“But, in all honesty, when compared to the bigger picture and the glory of God, the praise given all human achievement is like the praise we might give an ant for the load it is able to carry compared to it’s body weight. The feat might look impressive, but it has no great impact on the world in which we live. Such is our vanity. Our personal achievements are highly overvalued. This is not the case in the pursuit of our true dignity.”
William Wilberforce, Real Christianity
Faith to is a Gift
Faith is not an achievement of man. If it were, it would meet a condition which God had proposed to man, as if God had said, “I have done My share, now you must do yours. I do not ask much of you, but I do require that you repent and believe.” Now, can you consider anything a present that is handed to you on a condition that you do something for it? No, it ceases to be a present when the donor stipulates one condition or another which the recipient must meet. Here in our country many donations are not valid. To make a legally valid donation of something quite valuable, the donor will state that he has received one dollar for it. This is done in bills of sale by which property worth millions of dollars is conveyed. It is a circumvention of the law, which plainly shows the essential difference between giving and selling.
-C.F.W. Walther, The Proper Distinction of Law and Gospel
TWENTY-FIFTH EVENING LECTURE
April 24, 1885
Many are the difficult and demanding tasks of a minister of Jesus Christ, but the most difficult and demanding of all, beyond question, is the task of proclaiming the pure doctrine of the Gospel of Christ and, at the same time, exposing, refuting, and rejecting teachings that are contrary to the Gospel. The minister who does this will discover by practical experience the truth of the old saying: Veritas odium parit (telling the truth makes enemies).
If faithful Athanasius in his day had been content to proclaim his doctrine that Jesus Christ is true God, begotten of the Father in eternity, and also true man, born of the Virgin Mary, and if he had not at the same time vigorously attacked Arius and the Arians, who denied this doctrine, he would undoubtedly have finished his life in honor and pleasant peace, for he was a highly gifted man. Had Luther followed the example of Staupitz of quietly teaching the pure Gospel to his brother monks without at the same time attacking the abominations of the Papacy with great earnestness, not a finger would have been raised against him. For even before Luther’s day there had been monks who had come to understand the Gospel and made no secret of their knowledge, but they did not come out in public to fight against the errors of the Papacy. Accordingly they were allowed to live in peace and quiet as long as they held to the core point in the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church, the Pope.
Worldly men and all false Christians cannot but attack those who teach a faith and doctrine different from theirs and to regard them as disturbers of the peace, as peace-hating, quarrelsome, and malicious men. These unfortunate people have no idea of the blindness which enshrouds them. They do not know how gladly the boldest champions of Christ would have kept peace with all men, how much they would have preferred to keep silent, how hard it was for their flesh and blood to come out in public and become targets for the hatred, enmity, vilification, scorn, and persecution of men. However, they could not but confess the truth and at the same time oppose error. Their conscience constrained them to do this because such conduct was required of them by the Word of God.
They remembered that Jesus Christ had said to His disciples not only, “You are the light of the world,” but also, “You are the salt of the earth.” That is, you are not only to proclaim the truth, but you are also to salt the world that is full of sins and errors. You are to sprinkle sharp salt on the world to prevent its corruption. They remembered that Christ had distinctly said in Matthew 10:34, “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.” Not as though the Lord took pleasure in wars that destroyed peace. It is not as though He had come into the world to start dissensions and discord among men, but He means to say, “My doctrine is of such a nature that, if it is properly proclaimed, in its thesis and antithesis, peace among men cannot possibly be preserved. For as soon as My Word is proclaimed men will divide into two camps. Some will receive it with joy while others will be offended by it and will begin to hate and persecute those who receive it.”
Moreover, pastors of the right character remember that the Church is not a kingdom that can be built up in peace because it is located within the domain of the devil, who is the prince of this world. Accordingly, the Church has no choice but to be at war. It is ecclesia militans, the Church Militant, and will remain such until the blessed end. Wherever a Church appears to be not ecclesia militans, (Church Militant) but ecclesia quiescens, (Church at Peace), it is a false Church.
Moreover, an honest pastor knows that he is also a shepherd. Of what use, however, is a shepherd who leads the sheep to good pasture but flees when he sees the wolf coming? The occasion that is to test his caliber is when he must go to meet the wolf that wants to devour the sheep. That means to fight for the kingdom of God.
Lastly, an honest pastor knows that he is to be a regular sower of seed. Of what use is it for him to sow good seed and then to look on while another sows the tares of false doctrine among his wheat? Soon the tares will outstrip the wheat and choke it.
