Audio recording Sermon manuscript: In our Old Testament reading we heard about a man named Jacob—a name with which you are surely familiar. But oftentimes our Bible reading is not what it should be, so we have a hard time putting together the things that we have learned over the years. So today I’d like to talk about the events leading up to what happened with Jacob so we can better understand and apply to ourselves the way God works. Where I’d like to begin today is with Jacob’s grandfather. His name was Abram. Later God gives him the name Abraham. We are introduced to this man in Genesis chapter 12, and, in a sense, the rest of the Bible and the rest of world history is all about him and his descendants. God chose Abraham and told him to move to the land of Canaan. God promised that this land would be his and his descendants’. God would make a mighty nation of him. In him and in his seed all the nations of the world would be blessed. (This promise about Abraham’s seed refers all the way back to the Garden of Eden when God promised that Eve’s seed would crush the serpent’s head.) God appeared to Abraham several times, repeating these promises to him, and Abraham believed these promises. This faith was accredited to him as righteousness. Abraham’s faith, which is accredited to him as righteousness, is the way that the rest of the Bible and the rest of world history is about him and his descendants. God caused his flesh and blood descendants to flourish outwardly, but the people of God, properly speaking, have always been such inwardly, by faith. All or almost all of you are Gentiles. You are not related to Abraham by blood. But you are children of God’s promises, just like he was. God made a covenant with Abraham. God has made a covenant with you. God gave Abraham an outward sign of that covenant in circumcision. God has given an outward sign of his covenant with you in baptism. If you remain faithful unto death, just like Abraham, you will be given the crown of life. That is an even greater inheritance than what God promised Abraham. So Abraham is one of the greatest men of the Bible. It is important to understand that the rest of the Bible and the rest of world history is about him, and his descendants, and God’s promises to these descendants. The Bible is also about tests to people’s faith, and that’s the case also with Abraham. God said he would make a might nation of Abraham and his descendants would be as numerous as the sand on the sea shore. But Abraham didn’t have any children when God said that. And Abraham and Sarah were getting old. In fact, the Bible says, the way of women had ceased with Sarah. But Abraham believed God. Eventually, after a great deal of time, probably much more time than Abraham would have liked, God fulfilled his promise. Isaac was born to them in their old age. Isaac was not the same kind of man his father was. There are not nearly as many adventures in Isaac’s life as there were in Abraham’s life. Isaac’s sons, also, had much more adventurous lives. Isaac, for his part, seems to have been a very peaceable man. If someone took his well, he would just dig another one. He was not feisty like his father or his sons after him. Just as Abraham and Sarah had a hard time conceiving and bearing children, so also Isaac and Rebekah had a hard time conceiving and bearing children. No children came for a long time. Finally, when Rebekah did become pregnant, it was with twins. She inquired of the Lord what was happening to her because already in the womb they were fighting with one another. God told her that two nations were fighting within her, and that the older would serve the younger. And so it happened that when it came time for the delivery that Esau was born first, then Jacob. But Jacob was holding Esau’s heel. They were tremendous rivals. They also were quite different from one another. Esau was hairy and an outdoorsman. Jacob had smooth skin and didn’t hunt. Esau was the favorite of his fath

 Audio recording Sermon manuscript: You’ve probably heard it said that there are two tables or tablets of the Law. The Ten Commandments can be divided into two groups. There are commandments that have to do with God—that’s the first table of the Law. Then there are commandments that have to do with other people—that’s the second table of the Law. The first three commandments, “You shall have no other Gods,” “You shall not misuse the Name of the Lord your God,” and “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy,” have to do with God. The last seven commandments have to do with your neighbor. “Honor your father and your mother.” “You shall not murder.” “You shall not commit adultery.” “You shall not steal.” “You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor.” And, “You shall not covet.” When it comes to how well people understand the commandments, there is a big difference between the first table of the Law and the second table of the Law. People well understand that a person should not murder or steal. Our government has strict laws on the books about these things. Anybody who is found guilty of murdering or stealing is severely punished. This earthly punishment does quite a bit in instructing us about what is right or wrong. Most people also know that committing adultery is wrong, but this isn’t nearly so clear as the wrongness of murdering or stealing. Our government’s laws against adultery, divorce, and other sexual perversions have been so relaxed that people might think that there’s nothing wrong with any of these things. However, the damage that these sins can do to the victim whom we can see and know will still make most