Yearly Archives: 2021

#65 God’s People Will Never Have Earthly Peace in this World

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And even if I were to live another hundred years and should succeed by the grace of God not only in allaying the past and present storms and rabbles but also all future ones, I realize that this would still not procure peace for our descendants so long as the devil lives and rules. Therefore I am also praying for a gracious hour of death; I care no more for this life.  I exhort you, our posterity, to pray and to pursue the word of God with diligence. Keep God’s poor candle burning. Be warned and be on the alert, watching lest at any hour the devil try to break a pane or window or fling open a door or tear the roof off in order to extinguish the light; for he will not die before the Last Day. You and I have to die, but after our death he still remains the same as he always has been, unable to desist from his raging. (Luther’s Works, v.47, p.117)

Picture: Fifth Trumpet from  Das Newe Testament Deuotzsch.

The image is from Martin Luther’s (1483-1546) September Testament. The image is based on Revelation chapter 9. The angel blows a trumpet causing a star to fall from heaving, opening the pit and allowing locusts with crowns to prey upon the earth. Woodcut designed by Lucas Cranach, the Elder (1472-1553), a close friend of Martin Luther.  http://pitts.emory.edu/

Catechesis on Third-last Sunday in the Church Year / Trinity 25 (St. Matthew 24:15-28) 2019

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On Wednesday nights, Trinity Lutheran Church (Herrin, IL) offers to both children and adults an opportunity for teaching with Learn-by-Heart at 6:30 PM and a catechetical service at 7:00.

In this video from November 6, 2019, we learned stanza 3 of “Brief Life I Here Our Portion” (The Lutheran Hymnal #448) and the Second Petition and meaning to the Lord’s Prayer.  This service is designed to prepare God’s people for the theme of the upcoming Sunday Divine Service.  The dialog sermon explains “The Abomination of Desolation” (St. Matthew 24:15-28), which is the Holy Gospel for Third Last Sunday in the Church Year(Trinity 25).

The service concludes with “Recite Word by Word.”    [Length: 1 hour and 2 minutes]

Bulletins:  Catechesis-3rd-Last-Sunday-11-06-2019-Online.pdf
Prayers:  Recite-Word-by-Word.pdf

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#63 Mob Rebellion is never Moderate

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If it is considered right to murder or depose tyrants, the practice spreads and it becomes a commonplace thing arbitrarily to call men tyrants who are not tyrants, and even to kill them if the mob takes a notion to do so….  We dare not encourage the mob very much. It goes mad too quickly; and it is better to take ten ells from it than to allow it a handsbreadth, or even a fingersbreadth in such a case. And it is better for the tyrants to wrong them a hundred times than for the mob to treat the tyrant unjustly but once. If injustice is to be suffered, then it is better for subjects to suffer it from their rulers than for the rulers to suffer it from their subjects. The mob neither has any moderation nor even knows what moderation is. And every person in it has more than five tyrants hiding in him. Now it is better to suffer wrong from one tyrant, that is, from the ruler, than from unnumbered tyrants, that is, from the mob….

Solomon in Proverbs and Ecclesiastes repeatedly teaches us to obey the king and be subject to him. Now no one can deny that when subjects set themselves against their rulers, they avenge themselves and make themselves judges. This is not only against the ordinance and command of God, who reserves to himself the authority to pass judgment and administer punishment in these matters, but such actions are also contrary to all natural law and justice. This is the meaning of the proverbs, “No man ought to judge his own case,” and, “The man who hits back is in the wrong.”  (Luther’s Works, v.46, p.105-108)

In Deep Distress 2.

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O LORD, Who didst of old time suffer in our body, when wilt Thou look upon us? When wilt Thou turn the eyes of Thy clemency to our groans and distress? Delay not, tarry not, now draw nigh; now be Thou turned to us; now regard us, that our prayer, which now, by reason of our secret sins, returns back again into our own bosom, may, by the abundance of Thy mercy, enter into Thy presence, and be accepted by Thee. Amen. Through Thy mercy, Who livest and reignest with the Father and the Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end. Amen  (Oremus, 1925, p.58).

