Words of Encouragement – November 4, 2009
Wednesday, November 4th, 2009Paul’s Letter to the Believers at Colosse (continued)
“Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.” Colossians 3:16
So important to spiritual growth – nourishing the new nature created in us by the Spirit of God when we were baptized into Christ – is the use of God’s Word! That is why the Apostle Paul wrote to the believers at Colosse: “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.”
We, as believers in the crucified and risen Lord Jesus Christ, are to let the Word of Christ dwell in us richly in all wisdom. Why? The Scripture tells us the answer in the words which Paul wrote to Timothy (2 Timothy 3:15-17): “From a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: that the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works.”
The Scriptures teach us of our salvation – of forgiveness and life – in Christ Jesus; and the Scriptures are the source of all true Christian doctrine, being useful for the study of the truth, for reproving, correcting and instructing in righteousness. Through the study of Scriptures, believers know and are assured of God’s salvation in Christ Jesus and are given the knowledge they need to live for God in accord with His will.
Jesus said to those who believed on Him (John 8:31-32): “If ye continue in My word, then are ye My disciples indeed; and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”
It is through the continual study of God’s Word, the Bible, that we learn and are assured of the truth and are made free. The Scriptures teach and reveal to us God’s holy will and our utter sinfulness and shortcomings before the LORD God; but the Scriptures also reveal to us that in God’s own dear Son, Messiah Jesus, we have a Savior. He fulfilled all righteousness for us, and He paid in full for our sins and the sins of the whole world with His blood when He suffered and died upon the cross. In the crucified and risen Christ Jesus, we have forgiveness and life – we are made free and brought into fellowship with God our Maker.
We read and study God’s Word, letting it dwell in us richly and in all wisdom, that we may be strengthened and confirmed in our faith in Jesus and that we may teach and admonish and encourage others in their faith in Christ Jesus through psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. As we read and study God’s Word, are assured of forgiveness and life in Christ and are guided by its counsel, we can share that same assurance and guidance with others.
Certainly, the importance of using and basing our psalms and hymns and spiritual songs upon the very Word of God cannot be overemphasized. What good are songs and hymns with catchy tunes if they are not based on Scripture? How can they give comfort and teach us or give praise to God if they do not reflect God’s Word?
Indeed, when we let the Word of Christ dwell in our hearts richly and meditate in the Word and consider it in our hearts, we will be moved to sing with grace in our hearts to the Lord. Our hearts will be filled with thanksgiving and praise for the LORD God who so loved us that He gave His only-begotten Son to die for us and make us His own dear children.
O LORD God, thank You for Your Word and for making us wise unto salvation through faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. By Your Spirit, move us to continue in Your Word, to study it and learn from it, that we might continue in the true and saving faith, encourage others in that faith and give You praise and glory forever and ever. Amen.
Pastor Randy Moll
We All Believe in One True God:
A Summary of Biblical Doctrine
By Wallace H. McLaughlin
(The entire book is posted under Pages on the Church Web log)
IX. Conversion
Every Christian believes that he became one by a gracious act of God, that God made him a believer, gave him his faith, even as we read, Philippians 1:29: “Unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on Him, but also to suffer for His sake.” No Christian approaches God as did the Pharisee in the parable with the boast: “God, I thank Thee, that I am not as other men are” (Luke 18:11), as though in him there were something to recommend him to God’s favor, but every Christian prays with the publican: “God be merciful unto me a sinner” (Luke 18:13). Here, if anywhere, there is surely unanimity among all Christians, in their heart of hearts confessing: “I, a sinner, saved by grace.”
And yet in the field of theological disputation there has occurred a very wide divergence of opinion on this very point, and controversies have raged and still rage even within the “Lutheran” Church on this vital and fundamental doctrine of conversion. Of this, however, we may be sure, that, regardless of what monstrous notions of human cooperation in coming to Christ may be set down upon paper by blind leaders of the blind, even these men, if indeed they still are Christians at heart, forget all that when they come to God in prayer, and confess: “All that I was, my sin, my guilt, my death, was all mine own; all that I am I owe to Thee, my gracious God, alone.”
