The Blood Of The New Testament

"And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them, and they all drank of it. And he said to them, "This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many." (Mark 23-24).

Jesus gives thanks over the cup. This is where we get the ancient name for the Supper, "Eucharist." He renders thanksgiving or ευχαριστία to His Father so that the sins of the world can be wiped out. You stop and think about what it means to Him to give thanks that night over that cup. Then when they all share it, He speaks His word that declares to them exactly what they're drinking, "This is my blood of the covenant." The KJV renders covenant more accurately with "testament." It also read with many manuscripts "the new testament," so then this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many. New joined to the term testament would chime in their mind right away with the promise from Jeremiah 31:31. There, God promises a new testament that Yahweh will make with His people and how they would know Him in the forgiveness of their iniquities, and He would remember their sins no more.

But further, a testament as in our usage of last will and testament, the writer of Hebrews comments on this (Hebrews 9:16-17). That's how it works; what is mine is mine while I live; when I die, my testament assigns it to you, and it becomes yours. When Jesus at the Supper promises His new testament blood to his disciples, it is fully in view of what His death is preparing to effect.

Saint Paul comments about the covenant in Galatians 3:15, and how much more if it's the last will and testament of the Son of God? So with an unchangeable decree, Christ declares that the content of the cup He reaches His own is the very testament blood that wipes out the sins of the world!

Pr. Will Weedon

Jesus, God's Son Or Lunatic

"For he whom God has sent utters the words of God...Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life."(John 3:31-36). To be a believer in Jesus is to receive Jesus' testimony, His words about His Father, self, His mission, His calling, and His Spirit. It is to credit Him with being true.

C.S. Lewis was brutal on this: There really are two and only two options you have when dealing with Jesus. Either you listen to what He says about Himself and decide He is a lunatic or a devil, and there are plenty who have done that. Or you recognize that He is speaking the truth, so you fall down before Him and worship.

What you cannot do is the thing most people try - to take Him as a great teacher. Come on, people; no great human teacher could ever make the promises that Jesus makes or the claims He makes about Himself and not be as looney as a Jaybird or satanic as they come. John's conviction was that Jesus was true and He is uttering the words of God. The Word of God uttering the word of God!

- Pr. Will Weedon

Take Up Your Cross

"If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me." (Matthew 16:24). Think of the men to whom He spoke this. Think of how all but John would indeed die as martyrs for Him, and a number of them die literally by crucifixion. And how many martyrs have enriched the church in all the centuries since, and yet for the majority of Christians, Jesus' words here are not fulfilled in literally being put to death for confessing Jesus Christ. True, we always try to prepare for that, and the rite of confirmation in the Lutheran Church, we even dare to ask  - will you suffer all, even death, rather than fall away from this confession of Jesus? But across the centuries, most Christians have found the application of these words of Jesus to involve not so much the heroic and big death as the smaller little daily deaths.

The parallel in Saint Luke's Gospel, the word "daily," is even in there: If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. What does it mean to deny oneself and to take up the cross daily to follow Jesus? There's a distinction between His cross and my cross. When Christians hear His cross, that's when they're suffering for His sake, for the sake of Him being their Lord, and confessing Him like the martyrs who were put to death. But my cross, my daily cross, that's whenever my will crosses God's will - that's my cross! And Jesus invites me and you to pick that cross up and carry it along behind Him.  To pray after Him, not my will, but your will be done. That will be Jesus' prayer in the garden, but truly it was the prayer of His entire life., and it must become yours and mine too.

Yes, this is the taste of death each day because of the old Adam, the desire of our sinful flesh that fights against God's will, and the Spirit that He gives us to fight against the desires of that with the sinful flesh. Jesus summons any who would be His to put to death those fleshly desires to execute them. The path of discipleship is not the path of self-indulgence but of self-mortification. As odd as it seems, that proves to be the path of life itself, and life is what He wants to give.

-Pr. Will Weedon

Skull And Crossbones

A king needs a royal robe, they think, and of course, a crown. A purple robe would be a sign of royalty. St. Mark (15:16-22) doesn't tell us where the soldiers would find such a robe, but the Gospel of Luke tells us Herod had arrayed Him in "splendid clothing" and sent him back to Pilate (Luke 23:11). The crown of thorns from the soldier's side of things was merely an additional bit of mockery and cruelty that they could inflict on Jesus, but on this side of Scripture, it certainly evoked the very curse itself - "Thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you." (Genesis 3:18). It's the curse of the fall that Jesus is in the very process of undoing by bearing it Himself. The fake kneeling by the soldiers in mockery is a foreshadowing of how the whole thing ends with the one they mock returning in great glory and judging the quick and dead, and then says St. Paul, everyone is going to be on their knees and confessing Jesus is Lord! (Philippians 2:10-11).

Golgotha is the Aramaic way of saying "Place of the Skull," but when St. Jerome put it into Latin in the fourth century, he translated Calvariae, the Latin word for Skull. But that is what entered into a lot of our hymnody; instead of "Golgotha," you get "Calvary," as in "Come to Calvary's Holy Mountain Sinners Ruined by the Fall," as we sing at Lent.

It is also fascinating that in church art, especially classic iconography, images of the crucifixion had a skull and crossbones at the base of the cross. Augustine, Hieronymus, Epiphanius, and other Fathers aligned that Adam was supposedly laid buried at this same spot. It's a beautiful idea, and that's what the artwork is trying to depict. Christ goes to His death over Adams's bones which stands in for all of us who are born slaves of sin and headed to death. That's how He will free us from the condemnation brought by our first father's disobedience; He will do it for us all.

-Pr.Will Weedon

Water into Wine

The miracle astounds (turning water into wine), but it is commonplace in the fathers from Augustine to Luther that creation abounds in miracles all the time, and the problem with us is that we get used to them - we stop marveling at them. It's a miracle that water from the clouds is sucked up through the grapevine and kissed by the sun to produce wine for us. In this Gospel, Jesus does in a short period of time and without means of the grapevine what He does all the time in nature. But the father's see of the miracle is a beautiful picture also of how Jesus takes the ordinary and makes it extraordinary.