#62 What If They Will Not Allow the Gospel? Flee

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But these examples are not enough for us, for here we are not concerned with what the heathen or the Jews did, but what is the right and the just thing to do, not only before God in the Spirit, but also in the divine external ordinance of temporal government. Suppose that a people would rise up today or tomorrow and depose their lord or kill him. That certainly could happen if God decrees that it should, and the lords must expect it. But that does not mean that it is right and just for the people to do it. I have never known of a case in which this was a just action, and even now I cannot imagine any. The peasants who rebelled claimed that the lords would not allow the gospel to be preached and that they robbed the poor people and, therefore, the lords had to be overthrown. I answered this by saying that although the lords did wrong in this, it would not therefore be just or right to do wrong in return, that is, to be disobedient and destroy God’s ordinance, which is not ours to do.  On the contrary, we ought to suffer wrong, and if a prince or lord will not tolerate the gospel, then we ought to go into another realm where the gospel is preached, as Christ says in Matthew 10 [:23], “When they persecute you in one town, flee to the next.”  (Luther’s Works, v.46, p.104-105)

Divine Service All Saints’ Day November 1, 2021

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Order of Divine Service I, p.136  Lutheran Worship
A Litany of the Saints replaces the Kyrie
Readings:  Deuteronomy 33:1-3, Rev 7:2-17, Mt 5:1-12
Hymn “Behold a Host Arrayed in White” LW 192, TLH 656
Sermon
Communion Hymns: “For All the Saints” LW 191, TLH 463
“Rejoice, the Lord is King” LW 179
Hymn “Christ Is Our Cornerstone” LW 290, TLH 465
Magnificat, p.228-230

–Michael D. Henson, Pastor of Trinity Lutheran Church (Herrin, IL).
Service Bulletin:  All-Saints-Day-Divine-Service-for-Online-11-1-2021.pdf

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Miriam’s Class #52: Genesis 26 on October 31, 2021

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Today’s class will study “Abimelech & Rebekah” (Gen 26:1-11).

Handout 1:  Text-for-Genesis-26.pdf

–Michael D. Henson, Pastor of Trinity Lutheran Church (Herrin, IL)

Picture: Trunk or Treat at Trinity Lutheran Early Childhood Learning Center on Thursday

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Divine Service Reformation Day October 31, 2021

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Order of Divine Service I, p.136  Lutheran Worship
Hymn “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God” LW 298, TLH 262
Readings:  Is 55:1-11, Rev 14:6-7, Mt 11:12-15
Hymn “Salvation Unto Us Has Come” LW 355, TLH 377
Sermon
Communion Hymns: “For Jerusalem You’re Weeping” LW 390
“If God Had Not Been on Our Side” TLH 267
“Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence” LW 241
“O Lord, Look Down from Heaven, Behold” TLH 260

–Michael D. Henson, Pastor of Trinity Lutheran Church (Herrin, IL).

Service Bulletin:  Reformation-Day-Divine-Service-for-Online-10-31-2021.pdf

Picture: Trunk or Treat at Trinity Lutheran Early Childhood Learning Center on Thursday

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#61 A Christian Patiently Suffers Wrong and Endures Evil

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I say all this, dear friends, as a faithful warning. In this case you should stop calling yourselves Christians and stop claiming that you have the Christian law on your side. For no matter how right you are, it is not right for a Christian to appeal to law, or to fight, but rather to suffer wrong and endure evil; and there is no other way (I Corinthians 6 [:1–8]). You yourselves confess in the preface to your articles that “all who believe in Christ become loving, peaceful, patient, and agreeable.”  Your actions, however, reveal nothing but impatience, aggression, anger, and violence. Thus you contradict your own words. You want to be known as patient people, you who will endure neither injustice nor evil, but will endure only what is just and good. That is a fine kind of patience! Any rascal can practice it! It does not take a Christian to do that! So again I say, however good and just your cause may be, nevertheless, because you would defend yourselves and are unwilling to suffer either violence or injustice, you may do anything that God does not prevent. However, leave the name Christian out of it. Leave the name Christian out, I say, and do not use it to cover up your impatient, disorderly, un-Christian undertaking.  I shall not let you have that name, but so long as there is a heartbeat in my body, I shall do all I can, through speaking and writing, to take that name away from you. You will not succeed, or will succeed only in ruining your bodies and souls.  (Luther’s Works, v.46, p.31-32)

Picture: Mark  from  Das Newe Testament Deuotzsch.

Mark writes his gospel with his attribute the lion nearby. Woodcut designed by Lucas Cranach, the Elder (1472-1553), a close friend of Martin Luther.  http://pitts.emory.edu

Divine Service Sts. Simon and Jude, Apostles October 28, 2021

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Order of Divine Service I, p.136  Lutheran Worship
Hymn “Christ Is Our Cornerstone” LW 290, TLH 465
Readings:  Dt 32:1-4, 1Pt 1:3-9, Jn 15:17-21
Hymn “For Jerusalem You’re Weeping” LW 390

–Michael D. Henson, Pastor of Trinity Lutheran Church (Herrin, IL).
Service Bulletin:  Sts.-Simon-and-Jude-October-28-NKJV-2014.pdf

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