Words of Encouragement for December 8, 2010

Advent Meditation

“And the angel said unto her, Fear not, Mary: for thou hast found favour with God. And, behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name JESUS. He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest: and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David: And he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end. Then said Mary unto the angel, How shall this be, seeing I know not a man?” Luke 1:30-34

How shall this be? Upon hearing the announcement of the angel Gabriel, Mary wondered how she, a virgin, could conceive in her womb and bring forth this Son who would be called “the Son of the Highest” and would reign on the throne of His father David forever – over an eternal kingdom.

The answer of God’s angel is recorded for us in the Word of God: “And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.” (Luke 1:35). By the miraculous working of the Holy Spirit, Mary would both conceive in her womb and give birth to this Promised Son while yet being a virgin; “For with God nothing shall be impossible.” (Luke 1:37).

There is another – possibly even greater – “How shall this be?” for us to consider. How shall this be that God would send His only begotten Son into the world to save sinners like you and me? How shall this be that God the Son would come into this world and take on human flesh and blood, becoming true man – not for just a few years, but forever? But this He did.

The Bible tells us: “Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil” (Hebrews 2:14); “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth” (John 1:14).

How shall this be that “when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons” (Galatians 4:4-5)? How shall this be that Jesus Christ would even go to the cross to suffer and die for your sins, for my sins and for the sins of the world? And, yet He did.

The Scripture says: “But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). How shall this be that, after He rose from the dead and ascended to the right hand of God the Father, He sent His Holy Spirit to dwell in our hearts that we might trust in Him and partake of His everlasting kingdom? But again the Bible tells us: “God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father” (Galatians 4:6).

How shall this be? Jesus Himself tells us: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:16). In unfathomable love – in love beyond our understanding – God has done all this for you and for me! “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved” (Acts 16:31).

Dear Father in heaven, we thank You for Your great love for us sinners in sending Your only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, into the world, a true man, born of the Virgin Mary, that He might redeem us from sin and everlasting punishment and grant us a place with Him in His eternal kingdom. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.

Meditations in Genesis

“And Jacob sod pottage: and Esau came from the field, and he was faint: and Esau said to Jacob, Feed me, I pray thee, with that same red pottage; for I am faint: therefore was his name called Edom. And Jacob said, Sell me this day thy birthright. And Esau said, Behold, I am at the point to die: and what profit shall this birthright do to me? And Jacob said, Swear to me this day; and he sware unto him: and he sold his birthright unto Jacob. Then Jacob gave Esau bread and pottage of lentiles; and he did eat and drink, and rose up, and went his way: thus Esau despised his birthright.” Genesis 25:29-34

We may consider this account of insignificance; but, in fact, it has a message of great significance to every Christian today.

As Isaac’s firstborn son, Esau had the birthright, a double portion of the inheritance and, in Esau’s case, the blessings given to Abraham and Isaac which included, not only the promise of the land, but of the Messiah and Savior of the world. Yet, for a single meal when he was hungry, Esau sold his birthright to Jacob his brother. For one serving of food which satisfied him for only a few hours, Esau gave up blessings which extend into eternity!

The sacred text concludes the account with the words: “Thus Esau despised his birthright.” The word “despised” doesn’t necessarily mean he hated it or loathed it, but that he regarded it of little value or worth.

As Christians – believers in the Lord Jesus Christ – we have an eternal inheritance awaiting us in heaven. It is “An inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away” purchased for us with Jesus’ shed blood and made sure to us by the resurrection of our Savior Jesus Christ from the dead (1 Peter 1:3, 4). Jesus Himself told us that He is preparing a place for us to be with Him in the mansions of His Father’s house (cf. John 14:1-6). By His innocent sufferings and death, Jesus won for us and all people complete forgiveness for sins and a place with Him in heaven. His resurrection is proof that our eternal salvation is won.

