Stories about the Dangers of Revivalism, Pietism, and Mysticism

my friend pastor Chris Mathis has passed her down at epiphany Lutheran Church in Castle Rock Colorado and they have a Thursday night book club that studying has American Christianity failed so they asked if I'd come down and talk about it so I tell stories about the dangers of decision ism or revivalism and pietism and mysticism i hope you enjoy it they recorded it and I've got it here for you it's a long one but there's a lot of great question and answers at the end as well so enjoy the video God's peace be with you [Music] good evening welcome to epiphany Lutheran Church I think most you know me I'm pastor Mathis and yeah but it's my delight tonight to introduce my friend and my partner in the gospel Pastor Brian Wolfe Mueller who is the pastor of Hope Lutheran Church in Aurora Colorado he's a radio personality his face was really made for radio and he's also an author and and and we're very very blessed to have pastor role from you or with us tonight before I call you up I guess they want me to do an opening prayer and then we're going to have a hymn from a her we'll pray first gracious God Heavenly Father we were joists because as Jesus said Your Word is truth we ask Lord that you would sanctify us in your truth Lord there are many popular ideas in our world today in our country in particular in the landscape of American Christianity that can take our eyes off of the cross that can snatch our hearts away from Jesus and the sure firm foundation that we have that our sins are forgiven freely by grace through faith apart from works to the law we ask Lord that the pastor wolf Mueller's presentation and in time of questions tonight would be a blessing to us and help us to be ready to give a reason for the hope that is in us and in Jesus wonderful name we pray amen it's always a competition between that one and old little flock fear not the foe this one Luther wrote first children sorts of children's him and each stanza the first stanza prayer to God the Father the second print stands up prayer to God the Son the third a prayer to God the Holy Spirit o comforter price is worth hermits ASSA the Lutheran theologian from the middle of the century said that the Lutheran churches the Church of the gospel has stood all these years because she praise Lord keep us steadfast in your word isn't that something what a great what a great hymn wonderful choice well good evening it's nice to see you all I understand that most of you are in a book study working through has American Christianity failed true and some of you are jumping in tonight so we'll try to catch you guys up as a little bit as well I understand also pastor Mathis said this Bible study goes from 705 to 11:05 that's what I was I'll try to keep it short then so no till about 8:30 or so is that what we have to about if there so we'll try to do half I'll say a few words maybe by way of introduction and then question and answer if you guys have plenty to say if you guys don't have questions but I understand that you guys were working through the book and on chapter 10 is that true so some of you had read all the way through the chapter 10 did I want to see I want to just do a little bit of a survey how many of you grew up Lutheran okay most how many of you haven't become Lutheran as adults so there's a few of you okay now this is the thing that I have found and I want to see if it's proves true for you guys as well that those who grew up Lutheran have do not have it they do not like chapters 1 and 2 they just thought they were they could have just tore him out of the book and skipped him all together but they said once I got to chapter 3 then it was all right those who did not grow up Lutheran who said I read chapters 1 and 2 over and over and over and over again it is just exactly precisely my own story so I want to now I'm wondering if that is proven true for you guys as well did any of you who grew up Lutheran think chapters 1 and 2 like what have we gotten ourselves into we got to get past this and then it came alive a little bit in Chapter three does that prove true for anyone no yeah yeah that's right and then chapter three is when it started the rubber gotta G yeah good did I want to see if the opposite was true any of you who did not grow up Lutheran and found one and two to be particularly helpful to put words in it was that the case with anyone you guys might be out layers you guys oh by the way look like friends it seems to me like we should if I don't know you I'm glad to see your face and know you I've sat in this pew well I don't know a dozen times to worship and and to hear the Lord's word and to receive the Lord's body and blood because at least once a year are all of our circuit congregations the pastor's come down here for the wincle so this has seems very this it seems like we should know each other all by the first name by now but maybe by the end of the night so I wrote the book if you've started looking at it in some ways pastor Mathis your own pastor and I have some have have traveled a similar road and that is that we we did not grow up Lutheran I was I was baptized in the ELCA the Evangelical Lutheran Church I think it was the ALC back then confirmed in the ELCA but was particularly disinterested in theology until high school but became interested in theology it had in an at a non Lutheran Church or in a non Lutheran way our ELCA church had hired as the youth pastor and the worship leader a man who from Calvary who was the worship leader at Calvary Chapel so that he was worship leader at Calvary Chapel I think volunteer and they hired him to come on and teach the youth and lead worship so now we had this very strange sort of situation where you had a very I don't think the ELCA Church where we were was liberal theologically I don't think it was theological at all it was a very sort of non theological Church the head pastor there at this church his probably the most influential theologian for him was Robert Schuller I remember the Crystal Cathedral and and the press that was the power of positive positive thinking with with a with a yeah Norman Vincent Peale with a Bible cover on it that was kind of where he got his theology I remember that there was a there was a controversy at that ELCA Church where I was confirmed because they wanted to have the Trinity in the statement of faith and the pastor says no we don't want to put it in there now I don't know that it wasn't me I don't think that it was because he didn't believe it but he didn't want to he didn't want that to be the identity of the church something like that I don't know so there was a very non theological Church that hired this very theological but non Lutheran charismatic guy to lead the praise and worship and to be the youth pastor and he identified a few of us in the youth group probably four or five of us as the very spiritual ones and we were always meeting after the youth group having Bible classes taking the spiritual gift inventories studying the charismatic gifts we had a couple of times where we were in fact a number of years of my high school was where we would we were speaking in tongues laying on hands praying for prophecy this sort of thing and I started to study theology in that in that strain in fact and I have a hard time actually believing that this is true but it's I mean I think back on it now what a strange thing but that that youth pastor would take us the four of us the inner circle guys and we would go to the Calvert the Sunday night Calvary Chapel service can you imagine if you had a youth leader here at the church who thought that Pastor Mathis was not Orthodox teacher in fact they weren't even sure that he or the whole church was Christian so he was taking secretly a group of the youth down to the other church to get the truth on a Sunday night my goodness I don't know anyway that's what we were doing but so we started to grow up theologically that way all through high school and especially when I went to college I was involved in Campus Crusade we were out sharing the four spiritual laws on campus we had a navigators Bible study that met in our dorm room and I was going to rotating around a handful of different non-denominational churches I remember I spent some time traveling in that time so I came up here to Colorado for my freshman year of college I spent the summer in Australia and then I came back to Albuquerque's where I was where I was growing up and I moved back to school there and and so I came back into town and I remember that there was these two I was involved in two churches at the time just going one was this huge Southern Baptist mega church I mean monstrous I think they probably had ten twelve thousand people on a Sunday huge big church with this huge big college campus group and in fact we're carry my wife and I met in that campus group and I was doing some Bible studies for that campus group and then and my family still went to the ELCA church and so there was a different youth pastor that was there so I came back into town and I had one foot in the Southern Baptist evangelical mega church here and I had sort of by my family connection one foot in the ELCA Church over this way and I and I landed I was going to both and both offered me work the Southern Baptist Church said if you come here and be the associate pastor of campus ministry and in after a year will ordain you and you can be an ordained Southern Baptist pastor and you can stay on in the ministry here and then the the ELCA church for my family was said we'd like you to come and volunteer and help with the youth and not help I mean so that wasn't so this was a full-time paid position and this was a part-time volunteered position and I remember I was just torn up about what I had to do I prayed for it intensely prayed fasted for a while to try to make the decision and I ended up making the decision just to volunteer to help the youth at the ELCA Church and the reason why I remember very explicitly the reason why was because I was pretty sure that none of those people were Christian and they probably needed me more I did I wanted to take that whole church into the Southern Baptist theology because that's what I believed I thought that the Lutheran's were were ridiculous now it was the ELCA that I was dealing with at that time so it was a very this kind of non theological strain of the Lutheran Church it didn't I was confirmed but I never I didn't know what the Catechism was I didn't know what long gospel was I certainly never heard of the book of Concord maybe a little bit about Luther probably not Luther for in most of the ELCA Luther is just the champion of the individual even the one who follows his conscience he he doesn't listen to Authority Luther is at a champion because he's a he's a rebel that's how they think of him it's kinda it's really kind of a bad picture of Luther but I did I was convinced that there was no theology at all over there so I was I was right in the throes of evangelical Christianity I remember one time I logged the amount of Bible studies that I would listen to on the radio and go to and the books that I was reading and I would sometimes listen to 12 13 14 Bible studies on the radio every day I had jobs where I could listen to the radio and I was just I was I was absorbing all of the theology all the way through and yet at the same time I was I was on a theological what I what I what I recognize now is a pendulum there was a discontent with the theology I didn't recognize it then but but this theology the some kind of theology of American Christianity puts people on this pendulum of Pride and despair and it's because there's no it's because there's no gospel at least not for the Christian this pendulum of Pride and despair and it looks like this because it's up to you to become a Christian you have to make your decision for Christ it's up for you to stay a Christian you prove your salvation by