None Can Defeat God: A Meditation on Romans 8 for the 9th Sunday after Pentecost

Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's elect?

It is God that justifieth.  Who is he that condemneth?

It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again,

who is even at the right hand of God,

who also maketh intercession for us.

 

 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?

shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution,

or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?

As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long;

we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.

Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors

 through him that loved us.

 

For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life,

nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers,

nor things present, nor things to come,

Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature,

shall be able to separate us from the love of God,

which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

 

Several great theological principles emerge in St. Paul’s 8^th chapter to the Christians at Rome, but two help frame this structure of his encouragement to Christians of all times and places:  God is omnipotent in power, and His grace is inexhaustible.  Paul began by describing the power of God to call and sanctify and save all those who will come to Him, and through the work of His Son on Calvary, His overwhelming grace to pardon sin.  This is complimentary to the Gospel reading for today in Matthew 13, where the Kingdom of God is likened to a great drag net cast by God into the whole of world, and according to His power and compassion, all the souls caught up in the final judgment will be sorted by the Holy Angels according to their kind.  It is always and only God who judges, and the whole creation is subject to the Creator.  Yet it is always and only God who accomplishes the work of salvation for all people, by uniting in Jesus Christ the satisfaction of the Law through His Cross, and the grace of redemption through faith in Him.  There is no one more powerful or more good than God, so that when Jesus says that if the Son has made you free, you are free indeed—unassailable by any power of heaven, earth, or hell.

 

To be sure, there have been plenty of persecutions of Christians across the ages, and that persecution continues in our own time.  Some regions experience it more brutally, such as in parts of India, China, Africa, and the Middle East.  And some experience it in a more subtle way in Europe or the Americas, where prejudice against biblical Christianity emerges in slander, libel, social media deplatforming, loss of livelihood, or in some cases even jail.  Even so, what can the persecutions of man accomplish in separating man from God?  If God reads Facebook or Twitter, I doubt He is persuaded by either vitriol or calumny, nor affected by shadow bans and censure.  The world might look like its run by tech titans or politicians, but in reality, the King of the Universe is not stymied or overthrown.  The devil and his minions make much hay in our fallen world, getting people to turn on each other and devour each other through intrigue, crime, and war, but God is not diminished by the perturbations of this little blue marble coasting around our sun.  His Kingdom comes and His will is done even by those who rebel against Him, because only God can ensure that truth and justice prevail in eternity, and the evil fruits of wicked people are served up to those who produce them.

 

Yet just as God is eternal and omnipotent, He is also all gracious and loving.  It is by His own work that the Gospel is made present to a fallen humanity, that the Law is satisfied in the life, death, and resurrection of His Only Begotten Son, and that everyone who repents and believes in Him will not perish, but have everlasting life.  Who else could make such a promise but God alone?  The devil cannot promise eternity to anyone apart from the fires of hell destined for him and his unholy horde.  Politicians cannot promise eternity beyond the scope of their few years of rule, be it with wisdom or folly.  Criminals and malefactors might gather their ill-gotten gain for a few years, relishing in the suffering of their victims for a time, but none can escape the dragnet cast over the whole world.  Indeed, even in places where Christians are lined up like lambs for slaughter, where Islamists parade them out to behead them in gory spectacle, or Marxists ship them off to slave camps where their organs may be harvested and sold from their living bodies, or Hindu mobs gang-rape and murder nuns, or drug cartels butcher priests who dare speak out against human trafficking, the people of God are more than conquerors because their lives are hidden for eternity in Jesus Christ.  There is no persecution of God’s people that extends beyond the bounds of this brief time we are given to bear witness to Him in this world, as none of that evil which hounds Christians here will escape an eternity in hell.  God alone is the Author of Life, and the Keeper of all those who abide in Him.  Thus St. Paul can say that in spite of all these things, we are more than conquerors through Jesus Christ our Lord.