people understand that there is something wrong with it. That seems to be a key part to whether we understand how something is wrong or not. If we can see the damage that it causes it is easier for us to understand. Coveting, for example, doesn’t seem to be too big of a deal to most people. It doesn’t seem to harm others that I am envious of them—so long as I don’t act on that envy. When someone is murdered, on the other hand, the hands are red, there is a mess to clean up, and people mourn the destruction of life. So perhaps you can see why people are much less sensitive to the seriousness of the first three commandments versus those commandments that have to do with our neighbor. Our government is practically built on the principle that no laws should be made about faith in God, worship, or religious instruction. This gives a very strong impression to people that a person’s relationship with God is totally optional and a mere matter of personal preference. This may not have been our forefather’s intent, but it has certainly been the result. The government gets involved in the important matters of life. Since the government does not get involved in our relationship with God, it is inevitable that people will think that religion is unimportant. Whether a person believes, prays, or hears God’s Word is seen as though it is hardly more than a hobby. Some people like to pray. Other people like to play tennis. Who cares? It is also the case that people have a hard time seeing the harm their breaking of the commandments against God might have. Where’s the blood? Where’s the destruction of property? Where are the tears of the victim? There aren’t any. It’s a victimless crime, seemingly. It doesn’t appear to make any difference whether a person believes in God or not, whether God is prayed to or not, whether a person gladly hears and learns his Word or not. So if we, like Jesus in our Gospel reading, were asked, “Which is the greatest commandment of the Law?” we would almost certainly respond, “Murder. Definitely murder.” After all, that is what we have been taught. Who receives the longest prison sentences? The harm that murder causes to our society is such that punishment should be severe. Since there are no punishments for the commandments about God, they must be unimportant. Of course, as you know

 Audio recording Sermon manuscript: Let me tell you something strange: On the one hand, nobody likes being corrected. On the other hand, everybody likes correcting others. It’s like there’s a one way street. All correction is to issue forth from us unto others. We resent it when any correction might come from others upon us. Jesus once asked, “Why do you focus on the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not consider the beam that is in your own eye? How will you tell your brother, ‘Let me remove the speck from your eye,’ when, in fact, you have a beam in your own eye? Hypocrite! First remove the beam from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.” Try to imagine what that might look like. Whenever the person moves his head, this big beam or log is swinging around. Regardless of that log, all the correcting is a one way street. Wherever that beam happens to swing is where that critical eye will notice something wrong. Everybody else is subpar. You alone are right. It must get lonely as you sit atop that mountain of righteousness, all by yourself. So how might we fix this? Certainly something must be said for Jesus’s advice: “Judge not, lest you be judged.” Stop judging. Stop correcting others. Just for the sake of outward peace and harmony it is often good to hold your tongue. There is a common false belief that judging and censuring and condemning is the sign of a great intellect or a vigorous prophetic spirit. Thus, particularly in the church, it is easy to find people who are never satisfied with anything that is not their own. Martin Luther called these people “sour-faced saints.” Their faces always looked as though they had been sucking on lemons. Because they were always so sour about everybody else’s supposed misdeeds, they thought that they were very saintly. Unfortunately for them, judging is not named as one of the fruits of the Holy Spirit. The whole tone and tenor of that list of the fruit of the Spirit goes against these sour-faced saints. “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.” There is an openness in this list. We are to be open to others. If we meet others with intending to shoot them down, we always need to have our pistol at the ready. Be ready to shoot, lest the other person get their shot off first. Such a person is closed rather than open—always on the defensive, always ready to strike back. They do not want to be corrected, so they always have their attacks ready to put a stop to being corrected before it even starts. This way of protecting one’s self, of closing down, of shutting one’s self off from others, is a natural response. Here we see that what is “natural” is not what is godly. It is natural to shut down and protect yourself, but that isn’t godly. There are a lot of things that are “natural” but nevertheless ungodly. Lust is natural. Anger is natural. Greed is natural. Loving your friends and hating your enemies is natural. Yet Jesus says, “Love your enemies, and do good to those who persecute you.” Loving those who want to hurt you is impossible for our flesh, which is always looking out for numero uno. It is that same looking out for numero uno that shuts people off from others, guns drawn, finger on the trigger. The alternative is an openness that is manifested in patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. But with this openness, honesty, laying your heart out there, there is the possibility of getting hurt. Let me try to explain. Perhaps you can see this most easily with children, for they have not yet become so guarded and jaded. Suppose there’s a child who likes to play with a toy that his peers might think is for younger kids. The child doesn’t know there’s anything wrong with playing with that toy. But one of the other kids (and there are always plenty of these around) makes fun of that kid. And the other kids (and there are