What, then, is conversion? Conversion is the bestowal of faith. God gives us faith, and thereby converts us. In Acts 11:21 we read: “A great number believed and turned unto the Lord,” that is to say (as indicated by the construction of the verbs in the original Greek), “in coming to faith they were converted unto the Lord”; their conversion consisted in the kindling of faith in their hearts through the preaching of the Gospel. And no man can by his own reason or strength, by anything whatever in himself, come to faith in Christ: “I believe that I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ, my Lord, or come to Him.”
The efficient cause of conversion, the Bestower of faith, is God alone. Man does not accomplish, but undergoes conversion. The Scripture proof for the truth that God alone by His almighty grace, without any cooperation whatever on the part of the man being converted, effects or accomplishes conversion is so abundant and so clear that our purpose will best be served by a simple listing of the main passages without comment, and without any further attempt at classification than merely to distinguish the proofs for the negative (that man can not and does not accomplish his own conversion or assist in it) and the proofs for the positive fact that God’s grace alone works conversion in us:
a). Negative:
John 6:44: “No man can come to Me, except the Father which hath sent Me draw him.”
1 Cor. 2:14: “The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.”
b). Positive:
Phil. 1:29: “For unto you it is given … to believe on Him.”
Eph. 1:19, 20: “Who believe according to the working of His mighty power, which He wrought in Christ when He raised Him from the dead.”
Col. 2:12: “Ye are risen with Him through the faith of the operation of God” (i.e., “through the faith which God wrought” — compare preceding passage), “who hath raised Him from the dead.”
2 Cor. 4:6: “For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.”
Thus we see that the working of faith in man’s heart, dead as it is to God by nature (Eph. 2:1, 5), is as mighty a work of God as the raising of Christ from the dead, that the creation of the light of faith in man’s sin-darkened heart (1 Cor. 2:14) is as mighty a work of God as His commanding the light to shine out of darkness on the first day of creation.
The means through which God effects conversion is the Gospel, the Word of reconciliation, the good news of the grace of God in Christ Jesus, which produces faith in the forgiveness of sins that it proclaims. The Law cannot convert, for by the Law is the knowledge of sin (Rom. 3:20), not of grace and forgiveness. Yet without the preparatory work of the Law, breaking up the fallow ground of the hard and sinful heart (Jer. 4:3), the life-giving fructifying seed of the Gospel will never find lodgment there. For, as our Savior tells us (Matt. 9:12): “They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick.” Without the knowledge of sin there is no knowledge of the Savior. The knowledge of sin is produced by the preaching of the revealed Law of God from Holy Scripture, and is made effectual in the heart by the Holy Spirit through the terrors of conscience and despair of one’s own righteousness unto contrition, as a divine act upon the sinner preparatory to conversion. Or at times God undertakes through outward events, adversity (Luke 15:14–18; Acts 16: 26ff; Psalm 119:71) or even prosperity and outward blessing (Rom. 2:4; Luke 5:8), to produce the broken heart into which He will pour the consolation of the Gospel. But in any event it is not the Law but the Gospel which produces faith. For this many Scripture proofs can be offered, of which we list the following:
Rom. 10:17: “Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.”
John 5:39: “Search the Scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of Me” (Christ).
John 17:20: “Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on Me through their Word” (through the Apostolic preaching of the Gospel).
The inner motions of the heart which go to make up conversion are: a), the terrors of conscience which arise from the knowledge of sin engendered by the Law (Acts 16:29, 30, and other passages referred to in the preceding paragraph in connection with the preparatory work of the Law); and b). the trust of the heart in the gracious promise of forgiveness extended to man in the Gospel (Acts 16:31, and other passages referred to in the preceding paragraph in connection with the production of faith by the Gospel). Not until the despair induced by the Law has been overcome by faith in the Gospel has conversion taken place; but in the very moment in which Gospel comfort takes the place of the terrors of conscience God has accomplished conversion in the heart.
Conversion therefore, that is, the creation of faith in the grace of God, takes place in that moment in which the Holy Ghost, after rousing the terrors of conscience, kindles a spark of faith in the heart of the sinner, or awakens a desire for the grace of God in Christ. The preparation for conversion may extend over a longer or shorter period of time, but not so conversion itself; it always takes place instantaneously. There is no intermediate state between the state of sin and the state of grace, between spiritual death and spiritual life, between being in an unconverted state and being converted. Scripture rules out any such intermediate state by recognizing only two classes of men, in such passages, for instance, as John 3:6, 18, 36, and Mark 16:16. Since according to Scripture no such intermediate state exists, all possibility of man contributing something of his own toward the blessed result is completely ruled out. The moment there is the least spark of spiritual life, of longing for grace, of turning toward God, in a man’s heart, God has already converted him, and that by grace alone, without any cooperation on man’s part.
