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This Week's Sermon REFORMATION SUNDAY 25 October 2009 "Lord, Keep Us Steadfast in Your Word" John 8:31-36 LSB Series B Pastor Philip G. Meyer Soli Deo Gloria!

Four-hundred-ninety-two years have passed since Martin Luther nailed his Ninety-five Theses to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany. The theses, designed to debate the improper use of indulgences to gain forgiveness of sins, set off a firestorm that has burned like a wildfire, settled down, burned again, and so on. Today, the firestorm has pretty much died down to embers in Christianity. The issue of how one gets forgiveness seems to have been shoved to the back burner. Few seem interested in talking about the central doctrine of the Christian faith, if even at all. A year ago as our group of nine pastors toured Wittenberg we were told that less than 5% of the city of Wittenberg is even Christian, the result of World War II and 50 years of atheistic rule under the Communists.

The Christian faith remains under assault by the forces of Satan. The truth of God has been attacked ever since Satan asked Eve in the garden, "Did God really say . . .?" Today we would have to say that post-modern man has added another question: "And what if he did?" The Word of God remains under siege, perhaps more so today. We see people cave in to, even run to, the false ideologies of our day. These false ideologies have captured most denominations so that one must ask seriously whether they are still Christian or whether they are Christian in name only.

A couple of weeks ago, on October 08, several people fell seriously ill from participation in what was called a "spiritual cleansing exercise" at a sweat lodge in Sedona, Arizona. Twenty-one persons were taken to hospitals. Three persons have died from this so-called "spiritual exercise," which attracted many who were nominally Christian people. They were seeking "enlightenment" news reports said. Even a female clergy person is listed among the biggest supporters of the motivational guru James Arthur Ray [AP news reports]. This is nothing more than "New Age" spirituality. There is nothing Christian about it. What is more, they paid around $10,000 each for the so-called "cleansing," much like people in Luther's day paid for indulgences.

Today, the language by which we discuss such things has been compromised. Words no longer mean what they used to. The word "spiritual" seems to take in a lot of territory, not all of it good. To say that a person is "spiritual" does not necessarily mean that a person even believes that there is a God. For many, spiritual means the opposite of material. That's not a biblical definition, but the definition of Plato who said that matter and spirit are opposed to each other. They are incompatible with each other. Drag that system into Christianity and you have lots of heresy.

David Scaer, in his book "Law and Gospel and the Means of Grace," traces the line from Plato down through Gnosticism and medieval mystics. In particular, a twelfth-century radical spiritualist, Joachim of Fiore, said that the final age of salvation history would be called the age of the Spirit. When it came, he said, there would be no need for sacraments, the Bible, or clergy. Many of his radical features found their way into the Reformed branch of Christianity [p. 207f]. Personal faith was valued more highly than the Church. Christianity could exist, they say, without church buildings, clergy, and the Divine Service. Internal experiences were considered genuine and outward rites were discarded as having no value because they say that God did not work through ordinary means.

Thus, all of this anticipated what is happening in our day, particularly with the Emerging Church Movement, about which I have written in the Esprit. The Emerging Church Movement is the grandchild of Neo-platonic thought patterns. It is the latest heresy to remove the foundations of historic Christianity by removing the objective Word of God's truth and replacing it with personal experiences. There is a subtlety here that escapes many people. Experience is accepted as truth instead of something being true because it is true, that is, that things are true in and of themselves whether or not you have experienced something.

The denial of how God deals with us lies at the heart of this heresy. If it is only through what one experiences, then there is no need of Baptism, the Lord's Supper, and even the Divine Service. Zwingli and others were saying it already in Luther's day. One also doesn't need the Church. So the Emerging Church Movement says that one doesn't need "organized religion" at all. One merely needs the experiences of his heart.

God's Word, however, does not allow such a division between spirit and matter. God works through ordinary matter. God is easily present in earthly things as instruments of the means of grace just as he was and is in Jesus. The Pharisees and others stumbled at the fact that Jesus is the Son of God in human flesh. Not only is God present in the means of grace, that is, in water, bread and wine, words, but that is his usual way of coming to us. Luther said that Christ was in the tree in the garden, the rainbow, the rock on which Jacob slept, and in the sacrifices. We would call these "Old Testament sacraments."

But let's get back to the foundation, the Word of God. What does Jesus say?

"If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." (John 8:31-32, ESV)

Only if you stay in Christ's word can you know the truth! Your experience is no measure of the truth. The very temptation of Satan to Eve was of this kind. He said to her, "If you want to experience what it is like to be God, then eat this fruit." His temptation to her was to get her to go beyond the Word of God and trust her experience. Unfortunately for all of us, Adam and Eve failed to trust the Word of God, with the result that the world was plunged into sin and we lost the image of God. Sin, death, and hell became our lot. We became enslaved to sin.

What is the greatest threat to Christianity today? To authentic Lutheranism? It is the temptation to abandon the Word of God for one's experience. The Word of God is quite clear about many of the things that so many denominations have abandoned, namely homosexuality and women pastors. The Word of God is crystal clear on these things, but church leaders have discarded the clear Word of God for what they feel about such things. Experience has trumped the Word of God. Satan has tempted our world by asking, "Has God really said that these are sins against him?"

Jesus tells us that we must "abide" in his Word, that is, stay in it, remain in it, remain true to it. It means that we must live in it and not be taken captive by false ideologies. There are those who say that our insistence on pure doctrine is out of date and out of style. We are told that we must be more "flexible" when it comes to the truth. After all, we are told, "there are many truths." If one means experience as truth, then there are as many "truths" as there are experiences, even if most of them are contradictory "truths." Think about that term for a moment: "contradictory truths." If something stands against itself, you can be sure it isn't the truth!