 Audio recording Sermon manuscript: Probably none of you have seen someone resurrected from the dead. Sometimes you hear unusual stories about people’s hearts stopping for a period of time, and then they are revived. I’ve never heard of someone being revived after they are placed into the morgue or in a coffin. That’s what happened one day, though, on the outskirts of a town called Nain. A sad scene was unfolding there. A young man had died. He was his mother’s only child. She was a widow. A lonely future was in store for her. But Jesus saw her miserable plight and had compassion on her. He was going to help her in an unheard of way. Just as we are unfamiliar with any resuscitation of someone long dead, so it was then too. Jesus used the authority that he had as God’s Son. He restarted the young man’s heart so that it began to pump life-giving blood again. He healed all those cells and tissues that had been damaged or destroyed by natural processes of death and decomposition. The gray sunken cheeks of the dead turned pink and lively. The boy sat up in the coffin and began to speak. Jesus gave him back to his mother. Luke does not tell us anything about the mother’s reaction. That had to be quite something. The death of a child is so painful. We can hardly bear it. It would be cruel to prolong that pain by hoping for a resurrection in this life. Only a tiny handful of people have been resurrected in this life such as we hear about in this case and a few others from the Bible. So she had to have been beyond surprised. I’m kind of amazed that she didn’t have a heart attack and die. It must have been so shocking. We like shocking and unusual things. They are able to hold our interest. Many people at Jesus’s time liked to see the unusual things he did. The people at Nain enjoyed seeing the man raised to life. The people who were fed with the five loaves and two fishes followed him around, waiting for him to do another miracle. The Pharisees were always wanting Jesus to do signs to confirm his teachings, which they found strange. Herod was glad to see Jesus on the day Jesus died because he was hoping to see him do something unusual. But people are fickle. If they are not constantly entertained with new and interesting things they go in search of other things to do. This is what seems to have happened also with Jesus. After Jesus ascended into heaven, but before Pentecost, the believers gathered together. It says in Acts that there were about 120 of them. 120! Where were the 5,000 from the feeding of the 5,000? Where were the 4,000 from the feeding of the 4,000? Where were the people from Nain? Where were the crowds who were singing Hosanna not too many weeks before that on Palm Sunday? People are fickle. So it is to this day. Grander things than what took place at Nain happen in the midst of this congregation, but few believe it. Few appreciate it. The young man who was raised from the dead was resurrected physically and temporarily. He went back to being the young man that he was before. In that way it is similar to those Emergency Room resuscitations. He was returned to the life that he had been living. I say that there are grander things that take place among us. The cure that Jesus works among us is deeper and gets down to the very foundations. There is a death and a resurrection that already happens in our midst with Baptism. Paul says, “Do you not know that when you were baptized, you were baptized into the death of Christ?” He flatly states in another place: “You have died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.” This death, however, is not just any ordinary death. It is the saving, atoning death of Jesus—that is the death that we have died in with our baptism. Jesus’s death is the death that brought an end to death. And, again, as Paul says, if we have been united with him in his death, then we are certainly united with him for the resurrection. Here with baptism we are not just dealing with superficial, physi

 Audio recording Sermon manuscript: Not believing in God, not believing that God will act, is behind much of the rationale that we tell ourselves in order to justify our sins. Our internal dialogue inside our heads convinces us that other factors are much more important for our happiness rather than God. God is nowhere to be seen, so we have to do things on our own. Take the fourth commandment, “You shall honor your father and your mother,” for example. God attaches a promise to this commandment. He says that those who honor their fathers and mothers will have life go well with them. They will enjoy long life on the earth. But what have we told ourselves when we have been disobedient to our fathers and mothers? Haven’t we sounded just like the serpent in the Garden? “We surely won’t enjoy any happiness from obeying our father and mother. There’s no way that’s going to happen, regardless of what God might say about it. After all, what they are requiring me to do is the very thing that I do not want to do! I’m not enjoying that at all.” So there is no trust that God is able to make it so that