Wednesday, December 1, 2021

First Mid-Week Advent Service, 2021




Mid-Week Advent Service, 
December 1, 2021, 7 PM Central

Pastor Gregory L. Jackson




The Hymn # 240             Father Most Holy  
   
The Order of Vespers                                         p. 41
The Psalmody            Psalm   14                     p. 124
The Lection   
         

Sermon Hymn # 410             Jesus Lead Thou On


         
The Two Natures in Christ
 

The Prayers and Lord’s Prayer                         p.  44
The Collect for Peace                                        p. 45
The Benediction                                                   p. 45

Isaiah 7:10 Moreover the Lord spake again unto Ahaz, saying, 11 Ask thee a sign of the Lord thy God; ask it either in the depth, or in the height above. 12 But Ahaz said, I will not ask, neither will I tempt the Lord. 13 And he said, Hear ye now, O house of David; Is it a small thing for you to weary men, but will ye weary my God also? 14 Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.

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.


Announcements and Prayers

  • The anniversary of Walter Boeckler's death is Saturday, December 4th.
  • Randy Anderson will have surgery.
  • Anita Engleman has medical concerns.
  • Pastor Jim Shrader and his wife Chris.
  • Those with diabetes.
  • A girl named C. is having emotional problems and poor medical care.
The Two Natures in Christ

The Book of Isaiah is simply overloaded with the greatest passages of the Old and New Testaments. We know many of them from Handel's Messiah, but we would still be studying them because of their truth, impact, warnings, and comfort.

We started last year's midweeks with the same theme, the Two Natures in Christ. In sounds better than of, because the phrase is so precise, so close to the unity of the Natures. That is the title of Chemnitz' beautiful book - The Two Natures in Christ.  What riled me today was the non-Lutheran ex-seminary president, Theresa Latini, giving an advent talk on these passages. Were they about Jesus or Hezekiah?"

As the "great scholars" have shown, there are three dominant heresies - 
  • Against the divinity of Christ, 
  • against His humanity, and
  • against Justification by Faith. 
Our "great scholars" violate the divinity of Christ and Justification by Faith, even though both are clearly taught from Genesis 1 onward. They also substitute two phony sources for the New Testament (Aleph-Sinaiticus and B- Vaticanus) - rejecting the thousand of manuscripts which make up the Traditional Text.
The ones favored by the "great scholars" do not agree with each other. The Traditional (Majority, Byzantine, Ecclesisastical) Text is harmonious, except for the typos that happen when anyone is producing a letter, book, or essay. The best modern equipment cannot make the written word 100% accurate.

Google and I go over the latest being typed out and there are still mistakes, because language is subtle and slippery, the source of jokes, puns, and pointed insults.

Isaiah 7
The Isaiah 7 prediction of Jesus being born of a Virgin is easy to understand and counter against the doubters. That does not rely on the Hebrew word, and this generation tends to ignore such meanings. A maiden is a young girl, but a maiden voyage is the very first formal sailing of a ship. But the answer is clearer than that. Ahaz refused a miracle offered by God, the worst of all possible rebukes of the majesty and power of God. So God said through the prophet. I will give you a miracle direct from me.  A virgin will conceive - which is impossible - and bear a son (human nature) and He will be called Immanuel - God with us (divine nature). People can dance around this all they want, but the meaning in any language is the same - this miracle will come directly from God, unbidden, and it will show the Savior's Two Natures, human and divine, and His mother's unique status.

Those who deny this stated fact have no concept of the Bible, Old or New Testament. Those who juggle these terms are simply using the faith of others to be "experts" who will explain the real story, to spread their unbelief and haughty show of fake erudition. I asked the entire class of seminarians and the professor to respond, "Do you believe the Virgin Birth or not?" And they responded like chickens scared by firecrackers. Not one answered.

Isaiah 9
The second passage is equally powerful, but we can see a tendency which is throughout the Bible. If something is taught with a certain set of words, and capable of being juggled by "experts," it also appears with a very similar message in different words. We can see that in the Gospels and Psalms and many other places in the Bible.

The opening words of the title seem to be suitable for humans, so the miracle-deniers seem to be winning for a moment...until we get to Mighty God. Jesus as God is one of the most attacked concepts of today. His humanity is tolerated because He remains an appealing figure. But people will accept some miracles, not others, reject all miracles, or explain miracles away as a misunderstanding or emotion-caused malady (like leprosy?). So we can look for proof elsewhere in the passage. Everlasting Father and Prince of Peace definitely sound divine. But the last part is the proof in front of us. His government will last forever (Christianity), it will expand all over the earth after beginning in a remote province of the Roman Empire. It will be established from the Throne of David and be everlasting.

The Abraham passages in the New Testament remind us that long before the Psalms, the same great Kingdom of God would come from the patriarch's line.

These passages create and strength faith in Jesus Christ, which is the #1 purpose of the Bible. When we trouble ourselves about the power of God to help us in time of need, these passages remind us how God worked centuries before His Son's birth to lay the groundwork of the Messianic Kingdom. We have all kinds of fake saviors today who boast of their power, which is really from their Father Below. But not one can say their advent began when it was declared a thousand years, 1600 years ago. The fake saviors last as long as fruit flies, so their buzz is temporary. 

God, Who makes miracles that no one can imagine, will touch our lives with blessings, strength, and even with miraculous healings. These passages are given to us to establish the reign of Jesus in our hearts and to move us to pray in His Name about our problems, wishes, worries, and fears. We read these passages and say, "This is what God can do."