 

So if nothing in all creation can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus, a third inexorable theological maxim emerges:  all those who are saved unto eternal life, are saved only by grace through faith in Jesus Christ alone.  No man is the arbiter of his own fate, as no man ultimately is able even to judge himself.  But every man to whom the Word of the Lord has come, by the omnipotent power of the Holy Spirit working through that omnipotent Word, is given the opportunity to accept or reject the saving faith which comes through them—for as St. Paul declares elsewhere, faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.  There is nothing outside of a man that can separate him from the love and life of God, because nothing outside of a man is powerful enough to overthrow God’s Judgment and Grace.  But inside a man lies the will to either abide by faith in the Word which comes to save him, or abide in the judgment of the Word which he rejects.  God desires all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the Truth which sets them free, but God coerces faith and love in no man, for faith and love cannot exist as products of coercion.  There is no power in all of creation that can separate a man from a blessed eternity in communion with his Maker for all time, except his own will to reject the love of God and embrace instead the darkness of eternal perdition.

 

Be of good cheer, dear Christian, for you live by grace through faith in Christ alone, and your life is kept guarded and sure in the power of your omnipotent God and King.  Those who go to perdition, who seek to destroy you and defame the God who seeks to save all people, go their way by their own choice, and will not be able to trouble you for long.  For you are the elect of Almighty God, washed in the Blood of His Son, empowered by His Holy Spirit, alive by His Eternal Word.  You have nothing to fear even if the world were to give way, the nations rage, and people imagine vain things—for despite everything the devil and his followers cast at you, you are still more than conquerors through Jesus Christ who saves you.  Soli Deo Gloria!  Amen.

 

 

Wheat and Tares: A Meditation on Matthew 13 for the 8th Sunday in Pentecost

Another parable put he forth unto them, saying,

The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man

which sowed good seed in his field:

 But while men slept, his enemy came

 and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his way.

But when the blade was sprung up, and brought forth fruit,

then appeared the tares also.

So the servants of the householder came and said unto him,

Sir, didst not thou sow good seed in thy field?

from whence then hath it tares?

He said unto them, An enemy hath done this.

The servants said unto him,

Wilt thou then that we go and gather them up?

But he said, Nay; lest while ye gather up the tares,

ye root up also the wheat with them.

Let both grow together until the harvest:

and in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers,

Gather ye together first the tares,

and bind them in bundles to burn them:

but gather the wheat into my barn.

 

Jesus gave His disciples several parables regarding the Kingdom of God, and this is another where St. Matthew recorded Jesus’ explanation.  Lest the lesson be lost on His people and to successive generations, Jesus revealed that it is He who spreads the good seed of His Word and Spirit in the world to raise up people who will live in Him by grace through faith.  The people of the world who reject Him and live in evil are the work of the devil who sows his own lies, deceits, violence, and treachery, so that he might have his own diabolical disciples in the world.  God could have chosen to rip out the evil of the world early on, but it would have jeopardized the people He was raising up by faith and repentance, so He directed His Holy Angels to let them grow together until the Last Day.  But on that final day of the world, the Lord would send His Holy Angels to gather up every soul devoted to evil, bind them and throw them into the fires of hell for all eternity.  Then those same Holy Angels would gather together His people into His own Kingdom where they would shine forth like the sun forevermore.  It is an image of final judgement and restoration, and a hope for those who suffer from the evils of a fallen world.  Anecdotally, it’s also a good reminder to regard the Holy Angels as the righteous and powerful servants of God that they are, and not as they are often scandalously portrayed in art or cinema.

 

When viewed rightly, Jesus’ parable of the wheat and the tares is a comfort to His people in their suffering, and what later theologians might describe as a Theology of the Cross.  The fact that the world is populated with both good and evil people causes tremendous suffering, as conflict and persecution are bound to arise between them.  Evil people will do evil things, because the conviction of their hearts and minds is in the word of the evil one, who succors them the think themselves gods, to satisfy their own lusts, and to subjugate their fellow people.  Evil is not just an abstraction of thought, but a bad idea put into action by the people who embrace it.  As human beings composed of both soul and body, of mind and will, we are able to take a bad idea and run with it through whatever created powers we have been given.  Thus we find real murderers in the world, and real fraudsters; real tyrants and real traitors; real sex traffickers and real thieves; real witches and real satanists.  Evil is not just found in books, though evil ideas can certainly be found there.  On the contrary, given our incarnate nature in a material universe, human beings are capable of not only being evil in thoughts, but bringing forth evil fruit in their words and actions.  The evil brought forth by people who embrace the lies of the evil one are real and tangible, and they cause real pain and suffering in a very real world.