Despite the fact, however, that in every case converting grace works with all the power of divine omnipotence (see Eph. 1:19; Col. 2:12; 2 Cor. 4:6, above, in positive Scripture proof for the fact that God’s grace alone works conversion in us), nevertheless man can still prevent his conversion. In Matt. 23:37 our Lord says, with tears, of the lost inhabitants of Jerusalem whom He willed to save: “I would . . . but ye would not.” In Acts 7:51 St. Stephen addresses the hardened foes of the Gospel: “Ye do always resist the Holy Ghost.”
Of the mysterious fact that God’s omnipotence is in this instance resistible, Luther says about all that may be said in accordance with Scripture in his familiar axiom: God operating through the means of His Word can be resisted (Matt. 11: 28; 23:37; compare also Luke 14:18ndash;20), but God working in His unveiled majesty (Matt. 25:32, 33) is irresistible. When Christ shall summon all nations before Him when He comes in His glory at the last day and shall separate them unto their eternal destinies none shall say: “I pray thee, have me excused,” nor shall any run away and hide. We must conclude, then, that God’s converting grace is indeed omnipotent, but still not irresistible. If any should object that this statement is illogical, we shall merely reply that a Christian’s standard of judgment with regard to God and divine things is not human logic but Holy Scripture — and God forbid that we ever permit our thoughts and speculations to go beyond the Word of our God!
The “daily repentance,” which is such a prominent part of our Christian life of sanctification, as expounded in Luther’s Small Catechism (last two questions on Baptism, dealing with its significance) is sometimes, not incorrectly, spoken of as a continuous conversion. It is so spoken of, for instance, in Matt. 18:3. But Scripture sharply differentiates between conversion in this sense and the conversion by which an unbeliever is brought to faith.
But also in the usual sense of conversion, as the transition from unbelief to faith, the possibility of a re-conversion, a repeated conversion, is clearly taught in Scripture. On the one hand, Scripture clearly teaches that a true believer may fall from grace and lose his faith. Luke 8:13 speaks of those “which for a while believe.” 1 Tim. 1:19, 20 speaks of Hymenaeus and Philetus who “concerning faith have made shipwreck.” In well known narratives we are told how David in the Old Testament and Peter in the New Testament fell away from faith, and were later restored. On the other hand, Scripture explicitly teaches that those who have fallen away from faith may be reconverted. Ezek. 18:31, 32 and 33:11 call upon the wicked who at one time have been God’s children to return to the Lord in repentance. David (2 Samuel 12:13; Psalm 51), Manasseh (2 Chron. 33:11ff.), Peter (Luke 22:61, 62; especially verse 32), underwent a second conversion.
A lengthy chapter could here be added on the synonyms of conversion, but we shall be contented with merely listing them, with a brief reference to the significance of each, and a Scripture text in which it is used. Regeneration speaks of conversion as a second birth more blest, in which those who by nature were children of Adam have been reborn unto a lively faith as children of God. See 1 John 5:1 and John 1: 12, 13. Quickening or spiritual resurrection speaks of the conversion of those who by nature were spiritually dead (“dead in trespasses and sins,” Eph. 2:1) to the spiritual life of faith. See Col. 2:12; Eph. 1:19, 20; 2:5–8. Illumination speaks of conversion as the kindling of the spiritual light of faith in the hearts of those who by nature were spiritually blind, that walked in darkness and dwelt in the land of the shadow of death (1 Cor. 2:14; Is. 9:2). See Eph. 5:8; Acts 26:18; 1 Peter 2:9. Calling speaks of conversion as that return to God which is effected by the call of the Gospel, kindling faith in the heart. See Rom. 8:30; 1 Cor. 1:26; 2 Tim. 1:9; and again, 1 Peter 2:9. Repentance, especially when used not of the daily repentance, but of that contrition and faith whereby the lost and condemned sinner is first brought into communion with God, is also a synonym of conversion. See Luke 13:3, 5; 15:7.
All that has so far been said in these nine chapters has been leading up to the central article of the Christian faith, which shall be treated, God willing, in our next chapter: “Justification, Objective and Subjective.”
What Do We Believe?