even though things might not be going how we want them to go at that moment, that God will turn it all for the good in the end. It’s as though God didn’t exist and hasn’t made his will known. Or take the sixth commandment as an example, “You shall not commit adultery.” Why do people commit adultery? Why do people leave their spouse for somebody else? Isn’t it because they believe that they have to take their happiness into their own hands? If they don’t look out for themselves, then who will? In the midst of trouble they do not call upon God or consult his commandments and promises. They have another plan in place that they believe will make them much more blessed or happy. And why do people steal? Isn’t it because they believe that if they do not cheat their neighbor they will be in the poor house? They have to screw over other people otherwise they will be screwed over. If they don’t get such-and-such an amount, then woe to them. If they do get such-and-such an amount, then they have won at this game called life. God does not enter into it at all. Understanding how it is as though God were completely absent or irrelevant goes a long way in explaining why people do what they do. It also sheds light on something people often don’t agree with in the Bible. The Bible teaches that not only do people sin, but they are dreadfully sinful. Often people don’t understand why there is such a drastic condemnation of ordinary folks. When we think of people being bad we think of somewhat exotic, somewhat rare activities. We do not think of the countless ways that we ignore God or disbelieve what he says. Most people, including Christians, just don’t realize that that’s a problem. Most people are simply doing what they have been doing ever since they were born. They are looking out for their own interests. They want what’s best for them. They’ve always cut corners to bring about their desired outcomes. They’ve always believed that happiness comes apart from God. A great many people, including Christians, never hear what God has to say about how to live. If they do happen to hear what God has to say, they probably don’t believe it because his advice seems terribly impractical. I could give all kinds of examples of Jesus’s advice seeming impractical just from Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount, from which our reading this morning comes. Jesus says, “Do not be angry.” “Do not lust.” “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” “Give to the one who asks, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.” “Do not worry.” “Do not store up treasures for yourselves on earth.” “You cannot serve both God and Mammon.” I hope that you are not so blind that you haven’t felt at least a couple zingers in there, where you have to admit that you have not believed Jesus. Jesus says these things, and many more like them, not because he is evil. He

 Audio recording Sermon manuscript: At Mt. Sinai God gave Moses and the Israelites laws about cleanness and uncleanness. Things that are clean are available for use and consumption. Unclean things are to be avoided if at all possible. Unclean things make the person who comes into contact with them also unclean. Those who are unclean need to be made clean before they can participate in worship or be exposed in any way to God’s presence. Generally speaking, practically all things in this world were clean. What was unclean was specifically laid out in the laws given to Moses. One common denominator among many of these laws was that contact with what was dead, and especially contact with putrid things, would render that person unclean. Dead and dying things were to be avoided. Leprosy is a disease where a person’s skin gets covered with bumpy, disfiguring rashes. The flesh deteriorates until there is a loss of feeling. Eventually fingers and toes and other body parts can simply fall off. As far as cleanness is concerned, here we have death within a person’s own body. Obviously it made the person unclean. Anybody with leprosy was removed from common society lest their uncleanness be communicated to those who were clean. If a person recovered from the disease, he or she would have to go to the priest, so that they could be examined for any signs of the disease. Then, after rendering a sacrifice, they could return to society. In our Gospel reading Jesus came into contact with ten men who had been excluded from society because of their leprosy. They cried out to him, “Jesus, master, have mercy on us!” Jesus responded, “Go, show yourselves to the priests.” It was as though Jesus already regarded them as healed and clean. All they needed to do now was to go to the priests to make it official. Fortunately, they believed Jesus’s promise of being healed. They followed his instructions, and as they were on their way they all saw that their leprosy had gone away. The focus of Luke’s account of this miracle, however, is not so much on this removal of leprosy. It is on what follows afterwards. One from the ten did not continue his journey to the priests. He turned back. He glorified God with a loud voice. He fell on his face at Jesus’s feet, thanking him. And he was a Samaritan. The Samaritans believed and taught many things that were wrong about God and God’s Word. The Jews understandably looked down on them. But here was somebody from outside the orthodox camp who was worshipping God in spirit and in truth. Although the theology of the other nine presumably was in better shape than this foreigner’s, they were nowhere to be found. This is a breaking of the second commandment. The second commandment requires us to use God’s name