Sermon Thanksgiving Day Nov 28, 2019

Sermon on Thanksgiving Day (November 28, 2019)
The sermon text is Psalm 100 and the title is “Godly Contentment.”

 

Picture from St. Paul’s Lutheran Church of Des Peres.  This sermon wasn’t delivered there.  I visited there for an American Kantorei concert on November 17, 2019 and heard four Bach cantatas, one of which was BMV 156.

Book Of Concord Bible Class #10: Article XXI

We remember the saints, but we do not invoke them.  This Bible study examines article twenty-one of the Augsburg Confession.

Quiz #10 (tan sheet): Quiz-10-for-Nov-24-Augsburg-Confession-Art-20-21.pdf
Handout 1: Handout-Articles-of-the-Augsburg-Confession-Overview-Nov-3.pdf
Overhead: AC-articles-18-21.pdf

(Picture: It is never too early to begin studying God’s Word.)

51A Creation: “Baconian” Philosophy

“The influence of ‘Baconian’ philosophy has progressively caused the Church to disconnect the Bible from the real world—it is relegated to a book of stories, albeit with wonderful teachings about salvation and morality….  Each generation, though, became more and more consistent—if the Bible’s history is not true, how can the rest of it be true?  If the earthly teachings can’t be trusted—how can the spiritual teachings be believed?
The result today is that increasing numbers of people no longer see the Bible as relevant, and so they reject its morality and salvation” (Gospel Reset by Ken Ham, p.123-124).

#72 Temporal Government Needs Wise Men to Rule

After all, temporal government has to continue.18 Are we then to permit none but louts and boors to rule, when we can do better than that? That would certainly be a crude and senseless policy. We might as well make lords out of swine and wolves, and set them to rule over those who refuse to give any thought to how they are ruled by men. Moreover, it is barbarous wickedness to think no further than this: We will rule now; what concern is it of ours how they will fare who come after us? Not over human beings, but over swine and dogs should such persons rule who in rifling seek only their own profit or glory. Even if we took the utmost pains to develop a group of able, learned, and skilled people for positions in government, there would still be plenty of labor and anxious care involved in seeing that things went well. What then is to happen if we take no pains at all? (Luther’s Works, v. 45 p. 357).

50A Creation: At Church … but at School

“This ‘real’ history the world teaches encompasses such things as the earth is billions of years old; man evolved from ape-like ancestors; the Bible has nothing to do with science; the ‘big bang’ brought the universe into existence; there was no Adam and Eve; there was no Fall into sin; the evidence of animals changing (by mutation and natural selection) is deceptively equated with molecules-to-man evolution; the Bible teaches religion, but school teach ‘real’ science, etc.” (Gospel Reset by Ken Ham, p.120-121).

Book of Concord Bible Class #9: Article XX

In this Bible study we finish up article twenty of the Augsburg Confession.

Quiz #9 (blue sheet): Quiz-9-for-Nov-17-Augsburg-Confession-Art-18-20.pdf
Handout 1: Handout-Articles-of-the-Augsburg-Confession-Overview-Nov-3.pdf
Overhead: AC-articles-18-21.pdf

(Picture is of Salem Lutheran Church, Malone, TX)

#71 The Universal Dearth of Wise and Competent Men

Since a city should and must have [educated] people, and since there is a universal dearth of them and complaint that they are nowhere to be found, we dare not wait until they grow up of themselves; neither can we carve them out of stone nor hew them out of wood. Nor will God perform miracles as long as men can solve their problems by means of the other gifts he has already granted them. Therefore, we must do our part and spare no labor or expense to produce and train such people ourselves. For whose fault is it that today our cities have so few capable people? Whose fault, if not that of authorities, who have left the young people to grow up like saplings in the forest, and have given no thought to their instruction and training? This is also why they have grown to maturity so misshapen that they cannot be used for building purposes, but are mere brushwood, fit only for kindling fires (Luther’s Works, v. 45 p. 356-357).

49A Creation: Spiritual Teachings and History

“Much of the church has adopted the spiritual teachings of the Bible (the message of morality and salvation—even that is somewhat questionable today with so much compromise on Genesis in the church!), but has rejected a significant amount of its history.  The is, to most, a book of stories containing important ‘truths.’ But the history (particularly in the early chapters of Genesis) is not viewed as important –or even real.” (Gospel Reset by Ken Ham, p.119).

#70 The Liberal Arts Trained Schoolmaster

So it was done in ancient Rome. There boys were so taught that by the time they reached their fifteenth, eighteenth, or twentieth year they were well versed in Latin, Greek, and all the liberal arts (as they are called), and then immediately entered upon a political or military career. Their system produced intelligent, wise, and competent men, so skilled in every art and rich in experience that if all the bishops, priests, and monks in the whole of Germany today were rolled into one, you would not have the equal of a single Roman soldier. As a result their country prospered; they had capable and trained men for every position. So at all times throughout the world simple necessity has forced men, even among the heathen, to maintain pedagogues and schoolmasters if their nation was to be brought to a high standard. Hence, the word “schoolmaster” is used by Paul in Galatians 4 as a word taken from the common usage and practice of mankind, where he says, “The law was our schoolmaster.” (Luther’s Works, v. 45 p. 356).

#66 We have the Gifts to Educate Our Children

A second consideration is, as St. Paul says in II Corinthians 6[:1–2], that we should not accept the grace of God in vain and neglect the time of salvation. Almighty God has indeed graciously visited us Germans and proclaimed a true year of jubilee.10 We have today the finest and most learned group of men, adorned with languages and all the arts, who could also render real service if only we would make use of them as instructors of the young people. Is it not evident that we are now able to prepare a boy in three years, so that at the age of fifteen or eighteen he will know more than all the universities and monasteries have known before? Indeed, what have men been learning till now in the universities and monasteries except to become asses, blockheads, and numbskulls? For twenty, even forty, years they pored over their books, and still failed to master either Latin or German, to say nothing of the scandalous and immoral life there in which many a fine young fellow was shamefully corrupted (Luther’s Works, v. 45 p. 351-352).