Yet the Scriptures also warn us of the dangers of sin and its deceitfulness: “Lest any man fail of the grace of God … lest there be any fornicator, or profane person, as Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright. For ye know how that afterward, when he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected: for he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears” (Hebrews 12:16, 17; cf. Genesis 27:30-40).

And how often it happens! Those for whom Christ died, those who have heard of His blessings of forgiveness and life everlasting and who have, for a time, even trusted in His name, for the passing pleasures of sin give it all up and despise their heavenly birthright in Christ Jesus!

Then, when Jesus returns on the Last Day to bless all who have placed their trust in Him with life eternal in the mansions of His Father’s house, they will cry, “Bless me, even me also.” But there will be no blessing left for them because they did not trust in Jesus and they counted the blessings He won for them by the shedding of His holy and precious blood of no value – they traded it all for the pleasures of this world which pass away with their use. The blessing which was once theirs is lost to them forever!

The warning for us as believers is not to esteem the grace of God lightly – not to risk it all or sell our birthright in Jesus Christ to enjoy the temporary pleasures of this world. How do we know that God, who has so graciously called us to faith will again rekindle faith in our hearts when we deny our Savior and reject the Spirit’s working? Christ shed His blood on the cross to redeem us. Let’s not trample His precious blood under our feet and count it as an unholy thing, lest we bring the wrath of God upon ourselves (cf. Hebrews 10:29)!

And, for those many times we have not treasured the blessings of God which are ours in Christ Jesus, let us repent and turn to the promises of God’s Word:

“If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness … If any man sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous: and He is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world” (1 John 1:9: 2:1, 2).

“Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool” (Isaiah 1:18).

Dear Lord Jesus, forgive me for despising my birthright in You, for failing to take hold of and treasure the forgiveness and life You won for me by Your innocent sufferings and death in my stead. Graciously bless me with Your Holy Spirit and restore to me the joy of Your salvation. Amen.

The Augsburg Confession

Article XXIII: Of the Marriage of Priests

There has been common complaint concerning the examples of priests who were not chaste. For that reason also Pope Pius is reported to have said that there were certain causes why marriage was taken away from priests, but that there were far weightier ones why it ought to be given back; for so Platina writes. Since, therefore, our priests were desirous to avoid these open scandals, they married wives, and taught that it was lawful for them to contract matrimony. First, because Paul says, 1 Cor. 7:2,9: To avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife. Also: It is better to marry than to burn. Secondly Christ says, Matt. 19:11: All men cannot receive this saying, where He teaches that not all men are fit to lead a single life; for God created man for procreation, Gen. 1:28. Nor is it in man’s power, without a singular gift and work of God, to alter this creation. [For it is manifest, and many have confessed that no good, honest, chaste life, no Christian, sincere, upright conduct has resulted (from the attempt), but a horrible, fearful unrest and torment of conscience has been felt by many until the end.] Therefore, those who are not fit to lead a single life ought to contract matrimony. For no man’s law, no vow, can annul the commandment and ordinance of God. For these reasons the priests teach that it is lawful for them to marry wives.

It is also evident that in the ancient Church priests were married men. For Paul says, 1 Tim. 3:2, that a bishop should be chosen who is the husband of one wife. And in Germany, four hundred years ago for the first time, the priests were violently compelled to lead a single life, who indeed offered such resistance that the Archbishop of Mayence, when about to publish the Pope’s decree concerning this matter, was almost killed in the tumult raised by the enraged priests. And so harsh was the dealing in the matter that not only were marriages forbidden for the future, but also existing marriages were torn asunder, contrary to all laws, divine and human, contrary even to the Canons themselves, made not only by the Popes, but by most celebrated Synods. [Moreover, many God-fearing and intelligent people in high station are known frequently to have expressed misgivings that such enforced celibacy and depriving men of marriage (which God Himself has instituted and left free to men) has never produced any good results, but has brought on many great and evil vices and much iniquity.]

