Hebrews – Confident.Faith

Perhaps I am not prudent. On who is prudent shows a great deal of care and thought for the future. As our Old Testament reading states: Those who are prudent will often hold their tongues in an evil age — the implication that speaking the truth may be futile or even harmful (most likely to the speaker). And we are to walk as the wise, not as the foolish. And yet, we must, as Christians, speak the truth. Although the days are evil, to us falls the imprudence of speaking the truth.

God is Truth. To deny the Truth is to deny God. Those who deny God before men will one day answer before the Judgement Seat. Praevaleat veritas ruat caelum — let the truth prevail though the heavens fall. We are not permitted to deny the truth; we are not permitted to look to the consequences and then decide if we will speak the truth. The Gospel is foolishness to those who are perishing, but for us it is the truth and power of God.

Now, we must be careful to distinguish what is and what is not truth, in the sense we are employing here. I have a Golden Retriever — this is a true statement. If I tell you that I have a Chihuahua, then I have lied to you (and, God willing, that will forever be the case), but I have not denied the truth. The truth is something more than mere correspondence with reality, mere accuracy. On the other hand, if someone tells you that men and women are the same or that men can become women or women become men, then that person has denied the truth.

Truth is fundamental; it flows from the nature of God. Truth also pervades Creation — dogs are not cats, men are not women, light is not darkness. Simple lying is not a denial of the truth — if a murderer asks if your wife and children are home, it is your duty to lie. (n.b., the Eighth Commandment is "Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.", not ‘Thou shalt not lie.’)

We live in an age when people do not even echo Pilate: ‘Quid est veritas?’ — ‘What is truth?’; instead, we are surrounded by those who simultaneously deny the existence of objective truth and advance clear lies that ‘must’ be believed. Worse, so very many Christians simply go along with these lies. You may lose your job for speaking the truth, but would you rather lose your soul for holding your tongue? The wise of the world hold their tongues to preserve their hides, but we fools for Christ gladly proclaim the ‘foolishness’ of the Gospel — and all the rest of God’s truth — for we know that to die for Christ is gain.

In a worldly sense, it would have been prudent for Martin Luther to remain silent in the face of Rome’s errors and lies. Instead, he took his stand upon the only firm ground of truth — the Word of God. He brought down upon himself the wrath of the secular authorities — both pope and Emperor. For much of his life, he was a wanted — and even a hunted — man, but God preserved him through to the end, and he died of old age in bed. God may have another end in store for you — you may not die comfortably in your bed — but praise Him and give glory to His Name in all things. Remember your Confirmation oath: You sword to ‘suffer all, including death’ before you would fall away from our shared Confession.

The times are evil, and they are certainly not getting better. However, we are not required to win the battles God gives us; we are merely required to fight. So, stand for the truth no matter the cost. Do not deny God in word or deed. Run the race to win; hold your original confidence firm to the end. If we are faithful, the Lord may yet turn to use and be gracious to us.

God willing, we may live to see a resurgence of the Church, and of our people. But nothing in this life is guaranteed — we may not even live to see tomorrow. We must always remember that we are sojourners here, and this is not our true home. Nevertheless, there is work to be done while it is still day.

Part of the good works you render to your neighbor as service to God is speaking the truth. To partake of — or, worse, to advance — the lies of our evil age is to fall below the Christian duty of care. Every person who speaks the lie further entrenches it; every person who fails to speak in opposition to the lie weakens the resolve of others and thereby strengthens the lie.

When it comes to the truth, one who refuses to yield may alter the course of nations or of history, but surely such men have a better go of things when they are surrounded by others who similarly cleave to the truth. Further, your highest duty is to God, and unflinching adherence to the truth is unwavering obedience to God.

Our present society is not founded upon Christ, but upon a collection of lies. We are under no obligation to adhere to such lies or to support those who do. To the persecutor of God and His Church, we owe only unwavering opposition, eternal enmity. We are called to hate evil, for there is no love without hate. However, it is certainly possible to hate without love.

The world will hate you, as it hated Him first. If you speak the truth, reprove in the gate, and seek justice — or even merely support those who do so — then you will be hated by the world. And let us be clear, here: We do not mean so-called ‘social justice’, for such is an evil from the very pits of Hell; no, we mean justice as commanded by God and contained in His good Law. So-called ‘social justice’ is a perversion and a denial of justice and is, consequently, a denial of God before men.

But where is the comfort in this? It is everywhere. We may be comforted knowing that God prepared our good works for us; we may be comforted knowing that Christ will not lose a single sheep from His hands; and we may be comforted knowing that the war has already been won. We are fighting a defensive action — we must merely hold out until our Lord returns, or we are relieved from duty.

Sin, death, and the devil have already been defeated. Although the times are dark and the days evil, these are but the birth pangs of the new Creation; this old world is passing away, is doomed to fire. We, however, are being saved by the Gospel, by the very power of God. In the waters of Baptism, you were united to Christ in His death and resurrection. You will not taste the second death.

Do not worry overmuch about the state of the world, for the outcome is wholly in God’s hands. Do your duty as father or mother, son or daughter, brother or sister, or neighbor. Even if the world is to end tomorrow, do your duty. As Luther put it: ‘Even if I knew that the world would end tomorrow, I would still plant my apple tree today.’

Amen.