-Pr. Will Weedon

Jesus Is Lord

 Jesus is Lord! A common phrase Christians say. What does it mean? Look towards the Greek Old Testament, and every time you had the tetragrammaton - the four-letter name for God (YHWH) the Greek substituted its word for LORD. Just like English versions do. So when you hear Jesus is Lord, it's not some silly distinction between taking Jesus as your Lord and taking Him as your Savior. No! Run to the Greek Old Testament and realize you're making the confession Jesus is Lord; Jesus is YHWH. The one we meet as the LORD in the Old Testament showed up in flesh and blood, born of Mary, and in that flesh and blood was nailed to the tree and truly died. In that flesh and blood, His Father raised Him from the dead by the Holy Spirit.

-Pr. Will Weedon

The Religious Sensitivities Of The Pilgrims

The Mayflower and Pilgrims' story is a quintessential American story. These were misfits and dreamers from the old world who had come to the belief that in the New World, through their hard work and ingenuity, they could make a better life for themselves, for their children, and for their descendants; that's the American story. It's this story that's often told in our classic school textbooks, but I like to share about their religious sensitivities that aren't often told in much detail and are not well known unless you have done some digging around other resources.

The Mayflower Pilgrims were from the general milieu of the Puritan movement in England. The Pilgrims believed that the English Reformation was incomplete. Theologically they were inspired mostly by Calvinism but also did have some unique features; for example, they had much more of an experiential piety emphasizing the need for an inter testimony and inter-experience of one's election and regeneration and also emphasizing more a personal faith than perhaps the typical continental Calvinist would. In fact, in New England in later years, once the Pilgrims and Puritans had established communities and congregations there, admission into a congregational church depended on the ability to give a persuasive account of this kind of inter-religious experience.

The Puritans, especially the non-conforming Puritan clergy in England, were harassed by the Bishops, but they were not outright persecuted that is because they did remain basically within the structure of the state church. But they were sometimes harassed and sometimes removed from office at times when things would come to a head. The flashpoint would be whether the minister would be willing to wear a surplice when conducting a service and whether or not if he would be willing to make the sign of the cross when he baptized the baby. The strict Puritan clergy was not willing to do those things, though often deposed from office but deposing from office was pretty much the worst punishment puritan experienced in the late fifteen-hundreds and early sixteen-hundreds.

It was also from among the Puritans in England during this time in history were those myths originated that Christian holidays such as Christmas and Easter were actually pagan in origin and should not be observed. So the agenda for further reform in the Church of England called for a more pronounced Calvinism and public doctrine, and also, there would be no set days of worship and no Christian Holidays except for Sunday Sabbath. They did not want there to be any liturgical forms that were not specifically called for in the Bible, and they did not want there to be any singing freely composed hymns. They thought only Psalms and Psalms paraphrased should be sung. All of this was the general milieu from which the Mayflower Pilgrims emerged.

From this milieu, a smaller group of separatists did eventually reach the conclusion that the Church of England as an institution was unreformable and so broke away and rejected the whole concept of the state church, whether it be Anglican or Puritan or whatever. They broke away and established independent and illegal congregations. The separatist was persecuted because at that time of history in England and with most of the countries in Europe, there was no tolerance for the public practice of dissenting religion, so they did become the object of attention of the authorities. They were spied on, were often arrested, and were overtly persecuted compared to the mainstream Puritans.

We could say those Puritans were less tolerant of the Church of England as an institution, but interestingly enough, they were more tolerant of the individuals who perhaps had not come to see things their way. Another major difference is they had come to embrace a strongly congregational or conventual church polity as compared to the Presbyterian church polity that mainstream Puritanism had wanted to introduce within the Church of England.

King James, of course, was not sympathetic at all to the separatist. In effect, he famously had said on one occasion, "I will make them conform themselves or I will throw them out of the land or else do worst." So they took that as sort of an invitation they should just leave England, but an interesting thing is when they tried to leave England, he and his officials stopped them. But eventually, they did relent, and so in 1609, a sizable group of these separatists did leave England. They migrated to Holland, where there was religious tolerance, and established independent English-speaking congregations. It's that group that became known in history as the Pilgrims.

-Pr. David Jay Webber

Pow'r In The Blood

If you stop and think about it, could Jesus have been more specific? He tells you, "This is my body given for you." So what is the body given for you? The one born of the virgin and the one nailed to the tree, that's what he is given for you. And He says, "This is my blood that was shed for you." Wait a minute, what is the blood that was shed for you? Isn't it the blood that was in His veins, which poured down on the cross and stained the earth? Yes, that's what He is given us! Take and eat, take and drink, that's what He says."

There is pow'r, pow'r, wonder-working pow'r

In the blood of the Lamb;

There is pow'r, pow'r, wonder-working pow'r

In the precious blood of the Lamb.

Where is that blood? Is it just something you have to imagine, or did He'd not leave that to chance? Did He find a way to actually give you His blood so that the wonder-working pow'r of the blood can actually come into you physically where you are? There is power in the blood of the Lamb. I don't have to just imagine that blood in my head and picture its power; I can truly taste and receive it through the Lord's Supper. Where is this written? Matthew 26:26-28; Mark 14:22-24; Luke 22:19-20; 1 Corinthians 11:23-25.

-Pr. Will Weedon

Receiving The Promise

It is the body and blood that Jesus gives that is received with the mouth, but the promise of the forgiveness of sins is always received by the heart by faith. So I can't eat a promise; I can't drink a promise. I can only believe a promise. So the promise of forgiveness of sins is received by faith, not by any activity or action or anything else like this. Same with baptism. Forgiveness of sins cannot be received by the head or by the body being soaked in water. The benefit is received by the heart that believes the promise that's spoken. The promise of Jesus is connected to those elements, those things, those physical things, to His body and blood, the bread and wine, and the water being splashed. So our faith believes simply the promise Jesus gives there. So baptism offers the forgiveness of sin; the Lord's Supper offers the forgiveness of sin, and faith receives that promise and rejoices in it.

-Pr. Bryan Wolfmueller

Keswick Theology

Some Christians want to make a distinction between Jesus being your Savior and Jesus being your Lord. This comes from what is known as Keswick Theology or commonly known as higher life theology. Even though it originated in Britain, it was brought to the United States and promoted by D.L. Moody. Practically speaking, what Keswick Theology looks like is a two-tiered Christianity. The first stage can be classified as "carnal Christianity," and the second stage can be classified as "spiritual Christianity." To move from the lower to the higher state takes a definite act of faith or 'consecration,' the prerequisite to being filled with the Spirit. This consecration means an "absolute surrender," almost always described by the Biblical term "yielding." Thus the main idea is a movement from the Christian's original conversion experience to receive a second experience within the realm of living the Christian life.