Seeing also that, as the world is aging, man’s nature is gradually growing weaker, it is well to guard that no more vices steal into Germany.

Furthermore, God ordained marriage to be a help against human infirmity. The Canons themselves say that the old rigor ought now and then, in the latter times, to be relaxed because of the weakness of men; which it is to be wished were done also in this matter. And it is to be expected that the churches shall at some time lack pastors if marriage is any longer forbidden.

But while the commandment of God is in force, while the custom of the Church is well known, while impure celibacy causes many scandals, adulteries, and other crimes deserving the punishments of just magistrates, yet it is a marvelous thing that in nothing is more cruelty exercised than against the marriage of priests. God has given commandment to honor marriage. By the laws of all well-ordered commonwealths, even among the heathen, marriage is most highly honored. But now men, and that, priests, are cruelly put to death, contrary to the intent of the Canons, for no other cause than marriage. Paul, in 1 Tim. 4:3, calls that a doctrine of devils which forbids marriage. This may now be readily understood when the law against marriage is maintained by such penalties.

But as no law of man can annul the commandment of God, so neither can it be done by any vow. Accordingly, Cyprian also advises that women who do not keep the chastity they have promised should marry. His words are these (Book I, Epistle XI): But if they be unwilling or unable to persevere, it is better for them to marry than to fall into the fire by their lusts; they should certainly give no offense to their brethren and sisters.

And even the Canons show some leniency toward those who have taken vows before the proper age, as heretofore has generally been the case.

(To Be Continued….)

How Must God’s Word Be Preached

In Order to Produce Faith in the Hearts of the Hearers?

By Franz Pieper

Luther-Hour Lectures presented to the Seminary Students

(From Concordia Theological Monthly, August, 1933, pp. 577-583.)

FIRST LECTURE

All of you, my dear friends, are preparing for the office of the holy ministry. All of you desire to serve your Savior, who purchased you with His blood, and through whom you have heaven and salvation, throughout your entire life in proclaiming His Word and through the proclamation of His Word leading men to faith and to salvation. What an exalted and precious work! This is the “good work” of which the Apostle Paul writes to Pastor Timothy in the third chapter: “If a man desire the office of a bishop, he desireth a good work.” But now comes the question: How must God’s Word be preached in order that through the service of the preacher faith may be produced in the hearts of the hearers? That is the question which every faithful pastor, who would like to bring all his hearers to salvation, ever and again proposes to himself. And he has every reason to propose this question to himself ever anew, again and again to ponder it. Why So? Mistakes which would hurt the church are always possible here in the weakness of the flesh which still clings to the preachers also. We are here leaving entirely out of account the mere preachers of morality, that is, the preachers who do not proclaim Christ crucified, the Savior of sinners, but merely set Christ before their hearers as an example of virtue.

It is self-evident that these preachers of morality can have no faith in Christ, and they are past improvement; these must first become different people. They must be converted, they must first themselves come to faith in the Savior, and then they will proclaim the Gospel whereby their hearers can come to faith. And such unconverted preachers are in our times the better preachers of morality, the majority of Protestant moralizing preachers. But we in these lectures shall take into account only those ministers who earnestly preach Christ crucified, the Christ for us, Christ the Savior of sinners, and thus endeavor to work faith in the hearts of their hearers. Since mistakes are here so easily possible, I should like to present to you in several lectures, how God’s Word must be preached in order that, so far as the preacher is concerned, faith may be produced in the hearts of the hearers.

Let me introduce here a little story. One of our fathers, one of the fathers of our synod, about fifty or sixty years ago here in St. Louis attended the evening service of a sectarian congregation. The pastor of this sectarian congregation was named Brooks. Brooks was a moralist, no Unitarian, but an independent; for his own person he believed in Christ the Savior, and tried with great earnestness to preach to his hearers Christ the Savior of sinners. He thought that he was on the right way with his manner of preaching; but some time later he reached an entirely different understanding. He perceived that he had been entirely in error, and then came before his congregation, confessed to them that he had preached falsely hitherto, and said that he would from now on by God’s grace preach rightly. And this confession was brought about through the visit of this Missourian to his evening service.