 

In that context, it is not hard to understand why the Holy Angels would ask the Lord if they should just go down and rip out the evil which the devil had sown in the world, and God would have been entirely just in giving that order.  God knew even better than the Angels did, that the word of the devil had corrupted not only the hearts of those who brought forth rampant evil, but also the hearts of those who struggled to remain faithful to Him.  Every human heart, through the fall into sin and death, was now infected with evil tares, and to rip them out of the world would leave all mankind destined to an eternity in hell with the devil and demons who led them there.  Yet the Lord offered compassion and grace so that mankind might survive their mortal peril, and that men might find salvation in Him alone, though the path back to eternal life would be one of suffering, sacrifice, and death.  The good and the evil would be allowed to live together, generation after generation, with God sowing the good seed of His Word and the devil sowing his lies, until that Last Day when all would be sorted out.  To make this path viable, He would send His Only Begotten Son to live as a man, to suffer as a man, to die as a man, and to rise again as a man who would never taste death again.  Jesus, fully divine and fully man, satisfied the just demands of the Law against evil in the world and in every human heart, nailing our evil to the Cross in His own body, and burying it in His tomb.

 

Thus for those who abide in the Word and Spirit of the Living God, alive by grace through faith in Jesus Christ alone, there is no condemnation, because the Son has set them free.  They will live side by side with evil, suffering temporal slights and mistreatments, but they know the Word which has saved them.  This same Word of grace and forgiveness, of life and redemption, is what sustains their soul not only against the evils of the world outside them, but from the evils which try daily to rise within them.  Each day their Baptism drowns the tares of demonic lies and corrupted passions, leading them to trust in the Word of God alone as their hope and life.  Each day they rise in the hope of the Gospel and the rigors of the Law, and each night they rest in that same hope and rigor.  Life in the Spirit, as St. Paul would describe it in his letter to the Romans, is not one of tranquility and ease in this world, but a life of divine strength so powerful that it can endure every trial and temptation of the evil one.  This life of the Cross is a life which persists even through death, when the individual harvest of one’s soul is made complete, all the tares and lies of the evil one ripped out, so that the holy perfection of that ransomed soul might shine forth like the sun unto all eternity.  As our Lord has taught us and shown us by His own example, the Way of the Cross is the path to Resurrection and eternal life, first for the individual soul which trusts in Him, and also for the entirety of the saints who will trust Him in every generation down to that Last and glorious Day of His return.  When every soul destined for the Kingdom of God has been brought forth and sealed with the Gospel of salvation, then the end will come—but until then, the Way of the Cross remains the only path of life for all people.

 

Be of good cheer, dear Christian, and do not be dismayed by the evil in the world.  It is the Lord who will keep you and guard you, deliver and preserve you, by the same omnipotent power of His Word and Spirit which saved you from the evils within your own heart.  And as one marked by the sign of His Cross, so to do you bear the Word and Spirit of your Savior, with the Medicine of Immortality upon your lips.  Every soul needs what you have been given in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and every day the Way of the Cross leads all people to that Last Day.  May the Word and Spirit of Jesus which has enlivened and saved you, raise you up and send you to bear witness of the same, that others with you might repent, believe, and live forever.  Soli Deo Gloria— Amen.

 

The Sower and the Seed: A Meditation on Matthew 13 for the 7th Sunday after Pentecost

The same day went Jesus out of the house,

and sat by the sea side.

And great multitudes were gathered together unto him,

so that he went into a ship, and sat;

and the whole multitude stood on the shore.

 

And he spake many things unto them in parables, saying,

Behold, a sower went forth to sow;

And when he sowed, some seeds fell by the way side,

and the fowls came and devoured them up:

 Some fell upon stony places, where they had not much earth:

and forthwith they sprung up, because they had no deepness of earth:

And when the sun was up, they were scorched;

and because they had no root, they withered away.

And some fell among thorns;

and the thorns sprung up, and choked them:

 But other fell into good ground, and brought forth fruit,

some an hundredfold, some sixtyfold, some thirtyfold.

Who hath ears to hear, let him hear.