your growth and good works it's up for it's up to you to to have the Christian experience by the fervor by with you by which you worship and so everything is now is relying on you and if that's the case if it's all now that I'm a Christian it's all me then I'm gonna either think that I'm doing it me boy isn't God lucky to have me on his team or boy I've blown it and how can God even look at me how could God how can I possibly stand before him pride I am I am a living example of how a Christian should be despair I'm sure that I'm not gonna make it to heaven but I can't let anybody know this back and forth I remember one time I'm gonna admit this to you this is a this is Mike is one of my moments of great shame that a friend of mine Frank Barnett we still keep in touch sometimes he was there he grew up Presbyterian so he was baptized as a baby and yet we knew each other in this in high school and were involved in this Southern Baptist youth group and he came and he asked me he said Brian what about baptism I was only baptized as a baby does that count and I said no it doesn't count you can't be baptized as a baby you have to baptism as your first act of obedience baptism is how you show the world that Christian that's what I believed back then so you have to be baptized as an adult and he said well who can who can bapt and I said anybody can baptize you I can baptize you so I baptized Frank in the bathroom in the gym where I by our gym locker in the gym bathroom I didn't immerse them I don't know why I didn't believe you didn't have to immerse them I just but I rebaptised Frank and I remember after rebaptised Frank in the gym in the in the gym in the men's locker room he said well I haven't were you baptized as a baby yeah and he said it well why aren't you gonna be rebound are you gonna be rebaptised I said no and he said why not and I said now this is I mean I so I'm ashamed I'm ashamed of this but to tell you that I think this helps to get where I was I said I I think I can show my love for God to the world in even better ways oh now that's I mean that is that's pride all the way I remember one time here now I'm just I'm like Noah standing before you naked this is all my shame I'm telling you that there was a time when we were playing this game with the youth at the at the ELCA Church it was one of these um it was Romans and Christians I didn't even remember how you play it but it involves running around and sneaking around and some other people are like Roman guards and the Christians are there trying to avoid the persecution and you end the game down in the basement with a celebration of the Lord's Supper and the pastor the pastor actually came and had the Lord so after the game was over it was worship so we got there and we sang some songs and we had the Lord's Supper there the passion was there to give us the Lord's Supper and and he even said it's the body and the blood I think he must have I don't know what he was why he was saying so much theology and and the service was over and most of the kids had left and I went up to the pastor and I so you understand that he's here was the who was the altar he was the bread wine that was consecrated the body in the blood of Jesus and I was so anti Lutheran at that point that I I knew that he said this was blood but I knew better I knew the Bible this was just wine and he said that this was the body of Christ but I know it's just bread and so as we were talking about something I took the chalice and I swirled it like this like a glass of wine and I just started drinking it right there in his face to show him that this isn't the blood of Jesus this is just wine this is turn out for this is pride off did you see that but there's a dark other side of it which is the despair side what I would travel back in those days I had this job for a company called rustic pathways which is pretty cool so we did student adventure travel in the South Pacific so I did three strips to Australia trip and a half down to Fiji and we would do these student adventure trips and it was a very lonely time for me because I would be one of the only Christians and so I would I had a travel journal Kerry says oh you mean your diary no honey it's not a diary it's a journal that's it's the same thing but anyway but I was I would write my prayers I would ride my prayer so the diary I mean journals they would begin a dear Heavenly Father and I would write about what I'm praying for what I'm struggling with what I'm thinking about and I look back on those now and I read them and they are saturated saturated with despair saturated with uncertainty saturated with struggle to prove that God should love me to fight for the love of God to to to somehow pry and loose a little bit of grace the theme that runs through them is there you see the struggle against sin in any different way you see the struggle against pride you see the struggle against all the other sort of temptations that this world brings to us but but this is the chief struggle is against God himself and and there's a there's a conviction that runs through those those journal entries the conviction that I want to be saved but I'm pretty sure that God does not want me to be saved that I have to prove myself and the thing that was always on trial in all of those prayers was my sincerity was I sincere enough had I really given my life over to Jesus had hi had I sacrificed enough and I prayed enough had I studied enough and I loved enough have I suffered enough for him and so it's the flip side right you have the pride on the one side and the despair on the other I remember at seminary I was reading through the book of Concord the formula of Concord or the apology or something in there and there's this line that just left out at me I think it would maybe say it was the apology so in the length and he says it without the gospel the only two alternatives for a person are pride on the one hand and despair on the other and I said that was it that was me swinging back and forth not wanting to admit it and if you're despairing you can't you certainly can't let other people see it you have to be living the successful overcoming Christian life you have to be triumphing over sin you have to be demonstrating your own conviction and your own sincerity by your good works and the appearance that you put out but underneath that it was like Jesus says to the Pharisees they're whitewashed tombs and inside is full of dead man's bones now why I think the reason why the fundamental problem I think with American Christianity is it makes this distinction it says that the gospel is for those outside the church but for everyone inside it's law I remember thinking that I member saying and I remember teaching it the gospel is to get people in but now we have to get serious we have to get it we have to get about the business of the serious things of God the deep things of God the mature things of God and what did it mean to move on to maturity it meant to move from the gospel to the law can you imagine it to press on to maturity meant to go from Christ to Moses and I was living a life with Moses in my heart not Christ you see that Jesus was for me as far as I could tell a new lawgiver Luther had this experience remember Moses says here's the ten commandments but Jesus comes along and he says you've heard it said you shall not murder I say you shouldn't even be mad you've heard it said you shouldn't commit adultery I even say you shouldn't look with lust Moses says you shouldn't steal Jesus says you shouldn't be greedy you should give everything away to the poor and this is the same thing that happened to Luther that Moses was here but the gospel was here it was even a heavier burden and that's what I understood that the Christian life is a life of bearing up this heavy burden I remember I had this Bible not now that this exact Bible but this version of the Bible so I which I love the most and I had an eye and I traveled with it and I remember looking and I would look through the text this is after I became Lutheran and learned in law and gospel and I was looking to the text and I found that the the text that I underlined the parts that I know the things that were highlighted and starred were all of the commands and I'd gives us something that was like bigger the gospel and it would be blank like I didn't even know what to do with it because I was reading the Bible and I was asking the question what is this teaching me to do today that you might have heard this before that the Bible the ible can be understood as the basic instructions before leaving Earth and the Bible then is understood as an instruction book as a law book you see now so this is this is how we work this is the sort of burden that we were that we were laboring under and and a couple of key things happened I don't know I just wanted to tell you the whole story but I'll kind of give you some highlights number one that new youth minister who was at the ELCA church his name is Brian Ketchum Eyre he's a pastor now in Los Alamos New Mexico he grew up Roman Catholic became Baptist because he wanted to marry a Baptist girl it became Lutheran because in a religious studies class he read the book of Concord and said I really like this but didn't know the difference between any of the Lutheran's so he joined this ELCA Church where we were because it had the Lutheran name but it was the most like a Baptist in the church in the service so his wife was comfortable there and so he joined in he got hired on as a youth pastor and he even though he was somewhat liberal in his theology he was actually a Lutheran he did believe that baptism forgave sins he did believe that the body and blood was there in the supper he did believe that we can't make a decision for Christ that Jesus is the one who receives us and so forth and so on and so so I was volunteering with him remember I said I volunteered so he was the my boss I can't believe he was letting me teach but we would go and we teach and we do all these youth events together and then we would stay up and we would fight for our we haven't stopped fighting still we went to seminary together we fought all through seminary we've been pastors together for 13 years we're severy time we get together we're still arguing about theology it's just the absolute best but we would sit there we'd argue about theology all into the night end he actually forced me to look into the scriptures to challenge some of the things that we were learning in the evangelical church well I also gave him something of a challenge because I believed that the Bible was true and he had the liberal tendency to say that the Bible is not true so we were fighting fighting fighting and as a result I became a little bit more Lutheran and he became a little bit more conservative and I am like this like this like this and like this and all of a sudden we looked around and we realized we are not at home we are not at home in the evangelical church where they say that the body and where they say the bread and wine is just a symbol but look what Jesus says this is my body we're not at home over here in the liberal Church because they say that you can't be quite sure if what you read in the Bible is true or not it's just as likely that Adam and Eve are mythology rather than real people all right so we're not over here home or here we're not at home over here where we got where are we at home where are we gonna be I remember Adam at one point in this whole thing we would go to the Calvary Chapel Church and they had a CD library this is an interesting sort of side story they you know how they the Calvary Chapel prides themselves on teaching through the Bible word by word verse by verse precept upon precept so I said okay this is good because they have a library of teaching on the whole Bible so I can go and see those places where they're different so I would go and I would look at verses like like the verse in John 20 where Jesus says