What occurred at that time I did not hear from the mouth of this Missourian himself, but read it about twenty-five years later in a monthly which was published by Brooks himself, who at that time was still living. Brooks reports (the details have escaped me, but I have retained the main points in my memory): He saw among his hearers a stranger (this was that Missourian), and after the service he went to the stranger, as is the custom with the sectarian preachers, extended his hand, and began a conversation with him. The conversation ran somewhat as follows: “Are you a stranger?” The one so addressed answered with a reference to Eph. 2: “Yes, I was once a stranger, but now I am, thank God! no more a stranger but a fellow citizen with the saints, and of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief Corner Stone.” The stranger then broke off the conversation for the reason that he supposed he did not have sufficient command of the English language to express himself clearly and unmistakably. But he did something else: he sat down immediately when he got home and wrote a long letter to Brooks. In this letter he praised his zeal, which he had noticed in the evening sermon, but then also showed how he had first proclaimed the grace of God in Christ but then again made grace dependent upon man’s inner worthiness and inner renewal

Brooks did not get to read this letter immediately, for he took sick, and his congregation allowed him a leave of absence to enable him to make a trip to Europe. A few months later he was sitting in Switzerland with his wife at his side. Feeling bored, he reached into his pocket and found a letter there. It was the letter which the Missourian had written to him, but which he had not yet read. He began to read the letter, and cried out, after he had read the first lines: “Here is a German school teacher who wants to teach me how to preach!” (The Missourian had introduced himself as “teacher.” He was a professor here in our junior college, while that institution was still here in St. Louis, the well known Rector Schick.) Brooks read on; but the further he read the more serious he became. When he had come to the end of the letter he fell upon his knees and prayed God for forgiveness that he had hitherto not preached the Gospel pure and unadulterated to his congregation; he had still always based the grace of God upon the subjective worthiness of man and upon the renewal of man, upon man’s moral improvement.

Now you must not suppose that such a thing can occur only among the better sectarian preachers; this can occur also with pastors of the Missouri Synod, even if they have preached thirty or forty years. It occurred when the sainted Wyneken was on visitation. You will find the account in Wyneken’s biography. Wyneken visited a congregation and also heard the pastor’s sermon. After the visitation he went with the pastor into the woods, asked him to be seated, sat down beside him, and said: “I am president just now, and I am raking you over the coals. When you get to be president some day, then you may rake me over the coals.” (The German idiom is: Ich hobele Sie … dann duerfen Sie mich hobeln.) He then went through his sermon with him and showed him how he had added conditions to the Gospel (das Evangelium verklausuliert habe). Now Wyneken used a crude example from farming. He said: “Do you know how you preached? Just like a farmer who would first very kindly call his herd to drink; but as soon as the herd has come together and wants to drink, he grabs a club and beats the poor beasts until the whole herd scatters in every direction. So you preached very nicely of the grace of God in Christ; but when it came to the matter of appropriating it, you set up so many stipulations that the poor sinners really did not dare to take it to themselves.” It is against this mistake that I want to warn you. That shall be the purpose of this entire series of lectures. You surely all want to be true Gospel preachers. You want nothing to do with gross moralizing. You want to preach Christ crucified, the Savior of sinners, in full earnest. You want to work faith in your hearers, so that they may all believe on Christ and enter heaven. And how you have to preach in order that you may, as we say, preach faith into the hearts, is what I wish, by God’s grace, to expound to you, and among human counselors regarding this correct way of preaching we shall let the Reformer of the Christian Church, Luther, be heard, or occasionally also other orthodox teachers of our Church.