Keep these facts stored up in your memory, my dear friends. If you wish to be faithful ministers of Christ, you cannot possibly become such without striving and fighting against false doctrines, a false gospel, and false belief. In the view of worldly men your kind will not be particularly enviable. Even wise Sirach says, “If you come to serve the Lord, prepare your soul for temptation.” He means to say: It is impossible for you to escape affliction if you wish to be a faithful servant of God. Anyone who is without affliction may be ever so zealous about fulfilling the duties of his office, yet his zeal is nevertheless not of the right sort. Where there is genuine zeal, there is not only planting and building going on, but the workmen also have the sword girded about them and are going out to wage the wars of the Lord. Let this be your slogan:
Here men’s scorn and frown,
Yonder glory’s crown;
Here I’m hoping and believing,
There I’m having and perceiving;
For we reach our crown
Through men’s scorn and frown.
Let this slogan be at the same time your comfort. For, as I have said, your cause will be rejected as evil. So ignore any view that people would express in opposition to your teaching. Doing this will let your cause shine with even greater luster in heaven. On the Last Day God will say to you the words of Matthew 25:21, “Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.” Then will come the times of your refreshing, when you will have quit this wicked world and the association of false Christians who have shamefully vilified your best endeavors, calling them the worst abominations. Then your Lord Jesus will say to you, “Well done! You were right. You did not look for ease and comfort. You only strove faithfully to keep what was entrusted to you.”
But remember that when errors are hidden, they are all the more harmful. It is therefore necessary that they be dragged into the light and fought.
— C.F.W. Walther, The Proper Distinction of Law and Gospel, 25th Evening Lecture.
Where is the Athanasius of our age? Did the false teachers of his day so easily dismiss his criticisms? I guess they couldn’t call them maternal basement living opinion givers in those days.
Stand for Truth.
Walther’s description of Rationalism could easily fit today with only the absurd subjects and names changed. May we see the revival of Truth that he ends with in our own age. Revive us O Lord!
TWENTY-FOURTH EVENING LECTURE
April 10, 1885
About one hundred twenty years ago, Rationalism had become dominant in the so-called Protestant Church of Germany. This was a time of the deepest disgrace and humiliation through which the nation had ever passed. It was also a period of complete abandonment of the Gospel. The shallowest minds, the most brainless men, without any considerable learning, were regarded as great lights and far ahead of their age. For theologians to achieve some renown all that was necessary was sufficient boldness, or rather audacity, to declare the mysterious doctrines of Christianity to be errors of former dark ages, which had been without enlightenment, and to treat the doctrine of God, virtue, and immortality as the real kernel of the Christian religion. During this awful time matters finally came to such a head that Rationalistic preachers, to counteract the idea that they were superfluous in this world and to prove their usefulness, would treat from their pulpits subjects like these: Intelligent Agriculture, Profitableness of Potato Growing, Tree Planting a Necessity, Importance of Genuine Sanitation, etc. Rationalistic books of sermons in which subjects of this description are treated with grand pathos will show you that I am not slandering the Rationalists of that age.
Some Rationalists were ashamed of these typical products of the school of Rationalism. In 1772 a book was published which bore the title Of the Usefulness of the Ministry, Written for the Consolation of My Colleagues. The author was Joachim Spalding, a writer of some renown in his day. In his book he states that subjects like those that I mentioned are indeed not proper subjects for pulpit efforts. He submits his own opinion to this effect: If sermons are to be useful, the preacher must never speak of the doctrines of faith first because they only serve to confuse people’s minds, but he must present exclusively practical ethical lessons. It is not surprising, then, that in those days many souls whose hearts were agitated by the question, What must I do to be saved? quit our devastated Church and either sought refuge with the sect of the Moravians or even turned to the spurious Church of Rome.
Praise and thanks be to God that those awful times are past, let us hope forever! After the successful termination of the so-called Wars of Deliverance from that monster Napoleon I, something like the breath of a new spiritual spring passed over Germany. Multitudes experienced a truly marvelous quickening from the deadly sleep in Rationalistic unbelief, and among them were a fair number of ministers. Since then many preachers began to discard the vapid, pagan morality of Rationalism and to preach Christ and faith in Him as the only way to salvation hereafter and to true peace of heart in the present life. However, it is an undeniable fact that even well-intentioned preachers are mingling Law and Gospel and thus inflict horrible injury on their hearers. May God, by His grace, preserve you from this danger when you come into your future congregation. One day you will appear before the throne of God to give an account whether you have been a faithful watchman over the souls entrusted to you and have broken to them the Bread of Life, or whether you have given them unwholesome, noxious food which caused their souls to sicken or even to die. May the study of our thirteenth thesis help in equipping you for your future work!