received the Holy Spirit whoever sins you forgive their forgiven so I get the John 20 sermon and the pastor would go and he'd teach on that and he would just skip it he didn't even mention it or I remember especially this one this was really interesting I was listening I was just trying to study baptism and figure out what's going on with baptism someone had said that baptism forgive sins and I said no that's crazy baptism shows our faith and they said well you should prove that to me from the Bible so I went home and I opened up my concordance just that you know lists all the words of the Bible and tells you where they're fun and if--and I looked up all the 212 verses on baptism just to see what the Bible actually said about baptism and I found all these verses where baptism is right there in the same neighborhood as gospel or forgiveness or grace or whatever he who believes in his baptized will be saved be baptized for the forgiveness of your sins in Baptism were buried with Christ if you're baptized into Christ you put on Christ Abed's it's incredible all these the Gospels right there next to baptism and I remember especially puzzling over acts 2:38 and 39 right after Peters pentecost sermon and they said what must we do to be saved and they said repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus for the forgiveness of sins and you will receive the promise of the Holy Spirit and this promise is for you and for your children and for every one who's far off and I said would you look at that says be baptized for the forgiveness of sins so I went to the calvary chapel seedy library and I got the Acts chapter two thing and I started listening to the sermon and he said to me the piano the preacher said in the sermon he said now some people get confused because they say it says in English it says be baptized for the forgiveness of sins but that Greek word for is the word ice and it can mean a lot of different things including because of and in fact there's a Bible version that translates it be baptized because of the forgiveness of sins that's what this teacher said I didn't know Greek at the time I still barely do I think I know Greek until I talked to pastor Mathis and I'm like I don't know Greek yeah I don't know how that guy knows so much Greek you know he's smart he's like a Greek tutor for us when he comes to their Greek studies your pastor Mathis and its members I Drive the Volkswagen bug of Greek and he drives the Ferrari but I really didn't know even I didn't know anything about Greek so I went and I looked it up in ice it's like the third most common word and then entire New Testament and it means into four it has to do with intent and so I said well what would the world kind of Bible version would translate it because of so I went and looked for that book of the that version of the Bible they didn't I couldn't find it at any place I went to the college library they didn't have it there so I ordered it on interlibrary loan this particular translation of the Bible that translated it this way just cuz I wanted to see it and I wanted this to be true and I got that they sin two weeks later it came interlibrary loan I looked and I opened up the Bible and it says right at the beginning says this is not a translation from the Greek it's a paraphrase from the English can you imagine how and I thought why are these guys stretching all of these verses so much so we're growing discontent over here we're growing discontent over there so we didn't know what to do so so carry my wife we were engaged at the time and we started visiting every possible Church I mean we visited the Catholic Church the Orthodox Church the full-on Pentecostal charismatic church we visited the Methodist Church the Anglican Church there the Episcopalians we visited the Presbyterian Church all the Congregational churches disciples of Christ Church of Christ week we visited everything Nazarenes we want to see them and we'd always go stay after the service and we'd say to the pastor do you have a text that tells what you believe do you have a pamphlet what we believe pay no we collect them and we'd go and we'd read them to see what they said we eventually against all odds found ourselves in an adult instruction class in a Lutheran Church Missouri Synod congregation now we thought the last place we would be was Lutheran because we thought these were the Lutheran's over here you know we were trying to get away from them but we found ourselves in this adult instruction class in fact we before we even went to the service we went to a I remember we went to a Linton midweek service at this it was Grace Lutheran Church in Albuquerque New Mexico the pastor there was Randy Coulter who was our district president for a while if you remember him and we went to this Lenten service and I and I remember leaking that service it was a liturgical service not anything crazy just a normal service and for leaving it and I said well we can't come back here I just didn't feel the Holy Spirit there at all can you believe it this is a part of it you know when you're here in the evangelical church you're trained you're like your your whatever that thing is on the inside that senses the presence of the Holy Spirit you know you get the Holy Spirit goosebumps and old and you're supposed to feel the presence of the Holy Spirit we'll talk about that a little bit more supposed to feel it and we went to the certain church and I said we just didn't feel it at all but he invited that he called us up he invited us to come to class we said well we'll learn something about the Bible and more about why the Lutheran's are wrong so he ended up so we ended up there learning the Catechism and carries gloves to tell the story you'll have to ask her about it but she says I sat through the whole 11 12 weeks like this scout on my face ready to prove him wrong cuz this guy surely can't be right but everything he taught was from the scriptures it was the simplicity of Christ every assertion was backed up by a Bible passage and we said oh that's so amazing and he taught us about modernism that God alone is the one who saved us he taught us about the distinction between the law and the gospel and the light started to come on and we started to be able to read the scriptures he taught us about the means of grace about how the Lord has connected the promise of the forgiveness of sins to the preaching of the word into the water of baptism into the body and blood in the Supper and he showed us the Bible passages in fact I remember one day I left the church he had given the absolution than ever that it's just and I left Church that's a pastor who are you to say that you can forgive sins and he did the best thing oh it was the best he I had my Bible with me and he said did you can I hope to see your Bible and I think that was really nice because I think if he would have showed me his Bible I would have thought it was trick Lutheran Bible and he opens it up to john cornyn he says look at what is look here Brian look what says Jesus says whoever sins you forgive their forgiven whoever sins you forgive their forgiven Jesus gives us the authority to forgive sins and I said I've never seen that Bible passage before where'd that come from I'd say he'd open it you know second Peter three to one baptism saved how do I read Peter all million times I never saw that verse all these verses stunning and what started to happen was we started to get the comfort of the gospel unlike we'd ever had before now there were some road bumps along the way baptism was a tough one that baptism forgives sins oh man that was tough I mean it's so plain in the scriptures but it's hard hard hard for the American Christian mind to get around that because one of the reasons one of the marks of American Christianity is everything's happening inside of you if it's outside of you it's got to be law so baptism happens outside of you so it must be law it must be a work it must be something that we're doing you see it's because the gospel is what happens on the inside that was so hard baptism the Lord's Supper was not hard but you know what was nearly impossible was closed communion because American Christianity is so individual it's me and Jesus it's my relate it's my personal relationship with Jesus that's not biblical the Bible never talks about having a personal relationship with Jesus but it's all about the personal relationship with Jesus so what does anybody else have anything to do with them what do you mean unity and doctrine what do you mean it didn't make any sense when I found out that the Lutheran's didn't believe in the pre-tribulation rapture of the church I almost left they must not be Christian you know the rapture this doctrine the left-behind doctrine and that is the seven years before the second coming Jesus is going to come halfway to the earth and pull the Christians all the Christians halfway out and that was the that's the Left Behind books and the Left Behind movies about Kerry also had a bumper sticker that said you know the one in case of rapture this car will be unmanned I mean we were just ready for this in fact this is kind of funny one summer there was this guy chuck Missler if any of you guys heard of chuck Missler he's this evangelical preacher out of Coeur d'Alene Idaho and and he is a he's a strong dispensationalist a strong rapture teacher on this on this whole way of understanding the end times and he's developed this theory that the the the so all the Christians are gonna disappear and now how is the pagan world gonna how are they not gonna say oh that's the rapture that the Christians were talking about and he said his theory is that they will say well it's aliens it's a mass alien abduction and so he's convinced that all the alien theology is simply making a wave so that the demons have a way to lie to the world to deceive them and then not believing that the rapture happened so he so he was having a conference on the 50th anniversary of the of the alien crash in Roswell New Mexico you know that happened which also happened to be that day that the aliens crashed in Roswell is also my dad's birthday so I wasn't gonna be there that summer but I wanted to go to that conference so bad that I talked my dad and my brother into going down to Roswell New Mexico to go to this rapture conference by chuck Missler and take notes for me because I was in Australia and sure enough they did wild stuff and so I found out that the Lutheran's did not believe in the pre-tribulation rapture the church and that was almost it I remember I called the pastor was like he was late in the afternoon I'm like I can tie the Lutheran still believe the RAC can't believe this I don't that's not how can you say you believe the Bible and you don't believe that and he says well I'll make some copies of some stuff for you to to read and I'll leave it outside the church and I remember for whatever reason it was like it was like 1:00 in the morning or maybe late maybe 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning when I was driving home and I went by the church and he had made he could probably copied like 300 pages of stuff he copied like the whole that last half of the third volume of Francis pieper and I mean is just huge pile of stuff for me to read oh it's great and I read through that and I started to rethink of all these things so there was road bumps to you know to find our way into the Lutheran Church but every time I found that the doctrine was was backed by the scripture and that the Lutheran's didn't try to take anything away from the Bible or add anything to it they just let in the scripture stand it's the body and blood that we have in the Lord's Supper well that doesn't make sense well it's what Jesus says Jesus elects Sunda salvation and those who are damned or get their themselves well that doesn't make sense well that's what the Bible says you can't make a decision for Jesus God does it all well that doesn't how