 

Jesus’ parable of the sower and the seed was given to the people following Him amidst many other parables and teachings.  At this time, Jesus was so surrounded by people that He elected to sit in a small boat in the water, while the people gathered on the shore to hear Him teach.  While St. Matthew apparently did not include the totality of what Jesus spoke that day in his Gospel account, he did make sure to include this parable which was both descriptive and instructive regarding not only the teaching ministry of Jesus, but also the different ways in which people would receive Him.  Some people would have the Word bounce off them like seed skittering across hardpacked ground, only to have the devil come and whisk away any traces of it from their memory.  Some people would give Jesus a superficial hearing with all the outward signs of exuberant acceptance, but deep down they wouldn’t believe it, as any temporal testing would reveal.  Some people would hear it earnestly, but sadly choose to value the vanities of this world over the eternal riches of God’s Word, and whatever fruit they might have born as disciples of Jesus would be choked out by competing interests.  And yet some people would receive the Word of Jesus, not only understanding it but embracing it, living it, and bearing fruit from it in their lives.  This teaching of Jesus was true in Matthew’s day, and it is true today, as well, offering every generation an opportunity to reflect upon it.

 

Then as now, Jesus’ parable is descriptive:  it reflects the reality of the Word of God at work in the world.  There are sowers of the Word who follow in Jesus’ stead and by His command through the Office of the Holy Ministry, speaking, preaching, teaching, and administering His Word and Sacraments according to His institution.  Around the sowers would be people of every walk of life, with every kind of disposition and conviction and aspiration known to mankind.  The Word will bounce off some, be superficially embraced by others, and be choked out in the lives of yet more.  And still, in some, the Word will root deeply and bring forth a new life that results in fruits of that Word and Spirit which bore it, multiplying its effect in the world by tens and hundreds.  Today, as in Jesus’ day, and in every age of the world, there are people with stony hearts who refuse to believe, with ears they close up to prevent hearing, and eyes they close to prevent understanding.  Jesus noted that His particular generation was a specific fulfilment of the Prophet Isaiah’s warning of the same, perhaps in the magnitude of its local impact upon the Jewish people rejecting their long promised Messiah.  But what was true then is true now, if only the localities and relative magnitudes change from time to time, and place to place—the contemporary populations of Seattle or New York or Wichita or Great Falls, or any hamlet that dots the countryside, all have their relative mix of these continuing dynamics.

 

But if this parable of Jesus still describes the world around us, what are we to do with it?  Jesus’ instruction in this parable is also helpful, as there is a measure of personal responsibility acknowledged with each condition of the human heart.  Jesus Word calls people to avoid being hard hearted and rejecting Him out of hand, lest the devil come and remove all traces of the Word which was given to them.  He calls people to be more than superficial and outwardly pietistic, but rather to have a strong root in themselves so that their deep conviction can weather the storms of life.  Further, He calls people to let go of their earthly idols which compete with His saving Word, so that the love of money, power, pleasure, reputation, or fame would not choke out the efficacy of His Word in their lives.  Lastly, there is an imperative to be good ground for the hearing of the Word, to receive it thoughtfully and joyously with firm conviction and resolve, so that one might not only flourish by that Word but bring forth good works which cause others to flourish, also.  These would be the firm demands of the Law, and they are altogether righteous and good.  The hard hearted, scornful, impudent, vapid, shallow, conflicted, and those whose works in this world reveal their prioritization of personal lust or ambition over holiness, righteous, and virtue, are all guilty by their own personal fault.  There is no one whose evil is not their own, nor anyone who has not earned their own destruction.

 

But there is more instruction in Jesus’ parable than just the Law.  Notice how the sower continues to sow seed, regardless of the ground upon which it falls.  Unlike the seed sown by farmers in their earthen fields, the divine Seed of God’s Word comes with the power to transform the souls into which it is cast, through the working of the omnipotent Holy Spirit.  It is not we who have the power to change our own hearts and minds, but the Word and Spirit of the Living God which has created in us the faith to receive His grace unto eternal life.  The fruitfulness of the Word is not a human work of persuasion or charisma, nor of setting, ambiance, costume, or ritual—rather, the fruits of the Spirit are the works of the Spirit, and the Spirit of God always works through the Word of God to reconcile fallen sinners to their Heavenly Father by grace through faith in Jesus Christ alone.  While a person cannot change their own sinful nature, they can be changed by the Word of God to repent before the Law and to live in the Gospel, all by the power of the Holy Spirit who always and without fail accompanies the Word of Jesus.  A person may have power within themselves to reject God and His Word, but only God and His Word can transform a fallen nature into a forgiven and free child of His own making.  The Eternal Word is everything in the salvation of mankind, revealed as the singular great work of the Holy Trinity to reconcile God and men.