Among the various functions and official acts of a servant of the Church the most important of all, my friends, is preaching. Since there is no substitute for preaching, a minister who accomplishes little or nothing by preaching will accomplish little or nothing in anything else that he may do.
Here is where the Papists differ with us. They call their ministers priests and assert that the most important of all functions of a priest is to baptize, hear confession and pronounce absolution, administer Communion, and above all, to offer to God the sacrifice of the Mass. Setting aside the sacrifice of the Mass, which is the greatest abomination that has ever been practiced in the Christian Church, we are forced to say that all baptizing, pronouncing absolution and administering of Communion is useless if these matters have not been previously made the subjects of preaching to the people. For these things are not the works of men but of God Himself, who has connected with them a promise to be apprehended by faith. Accordingly, all these acts do not profit, but are instead rather harmful, in the absence of faith. If these operations of God are to be of any use it is absolutely necessary that a thorough instruction concerning them be first given from the Word of God by preaching.
- C.F.W. Walther, The Proper Distinction of Law and Gospel.
He didn’t seem to fond of the Catholic mass…
“If you struggle believing what the Bible says, but learn to find security in the testimony of a toddler, well, I feel sorry for you. And I do not mean this in a condescending way. If God’s Word is not sufficient for you, if the testimony of his Spirit, given to believers, is not enough for you, you will not find any true hope in the unproven tales of a child. This hope may last for a moment, but it will not sustain you, it will not bless you, in those times when hope is waning and times are hard.”
Tim Challies
How is that working out for you? (Taken with instagram)
“This is a long one, but well worth it.—-
My Dear Friends, Beloved in the Lord,
You know that the Papists teach that even godly persons do not enter heaven immediately after death. Rather, before they are allowed to see God, they supposedly must first pass through what the Papists call “purgatory.” That is where they claim the dead are purified from sins for which they had not made full atonement by being tormented in fire. Worse than this, the Papists teach that no person, not even a sincere Christian, can be assured in the present life that he is in a state of grace with God, that he has received forgiveness of sins and will go to heaven. Only a few, they say, are exempt from this rule, namely, the holy apostles and extraordinarily great saints to whom God has given advance information by revealing to them in an extraordinary manner that they will reach the heavenly goal.
This is the doctrine of the Antichrist, absolutely without comfort. You know that our Lutheran Church teaches the very opposite. It is a pity that the great majority of nominal Lutherans, while cherishing a kind of human hope that they are accepted by God, that they have obtained forgiveness of sins and will be saved, nevertheless have no assurance of these matters. This sad phenomenon proves that such Lutherans, far from having received the Lutheran doctrine into their hearts, have no knowledge of it at all.
How could the Christian doctrine be called the Gospel, that is, glad tidings, if those who accept it must be in constant doubt whether their sins are covered, whether God looks upon them as righteous people, and whether they will go to heaven? If even a Christian cannot know what his relationship to God is and what his fate will be in eternity, whether damnation or salvation, what difference would there be between a Christian and a heathen, the latter of whom lives without God and without hope in this world?
Does not Holy Scripture say in Hebrews 11:1, “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” (Luther translates: “Faith is having a sure confidence regarding things hoped for and not doubting things unseen.”) Does not our blessed Lord Jesus Christ say in Matthew 11:28, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” Does He not say in John 4:14, “But whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again.” Does He not say in John 10:27-28, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand.” If the aforementioned doctrine of doubt were true, would not all these sayings be empty delusions? Yes, I shudder to say it! Even lies and cheats?
Our dear Lord Jesus Christ requires of His followers that they wrestle with their own flesh and blood, the world, and the devil, and that they be faithful unto death. He requires of them that they renounce all that they have, come to Him, take His cross upon them, deny themselves, and follow Him. He tells them in advance that if they side with Him the world will hate them, revile them, and persecute them unto death. If the aforementioned doctrine of doubt were right, who would desire to come to Christ, side with Him, and fight all the great and dreadful battles of this life, following His crimson banner? Who could muster the strength to follow after holiness if he had to doubt whether he will ever reach the heavenly goal? Indeed, anyone who has received this doctrine of doubt into his heart is an unhappy man. He remains forever a sorry slave of the Law. He is constantly told by his conscience, “It is not well with you. Who can tell what God’s thoughts concerning you are, what punishment is awaiting you?”
Unquestionably, this doctrine of doubt is the most horrible error into which a Christian can fall. For it puts Christ, His redemption, and the entire Gospel to shame. It is therefore no joking matter.”
C.F.W. Walther - The Proper Distinction of Law and Gospel, 15th lecture.
“God didn’t create other people to please you—and He didn’t create you to please them. He made us to please Him.”
“But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. 21 For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. 22 For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfWgJRh4U4w
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