Meditations in Psalm 119
“Let Your mercies come also to me, O LORD—Your salvation according to Your word. So shall I have an answer for him who reproaches me, for I trust in Your word.” Psalm 119:41-42 (Read verses 41-48)
Our salvation depends entirely upon God’s grace and mercy in Christ Jesus. It is the salvation promised in God’s Word from the very beginning and fulfilled in the holy life and innocent sufferings and death of Jesus upon the cross.
Because Jesus, God’s Son in the flesh, fulfilled all the righteous demands of God’s law for us and then suffered and died upon the cross for the sins of the world, rising again on the third day, God is merciful to us and reaches out to us with love and forgiveness. He offers and gives to us – in His Word – mercy, forgiveness and life everlasting for Jesus’ sake.
Thus, the psalmist prays: “Let Your mercies come also to me, O LORD—Your salvation according to Your word.”
Because of our sinfulness and shortcomings, we are constantly accused by the devil and often by others. But when we have God’s mercies in Christ, we also have an answer to those who reproach and accuse us. That answer is not a denial of our sin, but a trust and confidence in God’s mercy and forgiveness for the sake of Jesus’ blood shed for us upon the cross.
Though accused and guilty under the law, God’s Word in which we trust promises us forgiveness for all sins and life everlasting for Jesus’ sake.
LORD God, let Your mercies come also to me and grant me the salvation You have promised in Your Word from the very beginning. For Jesus’ sake, forgive my sin and open up to me the gates of heaven. Jesus shed His blood for me; that is my only plea. Amen.
”And I will delight myself in Your commandments, which I love. My hands also I will lift up to Your commandments, which I love, and I will meditate on Your statutes.” Psalm 119:47-48
In Psalm 37, David writes: ”Delight yourself also in the LORD, and He shall give you the desires of your heart” (v. 4). To delight in the LORD is also to delight in His Word and in His commandments. It is to know and believe that the LORD’s ways – His commandments – are good and right and that we, where we have lived contrary to them, are wrong.
One who has graciously been brought to see the error of his own ways and has taken hold of Christ by faith, believing and trusting in God’s mercy toward us for Jesus’ sake, will indeed delight himself in the LORD and in the commandments of the LORD God. He will love the Word of God and meditate in its teachings that he might know the LORD and His ways and follow after his gracious God and Savior. He will lift up his hands to do what God wills and desires for him.
St. Paul writes in the opening verses of Romans, chapter 12: “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.”
O LORD God, thank You for graciously granting me forgiveness and life for the sake of Your Son, Jesus Christ. By Your Holy Spirit, give me a love for Your Word and a delight in Your ways that I may walk worthy of the mercy You have shown me. In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.
Epitome of the Formula of Concord
II. Free Will
STATUS CONTROVERSIAE
The Principal Question in This Controversy
1] Since the will of man is found in four unlike states, namely: 1. before the Fall; 2. since the Fall; 3. after regeneration; 4. after the resurrection of the body, the chief question is only concerning the will and ability of man in the second state, namely, what powers in spiritual things he has of himself after the fall of our first parents and before regeneration, and whether he is able by his own powers, prior to and before his regeneration by God’s Spirit, to dispose and prepare himself for God’s grace, and to accept [and apprehend], or not, the grace offered through the Holy Ghost in the Word and holy [divinely instituted] Sacraments.
Affirmative Theses
The Pure Doctrine concerning This Article, according to God’s Word
2] 1. Concerning this subject, our doctrine, faith, and confession is, that in spiritual things the understanding and reason of man are [altogether] blind, and by their own powers understand nothing, as it is written 1 Cor. 2:14: The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; neither can he know them when he is examined concerning spiritual things.
3] 2. Likewise we believe, teach, and confess that the unregenerate will of man is not only turned away from God, but also has become an enemy of God, so that it only has an inclination and desire for that which is evil and contrary to God, as it is written Gen. 8:21: The imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth. Also Rom. 8:7: The carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the Law of God, neither, indeed, can be. Yea, as little as a dead body can quicken itself to bodily, earthly life, so little can man, who by sin is spiritually dead, raise himself to spiritual life, as it is written Eph. 2:5: Even when we were dead in sins, He hath quickened us together with Christ; 2 Cor. 3:5: Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think anything good as of ourselves, but that we are sufficient is of God.
4] 3. God the Holy Ghost, however, does not effect conversion without means, but uses for this purpose the preaching and hearing of God’s Word, as it is written Rom. 1:16: The Gospel is the power of God 5] unto salvation to every one that believeth. Also Rom. 10:17: Faith cometh by hearing of the Word of God. And it is God’s will that His Word should be heard, and that man’s ears should not be closed. Ps. 95:8. With this Word the Holy Ghost is present, and opens hearts, so that they, as Lydia in Acts 16:14, are attentive to it, and are thus converted alone through the grace and power of the Holy Ghost, whose 6] work alone the conversion of man is. For without His grace, and if He do not grant the increase, our willing and running, our planting, sowing, and watering, all are nothing, as Christ says John 15:5: Without Me ye can do nothing. With these brief words He denies to the free will its powers, and ascribes everything to God’s grace, in order that no one may boast before God. 1 Cor. 1:29; 2 Cor. 12:5; Jer. 9:23.
