exaggerating at all.

The dual dimwits Mark Zarling and Frosty Bivens named UOJ the Chief Article of Christianity, the article on which the church stands or falls, the master and price, the judge of all other articles of faith.

Bivens UOJ: The truth of justification, above all others, distinguishes Christianity from all other religions. If this teaching were obscured or lost, attempts to show significant differences between the Christian religion and others would ultimately prove to be futile. Also, as revealed and emphasized in the Bible, all other doctrines either prepare for or flow from this chief article of faith. Without this truth, all others would mean little. This doctrine is the source or basis of the benefits and blessings which mankind receives from God. 
What precisely is this “master and prince, lord, ruler and judge” over other doctrines? Justification is a declaratory act of God, in which he pronounces sinners righteous. As revealed in the Bible, this declaration of God is made totally by grace and on account of Jesus Christ and his substitutionary life and death on behalf of mankind. To phrase it somewhat differently, God has justified acquitted or declared righteous the whole world of sinners. He has forgiven them.

When WELS leaders stick their hooves so firmly into their ravenous snouts - and no one notices for decades - then the remaining Christians are obliged to take notice.

One reader has explained the peculiar WELS spin on these matters, and they immerse everyone so thoroughly in their confused thinking that some feel a real struggle to hang onto the Biblical teaching. I have paraphrased this logic to avoid leaving bread crumbs that led to this person.

WELS UOJ Rationalism
They say - 

• One cannot make faith a cause for justification. Note that Pastor Paul Rydecki dealt extensively with that claim.
• Therefore, Justification by Faith is making faith a cause, so that is synergism (decision theology).
• These things are always said in a condemning, patronizing tone of voice.

Here is a warning from the LCMS side - "Do not make faith a work."

I cited this passage, knowing "work" was used in an ironic sense. John's Gospel is packed with irony.

John 6:28 Then said they unto him, What shall we do, that we might work the works of God?

29 Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on Him whom He hath sent.

Thus, according to Jesus, the primary work is faith in Him.

In a parallel statement, the primary sin is unbelief (not rejection of UOJ). Work is ironic because it diverts the attention from the common notion of work and emphasizes trust in the Savior.

John 16 8 And when he is come, he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment:

9 Of sin, because they believe not on me;

No one refutes these Biblical arguments because they are unable to do so and fear the reaction of those they have deceived for decades.

We Have Always Taught This - Their Whopper Lie

The UniSynod - including ELCA - once taught Justification by Faith. That was a familiar phrase used when I became a Lutheran in the LCA  - in the 1960s. Now the same Chief Article is considered a denial of grace by ELCA and the rest of the UniSynod. That denial began some time ago and reached into all areas, like a slow-moving but never treated cancer.

Every part of the UniSynod taught Justification by Faith at one time, except perhaps the Little Sect on the Prairie. The ELS seems to have formed as a reaction, guided by Pieper the Parrot, who constantly repeated the errors of CFW Walther, BA. 

I hear from various quarters - how the local pastor is indifferent about Biblical doctrine. But of course. When UOJ has taken root, the effect is like novocaine to the brain. Everything is numb upstairs and no one even notices the vast contradictions between being born forgiven and being baptized to wash away sin.

If you believe the Scriptural witness to the Holy Trinity, then nothing good can grow from the denial of the Gospel, be it ever so well funded by Thrivent, the priapic St. Marvin Schwan Foundation, or the Siebert Lutheran Change or Die! Foundation.