An Eternal Gospel

Grace, mercy, and peace be unto you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. Before we get to this morning's message, in our second reading, we had a long, long word. Propitiation. Propitiation. Please tell me how many of you know what that word means.

You're in good company.

It's a fancy way of saying "all-atoning sacrifice." So, God sent forth His Son, Jesus Christ to be the all-atoning sacrifice for our sins by His blood. So, propitiation. We like using big words. And so, some things haven't really changed since Martin Luther's day, have they? So today's text comes from the first reading from Revelation. Then I saw another angel flying directly overhead with an eternal gospel to proclaim to those who dwell on earth, to every nation and tribe and language and people. And he said with a loud voice: fear God and give Him glory because the hour of His judgment has come, and worship Him who made heaven and earth the sea and the springs of water. These are the words of our texts.

How many of you watch the news at least one time during the week? Okay. Now I'm going to exclude anything that has to deal with COVID and anything that has to do with what's going on in Washington (or what's not going on in Washington). So, over the past week, what was the really big story in the news that was in the news just about every day of the week? From Sunday to Saturday?

Halloween, I wasn't expecting that.

There was a shooting in New Mexico, wasn't there? A senseless shooting. And all we heard during the week was: how could there be all these bullets? How could there be all this? How could it not be a cold firearm? How could there be just such a mess up? Then again, lots of different language being thrown around that kind of confuses everything, cuz a bullet really is what? The thing that shoots out of the casing, which is the brass part. And the whole thing is a cartridge. So there were lots of bullets, there were lots of shells. And there were lots of cartridges and cases. So that was this last week's story. I don't know if that's going to creep into this next week or not. I don't know. Haven't seen the news yet this week. What was the story before that? Do you remember? If I start off with "where in the world is...?" Brain Laundrie. For a whole week, we were wondering where is he? Actually more than a week. Where is he? And how did he die? I guess last week was how did he die. The week before was where is he? And before that, it was where's Gabby. And before that, out of our memories, Afghanistan withdrawl.

The news is always changing, isn't it? But there's always at least one story that seems to consume the entire news week. But it changes from week to week to week.

When you come here each week, whether in person or live-streaming, did you know you're basically hearing the same thing again and again? Some of you are nodding your head. Yes. Does that mean it's time for pastor to change up the message? There's a joke, there. Pastor kept giving the same message. And one of the members started talking to the elders, and they said, you know, you really got to sit down with Pastor and tell him he needs to change up his message. He's been giving us the same sermon week after week after week. It's time for something new. So the elders reluctantly brought it up to the pastor. "Pastor, the congregation is crying for a new sermon." Know the pastor's answer was? "When I see some action on the one I've been giving, I'll move on to something else."

Well. I trust I haven't been giving the same exact sermon every week, but it all centers on the Gospel, doesn't it? Our redemption through faith in Jesus Christ, our faith in that propitiation, that all-atoning sacrifice that Jesus made with His blood that washes us, cleanses us of our sin. And our reading from Revelation tells us that this message, this Gospel message, it's an everlasting Gospel to be proclaimed to every nation, people, tribe and language. And that's precisely what has been happening since eternity. Now, when did eternity start? And when does it end?

It has no start and it has no end, which is hard for us to grasp, because our life is full of starts and stops, beginnings and endings. But this Gospel, this eternal Gospel has been forever. Forever. In the mind and will of God, even before He begins creating the world, the universe and everything in it.

Now, some of you I know you're, you're bakers. Some of you, I know maybe work with wood. But let's say you were going to engage in some big masterpiece craft building. Whether it be out of wood or with food. That always entails a mess, doesn't it? If it's wood, it's sawdust and wood chips. If it's something food oriented, there's usually lots of dishes. And there's time that's involved. And what if, just what if somehow you knew that whatever you were engaging in was going to be corrupted? Like maybe instead of putting sugar in, you put in a cup of salt instead of a cup of sugar? That would be a really salty cookie, wouldn't it? Or cake. Or what if that project out of wood, right where you need to make a cut, there's this big huge knot. And it's going to be right on the end of that cut, and you know that knot is never going to stay in place. Either it will pop out on its own, or the grandkids will say "oh, that's something neat, it goes in and out, in and out, in and out." Boop. There it goes.