But before we come to the specific treatment of our theme, I should like still today to call your special attention to the fact that the proper task, aim, and goal of the office of the ministry is to work faith in Christ. The dogmatics class will remember that I treated this subject rather exhaustively under the finis theologiae. You must firmly maintain that the proper task of Christian preaching is to work faith in Christ.

A preacher must not permit any other goal to be substituted for this, such as the furtherance of culture, civic probity, prohibition, Sunday laws, and the like. Christian preaching is indeed a powerful cultural factor. Civic righteousness has indeed its surest and most reliable basis in Christianity, but never forget that your task is not to make men honest citizens; your task consists rather in saving lost men, and that can only take place when through your service faith in the Savior of sinners is produced. Everything that accomplishes anything in the Christian Church has faith in Christ as its postulate and foundation. You shall produce sanctification and good works, as this comes to expression in hundreds of places in the Bible; but good works can result only from faith in Christ crucified. You shall also produce and preserve Christian hope. The Christians shall have comfort, an abundant wellspring of comfort, in their wilderness journey through this life by means of your preaching. But you can only produce comfort upon the basis of Christ crucified. There is no abiding comfort that does not rest upon the knowledge that through faith in Christ we have a gracious God and are therefore also counted righteous before Him. “Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ: by whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God” Rom. 5:1-2. Therefore do not forget that it is your specific task, to which your entire activity should be directed, to produce and preserve faith in your hearers. That is precisely the reason why the office of the ministry is such a high, important, and glorious office, an office with which no other office in the world can be compared in importance. Upon this is based our demand upon all of you that when you have become competent and are in office you must under no circumstances desert this office in order to become governor or president, etc.; for all these offices are not to be compared in importance with the office of the ministry. The office of the ministry alone has in Scripture the title: Good work in the highest degree.

It would signify a degradation for you if you would forsake the office of the ministry and administer some other office; and because the office of the ministry is such a glorious office, the Church expects yet one more thing of you, to which you will please give your earnest attention: that you take upon you many labors, many pains, and, if need be, want and nakedness, in the execution of this office, in order at all events to stay in it. Hear with regard to this point some words of Luther. I offer you the following from Luther’s famous writing “A sermon on Keeping Children in School” (St. Louis, X, 422ff.: Philadelphia, iv, 142ff.). Luther says this of the glory of the New Testament ministry: “I hope, indeed, that believers, and those who want to be called Christians, know very well that the spiritual estate has been established and instituted by God, not with gold or silver, but with the precious blood and the bitter death of His only Son, our Lord Jesus Christ” (X, 423; IV, 142.). If the office of the ministry ever seems trifling to you – and such hours will come – then think on this word of Luther. It is a Scripture-truth. That the Gospel is preached in the world, whereby men may be saved through faith, was not brought about with a thousand nor yet with a hundred thousand million dollars, but an infinite price was paid for it, namely, the blood and death of the incarnate Son of God. Because the Son of God came into the world and gained salvation for all men by His vicarious suffering and death, therefore you are in the office of the ministry. How important is the office that was purchased at such a price! The sainted Dr. Walther, in order to remind him of the truth that the teaching office was purchased by the blood of Christ, kept a crown of thorns upon his desk. You have the same reminder when you have a crucifix on your desk, or something else that recalls the blood of Christ, which is the ransom price shed for the sins of the world. That is what Luther means when he says: The office of the ministry was instituted “with the precious blood and the bitter death of His only Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. From His wounds flow the Sacraments* (they used to depict this on the broadsides**) and He earned it dearly that in the whole world men should have this office of preaching, baptizing, loosing, binding, giving the Sacrament, comforting, warning, exhorting with God’s Word, and whatever else belongs to the pastoral office. This office not only helps to further and maintain this temporal life and all the worldly classes, but it also delivers from sin and death, which is its proper and chief work” (X,423.; IV, 142f.). Thus Luther also carries out the very thought which I presented to you in class, that the office of the ministry may not appear to you as a side issue in the world, that in faith and right spiritual pride you may regard it as the center about which everything else revolves. He says: “Indeed, the world stands and abides only because of the spiritual estate; if it were not for this estate, it would long since have gone to destruction” (X, 424; IV. 143). The world still stands only for the sake of the preachers who hasten hither and thither in the world and preach the Gospel and seek to produce faith in Christ. This declaration you have from the Savior Himself, Matt. 24:14: “This Gospel of the Kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come.” The world does not stand that America may show its skill as a nation, also not for the sake of France or England; nor does it stand for the sake of the whole world taken together, but only and alone for the sake of the Gospel. The civil order is preserved only in order that the Church may have an external harbor, that through the preachers of the Gospel men may be brought to faith in Christ.