Why should this concern us? It should concern us because Keswick Theology downplays the seriousness of original sin in the life of the Christian... Frankly, the most tragic result of this theology is that its material principle becomes a message of Law where the goal is the second level, and the means to accomplish it is the Christian working to yield just a little more and to surrender just a bit more. Instead of returning to Christ saving blood and one's baptism, That theology shifts the focus away from Justification towards a man-centered Sanctification. One could fairly state that Keswick Theology separates Sanctification from Justification, thus allowing for a Crossless Sanctification to emerge. In summary, there is no such thing as a two-tiered Christianity.

Furthermore, our goal is not to journey to a second level but to abide in Christ. We never journey away from Christ, even if that which we journey to is right, holy, and just. Instead, we progress by beginning again daily Jesus'us' death and resurrection for us.

-Pr. Matt Richard

Transubstantiation

Transubstantiation is rejected by Lutherans for several reasons: It is a philosophical explanation for a work of Christ's almighty Word, which we can only believe, not explain. In seeking to explain a mystery, it changes the plain and simple meanings of God's Word. Scripture refers to the elements as both bread and wine and body and blood (1 Cor. 11:26-27).

The Roman doctrine of transubstantiation is a clumsy attempt to define the mode of Christ's presence in the Eucharist. It is only a monstrous distortion, not a denial of the truth. It distorts, not by taking away, but by adding. The Church of Rome goes far beyond the truth, while Zwinglians and others deny it in open contradiction of Scripture and of the testimony of the early church.

Henry I. Schmidt

Eschatological Import Of The Supper

"Truly, I say to you, I will not drink again of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God." (Mark 14:25).

Well, here we encounter the eschatological import of the Supper. What Jesus does in this Last Supper is institute something which grabs hold of the past (what He is preparing to affect on Calvary) and yanks it into the present in order to give to His own the promise and guarantee of a future. The day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God points to the resurrection and beyond.

In a way, this verse is sort of parallel to Paul's words in 1 Corinthians 11:25, "For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death till he comes." Present eating and drinking that proclaim the past death of the Lord and all that He won by that death, until a future moment when He appairs in glory, and the foretaste of the feast is over (that would be the Eucharist) and the feast itself begins (that would be eternal life) the joyous homecoming party of God's people.

Pr. Will Weedon

Exhortation To Communicants

Since from the fall and trespass of our first parents, Adam and Eve, we have all fallen into sin and are guilty of everlasting death – and through such sin, have grown weak and corrupted in both body and soul so that we, of ourselves, can do no good thing, much less keep the commandments and will of God – and since according to the Law we are cursed and ought to be eternally damned, as it is written in the book of the Law, and though neither we ourselves nor any other creature in heaven or on earth could help us out of such sorrow and condemnation, God the Almighty has had mercy upon us.

Out of his inexpressible love, he has sent his own Son, Jesus Christ, into this world to take our nature upon Him, taking flesh and blood from the Virgin Mary. On Him were laid our sins and those of the whole world. He bore them for us as on the gallows of the cross He died, and on the third day, he rose again, having atoned for our sin and that of our parents, again reconciling us to God the Almighty so that we are now justified, made children of God, and will have eternal life and salvation.

That we may be sure of this and never forget His great, inexpressible love and kindness, Jesus Christ, as He was about to begin his sufferings, instituted His Supper, giving to His beloved disciples His own body to eat and His blood to drink, and said to them – and to all Christians – that it is His body given for them and His blood shed for them, for the forgiveness of sins, and that as often as they eat and drink of it, they should do so for His remembrance and, as St. Paul says, to proclaim His death until He comes again on the Last Day as judge of the living and the dead.

Therefore we are to do as he has commanded us, that is, to eat his body and drink his blood, remembering and giving thanks for His great kindness in reconciling us to God the heavenly Father and rescuing us from sin, death, and eternal damnation. We ought also to believe what He has said. Namely, “This is My body, given for you; This is My blood, shed for you, for the forgiveness of sins.” When we do as He bids us and believe, we receive according to His word His true body with the bread and His true blood with the wine, and with them all His merits and righteousness: that is, the forgiveness of sins, deliverance from death, the adoption as children, and eternal salvation.

But let only those who hunger and thirst for righteousness go to this most holy sacrament; that is, those who confess their sins, are sorry for them, and who have the intention to do better, and as far as possible live according to God’s will. Therefore, let a man examine himself, and if he finds such a disposition go to the sacrament boldly, for he receives it worthily. And though he is weak, yet still believing, let him go to the sacrament. God will have patience. “A bruised reed he will not break and a dimly burning wick he will not quench.” He is pleased with but the beginning of faith. Yet we should pray as in the Gospel: “Lord, I believe! Help my unbelief.” But whoever is not sorry for his sins and has no intention of bettering himself, but plans to continue in open sin and lust, let him stay away from the sacrament, for he receives it to his judgment, as St. Paul says.

Now then, as we are gathered together to observe the Supper of our Lord and to receive His body and blood, in order that we may do so worthily, that our faith may be strengthened, that we might live more according to God’s will, that we might forgive our enemies and love our neighbors and do good to all, let us call on God our Father through Jesus Christ and pray together the holy Our Father.

-Martin Chemnitz

Abomination Of Desolation

When you see the abomination that causes desolation standing where it does not belong—let the reader understand—then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. (Mark 13:14)

Many manuscripts actually have here right after the term "abomination of desolation," the phrase "spoken of by Daniel the prophet." That corresponds exactly with what Jesus says in St. Matthew 24:15. Daniel speaks of this abomination in several verses (Daniel 9:27, 11:31, 12: 11). What's clear is that there is a setting up of something that is an abomination. There is then the desolation or emptiness. What is it that Daniel is talking about? You get help from the Apocrypha; it fills you in on what happens after the last of the prophets wrote and before the New Testament opens. Particularly in the books Maccabees as they account the struggles of the remnant of the Jewish faithful against the tyranny of the king Antiochus Epiphanes ( 1 Maccabees 1:41-50).

