"Does Your God Threaten?"

Text: Luke 20:27-37

May the God of all grace supply you with every good thing in Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Dear Fellow Christians:

Video stores give me the creeps. Our God, through the pen of the Apostle Paul in Philippians 4:8, once gave us a partial listing of the sort of things we Christians should be all about: "Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy -- meditate on these things." Try as I might, I find very little in a video store that fits that description – in any way. The images that there assault Christian eyes are anything but lovely, pure, and virtuous. In fact take the exact opposite of each word or phrase in the Holy Spirit's list above and you get a near perfect description of the vast majority of the raw sewage that seeps out of Hollywood.

We bring this up this morning for a specific purpose. Obviously our culture is obsessed with sex in every aspect of human existence, and Hollywood has successfully dragged our culture into the cesspool of crude and filthy language. It does not, therefore, surprise us that sex and bad language are now the staple of modern filmmaking. Yet the one that I really have a hard time understanding is the wild popularity of the graphic horror/slasher movie. I don't get it, and I don't think I want to get it. The previews are enough to tell me that this sort of thing is not of God, so the strange appeal must have a much darker cause or basis.

My own personal opinion is that Satan fully endorses this sort of terror, torture, and graphic violence because he wants a brutal, desensitized population – for a variety of diabolical reasons. Every time we witness some horrible, violent death we become that much more desensitized to such things. The more images of brutality and torture mankind witnesses (and "survives") the less he comes to fear such things. The end game, as far as the devil is concerned, is very likely to diminish the fear of Hell itself. If Satan can successfully create the illusion that hell is tolerable – that man has "been there, done that" already on earth – he has successfully removed the single greatest weapon that we can and must use against our sinful flesh.

The Church has long been aware of the devil's tactics. It is no doubt in part due to the devil's mischief that the Church takes a good hard look on this particular Sunday at both the reality of the wrath of God over against sin, and the stark and utter terror of the site of everlasting torment.

With this bit of sobering reality, we are prepared to hear the words of our text, recorded by the Prophet Malachi as the final verses of the Old Testament:

Malachi 4:1-6 "For behold, the day is coming, burning like an oven, and all the proud, yes, all who do wickedly will be stubble. And the day which is coming shall burn them up," says the LORD of hosts, "That will leave them neither root nor branch. ² But to you who fear My name the Sun of Righteousness shall arise with healing in His wings; and you shall go out and grow fat like stall-fed calves. ³ You shall trample the wicked, for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet on the day that I do this," Says the LORD of hosts. ⁴ ¶ "Remember the Law of Moses, My servant, which I commanded him in Horeb for all Israel, with the statutes and judgments. ⁵ ¶ Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD. ⁶ And he will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the earth with a curse."

These are the very words of our God. Thankful that he has again given us the rare privilege to grow through the study of these divine words, and trusting in his promise that he will always bless us through the hearing of these words, so we pray, “Sanctify us through your truth, O Lord. Your word is truth.” Amen.

Dear Fellow Inheritors of the Lord's riches, I would guess that most here have heard the old line often enough that you could fill in the blank without much conscious thought. If one movie character asks: "Is that a threat?" The other will almost certainly reply: "No, that's a _________."

Is there anyone over the age of about 10 that doesn't know that the missing word is "promise"? "That's not a threat. That's a promise." As corny as that line has become, it is actually fairly appropriate for our topic this morning. The devil hates whatever God uses to save souls. The devil therefore hates the Law. But the Law doesn't save, does it? Obviously we are not saved by keeping God's Law, but God still uses the power of the Law in our lives. How so? God uses the Law to control the old Adam (sinful flesh) in every Christian. God knows that there is simply no reasoning with our sinful flesh, which just plains loves to sin. The old Adam in us would, if left alone, stupidly and consistently carry each of us into eternal damnation. Therefore, like any brute beast, that evil in us has to be controlled with the whip and the club of the Law.

Yet just here is where the difference between the threat and the promise of the Law comes into play. While we often talk about the threat of the Law, God's cause would probably be better served if we would talk instead about the promise of the Law. Clearly we are reluctant to use the words "promise" and "law" in the same sentence with good reason. Yet the word "promise" indicates that something will happen; it says nothing about good or bad. The problem with "threat" is that we have grown cynical and skeptical about the reality of most threats. Remember how Sadam threatened us with "the mother of all battles"? Obviously the reality was much more fizzle than flash. We hear the same sorts of things almost on a daily basis from our enemies in the Middle East, and we have learned to greet such threats with a yawn.

On a more individual level, what child hasn't grown up hearing all manner of threats on the playground – almost none of which are ever really meant, let alone carried out? The result is that we no longer take most threats seriously, and it is for this reason that we would probably do well to use a different word to describe those things that our God has revealed to us.

So we ask the question that forms the theme for the sermon this morning: "Does your God threaten?" Interesting question, isn't it? For a variety of reasons. One element of our ever more permissive society would have you believe that there is never any downside or threat of any kind in connection with "God." They take sayings like "God is love" to mean that life will always be butterflies and sunshine, and that the real God is never anything but permissive and benevolent. Other elements of our society agree with the general concept of a permissive, benevolent God (mostly because such a view helps them to sleep at night) but they acknowledge that God does occasionally make threats, but only those that he doesn't really intend to keep.