does that fit in with freewill well if it's what the Bible says and after a while I almost got tired of it what about this what about this he says well that's just what the Bible says and I and I wanted to see this addition see I was the guy who believed the Bible as the evangelical and this was the Lutheran guy full of you know man's traditions and everything I remember talking to him about making the decision for Christ and the pastor the petrels says that sounds like a tradition of man oh man did that cut deep because that was my always my accusation so so we so in this was 1999 May of 1999 I graduated from college June of 1999 Kari and I got married September of 1999 we were confirmed in the Lutheran Church and it was two years later May 2001 that we went to the seminary now and and what always occurred to me what was this great the the see almost a singular mark of the of the Lutheran teaching I mean even more than the clarity of it even more than the than the solid biblical basis of it even more than the the sturdy confidence of it was the comfort the comfort of the Lutheran doctrine how it set us in our conscience at ease it was the balm of Gilead just beautiful the distinction between law and gospel was exactly as it's described in the book of Concord it's described by our Lutheran confessors as the most brilliant light which throws open the scriptures and it was that for us absolutely tremendous and I think it's that joy of the of the Lutheran doctrine that has has animated me as a pastor in it and it's what animated the book I especially wrote the book as American Christianity failed so that I could put that that clarity and that comfort of our Lutheran doctrine against the backdrop of American Christianity and say here's what American Christianity is here's what our little peak we have just a little experience of it you know we didn't experience everything in American Christianity we just have a little story there it's much bigger than what happened over there but here's our here's what happened with us and here's what was missing so American Christianity has a doctrine it has a teaching it has an understanding but it's it doesn't get you to the full comfort that Jesus wants you to have it doesn't get you to the full assurance and confidence that Jesus intends for the Christian in fact remember this chief mark of American Christianity that that the gospel is to get people in but once you're in now you have to go about the serious business of staying improving you shouldn't be in and all this sort of stuff that to say that no the gospel is for the Christian the gospel is for us every single day the forgiveness of sins is what Jesus wants to constantly feed us it's our food it's our drink it's our nourishment it's our life and we have to constantly hear it now to think that most Christians in the United States are not hearing the gospel is it should be a terrible frightening thing for us to realize as Lutheran's because in some ways were spoiled we get the gospel all the time we come every Sunday and even if your pastor forgets to preach the gospel which your pastor never would but even if you would you still have it in the hymns you have it in the Creed you have it in the scriptures you have it all over we have this feast of God's promises laid out before us that is that is that is unique orderly unique gets exceptional in the American church so we want to put that forth yes pastor Madison I wonder if I could just affirm that main point that you're making briefly with someone who I own experience Resort was like growing up in charismatic evangelical churches you'd often hear people say well great Jesus is your Savior now make him your Lord and and for me a big realization came when I was reading the the large catechism and Luther comes to you know the second article of the Creed and he says what does it mean that Christ is my Lord and he says it means none other that he is my redeemer huh and so for Luther Lord is a gospel word and not a law word yeah it's just so refreshing that's absolutely right did you guys hear that pass Breathitt says yeah that Jesus is our Savior there's a dichotomy in American Christianity lordship theology versus free grace theology they're always fighting about the stuff and and they say well you say if you're saved by grace but now you have to make Jesus your Lord that's the John MacArthur School the lordship theology thing and that's really captures the heart of American Christian is you got to do more you got to submit more I don't know how many tell you go to you go to the church and they have the time of decision at the end of the day have you been to this church service like it's it's it started it's a revival istic move it was and then it just became the regular thing for American Christians is that you have a service and at the end of the service you have a time of decision Billy Graham was I mean you know Billy Graham's magazine was called decision magazine it's a crazy name for a magazine and it's always about the decision but you know that most of the people who make a decision for Christ are not converts they're Christians that feel the guilt of their sin and realize that they've given way to sin and they're rededicating their life to Christ most American Christians if you just ask him you can ask him this a crazy question how many times have you been baptized because if they fall away from the faith if they start to doubt their faith if they think they've been entrapped in sin that means that they didn't they were not sincere enough in their choice to follow Jesus and they have to rededicate their life and they're gonna go and be rebaptised my wife has been baptized three times which he always holds against me I'm three times as holy as you if she says no only one counted honey my mom was nor she grew up Baptist she's baptized a couple of times I mean you said I remember I was at a church camp lamb man this was I was a kid at a church camp tea bar 'i'm christian sports camp in texas and the whole point of the whole thing was to get the kids to make a decision for Christ or to rededicate their life to I remember the camp director said if we had 30 or 40 if we had a certain number of decisions for Christ he was gonna shave his hair now just think about that that's and there's a lot of things going wrong there but if enough of the kid and I said well I'll make a decision for that reason so I rededicated my life to Christ so that but you know what happens you rededicate your life to Christ so you see the guy shave his head by the campfire one night and then the next day you're like that's not a reason to dedicate and then you have to rededicate your life to Christ for the sin of read dedicating your life to Christ the night before I mean it's a disaster but this is so it because it's now if you start to doubt your sincerity because you see that everything is built everything is built on the foundation of your own since what is going on with these new markers I can tell you guys are a fancy in Castle Rock we have a chalkboard in Aurora I've got to go outside and find a rock to use was I talking about oh yeah everything is based on the foundation of your choice or your decision which is understood as your own faith so it's your faith that becomes the foundation of everything else like this so even your baptism can you imagine your baptism stands on the foundation of your faith and if you start to doubt your if you start to doubt your everything collapses and you got to do it all again you got to rededicate your life you got to be re-baptized read baptized because the whole thing falls over okay now okay so this is so that was by way of introduction now I had three things I wanted to talk to you guys about but we probably are I'm already past the time of those three things I wanted to talk about so maybe just a few five minutes more and I'll just sketch a couple of things out real quick and then we can do questions if I if you're gonna answer that oh so I did want to say this pastor Malthus and I were talking about this at dinner beforehand I had mentioned to him that originally the book was not called as American Christianity filled the original title of the book was the surprise of the gospel and I wanted to decorate because that's the thing that I wanted to capture most of all and they just wouldn't let me keep it they did they change the title they changed the cover oh well it's fine but the surprise of the gospel is what I was pushing towards because I didn't want the book to chiefly be a negative thing it's not in fact I don't think the book is you guys can tell me if you found it differently I don't think the main thing about the book is a critique of American Christianity what I've simply wanted to do was to highlight our Lutheran treasures in there in relief to the standard American teaching yes sir we had a little discussion in our class about the title of the book and the questions centered around what if a non-christians saw that book laying there and looked at that title what would it convey yeah it conveys that there's something wrong with Christianity yeah yeah that's right and that's absolutely in the context of the book American Christianity is true but to a non-believer you say I don't want to read that book yeah because it's about a failure yeah yeah that's right so I don't know it's so it's one of these things where you're wrestling with your editors and everything like this and it's your first book so you don't have a lot of clouds the original title of the book was Lutheran Soup for the evangelical soul and then and then it was and then this and then it was like the pride that the the pendulum of Pride and despair we're trying to work that into the title and then the surprise of the gospel which finally I thought ah there's a there's a title we can work with and then they know they wanted as American Christianity failed and and in fact in the in the second or third drafting of the book they wanted that theme to run through even more so you'll notice like the last chapter the last paragraph of each chapter has something about American Christianity and it in the book oh they wanted the book to be a little more pointed than it actually was which is surprised Oh that'll be surprising the pastor Malthus because I'm kind of normally a fairly pointed fellow but but I was trying to write the book as a peaceful book and they wanted a little more argumentative which is surprising to me I thought it would be the other way around but now but if you but if you're answering the question has American Christianity feel you have to define American Christianity right and so we came up with really three although that it's listed as four markers of American Christianity and we've called them revivalism and Pietism and mysticism and and that's really enthusiasm so and so revivalism is this idea that it begins with me I become a Christian by making a decision for Christ this is how when I was out sharing the four spiritual laws on campus who man I critique the four spiritual laws you know where you you have to be careful of critiquing the four spiritual laws I'll tell you is in Taiwan I was in Taiwan teaching at the Lutheran seminary there and I was critiquing the four spiritual laws and the Taiwanese people are like very peaceful very calm they'll never even they'll never get angry and man were they angry they love the four spiritual laws over there anyway that's just that's just a warning when you guys are teaching in Taiwan take it easy on the four spiritual laws but remember that the four spiritual laws God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life sin has separated us from God so here's God over here and here's me over here and here's sin sin has separated me from God Jesus came down to bridge the gap between us and God you put the cross in here like this and then law number four it's up to us to receive him so that we can set Christ on the throne of our life