Additionally, we learn a bit more from (2 Maccabees 6:1-6). An image of Jupiter Olympus, that is, Zeus, was set up in the Temple itself. That is probably the abomination, and the desolation was the forbidding of the Jews to practice according to the Law of Moses. By the way, the commemoration of the eventual defeat of that wicked king and sequent cleansing or dedication of the Temple is the feast called Hanukkah, which you can find reference in the New Testament in John 10:22.

Antiochus Epiphanes' desecration of the Temple took place 167 B.C., so more than 150 years before Jesus speaks the words of today's reading, but did you notice that Jesus put the reference not in the past but in the future as something that His disciples will see, "when you see." That suggests that what was foretold by Daniel was only partially fulfilled in the horrible oppression of the wicked King Antiochus Epiphanes; he becomes a picture of what is usually called AntiChrist. There would be a redo of this whole mess in the future, and as prophecies tend to work, the future one will be bigger and worst than the fulfillment in the time of the Maccabees.

"Flee to the mountains..." Interestingly this had a fulfillment when the Romans surrounded the city in 70 A.D., then withdrew for just a short time, so they had a little reprieve during which the Christians in Jerusalem remembered Jesus' words and hightailed out of the city before the Romans came back and finished it off. You read about that in Eusebius Ecclesiastical History chapter 3, paragraph 5, verse 30. But if Daniel's prophecy wasn't exhausted by the time of the Maccabees, is it exhausted by the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D.? Might it have further fulfillment at the time of the end - the time of the Antichrist?

The unknown writer of the Opus Imperfectum from the fifth century clearly thought so. "What shall we say then? All these things have to be understood spiritually in this manner:' Then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains and 'So when you see the desolating sacrilege... standing in the holy place.' That is to say, when you see a godless heresy, which is the army of the Antichrist, standing in the holy place of the church...that is, let those who are in Christianity hasten to the Scriptures... there can be no other test of true Christianity or any other refuge of Christians who want to know the truth of the faith than divine Scriptures."

Already in those early days, this writer was convinced that the final application would be for Christians in the time of the army of the Antichrist. Those words of the Opus Imperfectum would be remembered by those troubled by the rise of the Papacy and his teachings. Martin Chemnitz, the great sixteenth theologian, cited these very works at a time when heresy had gotten established in the outward church. The Scripture provided the only sure and safe refuge for Christians in the sixteenth century and of every century!

-Pr. Will Weedon

Judas

Saint John of Damascus writes: "Although then, the Lord said, "Good were it for that man that he had never been born," Mark 14:21, He said it in condemnation not of His own creation but of the evil which His own creation had acquired by his own choice and through his own heedlessness."

Jesus does not mean that He wishes that Judas had never been born - had never been. He delights in Judas as He delights in all that He has made. "The Lord is good to all, and his tender mercies are over all his works." (Psalm 145:9). The Lord is good then to Judas, and His tender mercy is as much over Judas as over St. Peter or over you and me. But much as Jesus delights in Judas' being, He is dismayed when He thinks about where Judas' choice will land him. He will finally despair of the mercy of God, and there is no deadlier place to be than imagining your sin is too big for His love and forgiveness.

That's why we pray in our churches' Divine Service to be preserved, not just things like false and fallacious doctrine and evils like war and bloodshed, but specifically from the anguish of heart in despair of thy mercy. That is to ask, Lord, please protect us from the sin of Judas from despair!

Pr. Will Weedon

Arians

But concerning that day or that hour, no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. (Mark 13:32)

The Arians, the ancient version of the Jehovah's Witnesses, triumph at this verse because they think it shows the Son is not of the same substance of His Father or He surely would have the same knowledge as His Father has. That is, He would share in His omniscience, but what we are bumping up against in this verse is the self-chosen limitations. The limitations that the Son of God chose to experience during the time of His humiliation.

St. Athanasius explains this well at the First Council of Nicaea in A.D. 325. "Of that day or that hour, no one knows not even Himself, that is, when viewed according to the flesh because He, too, as human, lives within the limits of the human condition. He said this to show that viewed as an ordinary man; He does not know the future, for ignorance of the future is characteristic of human condition. In has so far as He is viewed according to His divinity as the Word, that is, to come to judge, to be Bridegroom however He knows when and what hour He will come."

It is this exact sort of ignorance which allowed Jesus to increase in wisdom (Luke 2:52). Like a child today, He had to learn to read, understand, and remember He accommodates Himself to the condition of our humanity in so far as He sees it to be needful for us. But, even in the time of His humiliation, He would still stroll across water or perform many of the miracles we marvel at. So, He could have chosen to know the day and hour, but He chose that such will not be revealed to His human mind and understanding at that time. On the other side of the resurrection, Peter will confess, "Lord, you know everything..." (John 21:17), and that would be true too; it all depends on where you are in the economy of our salvation. The Eternal Logos knows all - the humanity assumed by the Logos grows in His knowledge according.

- Pr. Will Weedon

Gottesdienst

Lutherans use the term Divine Service instead of worship service. It is not just that it comes from a German word, although it does "Gottesdienst" is a German word, and it means the "service of God" or "God's service." Worship doesn't originate from us; it originates from God.

Many of our churches have gone back to the old practice of having communion every week. The reason we like "Divine Service" as a term- worship isn't something we bring out of our virtues, is not something we bring out of our philosophical or poetic or affective appreciation of who God is. It's not something He is waiting to receive from us as if, Oh, please worship me. I need some worship; my worship meter is low, like in a video game or something. True Christian worship is all done in response to what God has done for us.

What does God do for us in the Divine Service? ottesdienst, Dr. Ph

+Gives us absolution spoken by the pastor.

+Gives us Law & Gospel (sermon)

+Gives us Jesus Christ, i.e., the sacrifice offered on the cross; we get to eat and drink this as an assurance and communication of the forgiveness in life won for us by that sacrifice. It's not just a memory; He is doing it through His living Word, and through His Sacrament, we experience it in real time.

All worship we give in God's direction- our prayers we pray, hymns we sing, and responsive reading- are saying back to God what he has told us. We are unworthy, but we realize God has saved us by His great mercy and respond in faith, relief, and gratitude towards God.