rightly. Using God’s Name rightly means that we should call upon him in every trouble, pray, praise, and give thanks. The nine did not give thanks. This commandment condemns them. So what might be done with these nine or with others who, like them, are ungrateful? Perhaps we could go after them with a birch branch and start smacking them. We could punish them by beating them until they fall on their knees with folded hands and start to say their prayers. “Let that be a lesson to you!” So long as we have been put in a proper position of authority, according to the Law we would be entirely within our rights to carry out something like that. God threatens to punish all who break his commandments. They broke the second commandment. They are liable to punishment. Parents and other authorities have the right to compel those under their charge to do outward things like getting on their knees and folding their hands. And yet, we can tell that this won’t exactly work. Requiring a certain posture is one thing. Bringing about a change of heart is another. All of God’s commandments can compel outward compliance if the punishments are severe enough. But those commandments and punishments do not have the power to bring about a

 Audio recording Sermon manuscript: John the Baptist was put in prison for telling his ruler, Herod Antipas, that it was not right for him to divorce his own wife and to marry the divorced wife of his half-brother. John the Baptist was in jail for telling Herod that divorce is wrong, and marrying someone who has wrongfully divorced is adultery. This was the same thing that Jesus taught. He was once asked about whether it was allowable to get divorced. He responded by saying that it betrayed a hardness of heart. That was why Moses allowed certificates of divorce to be issued. Then he says that it was not like that from the beginning. Adam and Eve became one flesh, so, Jesus says, “What God has joined together let not man separate.” Except in the case of sexual immorality divorce is not real and effective according to him. A wrongfully divorced person is committing adultery if he or she joins with another, and the person who marries a divorced person is committing adultery. In God’s sight the one who has wrongfully divorced is still married to their first spouse. The second spouse is like taking a lover while married. Most people do not know what the Bible says about divorce because it is not a very popular teaching. It is not a very popular teaching because it condemns a lot of people. Nobody likes to be condemned. Most people don’t like to tell others that they are condemned. You might make them sad or angry. They might seek revenge. So everybody keeps their mouths shut for the sake of numero uno. John the Baptist, however, did not keep his mouth shut. John was a man full of love and zeal. He loved the Lord his God. He loved the word of the Lord his God. He believed with all his heart that the word of God was a true and reliable guide for the way that human beings can be blessed beyond measure. So he was not ashamed of what God said and commanded, even if it made others sad or angry. Does not the Word of God put us on the spot all the time? Doesn’t it always reveal the shame of our nakedness? That is because God’s Word brings light into the darkness of our lives. Jesus says that how we react to the light is the basis for how each and every individual will be judged. Jesus says, “This is the basis for the judgment: The light has come into the world, yet people loved the darkness rather than the light, because their deeds were evil. In fact, everyone who practices wicked things hates the light and does not come toward the light, or else his deeds would be exposed. But the one who does what is true comes toward the light, in order that his deeds may be seen as having been done in connection with God.” The light is good. We are evil. That is why we are so prone to shun the light and allow ourselves and all those we know and love to remain in the darkness. While we are in the darkness our wickedness is not known. Many hope that the darkness can go on forever, but it won’t. Everything will be exposed, Jesus says. The light is either going to shine on us in this life or it is going to shine on us when we die. It is much better that it should shine on us in this life, during this time of grace, so that we may repent and shun the darkness rather than the light. Then we can come to love the light rather than the darkness. This is what would be pleasing to God too. Just before the quotation I just read to you from Jesus about the light he also rather famously says, “Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up [on the cross], so that everyone who believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God loved the world in this way that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. The one who believes in him is not condemned, but the one who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the onl