Honestly, would you take the time and the effort to go ahead with that creative process? I personally would not. If it was something baked or cooked, I'd just go out and buy it already made. Unless, of course, you have a back-up plan.

My grandmother, when I was growing up, for the longest time, did not have a back-up plan. She had a Mixmaster. I don't know if that was the name of the, you know, the brand name or if that's just what she called it, but it was a mixer. And the two beaters were one unit that you put in. And invariably, I'd be helping, and she'd say, now make sure you don't get the spoon caught in the beaters. You know what would happen? I'd get the spoon caught in the beaters, and the beater would get all bent up and it wouldn't work. She did not have a back-up plan other than going up, 40 miles to the store, getting one if they had it in stock. But one time they didn't have it in stock. It's right before Christmas. That means Christmas cookies are on hold. Grandpa brings up this real antique mixer. They had it back-ordered. Guess how many beaters Grandma ordered? Two, so she'd have a backup. And after that, never had a problem with the spoon going in the beater.

God had a back-up plan. He knew that His masterpiece of creation - that which on the seventh day He said was very good - was going to be corrupted by a virus called sin. Adam and Eve were going to disobey His direct command: don't eat from that tree. And that disobedience would bring decay and corruption and death, not only to Adam and Eve, but to all of creation. All of creation.

But He had a plan. He had a plan. He, already before the foundations of the world, had this eternal Gospel plan that He was going to send His Son, Jesus Christ, and He would be the all-atoning sacrifice for all time through His blood that would bring redemption, forgiveness, life to the fallen sons and daughters of Adam and Eve. And it would also usher in, in the fullness of God's time, not only the birth of the Savior, but also would usher in a new heaven and a new earth.

That was the Gospel message. God gives it to Adam and Eve in the form of: I'm going to put enmity between your seed and its seed. Emnity's another big word. I'll let you look that one up on your own. But your seed, Eve, is going to crush the serpent's head. That will be fatal to the serpent. And in the process, the serpent is going to bruise His heel. That will be painful, but it's not going to be fatal.

You might say well, Pastor. Jesus died on the cross. How can that not be fatal? Well, it was, but He rose on the third day. He rose on the third day. And that's the eternal Gospel that's been given to God's people, fallen into sin from Adam and Eve, and has gone through history in various forms, promises, prophecies. Up until the day when Jesus is born. And is fulfilled in Jesus' death. And is fulfilled in His resurrection. Isaiah, Jeremiah, prophets, they all point to Jesus' coming and dying for the sin of God's people. And that He would rise again.

So that's that eternal Gospel, and it's to be proclaimed to every nation, tribe, peoples and tongues, languages throughout history. But guess what? The devil, he doesn't want that good news to get out. He would much rather have you think that there is no hope. There is no redemption in Jesus. It's all a bunch of malarkey. And the only way you can be right with God is you have to do it on your own. You have to do it on your own. Can't be done. Can't be done.

Saint Paul tells us that the law only points out our sin. It doesn't give us a way to get right with God. Because to get right with God in the law, we have to keep God's law perfectly. And we can't. But Jesus can. And He does. And Jesus dies. The death, His blood covers us. washes away our sin.

And the devil doesn't want that word to get out. So what will he do? He'll raise up resistance within ourselves. The sin within us, our sinful nature that oh, it's kind of gray and cloudy. I think I'll just stay in bed this Sunday. I'm sure that didn't happen to any of you. I did think about it briefly this morning.

Our own sinful flesh. Our mind. Oh, that can't be true. It doesn't make sense in my brain. It can't be true. And then the world is always telling us no, don't believe that. Don't share that message.

You know, it used to be that it didn't matter if you went to Immanuel school, or you went to the public school. I bet at Christmas time, you could sing Silent Night, Oh Little Town of Bethlehem and Joy to the World. O Come All Ye Faithful - at any Christmas concert.

Now, I imagine it's probably just primarily here at Immanuel school cuz the world doesn't want to hear about Jesus' birth. We can't put up a Christmas tree in the public square, or even a manger scene with baby Jesus in the manger with Mary and Joseph and the shepherds, because it'll be offensive to some.