-Dr. Eric Phillips

What Is Fascism

Fascism or Nazi has become one of those words that means evil, so people use that to attack and discredit people they disagree with. Fascism is actually a very specific ideology, economic theory, political platform, and worldview that grew up in the early twentieth century, but people don't know what it is. They know what communism is, but fascism is this sort of blank hole in which people will project everything they hate and fear.

Many people say fascism is extreme conservativism, but it isn't. Conservatives in America believe in limited government. Fascism believes in unlimited government. Conservatives believe in things like individual liberty, whereas fascists believe in the communal unity of people in a particular group. Conservatives believe in free market economics. Fascists believe in national socialism, which is a government-directed economy. Conservatives tend to believe in objective morality. Fascists reject this and favor a morality that we can construct according to our power and interests. Conservatives want to conserve the past and conserve our civilization. Fascists wish to overthrow it and create something completely different.

- Dr. Gene Edward Veith

Divine Service: Confession and Absolution

The preparation for worship each week in the liturgy of the Divine Service begins by making the sign of the cross over ourselves as we speak the Triune name of God that was given to each one of us in our Baptism. I baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. In the rite of Holy Baptism, the pastor made the sign of the cross both upon your forehead and upon your heart that marks you as one redeemed by Christ the crucified. The mark of the cross is like a brand on a sheep or horse that identifies who we belong to; we are marked on the forehead, which indicates that our minds belong to God. We are marked upon the heart, which indicates our hearts belong to God. In Holy Baptism, the only true God gave you His name, and that is precisely what a husband does to His wife in Holy matrimony, and we become the bride of Christ. The bridegroom who lays down His life for His bride brings her home to His Father's house to live with Him forever. The invocation prepares us for our Lord's coming by reminding us who we are; we are God's children, we are the Son's wife, we belong to Him, we have His name, and we are His. 

But before we are fully prepared for Jesus to come to us and for us to meet Him, there is just something that has been weighing heavy on our hearts that we need to get off our chests. We know, we know that He sees right through each and every one of us, and nothing is hidden from His sight. So as long as there are things we do not want Him to see in us, we do not want Him to come to us, but the liturgy gives us the words to say that need to be said. No ifs, no buts, no excuses, no shifting the blame. I, no one else but I, a poor, miserable sinner, confess unto You all my sins and iniquities with which I have ever offended You and deserved Your temporal and eternal punishment. But I, and no one else but I, am heartily sorry for them and sincerely repent of them.

So rather than speaking for ourselves and defending ourselves before our Lord, which is what we are all preprogrammed to do, the liturgy has us speak against ourselves. Because the Scriptures are clear when our Lord comes again in judgment, it is not those who call themselves holy whom He is looking for; they do not need a Savior except for maybe a few innocent false here and there. Our Lord is looking for sinners who know they are sinners and who also believe He is gracious and merciful, abounding in steadfast love, and who loves, who loves, who loves to forgive sinners. It is not those who have purified themselves but those who are humble and who have humbled themselves and, from their knees, welcome Him to purify them with His absolution. To hear Him say those precious words, "I forgive you all of your sins." 

-Pr. Paul Nielsen

Jesus Is The Perfect Israel.

The true Israel are those who have the faith of Abraham. Israel is reduced to one person, and that is Jesus Christ, the shoot from the stump of Jesse. He fulfills the Mosaic covenant for us. Jesus is the true Israel; He is the vine, and Christians are the branches grafted into Christ by faith. And again, Jesus is Israel reduced to one, the second Adam, who replaces the old and brings the new in Himself. Truly the one for whom God fights, the one who fulfills all the promises to get given to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. You have to be inside of Him, inside this Jesus, inside literally His flesh and blood, which He does give you to eat and drink. This is the New Jerusalem already coming down from heaven, preparing you for the life made up of heaven rather than of dust which is coming when He comes again." (Exodus 4:22; Hosea 11:1; Matthew 2:15; Isaiah 11:1; Galatians 3. Romans 11:17).

Hosea is replete with both images that God uses to describe love for his people, that of a wife and that of a child. He highlights Yahweh's faithfulness in both images and Israel's unfaithfulness as either Yahweh's betrothed or as his child. Jesus is a foil to Israel's failure. If they are disobedient son, He is a faithful Son who does all His Father's bidding.

 In his own day, John Chrysostom heard the Jews objecting to this citation by St. Matthew, insisting that is not what Hosea was talking about at all! He was talking about Israel, not Jesus. Chrysostom points out to Matthew's detractors, though, how very often throughout the Old Testament of a nearer fulfillment nests inside a greater and more distant one. He argues this is of a piece with that since St. Matthew had already introduced us to the very notion that the entirety of the Old Testament is actually Jesus' story, His genealogy, His book. He undergirds this point with all of those citations from the prophets that punctuate his Gospel and show how the whole finally comes home to roost in Jesus. But this one is of particular importance; it shows that Jesus is Israel reduced to one and Israel as faithful Son. Thus He will relive the whole of Israel's story in His own life.

If Israel (quite literally Israel) Jacob and his sons went out of the Promiseland to Eygpt for a period of time, then so will Jesus. If Israel wandered forty years in the wilderness and endured temptations and trials, so will Jesus wander forty days in the wilderness and endure various temptations and trials. Said another way - Jesus and His whole life, from birth to death, from resurrection to ascension, is at work bringing the actual meaning of the Old Testament to light as the revelation of Himself. No single bit of the Old Testament can give you the whole you find in Jesus, but taken all together in light of His story as St. Matthew and the other Evangelists tell it, you begin to see that it was no exaggeration to speak of the Old Testament as His own book (John 5:39) whose job was to proclaim Him as the Savior of sinners and reveal Him as the God who is with us! 

 - Pr. Will Weedon

Bad Company

Do not be deceived: "Bad company ruins good morals" The ESV also puts this maxim in quotes. St. Paul cites the Greek dramatist Menander, although Menander did it with "good character." Bad company ruins good character; the idea is the same.

This is similar to the insights of James Rohn, a motivational speaker; he said, " You are actually the average of the five people you spend the most time with." We become like each other; it's the law of humanity. St. Paul brings up this point here not merely to show he knows his Greek drama but because he knows it's true. What are you guys doing hanging around with folks who deny the resurrection? Do you not see that it will corrupt you?

