Time Out

Text: Judges 7:1-23
Hymn: 823, May God Bestow on Us His Grace
Kretzmann Commentary: Judges

We see in Judges that salvation by trust and faith in God is not a new concept founded by St. Paul. In Judges 7 he scales back the army of the Israelites so severely that there is no question how this battle is to be won.

We can no more earn our eternal salvation than Gideon and his 300 men with trumpets, torches, and jugs could defeat the innumerable Midianites and Amalekites. Our sins, each one able to cast us out into the outer darkness, are exponentially more numerous than the armies that Gideon saw, yet God delivers us from all of them through Christ’s death and resurrection.

Setting: © 2006 Concordia Publishing House. All rights reserved.
Podcast under OneLicense.Net A-718131.

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Text: Joshua 24:1-28
Hymn: 528, All Mankind Fell in Adam’s Fall
Kretzmann Commentary: Joshua

Joshua 24:15, with some exclusions, is the stuff of T-shirts and songs:

And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the LORD, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.

The statement in context is much more than a simple challenge to choose to serve God. It comes at the end of a long list of great things that God has done for the Israelites. After the deliverance from Egypt, the thwarting of Balaam’s curse, the battle of Jericho, the settlement of cities pre-built for their use, and other major actions, how could the Israelites not serve God? This isn’t just some god who demands obedience and takes pleasure in punishing people who don’t meet his arbitrary standards. This is a God who has done great things for His people, and it is merely proper that Israel serve Him out of gratitude for His mercy upon them. It is repugnant for Israel to hold on to other gods and give lip service to the Almighty.

We have our own gods. The Father sacrificed His Son that we may be adopted sons and daughters, and we fail to do the things He asks in gratitude for His mercy. The Son hung on a cross for us, and we go about our lives, lying, gossiping, stealing, cheating, lusting, coveting, et cetera. That’s gratitude for us, isn’t it. We would desire to throw away or pervert the gifts God has given us, as if his forgiveness is our license to do evil. We should be ashamed. What Joshua tells Israel in verse 19 applies to us: outside of Christ, we are not able to serve the holy and jealous God.

Yet that cross that we would toss paid for our idolatry. Every day, we confess and repent, and he forgives us those disgusting things that we do and gives us deeds to be done that are good in Christ. We thank and praise, serve and obey Him in gratitude for the spending of God’s deserved wrath on His Son. We repent and quit our own gods, we receive his assurance that our sins are forgiven, we live our lives in accordance with His commandments as best we can, and the cycle continues daily. God has done great things for us and continues to give repentance and the forgiveness of sins.

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Text: Deuteronomy 31:14-29
Hymn: 758, The Will of God is Always Best
Kretzmann Commentary: Deuteronomy

Normally when I pick a scripture passage, I try to pick something where the Gospel is fairly self-evident. I went somewhat off-road this time in Deuteronomy, because a lot of Deuteronomy seems to be of the format that if Israel obeys God, God blesses them, if not, God curses them. Chapter 31 is a different animal. In this chapter, Joshua is told that he will succeed Moses for the people’s trip into Canaan. God tells Joshua and Moses that he is giving them the promised land, despite the fact that God already knows they are going to screw up and break the covenant. The people will be called to repentance by the song of Moses on the children’s lips! Translate that to the New Testament, where God gives us the new heavens and the new earth, even though he knows we sin over and over again. May our children have good hymns on their lips to call us back to repentance and trust in His Word!

The Will of God Is Always Best

1. The will of God is always best
   And shall be done forever;
   And they who trust in Him are blest,
   He will forsake them never.
   He helps indeed In time of need,
   He chastens with forbearing;
   They who depend On God, their Friend,
   Shall not be left despairing.
2. God is my comfort and my trust,
   My hope and life abiding;
   And to His counsel wise and just,
   I yield in Him confiding.
   The very hairs, His Word declares,
   Upon my head He numbers.
   By night and day God is my stay;
   He never sleeps nor slumbers.
3. Lord, this I ask, O hear my plea,
   Deny me not this favor:
   When Satan sorely troubles me,
   Then do not let me waver.
   O guard me well, My fear dispel,
   Fulfill Thy faithful saying:
   All who believe By grace receive
   An answer to their praying.
4. When life’s brief course on earth is run
   And I this world am leaving,
   Grant me to say: “Your will be done.”
   Your faithful Word believing.
   My dearest Friend, I now commend
   My soul into Your keeping,
   From sin and hell, And death as well,
   By You the vict-’ry reaping.

Text: 1 Corinthians 15:35-58
Hymn: 607, From Depths of Woe I Cry to Thee
Kretzmann Commentary: Numbers

I couldn’t help it. One full day into Lent, and I pull out a passage on the resurrection. Hopefully you’re getting the good Lenten stuff on Sunday.

One of the ways our nominal Christian spirituality fails us is that we don’t understand how bad the problem of sin is, and how much it really permeates our lives. We would rather put on the front and be Pharisees. “God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.” It is uncomfortable to talk about our own unworthiness, of all the things we have done and things we have left undone.

To deny our sinfulness and our inability to earn heaven is in the long run a much worse situation. Thinking we can move towards God on our own leads us down one of two roads: we either have earned enough for God and we’re proud of it, or we run ourselves into the ground wondering if what we have done is enough. Either road leads to the same destination.

Instead, we have a God of mercy, who spends all of His wrath on the cross, not only putting all of our sins on Jesus but also putting Christ’s righteousness on us. We cannot boast except that God has saved us, and we await his second coming and the victory feast that has no end.

Pleading for mercy from the God who grants it is a good thing.

 
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