we got a walk across the bridge you got to make the decision you got to do the thing everything depends how when did you become a Christian I remember carry my wife talking about that she that she realized as we were studying the Catechism that she probably became a Christian when she was baptized as a baby and we were telling some of our friends from Calvary Chapel that and she says well if you don't know when you made a decision how do you know that you're a Christian you know at the back of every Gideon's Bible they have the time when you you're supposed to write it there here's when I made my decision for Christ and that's when you are that's when you that's how you know you're a Christian because you made that decision so your confidence is in you the Bible says that we're dead in trespasses and sins that the mind of this flesh cannot receive the things of the Spirit of God nor does it it does not nor can it okay so it's up to me to get in it's up to me to stay in that's what pietism is pietism is that it's the idea that the growth and good works is more important than the right doctrine that's a one way to talk about or Pietism it puts the it maintains the order of salvation Pietism is looking for the confidence of my salvation in the fruit of faith not in the source of faith so just to think about that a little bit how do we have faith Romans 10 tells us faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of Christ so we have the word and the worst the word and that creates faith and then faith creates the fruit good works etc etc Pietism faith you can't see faith so pietism looks for the for the assurance of salvation in the fruit of faith not in the source of faith which is where the scriptures are always pointing us to the word which is the foundation of faith you see what really what happens for evangelicalism is that the word is not the cause of faith but rather faith is what gives the word efficacy the word has power when you believe it okay so that's pietism and then mysticism says that the realm of theological activity is on the inside not on the outside it's what's happening in my heart so that's why I have to have Christ in living in me I have to invite Jesus into my heart and into all the other rooms of the heart you know there you have to you have to surrender your heart you have to all this sort of internal stuff this this especially this is connected especially to the form of worship because I think that modern contemporary praise and worship music started as it started as folk music it started as an attempt to make music more accessible but it morphed in the mid 80s especially coming out of the jesus movement in california in this late 60s and then it became popular coming into the 80s and it became a form of mysticism and that is that I am now I am now experiencing the presence of God through this worship experience at one time talked to Chris Tomlin Chris Tomlin is like number one praise and worship guy he wrote how great is our God and like ever if you just look on the top 10 and he's like always on their top 3 or whatever and I was interviewing him I don't know how we got this interview he obviously didn't do his homework we played the game with him called contemporary or traditional oh man I can't believe we did this so I have this podcast which is obnoxious and one of the games we play is contemporary or traditional and the and the rule is if it's written before 1750 its traditional and after 1750 it's contemporary that's the day you're the Bach died that's the beginning of Romanticism so we say and it's kind of an obnoxious game to play anyways because I remember one time I just playing it with the congregation that we're just looking at the hymns we sang and one was like from the year 1400 and one was from the year 1200 and one was from like the year six or something I mean there's all these ancient hymns and someone said pastor we should see some newer hymns and I said we're never playing this game again if that's what you guys get from this game we're not playing them but we played that game with him and we picked him that were like one was like seventeen forty eight and one was seventeen fifty two and anyway I asked him and this I said Chris what is the what is the role of the worship leader in the in the contemporary Christian worship service and he says it's to bring it's to bring people into the presence of God do you see that that's mysticism as if when you're out there you're not in the presence of God how do you know I said how do you know when you're in the presence of God he says you just know you feel it remember when I left a Lutheran service and I said I didn't feel the Holy Spirit there I was training oh you'd never feel the Holy Spirit you hear the Holy Spirit that's what Jesus says the Holy Spirit blows where he was you don't know where it comes from you don't know where you're going but you hear the sound of him you you don't feel the Holy Spirit you hear the Holy Spirit and how do you hear the Holy Spirit you hear the word of God if you hear to God's Word read and preach the Holy Spirit is present you know it you don't have to feel it but that's mysticism and want you to feel it and I think that these three things become the marks of American Christianity and and all of them in one way or another strike at the comfort that Jesus wants us to have and so I always I think this is really it you know a pastor Malthus will confirm this that most of our work as pastor Elijah most of our theological work as pastors is fighting against these things to bring people to the confidence that Christ is in fact their Savior I was having coffee with a guy the other day and he says man I just don't think that I'm a Christian I said well why not this is why I just don't I just feel like I'm out of utter failure I seen all the time and I said yeah Peter and Paul they never sinned David Moses in fact the Christians in the Bible were pretty sinless he said okay well I get it but I just I don't even know sometimes I felt like God loves me I just don't I just don't feel it at all I don't feel loved by God I said oh yeah that's right cuz in the Bible that tells us that we're loved by God when we feel loved by God for God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son so that whoever feels it that's an important verse he said well alright but look I just think that God is AB and I said well are you a sinner yes he said well what does the Bible say about sinners Christ died for sinners are you baptized yes I'm baptized well what does God say about baptism whoever believes that is baptized will be saved are you part of the world yes I'm part of the world what does Jesus say about the world that your belly John preaches it behold the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world does that include your sins are you such a great good sinner that you outs in the blood of Jesus man that blood of Jesus is pretty good it can wash away most people's sins but yours all right faster you got me this is I don't know if that's how they train you to be a pastor but but these things are true it doesn't matter if you feel it or not in fact this is one of the greatest verses in the scripture I always have been coming back to this verse but I have to look at it because I could it's in John chapter 3 verse 20 here it is it says if our heart condemns us God is greater than our heart and he knows all things oh man I don't feel forgiven well you are forgiven I don't feel saved you are God is greater than your heart he says he says you're forgiven you can trust God you can trust your field now mysticism always wants you to trust your feelings that's one of the reasons why it puts us on sandy sandy ground alright I better stop there and get you guys questions so is that okay to stop and then thank you and ends and so questions about that stuff and and questions about the book as you as you engage with that is that sound good and please I will bring the mic to you because we are recording this and if you're not on the mic you won't be on the video so thanks so some of you might not want the mic - where are you saying there by all of what you said that simply sharing God's Word with someone who doesn't know about him and there are lots of them is enough for that gospel to start to take hold absolutely yeah that's all we have to do one of the things about American Christianity it has the what they call the attraction or model of evangelism and that is that you have to we're doing all these things to draw people in it's part of the revival istic model you're doing all these things to get people in and so we would always sit around and we'd strategize how are we gonna get the youth in we're gonna you know the what kind of setting do we have to have what kind of lights do we need what kind of food what kind of you have to have the entertainment and all that sort of stuff know that all of that in one way or another is a denial of the efficacy of the scriptures don't forget the fog here seen a fog machine that's right the fog machine don't forget the fog machine oh no the affricates is precisely god's word that does it only god's word is sufficient and a soup and sea is okay so they deny the efficacy and the sufficiency of the word the efficacy of the word says that god's word has power the sufficiency says that god's word is enough there's a it's a technical thing it has to do with conversion so there was a there was a big conversation about how a person is converted and and and so Luther said during the let's see here's this is Charter I've found this aren't helpful you guys can tell me if you think it is or not but so there's three things in question the word the spirit and the will okay and and how are we converted from an unbeliever to a to a believer well Luther came along teaching the scriptures it says it's the Holy Spirit working through the word that converts us that's divine monetarism that's how we're converted well Melanchthon unfortunately came along after Luther died so this is our Lutheran fault and he said well we think the Wills involved in some way or another and how much is a question but it's the word and the spirit and the will the will plays a role in conversion we'll take that forward to revivalism and you have the spirit and the will and the word drops out you know how that it goes if just if you're having an altar call and it says if you feel the Holy Spirit tugging on your heart every eye closed every head bowed raise your hand and you're supposed to raise your head and I always wonder what would happen is it well okay I'm sitting there in the room in the revivalist exert us and I say man I know I'm a sinner and I know Jesus died for me but I just don't feel anything can I come forward no you gotta feel it do you see but it's but if the word doesn't have anything to do with it it's not that the word is true it's that the Spirit is moving your will so so it's a two-fold error we have to we have to remove the will that's the decision ISM that's our doctrine of original sin we're dead in trespasses and sins the will does not play a role in conversion in fact the will is the object of conversion not the mechanism of conversion so we have to remove the will and we have to add in the word to get there to get from the American Christian doctrine to the biblical understanding of conversion and so we have to say no it is word alone and the word does the work good question once you hold up for me because I want to read some passages kind of a follow-up to that and you kind of know this is coming from last Saturday yeah I want to read a couple Bible verses to set the question and let me start with 17 26 to 27 from one man he made every nation of men that they should inhabit the whole earth and he determined the time set for them and exact places where they should live God did this so that men would seek Him underlined and perhaps reach out for him and find him though he is not far from each