If there is no resurrection, it's better to be an Epicurean; that's the philosophy St. Paul is quoting, "Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die." and to hold their philosophy of pleasure. St. Ambrose of Milam, the baptizer of St. Augustine, wrote: "If all hope of the resurrection is lost, let's eat and drink and lose not the enjoyment of things present for there are none to come." I think I'm not wrong, but that is the prevalent philosophy that governs our world today. Heathenism says you better grab it while you can.

- Pr. Will Weedon

The Three Estates

1. The Family

2. The Church

3. The State

The purpose of the family is to bring forth and support physical life. The purpose of the church and the church family is to bring forth and support eternal life. The purpose of the state is to protect life and prevent others from taking someone else's life. An important thing to remember is the state is the third and least important of the estates, though you wouldn't know that during election time because the state has a bit of a Napoleon complex and try to convince everyone it's the most important. If things are going good in the home and going good in the church, the way things go in the state matters much less.

The state can't bring forth life but only gives death in the smallest possible portion. So the purpose of the state is to destroy those who would destroy others. Its authority is the sword, the authority to bring death. The chief thing for the state is the police and the military. That's the sword pointed in, and the sword pointed out to keep order so people can live. The state can't give life. It can only stop people who want to take life. 

An example of this is war. When you go to war, you're pulling the state out of the sheath and bringing violence to another nation because that nation wants to bring even more violence and death to you or others. So you bring a little bit of death to prevent the bigger death. Or say there's some criminal who's assaulting life or assaulting property, or assaulting chastity or whatever, so you bring the sword to bear, and you've taken him to court and put him in jail, so you give him a little death to prevent the bigger death that he wants to cause. That's the goal and purpose of the state.

We should keep this in mind, and Christians should always keep the Ten Commandments in mind when voting, how can I love my neighbor by my vote? How can I support the institutions God has established and God's ordering of the world? The devil always attacks the works of God, and he's always attacking all three estates. We see him attacking the church with false doctrine and whatever. We see him attacking the family by tearing families apart, redefining family, putting husband and wife and setting them against each other, and all this sort of stuff. We see him trying to attack the state by putting tyrants and dictators in office so the state doesn't do its job. 

 A great thing to consider, we know these three estates established by God can't be overthrown, and they will stand because they are instituted by God. Marriage will stand; it doesn't matter if the state wants to redefine marriage because, at the end of the world, when Jesus comes back, there will be marriage. Now a lot of people might be destroyed and the devil banging his head against the walls of the state, church, and family, but you will be safe. Rejoice that the Lord uses your family to give life, your church to give life eternal, and the state to save us and protect us. God be praised for these three estates.

- Pr. Bryan Wolfmueller

Saints

The word saint is a Latin word or title meaning a holy person. So a saint is someone who belongs to God. Sometimes we hear the definition "holy," which means "without sin," which is really not a very good definition. The word holy or Saint or sacred means something that has been set aside for God by God, that is, something that belongs to God. So if we say the Holy Bible or holy communion, we aren't saying that those things are without sin; we are saying these things God has instituted, they are His, and He has given them to us for His purposes. So, in the same way, when we say a person is a saint, that person is holy, we aren't saying that person ever sinned or even if that person is now without sin. We are saying that person belongs to God, and God has claimed him or her and has forgiven him or her sins for the sake of Jesus Christ.

The Reformers kept the Saints, but not the abuse or the cult of the Saints. We read in the Augsburg Confession: "We teach our people that the Saints are to be remembered, so that we may strengthen our faith when we see how they experienced grace and how they were helped by faith. Moreover, it is taught that each person, according to his or her calling to, take the Saint's good works as examples..."

"It cannot be demonstrated from Scripture that a person should call upon the Saints or seek help from them, for there is only one single reconciler and mediator set up between God and humanity - Jesus Christ (1Timothy 2:5). He is the only one Savior, the only high priest, the Mercy Seat, and intercessor before God. He alone has promised to hear our prays according to Scripture in all our needs and concerns. The highest worship is to seek and call upon this same Jesus Christ wholeheartedly.

-Pr. David Petersen

The Epistle To Diognetus

And brother will deliver brother over to death, and the father his child, and children will rise against parents and have them put to death. And you will be hated by all, for my name's sake. But the one who endures to the end will be saved. (Mark 13:12-13). This is much in line with the prophecy found in Micah 7:5-6.

The hatred that they experience is clearly hatred of Jesus. Hatred of Him being their king, the one whom they pitched in their lot with. Such hatred is to be born with the equanimity of all Christ's people.

The Epistle to Diognetus (140 A.D.) described Christians this way: They play their full role as citizens but labor under all the disabilities of aliens. Any country can be their homeland, but for them, their homeland, wherever it may be, is a foreign country. Like others, they marry and have children, but they do not expose them. They share their meals, but not their wives.

They live in the flesh, but they are not governed by the desires of the flesh. They pass their days upon the earth, but they are citizens of heaven. Obedient to the laws, they yet live on a level that transcends the law. Christians love all men, but all men persecute them. Condemned because they are not understood, they are put to death but raised to life again.

They live in poverty but enrich many; they are totally destitute but possess an abundance of everything. They suffer dishonor, but that is their glory. They are defamed but vindicated. A blessing is their answer to abuse, and deference is their response to insult. For the good they do, they receive the punishment of malefactors, but even then, they rejoice as though they are receiving the gift of life. They are attacked by the Jews as aliens, and they are persecuted by the Greeks, yet no one can explain the reason for this hatred.

- Pr. Will Weedon

The Two Types Of Spiritual Blindness

Martin Chemnitz, the sixteenth-century Reformer, points out that spiritual blindness can run one of two different ways. There is pharisaical blindness, or there's what he calls Epicurean blindness - named for the philosophical school whose motto was: eat, drink and be merry because tomorrow you're going to die.

Pharisaical blindness arises when you think you're doing pretty well all on your own. You're not so bad of a person - in fact, you're better than most. That kind of blindness shuns the light that Christ shines because it shows you're anything but. Just revisit what Christ does with the Law in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5). He doesn't leave it on the surface. He drills all the way down and there exposes in your heart that you certainly have not been loving God with your all or your neighbors as yourself.