 Audio recording Sermon manuscript: Mt. Sinai was the place where God led Moses and the Israelites after they came out of Egypt. Mt. Sinai is in the Sinai peninsula—a very desolate, desert-like place. God had to feed them with manna, and water them with water from a rock, otherwise they certainly would have died. At Mt. Sinai God took up residence at the top and manifested his glory. Moses tells us that his glory was such that there was thunder and lightning, a thick cloud that covered the mountain, smoke like smoke from a kiln, the earth quaked, and the sound of a ram’s horn that grew louder and louder. It was from Mt. Sinai that God gave the Ten Commandments. These were words that God spoke directly to the Israelites from the top of the mountain. When God had finished speaking the Ten Commandments, the people said, “Please, quit speaking to us. If you keep speaking with us we will die. Speak to Moses instead.” And so it came to pass that God called Moses to the top of the Mountain while the people were gathered below. Moses was on top of the mountain for forty days and forty nights. God told him many things. He also gave him two tablets of stone with the Ten Commandments inscribed upon them, which Moses brought down with him. When Moses came down from the Mountain he did not realize that his face was shining. His face was shining because he had been speaking with the Lord. This amazed the Israelites so that they were afraid to come near him. When Moses spoke to the people and when he spoke to the Lord he would speak with them without a veil. When he was done speaking he would put a veil over his face. Evidently his appearance was so unnerving that it was easier to look at the strange sight of a veiled man than it was to see the glory of the Lord being reflected from his face. This is important information for our epistle reading this morning. In the section that was read, Paul is trying to impress upon the Corinthians that the New Testament, which Paul has preached to them, is more glorious than even the old covenant that God gave through Moses. There are several points of comparison that Paul makes. The old was of the letter. The new is of the Holy Spirit. The old kills. The new gives life. The old works condemnation. The new works righteousness. The old has been brought to nothing. The new is enduring. There is an obvious imbalance here. The new is better than the old. Thus, Paul argues, if the old had so much glory that people weren’t able to look at Moses’s face because of its reflected glory, then how much more glory must the new testament have that Paul has preached to them? Before we get into how what Paul is saying is true, I’d first like you to notice how easy it would be for someone to think that what Paul has claimed here is false. Paul says that what the Corinthians have been given is more glorious than what was given at Mt. Sinai. It is easy to ask: Where’s the mountain? Where’s the smoke? Where’s the thunder and lightning? Where’s the horn that blasts louder and louder? Furthermore, where’s the mighty nation of Israel—hundreds of thousands of people, whereas the number of Christians at that time were nowhere near that? Where’s the shining face of Paul? There were none of these things! And yet Paul has the audacity to say that the glory of the New Testament is such that the old has come to have no glory at all. It’s like how the glory of the sun so outshines the glory of the moon that when the sun is out, we cannot see the moon. The glory of the New Testament is so great that the glory of Mt. Sinai is nothing. Paul isn’t saying that the two glories are close. It’s hard to tell which is greater. No, he is saying that the glory of the New Testament blows the other one out of the water. Obviously the glory that Paul is talking about is not as visible to the naked eye as the glory we hear about at Mt. Sinai. The visible, auditory glory of Mt. Sinai is absent from the New Testament church. None of the unusual s

 Audio recording Sermon manuscript: It is kind of hard for a protestant to observe the festival that we are observing today. Whereas Catholics and Eastern Orthodox love their ideas of who Mary is, protestants are a little leery of talking about her. That is understandable. Both of these confessions go too far with their devotion for Mary. They say things about her that aren’t true. Then, because of these false beliefs, they often believe in Mary more firmly than they might believe in Jesus or God. So what do these other churches teach about Mary? First of all they believe that Mary was immaculately conceived. The word “immaculate” means “pure.” So by immaculate conception they mean that Mary was born without sin. In a way, it’s like she is a second Eve. Eve was created without sin, but by her sin, she and Adam contaminated our human race with sin. Mary, as the second Eve, is without sin, so that she can conceive Jesus, the second Adam, without sin. Although the Catholics go too far with this, ascribing sinlessness to Mary, there is a bit of truth here. It is true that Jesus was immaculately conceived. The human nature that Jesus inherited from Eve was not contaminated by original sin, the way that all of us have been conceived in sin by the sinful seed of our fathers. The Scriptures say of Jesus that “he knew no sin.” He received everything from her that being a human being means, but he was not born with original sin. He was pure from the moment of his conception. When the Catholics ascribe this to Mary, they are going beyond what we can know from the Scriptures. The Scriptures do not say that Mary was born without sin. In fact, the Catholics take it one step further and say that Mary’s mother, who is not even named or mentioned in the Scriptures, was made to be without sin. Although Mary’s sinlessness is not taught by the Scriptures, Pope Pius IX declared in 1854 that Mary’s immaculate conception was the official Catholic teaching. In order to be a Catholic in good standing, it is necessary to believe that she was conceived without sin. In 1870, at the first Vatican Council, this teaching was affirmed when the council declared that official statements of the Pope are infallible. These are known as ex cathedra statements. There have only been two times when the Pope has made use of