one of us Romans 1 verse 24 since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities his eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen being understood from what has been made creation so that men without excuses so without the creation I mean with the creation we are without excuses let's go to my third reading let's bring in a little bit from Testament yeah Jeremiah have 29 verse 13 Oh let's see where is it here my microphone right in rows okay here we go now the microphone verse 13 you will seek me and find me when you seek me with all of your heart I will be found by you declares the Lord and will bring you back from the captivity I will gather you from all the nations and places where I have been east you okay back to your word ex no Romans 10 14 and 15 14 now then can they call on the one they have not believed in and how can they believe in the one whom they have not heard and how can they hear without someone preaching to them and how can they preach unless they are sent okay this some would say that God has revealed himself to humanity in two ways in Scripture and in nature I'm in a third world country on the top of a mountain I've never seen a Bible but I look around and I say this is quite a place there must be a God reveal yourself to me Oh God mm-hmm will God be revealed to him thank you that's a good question so the Jeremiah text was so we want to take the Jeremiah text off the off the table because of this Jeremiah was preaching to the people of God so he wasn't preaching to the pagans but to the people of God and we do understand that the preaching to Christians can say seek God seek God in prayer seek God in the scriptures read your Bible so the Christian can hear that command and solo solos so the ik end is can that preaching go to the unbeliever it's the Acts text that is a little bit trickier and especially when we compare it with the preaching of the Psalms that Paul gives enrollments so Romans 3:11 there is none who understands there is none who seeks after God so that tells us that none seek after God now that doesn't mean that because the unbeliever doesn't seek after God that they're not in fact held accountable for not seeking after God and I think that's the argument that Paul's making in Romans chapter 1 that a through nature we know that there is a God and we know three things about God that God is big he created the world that God is good there's an order to the world and that God is mad because I know that I have not lived up to his standard so by nature we know that God is good big good and mad which is what every religion knows I mean every religion confesses those three things about God what we can't know by nature is that which is revealed only through the preaching of the gospel and that is that that that God is dead on the cross that God is in my flesh bearing my sins that is uniquely revealed by the gospel that's the name of Jesus revealed and preaching so no one can come to the Father but by Jesus now is there a way so so the natural knowledge of God according to Paul in Romans one results only in condemnation is there a way for us to understand that the pagan who with an open mind looks at nature and understands that God is good big and mad that there is a God and so forth and praise for God to reveal himself that God would that God would in fact answer that prayer by sending a preacher well that's probably why we believe it's probably why we believe it's probably why our family have the gospel is because God has been pleased to send a preacher but this is the consistent testimony of the scriptures that it's only through the preaching of the gospel that the faith comes so can you be saved apart from hearing the preaching of the name of Jesus the bible does not teach that if Godin is in his hidden will wants to accomplish it he doesn't apparently want us to know about it what he wants us to know is that the preaching of the gospel is necessary for salvation thank you that's a good well yeah yeah we have one question here and then I like I think I'll take up that question that's a trap question like I recognize that though I kind of wonder sometimes the things like that verse you just read Romans 3:11 none is righteous no not one I think a lot of times do you believe things are taken out of context because if you keep reading it's almost mocking that whole concept that that's what people who still live under the law believe and I'm oh I see faith so what you're suggesting is that um is that Paul is being not wouldn't be sarcastic there but he's he's almost yeah like what then are we Jews any better off no not at all for we've already charged that all both Jews and Greeks are under sin as it is written and then he goes on now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law so that every mouth may be stopped sure yeah no no I that's true so that it's true that no one seeks God it's true that no one is righteous no not one that's law but we in fact are righteous we in fact do know God we in fact do confess the name of Jesus but not by our own works that it's an insult so that condemnation that the the law is condemning those who do not have Christ as their mediator it isn't so the question about taking out of context it is very important to read it in context in fact there's three rules for understanding the scripture number one was context y'all always have to read in context number two is context you always after reading context and number three is context you you always have to read it in context yeah that's right no yeah good yes okay here comes I so I recognized a bear trap you better ask it for the video though yeah you said something important when you said that revivalism is all about me making a decision jumping over that bridge if you will yeah and yet Jesus says no you only come by hearing that I love you yeah so Jesus comes to seek and save the Lost it's the direction is not this way it's always this way Christ so near to us so when you give somebody a scripture and you read that word to them is that something we should stop no no no no no because Jesus sins he sends out his word he puts his word in the mouth in the hearts of his Christians and the mouths of us Christians we go on blessed so Jesus says go preach the gospel to every kid every nation now this question about the Gideon Bible is tricky because I always ask the Gideons I said could you just give me the Lutheran version which is your Bible without that last and they say no now that's that tells you something right yeah and I need you to know that I don't want you to think this is a trap I am a member of the kiddies yeah yeah and maybe I shouldn't be after listening well it's a they do so many good works but that last page on dozen and there's a thing by the way and this is an important thing for us to get out all our our heads around because when the Bible talks about the Word of God being efficacious we think it means the scriptures and it doesn't mean the scriptures but it especially means the word preached it's never it's it doesn't just have it it's very rare that someone reads the Bible and has faith it's almost what 99% of the 99.99% of the time is when someone speaks the name of Jesus forgives their sins it has to do with prayer and and a living voice and so that's important so it's fine we need to be able that we need to have the Bible everywhere but we'll take that last page check out the last thing I have to tell you as a Lutheran I am a member that what I don't at all talked about that last day yeah that's right that's good Jack's 8 is a good example of what you're saying where the Ethiopian eunuch is reading the the suffering servant in Isaiah fell appears and he says do you understand what you're reading then the eunuchs says how can i unless somebody explains it to me and then he says well it's about my friend Jesus and then it comes to faith yeah yeah okay this is a question from paint 88 in your book and I just it really I was taken aback when I read it yeah probably I didn't write it up at the editor so anyway okay so anyway the cross doesn't make sense he doesn't know why God is not helping him but we know so I'm just kind of going okay here's Jesus he's been telling huh yeah all the things that are gonna happen - yes he he knows exactly he came to die and all this stuff yeah why have you forsaken me yes and it's like how can God not know something that we know now Anderson no no okay I'll keep talking I do understand just the the concept of you know is you know in his humiliation yep but but it just it just really got me it's like why he's been telling them all this yes sure and even at the beginning of his suffering today you will be with me in paradise and at the end of his suffering it's finished Jesus knew this is a soul I'll give you a little bit of the context and then I'll and I'll talk about because this is the point this is the theological point that I get the most grief about Luther got creative in fact the Roman Catholics use this point to accuse Lutheran Luther of being a heretic christological II Jesus on the cross remember has seven words so Jesus on the cross for six hours he has three words at the very beginning he has three words right at the end and then as then there's this three hours of darkness and in the middle of that Matthew and Mark only tell us that Jesus said one thing on the cross they give it to us in the original Hebrew and Matthew now Aramaic in mark le le lama sabachthani the first line of Psalm 22 my God my God why have you forsaken me now most people are right to hone in on the forsaken ax subcribe of God's holiness because Jesus is bearing the sins of the world that God made him who knew no sin to be sin for us that Jesus that God is turning away from that he's forsaking Christ and even worse Isaiah 53 that he's smiting Christ he was afflicted by God we considered him smitten by God and afflicted so that God is forsaking Jesus is smiting Jesus it pleased the Lord to bruise him and so that Jesus is suffering actively God's wrath that spiritual fiction that's the forsake in this but I think it is not to be overlooked that it is a question so Jesus does not pray my God my God you are forsaking me but my God my God why are you forsaking me now we know Jesus is both God and man perfectly United in one single person but we know that during his humiliation he can in different ways according to his own will use the attributes of the divine nature more or less so Jesus can suffer Jesus cannot know things Jesus can even die which is all not part of the divine nature so that Jesus it seems to me that during this particularly intense three hours of darkness on the cross so that Jesus would suffer in the absolute fullness of the suffering and he would have no comfort at all to rely on not even thought that this is just going for a little while and on the other side of this suffering will be the salvation of the world that Jesus removed everything that could have given him any possible comfort including the reason why he was dying now not for his whole ministry in fact even when he was on the cross at the beginning in the end he knew what he was doing there but for this moment of darkness Jesus removed can you even imagine it Jesus from ooh from himself the purpose and the reason why he was being afflicted by God and so Psalm 22 fleshes aside he says he says our fathers day trusted to you they trusted in you and you delivered them they heard you they cried out to you and you answered them but me I'm a worm and not a man afflicted and a fed verse and uh afflicted and forsaken and he goes to this long just so that Jesus knows that he didn't do anything wrong he didn't sin he knows that he suffering God's wrath and for those moments he doesn't even know why now that is that it puts the depth of the suffering of Jesus to a profound depth all the way to the bottom all the way to the boss okay so but that's just kind of that one time way it's not like