Epicurean blindness is not so much about lying to yourself about your goodness. It is instead lying to yourself about whether sin is your friend or your enemy. And when you tell yourself it's your friend and gladly indulge it - you're in darkness. A lot of folks prefer it that way. Prefer avoiding the light that shines in Christ. Blindnesses

- Pr. Will Weedon

Forgiven: Past, Present, Future

Are we forgiven once, or are we forgiven many times? How does that relationship work? The way Lutherans deal with forgiveness is that we can say we have been forgiven, that we are forgiven now and will be forgiven.

There is in which we live in light of a past reality, an event that has brought us forgiveness in baptism. However, that doesn't mean we are not forgiven daily because Jesus tells us to pray in the Lord's Prayer, "forgive us our sins." We are not saying, "I thank you, you forgave my sins."

Continually this life of faith is one where God counts us as righteous because of Jesus because we continue to be in Christ or connected to Jesus. Faith is that which brings me Jesus; insofar as I am connected to Jesus, I receive His righteousness.

Scripturally, we can speak of all our sins already being forgiven, and we can speak of our sins being forgiven daily. We also have this future aspect of justification that is true for us in a more real sense on the Last Day.

I received forgiveness once at my baptism; I receive forgiveness daily as I pray the Lord's Prayer. I receive forgiveness every time I receive the Lord's Supper in repentance. I continually receive forgiveness by faith being connected to Jesus, and on the Last Day, I will be judged as righteous in Christ.

- Dr. Jordan Cooper

Nunc Dimittis

Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace according to thy word. For mine eyes have seen thy salvation, Which thou hast prepared before the face of all people; To be a light to lighten the Gentiles and to be the glory of thy people Israel. Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.

Placing Simeon’s song (Nunc Dimittis) after the distribution illuminates the glory of the gift we receive in the Lord’s Supper. As Simeon saw the fulfillment of God’s promise and the return of God’s glory to His temple, Simeon was ready to die in peace. So also, the saints who receive the body and blood of Christ have seen and received in themselves the salvation of God.

When the pastor says, “Depart in peace,” He is not saying, “Go back to your seats quietly,” Rather, we are singing a joyous funeral hymn. We are saying, “I’m ready to die in peace.” Each leaves the altar ready to die in peace; they have seen and received the salvation of God, prepared in the presence and for the benefit of all people.

- Roy S Askins

Porn (Porneia)

It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that is not tolerated even among pagans, for a man has his father's wife. And you are arrogant! Ought you not rather to mourn? Let him who has done this be removed from among you. (I Corinthians 5:1-2).

The word used here in Greek is the root of the word porn (porneia). That's a broad term that connotes all the ways human beings can corrupt God's good gift of sex. From same-sex relationships to adultery, from incest to the abuse of animals. The whole gamut of abuses the gift of sexuality outside its God-intended parameter, which is marriage.

Instead of moving their community to shame, Satan had somehow twisted their minds around to think that what was really a source of disgrace was a point of pride, something to celebrate. We're not sure exactly what they were thinking, but we might actually be meeting here for the first time the Gnosticism that would later post such a dangerous trap for Christians.

One of the weaknesses of the Church in our day and age is how seldom we are willing to love with the tough, tough love St. Paul shows here towards that man and towards the congregation. Excommunication tends to be rather rare, and that's not a sign of gentleness and love; it's a sign of apathy and indifference to the present and future misery of unrepented sinners.

 

-Pr. Will Weedon

For You

It's true God is everywhere, but He is not everywhere for you. So He is in the fire, but you don't jump in the fire to get close to God. He is in the ocean, but you don't jump in the ocean to get close to God. As Dr. Normon Nagel once said, "We do not need a God who is everywhere is as useless as a God that is nowhere. What we need is a God who is somewhere."

You have to find where He has placed Himself to be a benefit for you. So we are always looking for those words "for you," and that is what we find in the Supper. This is my body given "for you." The blood of the New Testament poured out "for you." So we see the Lord Jesus has put His body and blood specifically in the bread and wine for Christians to eat and drink with the promise of the forgiveness of sins.

- Pr. Bryan Wolfmueller

The Serpent And Eve's Seed

The fact that God speaks of the Serpent having to go on its belly as if he did not go on his belly before might recall the words from Revelation 12 that identify the Dragon with the ancient Serpent. So imagine his wings being clipped, if you will.

The Church has long regarded [Genesis 3:15] as the first Gospel promise after the Fall. "Her seed" is a most unusual expression because we don't usually think of women as having seed; they have eggs. In Latin, this reads "semen eius." The woman will have seed, and that seed will be the one to bruise or mash the Serpent's head, but it will cost Him. The Serpent will bite His heal.

All the way back to the second century, we find this passage referring specifically as Christ's triumph over Satan and death.

- Pr. Will Weedon

Venial Sin And Mortal Sin

Christians who have been baptized, converted, and brought to the faith; scripture teaches that there are in them some sins with which faith and the Holy Spirit can remain. The believer is not condemned because of them, but he has and retains faith, the Holy Spirit, God's grace, the forgiveness of sins, and eternal life. This doctrine has its bases in Romans 6-8, John 1, Psalms 32, and so on. And these sins are called venial sins.

By contrast, scripture also says with great earnestness that Christians may well fall into those sins through which they lose faith, the Holy Spirit, God's grace, forgiveness of sins, and the inheritance of the kingdom of God and thus fall back under the wrath of God unto eternal condemnation unless they again repent and are reconciled anew in faith for Christ sake. This doctrine has its bases in statements of Paul and Romans 8, 1 Corinthians 6, Galatians 5, Ephesians 5, Colossians 3, and James 1. These statements should be instilled in the people with diligence, and these sins are called mortal sins.*

Through repentance, every sin becomes a venial sin. This may be summed up for the simple in these two parts: repentance and faith, that is, whether we find displeasure in sin or are enemy of it, oppose it and crucify and mortify it, or else whether we are pleased with sin and have desire and love for it. Seek every occasion for it, follow it, act upon it, and so on. Likewise, whether we seek to be rid of sin or to increase it. Any simple person can understand this and can find it in himself. And when the doctrine of mortal and venial sin is subjected to this examination, every Christian can make good use of this doctrine in daily life. And this doctrine should thus be directed to the end that each should make sure that he is not stuck in mortal damnable sin and caught in it by God's judgment, but rather repent while there is time.**

Those who teach Christians may not lose faith and God's grace through any sin, and likewise, no sort of sin may harm believers should be avoided as the worst poison to the soul. Luther powerfully and with great passion refutes such teaching in the Smalcald Articles 3.3.43-45. This also agrees with the Augsburg Confession Article XII.