 

And thus the Word of the Lord comes to all, seeking and saving all who will repent and believe in the Savior.  Hear the Law which rightly calls you away from the deadly paths, deceptions, and fascinations of this world, and the Gospel which declares to you the entire forgiveness of all your sins, eternal life, and salvation in Jesus Christ alone.  Rise up in that Word and Spirit, knowing that the world will go as it is ordained to go, but as a forgiven and free child of God, it is your duty and privilege to bear in yourself the inestimable works of the Holy Spirit, that the Word which enlivened you might enliven others around you.  The Eternal Word is the whole of your life and your salvation, as it is for all who will receive it—and so may it be multiplied in you by the hundreds, and unto ages of ages without end.  Soli Deo Gloria!  Amen.

 

Life in Tension: A Meditation on Romans 7 for the 6th Sunday after Pentecost

For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing:

 for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not.

For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do.

Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.

 I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me.

For I delight in the law of God after the inward man:

But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind,

and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.

 O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?

 I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.

So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God;

but with the flesh the law of sin.

 

The Christian life, as St. Paul would describe it to the Christians in Rome, is one that is always in tension while in this world.  The Mind, refreshed and renewed by the Gospel of Jesus Christ, seeks by faith to reciprocate the divine love it has received by grace, first to God then to neighbor.  Yet the Body to which Paul refers, seems to be at war with this Gospel, constantly lusting after that which is against the Word and Will of God.  Paul would go so far as to say that he finds nothing good in his flesh, that it is a Body of sin and death, and that only Jesus could rescue him from it.  The Law of the Mind is the Word of God Incarnate, crucified for the sins of the world, offering all people the same eternal life, forgiveness of sins, and salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ alone.  The Law of the Flesh is the condemnation which comes to all people according to God’s Justice—a Law of Sin which can only have one outcome before the holiness and righteousness of Almighty God.  And so, Paul reconciled the tension between these two impulses and two outcomes in the individual human life, by appealing to the triumph of life over death found in only in Jesus.

 

It is important to remember that Paul was not adopting the old philosophy of the Gnostics, who reduced human existence to a righteous life of the Mind, and where a careless life of debauchery in the flesh was meaningless to the soul.  Instead, Paul recognized the tough reality of Christians being at the same time both sinners and saints:  by the Law, legitimately condemned to death, and by the Gospel, freely given the gift of eternal life by the imputed righteousness of Jesus.  The human person is created to be a body and soul in union, an incarnate creature of flesh and spirit, which is why death is so terrible a fate for human beings.  When our soul is separated from our body that no longer functions according to the material principles of the universe, that death is a breaking of our created design.  Left unaddressed, a human soul detached from its body would be an eternal aberration, debasing what God had originally created good.  The Resurrection of Jesus Christ after the victory of his Cross was the first fruit of a new creation, an unalterable testimony to God’s intention to restore full life to all people suffering under the curse of death.  The Gospel which Jesus gave to His Disciples was to preach eternal life and the forgiveness of sins by grace through faith in Him alone, so that even as a person died in this world, they would live forever in Him.  This was not a separating or reduction of the human person, but a restoration of the full created glory of man, through the God-Man Jesus Christ.

 

And yet, this creates a tension in the Christian life, and in the world at large.  A person apart from grace is destined to die not just once, but twice—first as their soul is separated from their body in physical death, and second as their soul is separated from God for all eternity.  The second death, as St. John would note it in his Apocalypse, is the horror of being judged under the Word of God’s Law because they had rejected His Word of Grace, and so even with a resurrected body unable to die through separation from the soul, such a one would be cast into hell forever.  Without the grace and love of God through Jesus Christ, the first death would always lead to the second death, because no man can stand before the Law of God justified by their own works.  Only in Jesus could a person who dies in this world escape the second death, and rise up on the Last Day to inherit a new Heaven and new Earth forever devoid of sin, death, and the devil.  Thus the Christian who lives by grace through faith in Jesus Christ alone while still in this world, lives presently in the promise of eternal life even as they face the first death.  This is why Jesus could tell His Disciples that whoever believes in Him will live even though they die, because the forgiveness and life that Jesus brings to His people is one that transcends temporal death, and rescues from judgment in the next world.