because I could imagine people saying well Jesus didn't you know and his humiliation doesn't know everything so when he says from the beginning God made the male and female well it was so there's a couple of glimpses where Jesus hides that so even in the garden you see it dip into that humiliation where he says if there's another way let it past from me and we have to say that that's a true prayer that Jesus is that Jesus truly removes from himself the knowledge that there is no other way to win the salvation of the world so his prayer and his desperation are a true prayer and a true desperation and part of the mystery of the Incarnation is that Jesus is able to go to that profound depth of suffering but you're right Jesus is trustworthy yeah before I go to Dan is there somebody who has a question that has an asked one yet okay okay I got a little confused okay on page 98 99 where it talks a lot about repentance yes everything I've ever learned is that we need to repent of our sins and yet it talks about it two different ways in here talks about repenting of our sins but then it says repentance is being found by Jesus yes that then it says there's joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents yes but it is not something we do yes repent this is something that the Lord gives to us yeah so that's kind of where my confuse service is yeah and I need help with that yeah good so Jesus tells the parable he says ninety-nine sheep one hundred sheep one is lost so the Shepherd leaves the ninety-nine in the wilderness and he goes after the one he finds him he puts him on his shoulders he carries him home he has a feast with his neighbors for the joy of having found the Sheep and then he says there will be the same joy over one sinner who repents well who's the one sinner who repents is the Sheep so we say so the feet is a picture of repentance but what did the Sheep do did the Sheep wander off I here's a stupid sheep on all the 99 or fine there and this one stupid one is kind of like me and the waters off and it's looking around you know and it's and then again it's and it gets hungry and it sees a wolf howling and it's and it gets cramps in its belly he's like oh man I made a mistake I need to make a hundred and eighty degree turn and return to the flock and come up to the shepherd and say I'm sorry for wandering off that's how we normally think of repentance right that we that we are saying that that's how most people turn it you do a u-turn I'm wandering here and do a u-turn and I go back to the Shepherd so most people understand that is repentance but that's not what happens is it the Sheep is sitting there lost and and the Shepherd scoops him up and says I gotcha and Jesus says that's repentance I gotcha now it is a little I mean we can understand so um in some ways I want my tombstone to say okay just imagine my tombstone here lies Brian Wolfe the other who always taught that repentance has two parts contrition and faith the end that's what I if there's a single teaching that I would be known for when I die this is it so people come and visit my grave I'm sure you guys will all come and visit my grave you say oh yeah he'd like to talk about repent repent contrition and and faith that means that's what repentance is that we're contrite over our sins and we are trusting in the gospel now this is something that we have we are contrite and we believe the gospel but it's something that's given to us by the Word of God so the law is preached and that creates a contrition in us and the gospel is preached and that creates faith in us so that through the Lord's word of law and gospel we are repented so what does it mean to repent it means to hear what the law says and believe it and to hear what the gospel says and believe it so we are doing something but it's not our work in fact it's not even an act of our will it's a gift that's being given to us by the Scriptures so when the Bible that is a butyl of the coin the widow has ten silver coins she loses one that she sweeps all over until she finds it he picks it up and puts it back in the bag and then then then Jesus says that's repentance what did the coin do it just said there in the corner getting dirty all the you know the dustbunnies covering in and everything and Jesus so Jesus comes and he finds ously scoops us up so the third picture is the most beautiful in Luke 15 the prodigal son who you know he goes he says dad I wish you were dead cuz I'd rather have your stuff so the father says okay here it is which is crazy already the father showing himself to be not an earthly father can you imagine if your kid said I wish you were dead so I could have the inheritance then he goes off and he wasted on prostitutes and all this stupid stuff and then there's a famine and now he's feeding the pigs a Jewish boy feeding the pigs and then it says he comes to a census which is a bit ironic he says all my father slaves have better food than I do I'm gonna go home any any any Luke gives us Jesus gives us the guy's speech father I'm not worthy to be called your son make me as one of your hired hands now that's what we think is repentance we wandered off and we're like okay here we're gonna come back Lord we're not worthy we really blew it I don't need to be your son anymore I just want to be a slave and so he comes back to the comes over the hill this is the most beautiful thing he comes over there and the father's waiting any season coming over the hill he pulls up his robes he runs to the Sun and the Sun starts his repentance father I'm not worthy to be called one of your sons and he says him and he just in the middle of the sentence turns to the servants it says kill the fatted calf get the ring get their robes get the shoes my son was dead and he's back in other words he won't they let him finish he won't let the son come and say no Lord I should only be your slave he won't let him say it now the key thing is that this so just like this guy who he wasted everything now he's he wants to be the slave of the father so the other boy is out in the backyard working right and he hears the noise what's going on the servant says all your brother the one who wasted half of the stuff he that he shouldn't even to God cuz he's the younger son it should have come all to him he's back and your father's making a big deal out of he killed the fatted calf and he won't come out there he's mopey which is like something I would do mopey but I guarantee you if one of my kids was out in the backyard moping I wouldn't go out to talk to him let's let him sit there and mope they could miss the barbecue if they want to but the father who gives his stuff away who runs to his prodigal son he goes out to talk to the other son and here's the thing the other son also thought of himself not as a son of the Father but as a slave remember what he says all these years I have been slaving for you and you never even killed a goat for me to eat with my friends do you see this son wanted to be the father's slave this son thought of himself as the father's slave and the father won't have any of it he says I don't want slaves she says to him Oh son everything that I have is yours it was right for us to kill the fatted calf and make merry for the brother who was dead is alive again so that so here this is so ok so remember the pride and despair here's the son in despair father make me a slave not you're a son here's the ring here's the robe here's the cow and here's the prideful all these years I've been your son no you're a son everything I've got is yours the father wants sons not slaves and that's the picture of repentance the father saying you're my son you are my son you're my daughter you're my friend you're my child you belong to me you I've got you you're covered by my blood in my robe and my riches my whole kingdom is yours everything I have belongs to you and that's repentance is the father just with his goodness Oh does that make sense yes I told you we were to 11 no no as you were speaking about the coin and the the lamb that was lost it just dawned on me how much value God places on wicked unrepentant lost sinners that he see he he sees their value to him I was very struck by that so thank you God be praised it is a thing that I remember learning this economic lesson that something has value by what you're willing to pay for it and the thing that's been paid for us is the flood of Jesus but this is why the surprise the gospel is always a surprise because we know ourselves we know our own sin we know our failures we know our weaknesses we know our short come we know it all we know how how wretched we are we know what the Lord should do we know that we deserve God's wrath and yet he comes every day and he says I love you your sins are forgiven we say do you mean them he says no you mean you mean pastor Malthus he's pretty good i I can understand how you'd forgive him he says no I am right I love you me so yeah it is a stunning yes sir going back to Don's question and comments really centers for me what's going on at the cross lift high the cross it's all going on at the cross God's total disdain for sin is revealed or the cross Gazi Nance love for us His grace is going on at the cross your comments our Lutheran confessions have this brilliant point they said that the preaching of the Cross is the fiercest and most terrible preaching of the law now that is an amazing thing but it's true that when we look at the cross the first thing that we see is what we deserve I remember taking college if I was on vicarage so I'm doing my internship for being a pastor when the when the Passion of the Christ came out remember that movie with Mel Gibson thing and we went I think there was like 40 of us and we wouldn't saw the movie and afterwards we sat around and I said what do you guys think of that and they all said I feel terrible because they had this they'd it was for them a preaching of a law because they knew that that's what they deserved now one of the problems with our sinfulness we would think that are we know that we're sinners but we don't know how bad we are how deep our sin is is hidden from us it's how it's part of our brokenness is that we don't have know how broken we are I don't know if I told the story in the in the book Wynnum I've this guy I was standing there with another seminarian and we heard this crash and we ran down the street and this guy had crashed a motorcycle into a tree and I ran up to him and I said are you okay and he said I don't know I can't feel my legs now he had broken his neck and so he was paralyzed and he couldn't feel now can you was so broken he didn't know how broken he was and that's part of our thing we're so broken that we don't know how bad we are if you were to say to a sinner well you're a sinner okay what do you deserve from it well like a slap on the wrist like if you imagine how you know this guy who shot up the movie theater up by the hope and and so he was sentenced and now what if he said okay you're guilty what do you deserve and he says I know I'm guilty I went and I I shot all these people and everything I probably should do at least 10 or 11 hours of community service like wool buddy you not understand how bad you are you do not understand and this is how we are we don't understand how bad we are until we see the cross and we say that's what we deserve to be beaten to be stricken to be stripped to be to boot to have the wrath of God dumped on us that's where we deserve but it's amazing that the Lord that the Lord Waits to reveal the depth of our sin on the cross to the precise moment when he reveals the height of his love which is also the cross so that when we look at the cross we see how we see what we deserve we see how bad we are but it's precisely at that same moment that the Lord shows us how much he loves us and he puts us all the way down but then he lifts us all the way up so that on the cross we have every ounce of God's love and not a single bit of