Negative Theses
Contrary False Doctrine
7] Accordingly, we reject and condemn all the following errors as contrary to the standard of God’s Word:
8] 1. The delirium [insane dogma] of philosophers who are called Stoics, as also of the Manicheans, who taught that everything that happens must so happen, and cannot happen otherwise, and that everything that man does, even in outward things, he does by compulsion, and that he is coerced to evil works and deeds, as inchastity, robbery, murder, theft, and the like.
9] 2. We reject also the error of the gross Pelagians, who taught that man by his own powers, without the grace of the Holy Ghost, can turn himself to God, believe the Gospel, be obedient from the heart to God’s Law, and thus merit the forgiveness of sins and eternal life.
10] 3. We reject also the error of the Semi-Pelagians, who teach that man by his own powers can make a beginning of his conversion, but without the grace of the Holy Ghost cannot complete it.
11] 4. Also, when it is taught that, although man by his free will before regeneration is too weak to make a beginning, and by his own powers to turn himself to God, and from the heart to be obedient to God, yet, if the Holy Ghost by the preaching of the Word has made a beginning, and therein offered His grace, then the will of man from its own natural powers can add something, though little and feebly, to this end, can help and cooperate, qualify and prepare itself for grace, and embrace and accept it, and believe the Gospel.
12] 5. Also, that man, after he has been born again, can perfectly observe and completely fulfill God’s Law, and that this fulfilling is our righteousness before God, by which we merit eternal life.
13] 6. Also, we reject and condemn the error of the Enthusiasts, who imagine that God without means, without the hearing of God’s Word, also without the use of the holy Sacraments, draws men to Himself, and enlightens, justifies, and saves them. (Enthusiasts we call those who expect the heavenly illumination of the Spirit [celestial revelations] without the preaching of God’s Word.)
14] 7. Also, that in conversion and regeneration God entirely exterminates the substance and essence of the old Adam, and especially the rational soul, and in conversion and regeneration creates a new essence of the soul out of nothing.
15] 8. Also, when the following expressions are employed without explanation, namely, that the will of man before, in, and after conversion resists the Holy Ghost, and that the Holy Ghost is given to those who resist Him intentionally and persistently; for, as Augustine says, in conversion God makes willing persons out of the unwilling and dwells in the willing.
16] As to the expressions of ancient and modern teachers of the Church, when it is said: Deus trahit, sed volentem trahit, i. e., God draws, but He draws the willing; likewise, Hominis voluntas in conversione non est otiosa, sed agit aliquid, i. e., In conversion the will of man is not idle, but also effects something, we maintain that, inasmuch as these expressions have been introduced for confirming [the false opinion concerning] the powers of the natural free will in man’s conversion, against the doctrine of God’s grace, they do not conform to the form of sound doctrine, and therefore, when we speak of conversion to God, justly ought to be avoided.
17] But, on the other hand, it is correctly said that in conversion God, through the drawing of the Holy Ghost, makes out of stubborn and unwilling men willing ones, and that after such conversion in the daily exercise of repentance the regenerate will of man is not idle, but also cooperates in all the works of the Holy Ghost, which He performs through us.
18] 9. Also what Dr. Luther has written, namely, that man’s will in his conversion is pure passive, that is, that it does nothing whatever, is to be understood respectu divinae gratiae in accendendis novis motibus, that is, when God’s Spirit, through the Word heard or the use of the holy Sacraments, lays hold upon man’s will, and works [in man] the new birth and conversion. For when [after] the Holy Ghost has wrought and accomplished this, and man’s will has been changed and renewed by His divine power and working alone, then the new will of man is an instrument and organ of God the Holy Ghost, so that he not only accepts grace, but also cooperates with the Holy Ghost in the works which follow.
19] Therefore, before the conversion of man there are only two efficient causes, namely, the Holy Ghost and the Word of God, as the instrument of the Holy Ghost, by which He works conversion. This Word man is [indeed] to hear; however, it is not by his own powers, but only through the grace and working of the Holy Ghost that he can yield faith to it and accept it.
Bible Study in Preparation for Sunday
Scripture Readings for Sunday are: Psalm 119:41-48; Ephesians 4:1-16; and Matthew 14:22-33. Please read them in their context as you prepare for worship on Sunday.
The Adult Bible Class is studying St. Paul’s Epistle to the Ephesians, at chapter 3, verse 1ff.
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 – for Sam Rusch, who was hospitalized; for Bonnie Hawes, who is anticipating heart surgery; for those who have been absent from us, for our extended families and for believers who are alone and have no congregation. Continue to pray for Lutheran congregations in the Philippines and Japan, 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
Monthly Evening Bible Study is tentatively scheduled for 7 p.m., Wednesday, August 24. We will be continuing with a study of segments on the reliability of Scriptures from Bible on Trial.
On-line video of worship services can be found at: http://goodshepherdrogers.org/blog/worship-service-video.
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.
Psalm 131
A Song of Ascents. Of David.
1 LORD, my heart is not haughty,
Nor my eyes lofty.
Neither do I concern myself with great matters,
Nor with things too profound for me.
2 Surely I have calmed and quieted my soul,
Like a weaned child with his mother;
Like a weaned child is my soul within me.
3 O Israel, hope in the LORD
From this time forth and forever.