 

What this means for the Christian is that Life is greater than Death, and that God has proved it so by the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.  In this world before the Lord’s final return, we live in a real tension, where our Mind and soul cling to the Gospel promises of Jesus and strive to live in His Word by grace through faith, while our fallen nature still lusts after all the things which are leading to its eventual death.  Only when the Christian has finally laid down his sinful nature in the first death, can the dross be refined from the pure gold, and his eternal life shine forth the reflected glory of his Savior.  In this world, we wait in this tension, working the good which God has ordained for us since before the advent of time, fighting the good fight of faith and repenting daily for our sins against His righteous Word.  But in the next, we wait victorious over sin, death, hell, and the devil, knowing that the Resurrection is as sure to come as the Cross has already occurred at Calvary.  On that great Day when the Lord culminates all the work which was ordained for this epoch of time, the dead in Christ will rise first, and those still here on earth will be caught up with them, transformed in the blinking of an eye to leave our sinful nature behind and rise up fully restored forever.  This tension, this war, which so consumes our lives and tortures our Minds is only for a little while, and then the glory of eternity dawns.

 

Today, the Word of the Lord calls us to faith and repentance, that we might have life and have it abundantly in Jesus Christ our Lord.  The individual cross He has given us to bear is the sinful nature we carry until we leave it in the grave, so that we might rise up with Him in His New Creation, forgiven and free, forever.  The Christian has no fear of the first death, because the terror of the second death is already overcome by the Vicarious Atonement Jesus made for the sins of the whole world.  Rather, though the first death is a judgment all people must face as a consequence of our first rebellion against the Author of Life, for the Christian even that first death is transformed into liberation.  While the road may seem long and the fight daunting as we live out these few years of our life in this world, it is the promise of Jesus which not only gives us love and strength to endure, but grace and mercy to glimpse an unimaginable eternity prepared for all those who love Him.  Take courage, dear Christian, and fight on—for our Lord has already done everything needful for the totality of your salvation, and your eternal life is as unassailable as the immutable Word of the Living God.  Soli Deo Gloria!  Amen.

 

Conflict Which Saves the World: A Meditation on Matthew 10 for the 5th Sunday in Pentecost

Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men,

him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven.

But whosoever shall deny me before men,

him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven.

Think not that I am come to send peace on earth:

I came not to send peace, but a sword.

For I am come to set a man at variance against his father,

 and the daughter against her mother,

and the daughter in law against her mother in law.

And a man's foes shall be they of his own household.

 

He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me:

 and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.

And he that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me.

 He that findeth his life shall lose it:

 and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it.

 

In some times and places, it would be easier to allegorize this teaching of Jesus to His disciples and frame the conflict Jesus speaks of as something mild or inconvenient.  Only a few decades ago in America, being a Christian might evoke a little derision or condescension in elite circles, or a little ostracization from the rougher crowd that enjoyed bawdy environments Christians generally avoided.  Sermons thirty or forty years ago might have focused on not being downhearted when your teacher poked fun at you, your boss passed you over for promotion to prefer someone of more flexible moral character, or the bowling league only wanted you as the designated driver—conflict with the world was inevitable, and you just had to buck up little camper, and bear that cross.  But in a society largely informed by Christian principle and virtue, these small sufferings were like minor irritants compared to the outright persecution, torture, and death Christians faced under Communist, Islamic, and pagan regimes.  In these places, Christians were raped, flogged, torn apart, burned alive, enslaved, and even had their organs harvested while alive.  What Christians have suffered in India, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia, is now spreading into western societies, as the influence of Christianity wanes and these other destructive ideas take deeper hold.  As this reality approaches, it is important that Christians hear Christ’s Words plainly, and step back from shallow or sentimental understandings.