his wrath is left it's truly finished on the cross so that when Martin Luther says the cross alone is our theology he's reflecting this same biblical doctrine that we have it all there so that the depth of our sin is revealed but the height of God's love is revealed this is so this is the picture imagine you're walking through the woods with your kids and you come across a well and you say to the kids how deep is the well and they say well I don't know and they so they look down they can't see the bottom and so they put a stick down and they can't reach the bottom and they drop a rock down and they can't hear the bottom they say I don't know I don't know how deep the well is I can't figure it out and you say I know how deep it is it's about 300 feet deep and then well how do you know honest and because look there's the pounded pile of dirt that came out of it well this is this is how it we is so that the when we see the depth of our sin and the height of his love at the same moment when we see the price that he's suffering to pay for us we see precisely what he's deserved but it precisely what he gives at the same at the same time beautiful yeah yes sir there's one thing here in Chapter nine that I would appreciate you in Chapter nine there's one thing I would have appreciate you elaborating a little bit on and it has here that and we discussed this in class the words we pray from Scripture have an advantage over our heartfelt prayers and we know that Jesus does want to hear from us now and we do pray and we do we sit down before we eat we have a prayer almost everything we do starts with a prayer that which are not necessarily wrote or set prayers yes so I in other words our heartfelt prayers some are much better at it than others that the pastor is really good at it we've had a few here the church that can say beautiful prayer sure and then there are some of us that are not not that that get so maybe ours too don't have the weight that another one does oh yeah sure so one of the one of the things that dumb so one of the things that the evangelical world says it puts it equates spontaneity with spirituality so if something is spontaneous like it just combusts out of the heart or combusts out of the mind then it must be the spirit it's one of the reasons in a in a mystical worship service the the the the people who were involved taking great pains to seem like they're at being spontaneous because that's how the Holy Spirit works I remember one time we were sitting in a Bible study and we're sitting there studying I don't remember what and to this the this couple they were in our Bible study a guy in a girl but they weren't dating or anything they were just both of there and we're sitting there doing this Bible study and one day they burst in through the door and they said we're getting married and they were just like doing a Bible study that morning and then they just both felt the Holy Spirit telling them to get married and they said we're getting married we said wow win and they're like tomorrow it must be the Holy Spirit and we all said yeah that must be the Holy Spirit well that's weird because that's like the only way that you can be sure the Holy Spirit's working is if you're doing something crazy but but the idea was if it's spontaneous its spiritual so they will criticize written prayers even praying the Lord's Prayer because it's not spontaneous and therefore not spiritual we want to fight against that we say no no spontaneity is not a mark of the holy spirit and in fact the holy spirit is a God of order the holy spirit apparently is pleased to work through written prayers because the holy spirit inspired the Book of Psalms now does that mean we shouldn't pray ex corde or from the heart by no Moore's we should the scripture commands it we should be praying from the heart but we want to say that prayers from the scriptures do have an advantage because when we pray those prayers taught to us by the Lord we know we're praying what he wants us to pray for so for example we don't have to pray Lord hallowed be thy name if it be your will because we know it's his will that his name would be hallowed because he taught us to pray so the advantage that praying the scripture has is that we know that we're praying for the things that God wants us to pray for so that so that's maybe the point there but I certainly wouldn't want to diminish ex corde prayer about every other Sunday at hope I even pray the the prayer of the church which is the chief prayer of the week pray x corps day I won't break from written prayers and and certainly daily my own prayers are not all written down I do keep a list of the things I pray for but I won't pray from a prayer book hardly ever but I do try like in the mornings for example I'll read a chapter of st. Paul and then I'll try to pick one verse to pray so I'll pray from that particular verse I'll craft my prayers from there and then I can you it comes with that extra confidence that we know we're asking God for what he wants us to ask for is that okay and can I just follow up yeah drawing from my experience I I pray the Psalms every day in addition to my other prayers and I find that when you do pray the prayers that are given in Scripture they will spontaneously become part of your spontaneous prayers so when we pray the words the scripture it becomes sort of encoded or written on our hearts and it will come back out when we go to the Lord in prayer that couple by the way got divorced after a couple of years I don't know I don't know if that's a surprise to you guys and I think the Holy Spirit wanted them to get the divorce to a pair though I'm like good that's what a mess sorry okay this one I kind of approached you higher things on and it has to do with okay Paul in the areopagus the way I kind of consider that is you know he has a different approach that then Peter did at Pentecost because you know Peter was preaching to the Jews and the you know people you know coming from all these places for the feast and all that and so they already understand there's one God they already understand there's a Messiah coming that they need him and they need to repent and all that they've had the sacrifices for forgiveness as soon as they understand they need blood sacrifice for few and since then there's then there's Paul when he's speaking to these Greeks the areopagus he's like you know these people are clueless they got all these gazillions of God's around here and there there's no real concept of one overarching you know this is the God and they don't understand that they're sinners they don't understand that they need to repent they don't understand they need a Savior they don't even maybe haven't even heard them there's a messiah coming so you know when he has that different approach where he preaches other things than just the cross it's always seemed appropriate to me and then so and I have heard pastors say that you know not not you in particular necessarily but but I've heard him say that Paul made a mistake in how he approached the Areopagus look look at Peter all the converse 3000 came to Christ that day he preached the cross and and Paul didn't preach the cross he went to all tried to be all heady and intellectual on him and everything so anyway when I read this on page 82 it kind of rubbed me the wrong way because of my thinking on that okay so his sermon made an impression but a few people believed him as far as we can tell Athens is the only City Paul visited where a Christian congregation was not established then he left for Corinth somewhere along that 55 mile trek he determined something resolved something and then he quoted you quote and I when I came to your brother's did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech nor wisdom for I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified Paul came to Corinth preaching Jesus only Jesus crucified for sinners so so that's that was just a thing that kind of the wrong way when I read it yeah we don't want to we don't have the higher critics thing that says that for example that that would say that Paul's preaching in Acts chapter 17 was not inspired by the Holy Spirit certainly it was and the things that Paul preached on Mars Hill were true it points half of it points to the hardened heart of the Athenians they're right in the heart of things where the Jews were busy seeking after wisdom they were not finding Christ so they're they their philosophy had hardened their hearts to that point and yet it does seem like and I don't know what to make I so I don't want to say that Paul his resolve to preach nothing but Christ crucified on the way to Corinth I do not think as it is like a rejection of what happened in acts 17 but maybe a clarification Paul sees that that he can have all the wisdom of the world with the debt does not matter what matter and the Lord taught him this he showed it to him what matters is the preaching of the gospel and Paul's not gonna out philosopher the philosophers he's not supposed to hate Paul says in 1st Corinthians 1 it's the foolishness of the word preached that saved those who who were pleased who believed so so there's a foolishness to the gospel and in in some ways Paul you see Paul on that second missionary journey is he's coming down from Macedonia into into Greece and embracing that foolishness Oh Paul is also not the only one was an unsuccessful sermon I mean we have Jesus in our gospel lesson from the last three weeks saying I am the bread of life culminating with a crowd of thousands leaving and saying we can't stand this guy he's off his rocker and he might be some kind of weird cannibal as to and then you know Jesus turns to the twelve he says you guys want to leave too and just that small group is the only one that recognizes that Jesus has the words of eternal life so success is it's not a numbers game that's right now I think pastor Mathis we might have a replay of a Paul incident pretty soon someone might fall asleep and fall out the window and die I'm happy to answer questions but I think that maybe we could do it on officially afterwards is that - suit you okay does that sound good could I say a prayer for you guys and give you a blessing the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit amen o Lord we give you thanks for your word for the clarity and strength of your word for the absolute comfort that you give us in the death and resurrection of your son our Lord Jesus that his that his blood covers us and washes away our sins I give you thanks for all these your saints who trust and believe in you and pray that you would keep them to keep us all in this faith until we come to the joys of the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting for we ask for all these things through the same Jesus Christ your son our Lord who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit one God world without end man bless with the Lord thanks be to God the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all amen boy if you guys stayed to the end of this one you should just automatically be subscribed but you still have to press the subscribe button below and here's some more videos there's always theology happening on the channel so you can check it out check out more and we'll see you soon God's peace be with you

Channel: Bryan Wolfmueller

Views: 16,583

Rating: 4.8543897 out of 5

Keywords: Stories about the Dangers of Revivalism, Pietism, and Mysticism, stories about the dangers of revivalism pietism and mysticism, has american christianity failed, decisionism, can you make a decision for christ, campus crusade, what's wrong with the church, law and gospel, lutehran theology, campus crusade for christ, law and gospel how to read and apply the bible, law and gospel distinction, law and gospel lutheran, dogmatic theology, dogmatic theology- hungry for scripture

Id: APQCWm8f5pU

Length: 109min 29sec (6569 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 13 2018