God was a demanding God in the Old Testament. You know He didn’t allow the people to worship in any kind of convenient way. They were expected to make their way to Jerusalem for specific feasts and offer their sacrifices only there in the temple. He set forth the way things were to be and He expected the people to obey.

So, who can blame the prophets when they were only making it easier for the people? For instance, when they allowed for worship of God on any mountain that was nearby, rather than having to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem; they were only trying to make it easier for the people to worship God. Or when they began to say that Jehovah was the same God as the Bails; they were only trying to be inclusive and make it a more seamless transition for the foreigners to adopt God as their God.

And of course the relaxing of certain laws was imminent, for as the people became more enlightened, they certainly didn’t need all of those divinely given regulations any more. They belonged to cultural oddities of years gone by.

But God had a little something different to say. “Don’t listen to the words of the prophets who prophecy to you, filling you with vain hopes. They speak visions of their own minds, not from the mouth of the Lord” (v16). In other words, the prophets no longer spoke prophetic words from God; and if not from Him, then who? And if the prophecy was not of God and according to His will, then it could only lead one to disfavor with God and destruction.

For such as these there is only destruction in their future according to the will of God. His wrath has gone out and will burst upon the head of the wicked (v19). The day would soon come when Judah would be overthrown and conquered and her people exiled in a foreign land. God’s justice would be delivered. The despisers of His word would not escape His wrath, nor would the unrighteous escape disaster.

The intent of the Lord’s heart is that His people would be righteous, pure, and undefiled. His laws and His divine rules were established to show the people all that was necessary for them to avoid the Lord’s wrath, but they would not listen. Instead they sought to do what was right in their own eyes and they willingly listened to the prophets that told them the sweet things that they wished to hear. And so, with the Law forgotten, there was no need of the Gospel. If all things were just fine under these smooth talking prophets, then what need was there for a Messiah? If there was no bondage, then why worry about a promise of a Savior?

The Word of the Lord is like a fire that consumes that it might purge and purify; that it might reduce and refine. Even though so many prophets said that all was well, it was Jeremiah’s prophecy from the Lord that bore true. The whirling tempest of God’s wrath went forth and burst upon the people of Judah and God purged them of the wicked. He refined Judah to the remnant that remained and returned to rebuild the walls and the temple of Jerusalem.

But the lies prophesied in the name of the Lord continued and were finally levied against His Son. It is the perfect prophet that spoke only God’s Word. It is the anointed one, Jesus Christ that prophesied of a baptism by fire. It is the righteous One, that would suffer as the unrighteous, the One that honors God’s Word that would meet disaster as a despiser of God’s Word.

God’s wrath would go out as a whirling tempest and would burst upon the head of His Son. His anger would not turn back until He had executed and accomplished the intents of His heart. It is now in these latter days that you can understand it clearly. The Christ must suffer and die as one cursed under the Law. The Law must be fulfilled and honored completely that justice may be complete. In these latter days it should be clear as God’s Word declares that Jesus is the founder and perfecter of our faith and that as the patriarch’s were justified before God through faith in the promise, so too are we justified through in that same promise fulfilled. There is no hope apart from faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. All other councils and prophecies are lies and deceptions.

It is maddening and saddening that these false prophets that distort and upend God’s Word still exist today. So many that directs God’s people to depend upon their works instead Christ’s. So many that undo God’s Law and try to defang it such that the Gospel holds no real promise of hope. Do not listen to those that prophecy and fill you with vain hopes. They speak to satisfy the visions of their own minds and not the will of God.

The intent of the Lord’s heart is that your flesh might be put to death under His wrath and that your faith in the promise would raise you to new life. This is all accomplished in your baptism, where you died with Christ and were raised with Him to new life. There is no need to add your works; Christ has already fulfilled the Law for you. There is no need to lesson the Law; Christ already suffered death as sinner under the Law for you.

That which is to be understood in these latter days is that the promise has been fulfilled. God has followed through and done all that Abraham was looking forward to see; He has fulfilled the promise. The intent of the Lord’s heart is accomplished and His desire is that it be fulfilled also for you through faith in Jesus Christ. Amen.

+ Pastor

A Week in Prayer for August 8, 2010

The town in which they settled in Texas is still there, but the Wend culture is only a memory. The Wendish names still survive, but the language is now all but forgotten. The property and wealth of the Wendish people is disbursed and distributed having changed hands many times over through inheritance and sale. Truly only one thing of this Wendish people still remains in tact and that is their faith. Through their striving for purity of doctrine, these Lutherans even after all else is gone, have succeeded in keeping the Gospel by which the Holy Spirit calls, gathers, enlightens, and sanctifies the whole Christian church on earth, keeping it with Jesus in the one true faith and preserving the Church in which He daily and richly forgives our sins.

Tonight I speak to you – most of whom have given up your homes and lives of past years in order to live here at Ashley River Plantation (an assisted living home), and I think that you can see the vanity and the striving after wind as one seeks to achieve immortality by accumulating things that do not last.

There are many former prisoners of war that will tell you that if not for their faith in God, they would not have survived. When they had been stripped of everything; their possessions, their health; their dignity – the only thing that remained was faith that Christ had not abandoned them and that His atoning blood still had purchased and won them from all sin, from death, and from the power of the devil.

All things temporal are just that – they are temporary. But faith in the true God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is a faith that leads to eternal life. It is vanity to strive after earthly wealth so that one might have pleasure for a time if hell is the reward for eternity. It is pure foolishness to neglect that which God is offering us daily in His Son thinking it unnecessary because of our great comfort in this life.

If I work only to make a dollar then my reward will last only as long as that dollar. But if I trust in the blood of the eternal Son shed for me, then that which is eternal shall remain forever.

Simple vain endeavors can be easily understood, but how can the preacher, King Solomon say that all is vanity. How can he declare that absolutely everything is vanity? Vanity of vanities! This must be understood in terms of eternity.

We are all faced with our mortality, knowing that our days are numbered; that God could call for our soul this very night. And if we go to sleep wondering if we have done all that is necessary for heaven to be ours, then it is pure vanity. For heaven will never be ours based upon our labor or our accumulation of good deeds. All that we do in this life is simply vanity if we do it to earn salvation.

Here in this obscure Old Testament text is the Gospel being given a primary role. All is vanity if we do not trust in Jesus Christ as the one who has earned salvation for us. All is vanity if we want to rely upon the temporal achievements we make instead of the eternal achievements Christ has made for us.

It is His perfect life that is spotless and without blemish. It is His death that atoned for the sin of the whole world. It is His resurrection that justifies the sinner in the eyes of God through water and the Spirit – baptism and faith.

There are all too many people that want to rely on the vanity of their own filthy rags. But as for you and me, we shall rely upon Jesus who pleases God for us that we might have wisdom and knowledge and joy.

All that we have in this life shall one day be taken away, but nobody can take away from you your Savior Jesus Christ. And as Jesus says, “No one will snatch them out of my hand” (John 10:28). To Him be glory and honor forever and ever. Amen.

+ Pastor Sandeno

A Week in Prayer for August 1 2010

A Week in Prayer for July 18, 2010