Adam walked with God in the Garden., and yet God says that it is not good for man to be alone. We tend to pass over this section of Scripture too quickly. Man, in Paradise, walks with God, and yet God states unequivocally that Creation is incomplete because man has no helper fit for him. God makes woman specifically for man — more, all other creatures are made from the dust, but woman is made from man. Adam immediately recognizes what God has done:

This at last is bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh[.]

And so ‘a man will leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife and the two shall become one flesh.’ This does not mean abandoning one’s parents (for those who do that have forsaken the faith and are worse than unbelievers); rather, it means a shifting of priorities. For the woman, her husband assumes the role of head that her father had theretofore held; for the man, he must care and provide for and protect his wife. The wife is the fruitful vine and the husband is the vinedresser — so also the Church and Christ.

“And the two shall become one flesh.” Now, this certainly encompasses the physical union — if it did not, then the woman could not be a fruitful vine filling the home with children — but it is more than that. However, we must get the basics correct before we can move on to more advanced matters. To be blunt: Marriage is sexual intercourse and sexual intercourse is marriage. This is why adultery is such an egregious sin — the man who lies with a married woman steals her from her husband and claims her for himself, and the woman who lies with a man who is not her husband steals and defiles her body, rejecting and violating her husband’s rightful headship. Again: Marriage is more than the physical union, but it is certainly not less — no marriage is truly valid until it is consummated.

The natural — and inevitable — outcome of marriage (barring the physical effects of sin on our world and our bodies preventing it) is children. This is by God’s design. There is no better environment for raising children than a home with their biological parents who are still married to each other. And, again, this is why adultery is such egregious sin: Adultery is divorce and divorce is adultery. Adultery destroys homes and causes permanent (in this life) harm to any children in those homes. It is to our great shame that divorce is so easy and adultery is unpunished in our society. But let us return to children.

We are told, explicitly, in Scripture, that God’s promises are ‘for us and for our children’. In the Old Testament, all males were circumcised on the eighth day. It was the duty of the head of the household to see that this was done. In the New Testament, the antitype (Baptism) has replaced the type (circumcision). The antitype is always greater, is always more complete than the type. Only males were circumcised — female members of the household were included in the covenant under their head (i.e., their fathers and then their husbands). Baptism, being the antitype, is available to both men and women, boys and girls.

Some would contend that children should not be baptized. I would, first, ask where they find such a command in Scripture, and I would, then, second, highlight that they have taken Baptism — the antitype — and made it lesser than circumcision — the type. To contend that children were included in the Old Testament, but must now be excluded in the New Testament, is not merely wrong, but actually demonic — remember: all false doctrines are ‘doctrines of demons’.

The Church has always baptized infants; the Church baptizes infants; the Church will — so long as the Earth endures — always baptize infants. But what of those who deny Baptism to children? The people brought βρεπη to Christ — that is, they brought Him their infants. The disciples attempted to prevent these parents from bringing their children to Christ and He rebuked them: ‘Let the παιδια (the children) come to Me, and do not hinter them.’ But Christ goes further: He says that the Kingdom belongs to such as those children and that no one will enter the Kingdom unless he receives it as would a little child. Some who teach falsely may be saved, but they endanger souls with their lies. We must pray that God enlightens them, and, if they will not be enlightened, that they will be struck mute. Better to enter the Kingdom with one’s tongue torn out than to enter the fires of Hell with one’s deceitful mouth intact.

The women and children in ancient Israel — even though only males eight days old or older were circumcised — were covered by the head of the household. So today — the children of believing parents should be baptized. ‘This promise is for you and for your children.’ Under the headship of their Christian fathers, Christian children should be baptized. In the waters of Baptism, we are united to Christ as our one true Head; we become part of His body — the Church. It is evil to deny to children this union with Christ on the grounds of (faulty) rationalism and enthusiasm. Satan loves unbaptized children.

There are, ultimately, two ‘prime’ heads: Christ and Satan. Those who have not passed through the waters of Baptism and, thereby, from death to life and from the devil’s kingdom to Christ’s Kingdom have Satan has their head; such persons are, as we all once were, dead in sin and trespass. We who have been baptized and believe are no longer members of the devil’s kingdom, slaves to sin and death; we have been given new life and we have Christ as our Head. Baptism is the first death and the first resurrection; those who experience the waters of Baptism will not taste the second death.

But do not tempt God and do not return to your old ways. Run the race to win — persevere to the end. Yes, you will stumble and even fall, but Christ will be there to lift you back to your feet — He will lose none of the sheep the Father has placed in HIs hands. ‘Open-eyed my grave is staring, / even there I’ll sleep secure.’ There are some Lutheran graves with two (Latin) words on them: “Baptizatus sum.” — “I am baptized.” You are a child of God — you belong to Him. Christ bought you with His blood.

In the first Adam — the head of our race — all men sinned; in the second Adam — Christ — all are offered new life in the waters of Holy Baptism. Christ is the Head of all those who have passed from death to life. He is the Head of the Church. But we are an unfaithful bride — we stray even after our Baptism and we must continually return to the Word and the Sacrament for the forgiveness of our sins and the renewal and strengthening of our faith. To the pharisees that tried to entrap Him, Christ declared that divorce was not part of God’s good plan, and that is good news for us: Christ washes His bride whiter than snow, and He will protect and preserve her. The Church will endure.

Amen.