And don't say Merry Christmas. You have to say season's greetings. Or happy holidays. Here's one: you can say happy holidays, but say "happy holy days." Happy holy days, cuz that's where it comes from. Cuz there's Christmas and there's the Holy Innocents and their Saint Stephen's day. Those were all holidays. And they all got condensed to "holidays," instead of "holy days."

The world wants to silence at Gospel message, even in our day. Even in our world, where we have the freedom to speak, if we speak too boldly about Jesus Christ, there's somebody there that wants to shut us down.

In other parts of the world, that Gospel message is persecuted. People are jailed, imprisoned or even killed for sharing the message of Jesus Christ as a Savior from sin. And that Gospel in Martin Luther's time, it too, was hidden. It was obscured. People couldn't read the scriptures. They couldn't afford them. Now, you can buy a paperback scripture for, I don't know, a dollar or something. In fact, some of us have multiple Bibles in our homes. We have the scriptures, but we don't take the time to read them. In Luther's day, they had lots of time to read them, but they couldn't read them, because they didn't have them. Or if they did, they couldn't read it, because it was in Latin. And unless you were a doctor, a lawyer or a theologian, you could not read the word of God.

People had tried to put it into the language of the people. In England, a fellow by the name of Tyndale. And another, by the name of Wycliff. You may know that there are translator groups: Wycliffe Bible translators Tyndale Bible translators. They wanted to put it in English and they said "No way!" And they burned them at the stake as Heretics.

God's word didn't come to us in English. No, but neither did it come to you in Latin. It came in Hebrew and Greek. Aramaic.

But they saw the importance of having that word in a language that people could read and understand, so they could know that they're saved by that all-atoning sacrifice through faith in Jesus' blood shed for them on the cross.

So, Luther endeavors to put that scripture in the people's language of Germany, but the problem is you have all these duchies and principalities and all these little villages. Everybody talks different. So Luther said I'm going to make, I'm going to make this in a language that everyone can understand in Germany. A German that everyone, no matter what they speak, will be able to read and understand. In a sense, Luther is the one who brings about this whole thing called High German. That's what you learn in school. You know, you took German so you could be able to understand what Grandpa and Grandma and Mom and Dad were saying when they were talking in German and they didn't want you to understand. So you took a year of German, and you were listening to Mom and Dad and Grandpa and Grandma talking in German. And guess what? You still couldn't understand them. Cuz they weren't talking High German. They were talking Low German or the dialect from where they came from. But Luther put that scripture - Old and New Testament - in the people's language so that they could read about that great Gospel message, and it's still being proclaimed today in various languages, to various peoples. And will continue until our Lord returns. And then in heaven, that Gospel message is still going to continue because we sing the hymns of heaven that John records in the Revelation. "Worthy is the Lamb who was slain." It's all about the Gospel and Jesus being that all-atoning sacrifice put forth by God for our salvation, and believing in that. It will continue on, even though there are those that will seek to prevent it.

Now, I can't tell you what the news of the week is going to be, but I can tell you that next week, when you show up either in person or live-streaming, you're going to get the same Gospel message. Because that's the message of the church. That God has put forth His Son as the all-atoning sacrifice for the sins of fallen mankind. And as we said in the memory verse: there is no other name under heaven by which we must be saved. Except that of Christ Jesus.

I can probably slightly guarantee there will be different illustrations. But the message will still be about Jesus. Because, really, as fallen, sinful human beings, we already feel the condemnation of our sin. We need to be reminded that God has forgiven us in His Son. He's given us faith. He's worked faith in us in that water at the font, connected with His powerful word. And today, He comes to us. We receive our Lord, that word of God, in what Luther called the visible Gospel. The very body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ coming to us with the bread and the wine.

That same blood that was poured out for the forgiveness of sins. Thanks be to God it is an eternal Gospel, and that that message will always triumph over sin, over death, over the devil, and over the world that speaks to hinder it. So that those who are grieved by their sin and lost, condemned, might hear that word of life, forgiveness and salvation that brings them, not only the eternal fellowship with God, but also peace and comfort and joy in their souls. Amen.

Now may the peace of God, which surpasses our understanding, keep our hearts, and our minds in faith in Christ Jesus onto life everlasting. Amen.