 

Jesus makes it clear that he has not come into the world to make peace with its evil, but to overthrow that evil by the power of His Gospel.  The Law already stands in judgement over every evil deed and actor who has ever walked upon this globe, and so the war of men with God over good and evil is not abolished.  To the contrary, the evil world is always standing on the precipice of perdition as it moves in more or less aggressive unbelief, with every variation of overt or clandestine wickedness it can imagine.  Jesus’ Advent in Israel was not an abolition of the war between good and evil, but a victory over evil through His own Vicarious Atonement.  To abide in evil and unbelief still brings the consequences of divine judgment according to the Law, but now there is a path of Life that reconciles God and man through the Cross of Jesus.  Thus the disciples were sent forth to preach repentance and faith in Jesus, and that confession of the Gospel was to be held against all challenges.  This confession was not a political philosophy or epic poetry, but a declaration that Jesus is who He says He is, has done what He says He’s done, will do what He promised to do, and accomplished mankind’s salvation as only He could.  The presence of Jesus in the world is not peace with the world, but the reconciliation of man to God by grace through faith in Him alone.  This confession declares a divine reality made manifest in the real world, both in history and the present moment, that God has come to save sinners.

 

To deny this confession is to deny Jesus and the salvation He bought for us by His blood.  Knowing that Jesus is the only Way, Truth, and Life—the only reconciliation with God that rescues us from the judgment and condemnation we have earned by our own most grievous fault—is the faith which turns from the world’s evil ways of death into the paths of light and righteousness.  That turning of repentance and life of faith is what generates such hostility from those who prefer rebellion and death and self-idolatry. The world still at war with God, whether they be people of high or low station, people in our communities and associations, or in our friend groups and families, will from time to time try to silence the Gospel confession of Jesus.  There will be times when love of family and friends, community and nation, will be tested before the saving Truth of the Gospel, but to remove ourselves from that good confession is to remove ourselves from its saving grace.  Worse still, to deny the truth of salvation in Jesus Christ alone is to take away from those we love the only witness to salvation they might have.  Our cross to carry the Gospel and bear witness to Jesus is the primary means by which the Holy Spirit moves in the world to resurrect dead hearts, convert corrupted minds, and create faith in unbelieving souls, because the Word of God cannot be separated from the Spirit of God.  When Christians suffer all things to bear witness to Jesus, they retain not only the grace and faith with saves them, but testify to that saving truth even to those who persecute them.  The bloody testimony of the martyrs of yore is not an exercise of defeat but of victorious love, and their witness to the Gospel of Jesus Christ for the sake of those who heard them, echoes throughout eternity.

 

The days are upon us where the testimony of Jesus Christ and life by His Word may cost us everything a temporal world holds dear.  Professions and livelihoods, friends and family members, equal protection under the law, freedom from incarceration or violent mobs, are all good things Christians have enjoyed in the West for generations, but as good as they are, they are nothing compared to the magnificence of the saving Gospel of Jesus Christ.  The reality of the Gospel and the Eternal Word of God make all other pursuits and associations small by comparison, because the things of this world are passing away, but the Kingdom of God abides forever.  Even our most beloved attachments in this world are subordinate to the Savior who seeks to save all people, and who has dignified His people by calling them to be witnesses of His saving work.  For certain, we do not repudiate our unbelieving friends and family, nor our communities and nations, but we are called to love them so dearly that we would not take away from them the testimony which could save them, no matter how much it might cost us to do so.  As Jesus was willing to lay down His life for the life of the world, we are called to follow Him in His cruciform ministry, knowing that our lives are so secure in His grace that we can fearlessly face even the greatest evils with compassion and faith.  For we know that nothing can separate a soul from the love of God in Christ Jesus, and moved by the gift of divine love, we would see this truth born out in every soul we meet.

 

Our time and place is not the first to experience real and violent challenges to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and like those who have born faithful witness in similar times and places before us, we know that our victory is already accomplished in the life, death, resurrection, and promises of Jesus.  We trust in a real Savior who has really trampled down the evil one by His sacrifice on the Cross, and who really did rise from the grave to declare the forgiveness of sins, eternal life, and salvation to all who abide in Him by grace through faith.  He has spoken His Word which creates the reality it declares by the power of His Holy Spirit, so that faith comes to all by hearing, and hearing by the Word of Christ.  May our faith be bolstered by courage and compassion in this our time, so that the Gospel which saves us, might save all who hear it through our testimony.  Soli Deo Gloria—amen.