this so-called ability. The first was declaring the immaculate conception of Mary. The second one also had to do with Mary. This second decree is especially connected to today, August 15, in the Catholic Calendar. If you looked at a Roman Catholic Church calendar you would not see “St. Mary, Mother of our Lord” written on today. Instead you would see the feast called the “Assumption of Mary.” In 1950 Pope Pius XII declared that Mary being assumed, or taken, into heaven, body and soul, is official Catholic teaching. The reasoning behind this goes like this: Mary was conceived without sin and was sinless. As you well know, the wages of sin is death. So wherever there is no sin no death is due. Since Mary is held to be without sin, she couldn’t have died like everybody else. So they teach that instead of dying she “fell asleep.” This is known as the “dormition of Mary.” “Dormition” means to fall asleep. Then, after having fallen asleep, she was taken into heaven, body and soul, just like we hear of Enoch, Elijah, and Jesus. Although the Bible says absolutely nothing about these things, the so-called vicar of Christ, the Pope, has decreed that these things are to be believed by Christians on pains of losing their salvation. It is hard to see a clearer example of the Pope putting himself in the place of God as Paul prophesied in 2 Thess. 2. Requiring folks to believe in something that is by no means certain is bad enough, but these false ideas also have led to serious false beliefs that are at the very heart of the Christian faith. Their belief in the sinlessness of Mary has not been left as some bare factoid. It has been incorporated into their u

 Audio recording Sermon text: Knowing what is wrong in any given situation is usually more than half the battle. If you know what is wrong you can efficiently go about fixing it. For example, ever since we moved into our house we would occasionally hear mice running around in the attic. We’ve dealt with it over the years by throwing some mice poison up there. Usually after a day or two we wouldn’t hear the mice anymore. But then, after some time passed, they’d come back again. Obviously they were getting in somewhere. Over the years I’ve tried to think about where they might be getting in, but all the holes I plugged weren’t it. This summer I’m replacing the siding on my house. This past week when I pulled some of the old siding off, I could plainly see where they were getting in. Without pulling off the old siding, I never would have been able to find the route they were using to get into the attic. Now that I know what is wrong, it is easy to fix. In another week or so, the mice won’t be able to get in anymore. A lot more had to be done in order to find the problem, than it is to fix it. This same thing is true in all the different facets of our lives. Oftentimes, medically, it is crucial to find out exactly what is wrong so that it can be healed if possible. Or consider the state our society has been in ever since this virus showed up last year. A great deal of our fear and consternation has been caused by not knowing exactly what is wrong. How bad is the virus? What should be done to prevent its spread? Who is telling the truth? Who is trying to sell ads? Who is buying the ads? Who is buying the politicians? How should this whole situation be interpreted? We are not all on the same page. We’re not very tolerant of those who do not think the same thing as we do. Deep down we all think, “I’m right, and they are wrong.” What a contentious mess this has created! If we could all know the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth of what is going on, we’d be a lot closer to addressing the situation efficiently. This is also completely applicable to our situation religiously. Knowing what is wrong is more than half the battle. In my office I have a copy of a painting of the final judgment. It shows the resurrection of the dead. The individuals are being weighed, that is to say, judged, and some are going to the right, escorted by angels into heaven. Others are going to the left, being dragged into hell by demons. If people are able to acknowledge this as being true we are well on our way to faith in Christ. If people acknowledge that they will be judged by their Maker, they will know that things can’t go on like they have been. They will know what’s wrong. But as you know full well, this is not the only interpretation of what our life will come to. Some say that there is no God. Some say that there is a God, but he doesn’t judge anyone. Some say that there is a judgment, but we decide what’s right and what’s wrong instead of the Ten Commandments. There is no agreement about our predicament, thus there is no agreement about the Savior. This is true about this great and final judgment. It is also true of God’s judgments leading up to that time. In our confession of sin in the divine service we confess that we have sinned against God and therefore deserve his temporal and eternal punishment. God punishes eternally in hell. He also punishes temporally, in time, now in this life. Anyone who reads even a small portion of the Bible knows that this is true. God threatens to punish all who break his commandments. Therefore we should fear his wrath and not do anything against them. There are countless examples of God punishing people for their sins. Obviously this continues into the present time. Floods, fires, diseases and disasters of every kind are wrought by God, for nothing happens apart from his will. These scourges most certainly are his punishment for sin. But how do these things get interpreted? Most people think the