Jesus speaks to us today, saying,
“What do you think about the Christ? Whose son is he?”
So, you are all still here. The Blood moons were yet another
natural phenomenon exploited for profit and fear mongering. As we have said
before, as long as humanity is in danger and a cause to save it can be
established, there will be no end to the Tyrants who are ready and willing to
take up their great and noble mantle to lead you poor plebeians to
enlightenment.
Let us speak of a few things, then today. Let us talk about
revival. Let us talk about the End of all things and let us talk about Who
Jesus is.
The word “revival” is translated as “to bring back to life”.
So, when someone comes up to you and says you need a revival, they are first
saying that you are dead and your faith isn’t worth very much. Be offended.
Only the Holy Ghost, working in and through the Word of God
revives, for we are dead. Think of it this way: when you hear about the world
coming to an end and see all the Bible quotes “proving” it, you grow concerned because
now it all seems very real; God and heaven and eternal life and all that.
You feel cornered, unprepared, and very small. You feel that
even Jesus is against you. The world will end, what do we do? Where is the big
tent revival to comfort us in our hour of need? Human emotions do not save.
Human testimonies do not save. Baptism saves and that’s the only revival God’s
Word speaks of.
Thus, the end of all things becomes a great platform with
which to scare Christians into obedience. If the end is coming this week you
better tell as many people about Jesus as you can. Forget going to work or
caring for your newborn; you got souls to save.
If the end is coming soon, you better not be found in sin,
either, or the Lord won’t let you in. Not only does this fear mongering promote
book sales, but it also turns your eyes to the flesh. Now you are focused on your own sin and your
neighbor’s sin, where the Word wants you focused on Christ.
What all this false teaching boils down to is doubt as to
Who the Christ is and what His Word is. You can quote the Bible at each other
all day and make it say exactly what you want it to say for whatever line
you’re trying to sell.
And the big money is in obedience and programs to help you
become more obedient. If you would just obey God, He would bless you. If you
would just be more like Jesus, you wouldn’t have to worry. If you would just be
more Christ-like, you would have more friends online and win more souls for
Jesus. You. You. You.
Repent! Though I speak of these things sarcastically, there
is real accusation from God in them. Why aren’t you able to spot false teaching
right away? Why do you believe every fad and fancy that smells Christian? God
speaks volumes in the Law against your sin and it is exactly this: Why do you
doubt His Word?
Jesus did not cause all Holy Scripture to be written for
your confusion nor was it written as a mystery novel with a secret decoder
ring. Jesus caused all Holy Scripture to be written. Period. Jesus did and
Jesus is God so that tells you what you are reading right there: holy words of
God Himself.
Jesus knew what He was writing and what we would hear. Thus
He gives us the Key to Scripture that is that it is all about Jesus. That in
the Prophets, we find Jesus. In the Psalms, we find Jesus. In the Law, we find
Jesus. In the prophesies about the end times, we find the Christ who is Lord
and the son of David.
As an example, take the OT reading for today. Moses writes
to us telling us to circumcise the foreskin of our hearts. Now is this literal
or figurative? Who is going to have the authority to say either? How do you
know God meant it as figurative language and not literal?
The same bait and switch is used by all of these false,
end-times prophets. They use the Word of God however they choose, mixing and
mingling the figurative with the literal without even a mention of Jesus, to
get you to obey. And you do because it sounds Christian.
The key to identifying false teaching is Jesus Himself. St. Paul boasted that he
only claimed to know Christ and Him crucified among the churches he visited.
The only thing that St. Paul
used to create, plant, and strengthen churches was Jesus, suffering and dying
on the cross, because that is where the Law, the Prophets, and your sin hangs:
on Jesus, on the cross.
What do revivals have to do with Jesus suffering and dying?
Nothing. They are false teachings. What do blood moons and predictions of the
end of all things have to do with Jesus on the cross? Nothing. More false
teachings.
See how easy it is? When Jesus causes something to be
written, like “no one knows the time or the day”, He means it. When Jesus gives
the Holy Ghost to write that new life and true revival comes from Christ alone,
He means it.
Simply obeying God no more makes you an heir of eternal life
any more than obeying a stop sign makes you a stop sign. However, contrary to
popular belief, going to Church and hearing the Word of God taught in its purity
will make you a Christian, will give you faith, and will reveal that by it, you
are already an heir of eternal life!
Jesus has done nothing in secret. He has not let us an unopened
gift in the shape of a Chinese trap box, impossible to open, and not even the
cleverest twister of Holy Scripture can take the Good News that Jesus is for
you.
In fact, the Word of God is given to confound the wise. You
could almost say, the more you know, the less you understand. The more you try
and parse yourself away from the simple words of the Gospel, the farther from
Christ you get.
The pure, simple Gospel is this: Jesus came to serve. Jesus
came to speak to you. Jesus came to save you and He does it without your prayers.
The closest you get to God is being baptized into His true Body. The closest
you get to God is sitting at His feet and listening to Him speak through His
Word. The closest you get to God is ingesting His Body and Blood.
That is the Gospel and that is the center of life for the
Christian. This is why Church is so important, because in it we hear the Word
of God which is the power for salvation. There is no power of salvation in
social work. There is no power of salvation in predictions and there is no
power of salvation within you.
Slavation is a free gift of God. By Jesus’ suffering and
death, Jesus has hung the Law and the prophets on the cross. Jesus is the end
of the law, meaning all works, good and bad; all sacrifices, good and bad; and
all prophets, good and bad. All things not just find their end in Jesus, but
their fulfillment.
This world will also find its fulfillment in Jesus. The End
of all things will not just be about those in the know. It will be about
everyone, of all time, because that is Who Jesus died for: everyone. The End
will happen to everyone at the same time.
The way of salvation is already revealed and that is
suffering, through the cross. The Bride has already been revealed: She is the
Church who possess her Lord in Word and Sacrament. Everlasting life has already
been bestowed. There are no more preparations to make. There are no more works
to do. There is only one thing: to wait in this mighty fortress.
Dear Christians, you wait in hope and confidence. Hope
because your Savior has promised you eternity with Him on account of His works.
Confidence, because you have been baptized squarely within the body of the
Almighty God and no bullet or end of the world will change that.
In this way, the Church has all the time in the world. Could
the end happen tomorrow? Maybe. Could the end have come last Wednesday as
everyone wanted it to be? Sure. It doesn’t matter. What Jesus says you don’t
need to know, you don’t need to know, because you are already in the Book of
Life.
So you pray; the Church prays, for the End to come quickly.
If it’s tomorrow, great! We then are with our Lord forever, away from fear and
mass shootings. If it’s much longer after that, great! We can live here, in the
confidence that we are meant to serve our neighbor and share the hope that is
in us.
And that hope is in Christ alone. How are you apart of that?
Baptism.
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