*Martin Chemnitz

**Aurelius Ambrosius

- Pr. Heath Curtis

Postmodernism And Confessional Lutheranism

Confessional Lutheranism is antithetical toward postmodernism because it sets forth so clearly the boundaries of the Christian life. Who is God? What is He like? What is the condition of original sin? How are we justified? What is required in our vocation? It is just very clear. It says certain things are true, and it excludes others. It is a highly coherent, thoroughly biblical framework for all of Christian life.

What it's trying to do precisely is teach everything that Christ commanded us, and that is quite opposed to the consumer-driven postmodern model, which would allow individuals to consume those portions of Christianity that fit their preferred narrative.

It is the medicine we need. As C.S. Lewis says, "We have to convince people of the unwelcome diagnosis." That means we have to get the nature of sin right. And the nature of sin is certainly not right in postmodern Christianity because it allows people to redefine moral law in a lot of different ways. And because it doesn't diagnose our problem correctly, it cannot present the true gospel either.

- Dr. Angus Menuge

A Dog Named Jake

The Church is supposed to be a colony of the future, where the rebellion against God is history. Where His will is His people's delight. So to bring into that assembly of brothers and sisters of Christ, publicly unrepented sin of whatever sort is to try to drag the rebellion of Satan into the very assembly where it is all past and done with.

Obviously, St. Paul knows that the Church is comprised of nothing but sinners, as St. John said in his first letter, "If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us." (1 John 1:8). But there is a world of difference between the sins into which the Christian people still stumble at times, even daily, and the attitude of the unrepented sinner who says, "I don't care what God says about this or that, I'm doing my own thing thank you very much." That is what cannot be allowed to breathe and grow in the Church.

Have I ever told you the story about Jake? Jake was a dog we ended up with, and he and I had our run-ins, but none as bad as the day he got himself a rabbit, and when I called him to come in, he wasn't about to let that little bloody carcass stay outside - no, no, no, he was going to bring it in the house. So we had quite an altercation when I would not let him bring it in, and I made him drop it. Jake, with his bloody bunny, is a perfect picture of the sinner who doesn't want to let go of the sin but intends to drag it with him into the Kingdom. Hey, you may be thinking, God loves me just the way I am. In a way, of course, you're right, and He also loves you way too much to leave you like that. So to enter the Church is to exit being of the world. Still in the world, but no longer a willing rebel; Instead, a forgiven one who joins the fight against the rebellion, even the rebellion that keeps popping up in our lives.

St. Paul throws in not even to eat with such a one, and that leads Theodoret of Cyrus, writing in the fourth century, to observe obvious if we are not to eat ordinary food with such people, we are not to admit them to the Lord's Table either.

- Pr. Will Weedon

The Liturgy And Acts 2:42

Two of the biggest myths against the Historic Liturgy today are 1. Early Christians worshiped in a free-form "open mic night" sort of a thing. 2. The Historic Liturgy is the product of Roman Catholicism.

Long before the establishment of the papacy, if you read through the actual records on how the Christians were worshiping, you very easily see this order. The very first Christians were almost all Jewish. They began to worship apart from the synagogue; they took the basic synagogue liturgy and added Christian elements. This became the foundation upon which the Historic Liturgy of the church was based. 1 Corinthians 14:40 and Acts 2:42 gave the early Christians and for us today instructions on how to conduct our worship.

When we take Acts 2 apart - "they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers." Some things rise to the surface. First, "They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and fellowship." What's the apostles' teaching? Well, it is the New Testament. We look at the idea of fellowship, "koinonia." They didn't just gather around the coffee urn or a covered dish meal; they gathered around the table that brought community, namely communion. We feel pretty confident that this is the main bread Acts is speaking of (cf. "Jesus took bread and broke it"). So the first two things they devoted themselves to were the Word of God and the Holy Supper. "The prayers," with the definite article "the" in front of prayers; it is not just that they were praying; they were prayers of the Jewish people, that is, the Psalms.

The Lutheran Reformers of the 16th century maintained the basic structure of the Liturgy as it had been celebrated. The few changes made were to have it in the people's language. Luther removed medieval devotional attachments that encouraged superstition and allowed congregants to receive the chalice. More congregational singing and greater attention to the quality and content of the preaching of the word were emphasized.

- Pr. Todd Wilken

God Is Not Limited To A Building

 "God isn't limited to a church building" is, nine times out of ten, not the language of faith speaking. It's crucial that believers understand this. Yes, sometimes we can't gather. But the church is the ecclesia, the "gathering." The fact that God is everywhere does not mean that He is everywhere "for you" with His saving gifts. You need His Word, including preaching and the communion of saints.

Being dismissive of the gathering of believers (rather than mourning its loss, in the rare event that it is lost) is the first step down the road to a wholesale rejection of faith. Lone-ranger Christianity begins with the believer confidently asserting that they can read the Word themselves perfectly fine at home and scoffing at those who "need a building." But this is rarely kept up for long. Once out of the habit of gathering, it becomes easier and more convenient to stay away. Believe me when I tell you that even in the realm of online services, viewership has gone way down in the past year or so. It is known that those exclusively "worshiping at home" eventually, in the long term, don't worship at home. Disconnected from the body of Christ, the individual Christian dies.

Pop-American Christianity has laid the groundwork for this destructive form of individualism for several decades, and the fruit it's bearing is terrible. Forms' of the church that strongly minimize the importance of the things that are incarnational and tangible-- like the sacraments and the absolution-- are more naturally prone to the temptation of a "Christianity" that becomes increasingly disembodied, undefined, private, and centered on the merely cerebral or emotional. But there are zero excuses for Lutherans to be taken in by this.

If you can't gather with the believers for some reason, mourn the loss-- don't shrug and say, "God is everywhere." If you are intentionally avoiding the gathering of believers and the preaching of the Word in any form you are able to hear it, you're breaking the Third Commandment. And if you're flaunting this commandment with an unrepentant heart, your very faith is hanging in the balance. That is something that needs to be taken very seriously.

-Kelly Klages