A few more words from Luther: in the following Luther comes to speak of how the Gospel is rightly preached. It is not papistical work-preaching which leads men to faith, for, so far as in it lies, it leads men away from the right way and into death. And this applies also to the preachers of morality. The preachers of morality are a devil-contrived caricature of the office of the ministry instituted by God.

Luther says: “But the estate of which I am thinking is that which has the office of preaching and the service of Word and Sacraments, which gives the Spirit and all blessedness such as one cannot attain by any chanting or pomp. It includes the work of pastors and teachers, preachers, lectors, priests (whom men call chaplains), sacristans, school-teachers, and whatever other work belongs to these offices and persons. This estate the Scriptures highly exalt and praise. St. Paul calls them God’s stewards and servants, bishops, doctors, prophets; ‘God’s ambassadors to reconcile the world to God’ (II Cor. 5:20). Joel calls them saviors, David calls them ‘kings and priests’ (Ps. 68:13), Haggai (1:13) calls them angels and Malachi says, ‘The lips of the priest keep the Law, for he is an angel of the Lord of Sabaoth.’ Christ Himself gives them the same name, not only in Matt. 11 (v. 10), where He calls John the Baptist an angel, but also throughout the whole book of John’s Revelation” (X, 424; IV, 143). Still another passage quoted from the same writing, where Luther compares a political worldly office with the office of the ministry: “It is true that the office of worldly government is in no way to be compared with the spiritual office of preaching, as St. Paul calls it; for it is not purchased at so dear a price as the preaching office, with the blood and the death of the Son of God, therefore it cannot do such great wonders and works as the preaching office” (X, 39; IV, 158.).

The office of the ministry is the only public office instituted by God that brings the Gospel, works faith, sets the conscience at rest, and leads out of this vale of tears into heaven; not the mayor of St. Louis, not the governor, not the president of the United States. You are acquainted with the story that is told of a young soldier during the Civil War who was lying in the hospital at Washington. President Lincoln was informed about him. When he learned that the young soldier had only a few hours to live, he asked him whether he could do anything for him. The soldier asked him to write a letter to his mother. The President wrote the letter, read it to the soldier, and promised to put it into the mail and see that it reached the hands of his mother. Lincoln further asked him whether he had still any wish. The soldier expressed the wish that the President would give him his hand so that might die with the hand of the President in his hand. The reading of this story has always made me sad. As President, Lincoln did not have the official duty of proclaiming to him the Gospel, but if he had been a Christian, if he had known the Savior of sinners, then he would have called out to the dying soldier: “The blood of Jesus Christ, God’s Son, cleanseth us from all sin. Be of good cheer, my son, thy sins are forgiven thee. Be of good cheer in the valley of the shadow of death, for the Savior says: ‘I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life, He that believeth in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in Me shall never die. If a man keep My saying, he shall never see death!’”