The Lutheran Reformation raised the great question of the pure doctrine of the Gospel for all people. Your salvation hangs in the balance. Either it is true that God has redeemed you in Christ alone, that you are saved by grace, for Christ's sake, through faith, or you are somehow responsible for your own salvation. Both cannot be true. Only one can be, experience aside. Jesus said here:

"So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed." (John 8:36, ESV)

Any other talk of freedom apart from the redemption in Christ Jesus, however "spiritual" it might be, is a lie of Satan. Nothing does more damage to the Church than false doctrine because it lies to you about what God has said in his Word. A few verses later our Lord calls Satan the father of lies [8.44]. The lie is his stock and trade, the way by which he seduces people away from Christ. It seems that the essence of our Post-modern age is that it no longer even considers the possibility of error! How many believe that Jesus Christ really possesses all authority in heaven and on earth and that his word is the Truth?

There are plenty of people who think that a little false doctrine won't hurt anyone. This is like saying that a little bit of bubonic plague won't hurt you or that a little bit of food contaminated with botulism won't hurt you. Why people flirt with dangerous ideologies is sometimes hard for me to understand. Why people who supposedly have heard the Gospel get mixed up with New Age gurus and sit in a sweat lodge to find "enlightenment" seems to be the height of stupidity, if not outright sinfulness. Why people read religious books that contradict the clear Word of God and think that they will be unaffected by them seems utterly foolish to me.

Put it this way. You go to the physician who prescribes a specific medicine for your illness, but you decide that you think you know better, so you get some other medicines to take because they seem more interesting. You don't know it, but these other medicines produce a bad reaction and you end up sicker than you were before. You trusted yourself more than you trusted your physician. Physicians sometimes make mistakes. We live in a fallen world, but it's generally a good idea to listen to sound medical advice and not ignore it.

But our Great Physician never makes a mistake. He directs us back to his Word. "If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples." My Word. This is the word about Jesus. It is God's Word.

"You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me," (John 5:39, ESV)

The sad fact is that most denominations have given up the authority of God's Word. They no longer believe what it says about the way of salvation, granting salvation to those who deny such doctrines as the divinity of Christ, his vicarious death, his bodily resurrection from the dead, and others. From there it is a short trip to the acceptance of what the Christian Church has always considered abominations, direct contradictions of his Word, such as the approval of women pastors and homosexuality and same sex marriage.

"Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth" (John 17:17, ESV) Jesus said. Only by means of this Word are we made holy. We do not make ourselves holy by what we do. We do not find enlightenment through "spiritual journeys." Only by confessing the Word of God as God has recorded it do we live in the truth.

On no day of the Church Year do we sing "A Mighty Fortress" with as much gusto as today. We Lutherans are proud of our heritage, but we must also realize that we are a weak Church if we depend upon our heritage or upon ourselves. We must continue to pray that God will preserve the pure Gospel and Sacraments among us because we can lose them through our own foolishness. Every Wednesday at the Office of Matins we pray that God would continue to bless us with the pure doctrine taught by the Apostles and that he would continue to "send down on [his] ministers and on the congregations committed to their care the healthful spirit of [his] grace" [LSB Altar Book, pp. 427, 430]. In the Divine Service we pray that God would not take his Holy Spirit from us [Offertory, DS 3, LSB, p. 193], because the Holy Spirit is the Author of his Word.

Only in Christ are we free. All else is slavery to Satan's lies. So today we fervently pray, "Lord, Keep Us Steadfast in Your Word." Only in God's Word is your life. Only in God's Word, the word about Christ and Christ's own word, are you free, now and forever. Only in his Word of truth is your confidence now and on the day of your death!

God abides in us by in his Word when it is read and proclaimed. God abides in us especially in the Sacrament of the Altar where Christ himself comes to us in his body and blood. God does not come to you apart from his Word and Sacraments. He comes to you in these ordinary means, these humble things that are often despised by others as having no value. Here in this place, this Jerusalem, where the Word is purely proclaimed and the Sacraments administered according to Christ's institution-this is the place where God reigns and works. Here he comes to abide with you and in you and with the whole Christian Church on earth. So it is that we pray that God keeps us in his Word to our end.

1 Lord Jesus Christ, with us abide,
For round us falls the eventide.
O let Your Word, that saving light,
Shine forth undimmed into the night.

2 In these last days of great distress
Grant us, dear Lord, true steadfastness
That we keep pure till life is spent
Your holy Word and Sacrament.

3 To hope grown dim, to hearts turned cold
Speak tongues of fire and make us bold
To shine Your Word of saving grace
Into each dark and loveless place.

4 May glorious truths that we have heard,
The bright sword of Your mighty Word,
Spurn Satan that Your Church be strong,
Bold, unified in act and song.

5 Restrain, O Lord, the human pride
That seeks to thrust Your truth aside
Or with some man-made thoughts or things
Would dim the words Your Spirit sings.

6 Stay with us, Lord, and keep us true;
Preserve our faith our whole life through-
Your Word alone our heart's defense,
The Church's glorious confidence.

585 Lord Jesus Christ, with Us Abide

Text (sts. 1-6): © 1982 Concordia Publishing House Used by permission: LSB Hymn License .NET, number 100010193.
Created by Lutheran Service Builder © 2006 Concordia Publishing House.

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.