What do we believe about the Gospel? Consider the following summary statement and look up the supporting Bible passages:
GOSPEL
We believe that the Gospel is the good news of man’s redemption in Christ Jesus. It is the proclamation that Christ died for our sins and rose again and that God, for the sake of Christ’s innocent sufferings and death, has forgiven our sins and offers and gives to us everlasting life with Him in heaven (1 Corinthians 15:1-4; Romans 1:16-17; 10:15; 2 Corinthians 5:18-21; Luke 24:46-47; Colossians 1:19-23; 1 Peter 1:3-5; 1 Timothy 1:15; 2:3-7; John 3:14-16). We reject the teaching that the Gospel is a new law requiring love and good deeds for our fellow man, or that the Gospel is a conditional offer of pardon and forgiveness which becomes true or valid only after it is received in faith.
Bible Study in Preparation for Sunday
The Adult Bible Class continues its study of the Gospel of John. To prepare, read John 1:19-34. Who did John the Baptist say that he was? Cf. Isaiah 40. What does this mean? Why did John say he was not Elijah? Cf. Matthew 11:7-15 and Malachi 3:1; 4:5-6; Luke 1:11-17, 76-79. What was John’s message and why did John baptize? Cf. Matthew 3:1-12; Mark 1:1-8; Luke 3:1-20. What can we learn from this today? What are we to be doing? How is John’s baptism similar to the Christian baptism of Matthew 28:19 and Acts. 2:38-39? Is there a difference? When a minister baptizes with water in the name of the Triune God, Who baptizes with the Holy Spirit? Who washes away sin? Who works faith in the heart? Cf. John 3:5; Titus 3:3-7; Colossians 2:11-15. To Whom did John point the people? What did John call Him in verse 29? How is this true? What comfort can we draw from this yet today? How did John know Who was the Christ, the Son of God?
The Catechism Class will continue studying the Second Article of the Apostles’ Creed and learning of Jesus and what He has done to redeem all mankind. Catechumens may prepare by considering the three-fold office of Christ. How is He our Prophet? Our Priest? Our King?
Sunday School Classes are scheduled to study the account of Hezekiah and his prayer. Bible texts behind the lesson are in 2 Kings 18-20 and 2 Chronicles 29-32.
The Sunday Sermon will be based on the appointed Epistle Reading for Sunday – Hebrews 9:24-28. In preparation, read the Scripture lesson and consider the following questions: How did the Old Testament sacrifices and the purifying with blood foreshadow Christ’s sacrifice and the purification accomplished with His shed blood? Where did Christ, as our High Priest, enter with His blood to make atonement for our sins and the sins of the whole world? What does He yet do for us there? Cf. 1 John 2:1-2; Romans 8:34. How often did the Old Testament priests offer sacrifice and enter behind the veil into the Holy of Holies? Why? How often was Christ sacrificed? Why? Whose sins did Christ bare on the cross? What will He bring at His second coming?
Remember to Pray
Remember to pray for our church and for all our members that none be lost to Christ’s kingdom, but continue in repentance and be strengthened and built up in the true and saving faith in Christ Jesus through the hearing and study of His Word. We continue to pray for any who have been sick or suffering among us, and for our adopted soldiers. Pray for God’s help with our church’s financial needs. Pray for the Lutheran Churches in the Philippines who have suffered much from repeated Typhoons.
Upcoming Events
The Choir is practicing for upcoming services, including our Thanksgiving service. More voices are welcome.
The November meeting of the Church Council has been set for 7 p.m., Wednesday, Nov. 18, at the church building.
Wednesday night Bible studies are being considered for the new year. Advent services will begin at the end of November and, if members are interested, we could continue meeting at the church on Wednesday nights for Bible study in the new year. Please let Pastor Moll know if you would be interested in attending.
Member photos – If any families or individual members wish to have a photo taken before the Christmas season (at no cost), please see Pastor Moll. He is offering to take the photos at church and write the images to a CD for members. He will also use the photos to update those on the bulletin board. If there is interest, he will take the photos after church in November, beginning on Nov. 8.
Information for bulletins or newsletters may be sent to Pastor Moll by calling him at 479-233-0081 or by e-mail at mollfoto@yahoo.com.
“Now the God of peace, that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, make you perfect in every good work to do his will, working in you that which is wellpleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ; to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.” Hebrews 13:20-21