Again, our old Adam takes great delight in such nonsensical images of God. Like the brat in the grocery store that knows that mom's threats are so much wind, our sinful flesh longs to be able to dismiss what God says about unbelief, sin, and hell in the Bible as just more idle threats in a long line of scare tactics used to manipulate our behavior.

Is that the sort of thing that we find in our text for this morning? Is this just more Middle Eastern exaggeration intended to not only keep a bratty, rebellious people in line but to give them some sort of false hope concerning the future? If that were indeed the case, as far as I am concerned we might just as well close our Bible and not waste our time. If God's Word makes idle threats, then not only do we really have nothing to fear, we really have nothing to trust. If we have nothing to fear, then why not just follow any and every inclination of our sinful flesh and enjoy absolution from our "Grampa God" in the end. So also if what God's Word tells us about punishment is fictitious, how can we have any hope or confidence in any of his other promises – in particular those that relate to eternal life and salvation?

Were then the words of our text idle threats or solemn promises? Let me ask it this way: How many Babylonians do you know? How many Assyrians, Chaldeans, or Romans? Yet there are Jews everywhere, aren't there. Was it then an idle threat when God promised to grind Israel's enemies into the dust of history, but to forever preserve the remnant of Israel? Do you realize just how unlikely – to the point of impossible – those promises were? Put it into modern terms and you will begin to get an idea. Promising to annihilate their enemies while preserving at least a remnant of the Jewish nation would be something like saying that China, Russia, and the United States will be utterly destroyed, but the tiny Republic of Ecuador will live on forever.

The bottom line in all of this is that God does not make the sort of threats to which we have grown accustomed. God makes promises. Among those promises is the terrifying reality of hell, and that those sinners who do not believe in Jesus Christ will spend an eternity in that unimaginably terrible place.

Do not allow Satan to rob you of this truth, for without it our sinful flesh will most certainly steal the show and carry us to that very place. Does our God threaten? No, he promises: "He that believes not will be condemned."

It is against this dark and ominous backdrop that the other promises of God break as with the light of a thousand suns. In other words, without the darkness of the promise of God's wrath toward all sin and unbelief, mankind would have – could have – no appreciation for God's promise of deliverance through faith in Jesus Christ.

As was mentioned earlier, our text represents the very end of the Old Testament. Listen again to those last two verses and hear both promises of God: "Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD. ⁶ And he will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the earth with a curse." Note well how, far from threatening idly, God holds out to all of mankind the only two possibilities: Hearts will be turned or the curse will be inflicted.

Now do yourself a favor and experience these verses in a new way. Don't stop at the end of the Old Testament; rather read these words together with the first verse of the New Testament: "Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD. ⁶ And he will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the earth with a curse." (Matthew 1:1) "The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the Son of David, the Son of Abraham…"

Jesus was not only God's greatest Promise, he represents our only hope for salvation. God does not threaten; God promises – and he has indeed kept his promise to provide a Savior, his Son Jesus Christ. In this great Promise we find our only lasting joy and comfort. All else may fail, but we can cling to this divine promise for all eternity: God has accepted the life and death of Jesus Christ as the satisfactory payment-in-full for the sins of world. He promised to send his Son, and he kept that promise. He promised to render his verdict on how well Jesus carried out his work of salvation by the sign of the tomb on Easter Sunday. The empty tomb is God's promise that the debt of every single sin has been paid in full. Salvation has been won. Our rescue has been achieved.

This joyful message does not cancel the promise of hell for all who do not trust in Jesus Christ for forgiveness; it rather magnifies the God's promise of forgiveness through faith is Jesus Christ. In this we rejoice, and continue to labor in the Lord's service that those that we know and love might also escape the Judgment that will surely come. Amen.

Scripture Readings and Sunday Bulletin for November 18, 2007

2 Thessalonians 3:6-13 But we command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you withdraw from every brother who walks disorderly and not according to the tradition which he received from us. ⁷ For you yourselves know how you ought to follow us, for we were not disorderly among you; ⁸ nor did we eat anyone's bread free of charge, but worked with labor and toil night and day, that we might not be a burden to any of you, ⁹ not because we do not have authority, but to make ourselves an example of how you should follow us. ¹⁰ For even when we were with you, we commanded you this: If anyone will not work, neither shall he eat. ¹¹ For we hear that there are some who walk among you in a disorderly manner, not working at all, but are busybodies. ¹² Now those who are such we command and exhort through our Lord Jesus Christ that they work in quietness and eat their own bread. ¹³ But as for you, brethren, do not grow weary in doing good.