But Lincoln could not speak thus because he Himself did not know the Savior. The president of the United States could not help the young man. So no worldly office can give comfort in the hour of death and free from anxiety of conscience. But this you can do, as ministers of the Gospel; and this every Christian does who speaks God’s Word to a troubled sinner. Luther says further: “For all the works of this estate (the office of worldly government) belong to this temporal, transient life – the maintaining of body, wife, child, house, property, and honor, and what belongs to the needs of this life. As far as eternal life surpasses this temporal life, so far and so high above the temporal office does the preaching office go. For worldly lordship is a picture, shadow, and figure of the lordship of Christ. The office of preaching (where it exists, God ordained it) brings and bestows eternal righteousness, eternal peace, and eternal life. This is the praise that St. Paul gives it in II Cor. 4 (vv. 5-6). But worldly government maintains temporal and transient peace and life” (X, 439; IV, 158).

*The blood and water from the side of Christ (Footnote from the Phila. Ed.)

**One-page tracts, frequently illustrated with wood-cuts (Footnote from Phila. Ed)

(To Be Continued….)

Bible Study in Preparation for Sunday

Scripture Readings appointed for Sunday are: Psalm 146; Isaiah 35:1-10; Acts 20:1-12; James 5:7-11; Matthew 11:2-15. Please read them in their context as you prepare for worship on Sunday.

The Adult Bible Class will continue in the Gospel of John at chapter 14:1ff. Why were Jesus’ disciples not to let their hearts be troubled? In whom were they to trust? What did Jesus tell them about His Father’s house? Where was Jesus going? What did He promise to do? What assurance did Jesus give His disciples in verse 3? How was this comforting for them? How are these verses still comforting for us? Did Jesus’ disciples understand where He was going or the way there? How did Jesus answer Thomas? How is Jesus the way? The truth? The life? How only can one know and come to the Father? What does this mean in regard to people’s beliefs and religions which do not seek to know God and come to Him through Jesus and His innocent sufferings and death for the sins of the world? If one knows Jesus, who else does he know? Why? Did Philip understand this? How did Jesus answer Philip? Whose words did Jesus speak to His disciples? When we speak and preach Jesus’ words, whose words are we speaking? What did Jesus ask His disciples to believe? Why should they believe this? Why should we? What works would Jesus’ disciples do? How would they be enabled to do such works? What does Jesus say about the petitions they make in His name? Why will Jesus do as His disciples ask? Who will receive glory? How? How do Jesus’ words apply to us?

Remember to Pray

Remember to pray for our church and for all our members, that none be lost to Christ’s kingdom but that all continue in repentance and be strengthened and built up in the true and saving faith in Christ Jesus through the hearing and study of His Word. We pray for God’s healing and strengthening of our congregation, as well as for God’s help with our church’s financial needs. We continue to pray for all who have been sick or who are suffering among us – especially for Bill Schoepf, who is home recovering from hernia surgery; Dick Stueland, also recovering from a second knee surgery; for Harley Woods, following surgery; for Sam Rusch, who has had repeated stays in the hospital; the mother of Dick Rusch; for Dick Rusch who is recovering from shoulder surgery; and for Regina Wood (the sister of Lonnie Moll), who was diagnosed with ovarian cancer and is undergoing chemotherapy – for those who have been absent from us, for our extended families and for Christians who are alone and have no congregation. Continue to pray for Lutheran congregations which desire to remain faithful to Christ and His Word, for the Lutheran churches in the Philippines, for Christians in Nigeria, Haiti and Chile, and for believers around the world who are persecuted or suffering for their faith in Christ Jesus.

Events and Announcements

Anyone wishing to help with costs involved for Sam Rusch to visit the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota may place a gift in the offering with the designation: Sam Rusch.

Advent Services continue on Wednesday evenings at 7. A soup and sandwich supper will precede the services, beginning at about 6:20.

Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve services are being planned for 7 p.m. on each night.

The choir continues to practice after church services on Sundays. More voices are welcome.

Information for bulletins or newsletters may be sent to Pastor Moll by calling him at 479-233-0081 or by e-mail at goodshepherdrogers@yahoo.com.

“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 7:14

[Scripture in this Newsletter is taken from the King James Version of the Bible.]