Sermon Tone Analysis

Richard Wurmbrand, author of Tortured for Christ, was a hardened atheist.

But then an old carpenter up in the mountains of Rumania prayed: “My God, I have served you on earth and I wish to have my reward in heaven.

But I wish my reward should be that I not die until I bring a Jew to Christ, because Jesus was from the Jewish people.”

One day, Wurmbrand was irresistibly drawn to the village (out of 12,000 other village) which had no Jew.

Seeing he was a Jew, Wurmbrand later noted that “the old carpenter courted me as never a beautiful girl had been courted.”

He prayed for hours for his conversion, and gave him a Bible to read.

And Wurmbrand was finally saved.

Blessed Lord, You have caused all Holy Scriptures to be written for our learning.

Grant that we may so hear them, read, mark, learn, and take them to heart that, by the patience and comfort of Your holy Word, we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life.

… through Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

Last week’s Gospel lesson was strongly tied to the 1st article of the Creed.

Jesus was tempted to operate as His own determinant of good and evil, independently of the Father, just as Adam had been in the Garden of Eden.

unlike Adam, Jesus held fast to His trust in the Father, choosing to operate firmly and solely within the will of the Father.

This week, our lesson presents a summary of Jesus’ efforts to reach Israel, the people whom God had chosen as His own.

Every miracle that He had done, every demon that He cast out, was a sign declaring to the Jews that their Messiah had come.

Everything that He said to them declared His prophetic status as it fulfilled the prophecies that had declared God’s intention to save His people.

And in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died and was buried.

He descended into hell.

The third day He rose again from the dead.

He ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty.

From thence He will come to judge the living and the dead.

What does this mean?

Answer: I believe that Jesus Christ, true God, begotten of the Father from eternity, and also true man, born of the Virgin Mary, is my Lord.

He has redeemed me, a lost and condemned creature, purchased and won me from all sins, from death, and from the power of the devil.

He did this not with gold or silver, but with His holy, precious blood and with His innocent suffering and death, so that I may be His own, live under Him in His kingdom, and serve Him in everlasting righteousness, innocence, and blessedness, just as He is risen from the dead, lives and reigns to all eternity.

This is most certainly true.

But with all that evidence, the nation’s leaders and many of its people did not recognize that the time of Its visitation had come.

Instead, they rejected Him, even as their fathers rejected the true prophets of God in their generations, including Jeremiah, refusing to heed the warning that God gave through him.

But with all that evidence, the nation’s leaders and many of its people did not recognize that the time of Its visitation had come.

Instead, they rejected Him, even as their fathers rejected the true prophets of God in their generations, including Jeremiah, refusing to heed the warning that God gave through him.

People don’t understand that, when we proclaim God’s Law in all of its harshness, we don’t do that with pleasure, but with sorrow.

The Law accuses everyone who comes under its words, for all have sinned against it.

Regardless of your social, economic, educational or even theological advantages, we have all failed to love the Lord our God with all of our heart, all of our soul, all of our mind, and all of our strength.

Instead, we act as if our inability to see the Lord with our eyes indicates His inability to see our disobedience.

Because God does not immediately punish every transgression immediately, but gives us room for repentance, we have gotten away with sin.

Jesus “suffered under Pontius Pilate,” not only during the hours that He was before Him as a prisoner and sentenced to death, but the entire time of His life, Jesus Christ, the Righteous Son of God, suffered having to operate within the confines of His assumed human nature.

He suffered having to submit to the weaknesses of the human nature.

The one who, in His divine nature, neither sleeps nor slumbers, the one who, in His divine nature, “changes not,” had to endure such things as tiredness, hunger, and even change, from infancy to adulthood.

This He suffered, not because it was natural for Him, but because He took upon Himself our human condition.

The Creator of time and space became subject to time and space, the one who gave the Law submitted to the Law, not as an example, but as the Redeemer.

Contrary to our self-conceit, we don’t need an example.

We know what is right, even in our fallen condition.

We know that God’s Law is true, though every man be a liar and declare that it is passe, old fashioned, out of date, biased, and an obstruction to our “pursuit of happiness” that we have twisted into license to fulfill our lusts.

We deceive ourselves by claiming to support God’s agenda when we really are trying to get Him to underwrite ours.

We declare that we have God’s interests at heart, while His Law exposes our sin and with it, our separation from God.

How arrogant we are to claim that we are using Jesus as our example!

Jesus had to empty Himself even to approach our sinful condition, and we think that by some half-hearted attempts to obey the letter of God’s holy law that we can follow His example?

Jesus said to Jerusalem, “How often I willed to gather together your children… and you willed not!”

He said that the to City where God caused His name to dwell; what does he say to us?

We find that, regardless of our outward circumstances,

Jesus said, “I willed to

All the symptoms of the presence of our last-days condition are present before us.

Paul concludes his diagnosis in with the words, “lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power.”

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), .

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), .

There is no shortcut to the will of God, no plan B. Jesus came, not to show us a way around God’s righteous judgment, but to receive it as our redeemer.

Instead, we would tell the Lord to “get away from here, because Herod wants to kill You.”

The reality is it is our sin nature wants to kill the life of God within us, shut off the light of the Gospel within us, and drown out the still small voice of God’s gracious direction with our own clamorous demands for Him to either supply our desires or receive our rejection.

God wants the Gospel to be preached in all the world, to everyone.

God wants all to be saved; He wills that none would perish, but that all would come to eternal life.

He calls the Church His Bride, and we treat Him like He is our Boyfriend.

If your forehead is hot but your feet feel normal, do you deny that you have a fever?

If your wrist is cut but your ankle is not bleeding, does that mean that everything is alright?

People are dying in their sins; does that mean that, because you were absolved of yours that every things alright, everything’s fine?

The world knows that it is in trouble, and it is casting to and fro for a solution to the woes that surround us.

That same word that saved you will save others.

That same Gospel that delivered you will deliver your neighbor.

God’s love that healed you will bless your neighbor.

If you are a baptized believer in Christ Jesus, the promise is to you:

and

and

So let the peace of God that passes understanding, guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus our Lord, Amen