Luke 17:20-30 Now when He was asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, He answered them and said, "The kingdom of God does not come with observation; ²¹ "nor will they say, 'See here!' or 'See there!' For indeed, the kingdom of God is within you." ²² ¶ Then He said to the disciples, "The days will come when you will desire to see one of the days of the Son of Man, and you will not see it. ²³ "And they will say to you, 'Look here!' or 'Look there!' Do not go after them or follow them. ²⁴ "For as the lightning that flashes out of one part under heaven shines to the other part under heaven, so also the Son of Man will be in His day. ²⁵ "But first He must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation. ²⁶ "And as it was in the days of Noah, so it will be also in the days of the Son of Man: ²⁷ "They ate, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all. ²⁸ "Likewise as it was also in the days of Lot: They ate, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they built; ²⁹ "but on the day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all. ³⁰ "Even so will it be in the day when the Son of Man is revealed.

Malachi 4:1-6 "For behold, the day is coming, burning like an oven, and all the proud, yes, all who do wickedly will be stubble. And the day which is coming shall burn them up," says the LORD of hosts, "That will leave them neither root nor branch. ² But to you who fear My name the Sun of Righteousness shall arise with healing in His wings; and you shall go out and grow fat like stall-fed calves. ³ You shall trample the wicked, for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet on the day that I do this," Says the LORD of hosts. ⁴ ¶ "Remember the Law of Moses, My servant, which I commanded him in Horeb for all Israel, with the statutes and judgments. ⁵ ¶ Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD. ⁶ And he will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the earth with a curse."

ST. PAUL EVANGELICAL LUTHERAN CHURCH

2510 E. Divide Ave.

Bismarck, ND 58501 (701) 223-4885 Cell: (701) 226-8510

Website – www.bismarcklutheran.org

Mr. Mark Johnson, President (222-1855) Mrs. Eileen McEnroe, Organist

Michael Roehl, Pastor

3^rd Last Sunday of the Church Year – November 18, 2007

The Opening Prayer by the Pastor

The Opening Hymn ‑#744- (Brown Hymnal)

"How Great Thou Art"

The Order of Service – Supplement page 12ff. (Brown Hymnal)

The Scripture Lessons: (Printed on the back page of this bulletin)

The Epistle Lesson: (2 Thessalonians 3:6-13) The Thessalonians served as both positive and negative examples. They were positive examples in that they took seriously the Lord's promise that He would return. Not so positive was the fact that some quit their jobs and became lazy busybodies while they waited. The Lord wants us to wait, but He wants us to be productive while we wait.

Psalm of the Day – Psalm 51 (Supplement page 31) (Brown Hymnal)

The Gospel Lesson: (Luke 17:20-30) There will be no special, dramatic shift in world events that signals the coming of the Lord on the last day. Jesus here assures us that things on earth will be going pretty much as they have always been going – which is, in part, why His coming will catch many unprepared. Keep an eye out for your Savior's return while you labor in His service.

The Confession of Faith ‑

The Apostolic Creed – page 15. (Brown Hymnal)

The Pre-Sermon Hymn ‑#370- (Red Hymnal) (Melody of Hymn 780)

"My Hope Is Built on Nothing Less"

The Sermon – Text: Luke 20:27-37 (Printed on the back page)

"Does Your God Threaten?"

The Offertory – (Supplement page 16 insert)

The Post-Sermon Hymn -#437- (Red Hymnal)

"Who Trusts in God, a Strong Abode"

The Offering Hymn ‑#788- (Verses 1 & 3) (Brown Hymnal)

"Lord You Love the Cheerful Giver"

The Prayers of the Day followed by the Lord's Prayer

The Benediction

The Closing Hymn -#784- (Brown Hymnal)

"Lord Take My Hand and Lead Me"

Silent Prayer

Attendance ‑ Last Sunday (43) 2007 Average (55)

This Week at St. Paul:

Today -10:00 a.m. – Worship Service

-11:00 a.m. – Fellowship Hour

Monday -7:00 p.m. – Outreach Committee Meeting

Tuesday -7:00 p.m. – Church Council Meeting

Wednesday -5:45 p.m. – Confirmation & Bible History

-7:00 p.m. – Thanksgiving Service

Next Sunday -8:45 a.m. – Sunday School and Bible Class

-10:00 a.m. – Worship Service w/ Holy Communion

-11:15 a.m. – Fellowship Hour

Thanksgiving Service – Surely giving thanks to our God is good and appropriate at all times. He has blessed each of us beyond measure. Though we should and do thank our God at all times, it is also good, right, and reasonable that we gather for one special service to publicly express our gratitude to our God. We have such an opportunity this Wednesday at our annual Thanksgiving service.

Individual Member Data – Please remember to turn in your data sheets.

Outreach Committee Meeting – The Outreach Committee is scheduled to meet this Monday at 7:00 p.m. Please contact Committee Chairman Mike McEnroe for further details.

Church Council Meeting – Church Council Members please remember the meeting on Tuesday of this week. Again a reminder that all members of St. Paul are invited and encouraged to bring items for discussion to the attention of President Mark Johnson (or any Council member) for action by the Church Council.

Mission Updates – Clearly some very encouraging things have been seen of late in connection with the Lord's work in our various foreign mission endeavors. Pastor Nathanael Mayhew recently returned from his trip to East Africa. Please go to http://clclutheran.org/missions/ for more details of his trip, as well as all the recent developments abroad.