Comfort for God's People

Kongsvinger Lutheran Church

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Welcome to the teaching ministry of Kungsvinger Lutheran Church. Kungsvinger is a beacon for the gospel of Jesus Christ and is located on the plains of northwestern

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Minnesota. We proclaim Christ and Him crucified for our sins and salvation by grace through faith alone.

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And now, here's a message from Pastor Chris Roseberg. The Holy Gospel according to St. Matthew, the third chapter.

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In those days, John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea, repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

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For this is he who was spoken by the prophet Isaiah when he said, the voice of one crying in the wilderness, prepare the way of the

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Lord, make his paths straight. Now John wore a garment of camel's hair, and a leather belt was around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey.

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Then Jerusalem and all Judea and all the region about the Jordan were going out to him, and they were baptized by him in the river

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Jordan, confessing their sins. But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, he said to them, you brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?

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Bear fruit in keeping with repentance. Do not presume to say to yourselves, we have Abraham as our father, for I tell you,

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God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham. Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees.

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Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. I baptize you with water for repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals

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I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand.

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He will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.

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This is the gospel of the Lord. In the name of Jesus. Amen. Alright. Comfort, comfort ye my people.

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That's from Isaiah chapter 40, which happens to be the exact same text that our gospel text is cross -referencing when it says that John the

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Baptist is the one who is the voice of one crying in the wilderness, prepare the way of the

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Lord, make his paths straight. In fact, let me read out a portion of Isaiah 40 because I think it's fascinating here.

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That section of scripture begins with these very famous words. We all know them. They come up every single advent.

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Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem. Cry to her that her warfare has ended, that her iniquity is pardoned, that she has received from the

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Lord's hand double for all of her sins. A voice cries in the wilderness, prepare the way of the

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Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be lifted up, every mountain and hill made low, and the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain.

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And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh will see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.

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Which kind of begs the question, how are we to understand John the

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Baptist fulfilling this prophecy where God calls him hundreds of years before he's even conceived in the womb of his mother,

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Elizabeth? How did he fulfill the words of comforting the people of Israel? It seems a little odd to comfort people by saying, you brood of vipers, who warned you to flee the wrath to come?

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I'm not feeling comforted when he talks like this, right? Usually you'll note that in our modern era, we think of comforting like this, oh, you got a boo -boo?

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Oh, let me kiss your little boo -boo, and does that make you feel better, honey, right? We think that that's what comforting is.

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Well, I remember years ago, and unfortunately, I do not remember the pastor who pointed this out to me, but this was not years ago, really decades ago, that in the ancient world, comforting meant something different than the way we understand comforting today.

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And he pointed to something, a historical artifact, if you would, that kind of makes the point.

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You've all heard of William the Conqueror, well, we here in the United States, we're not all that well -versed in British history.

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William the Conqueror, important fellow, right? And William the Conqueror, you'll note that the big battle that he won where he conquered is called the

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Battle of Hastings, and there's something called the Bayou Tapestry. And the Bayou Tapestry depicts the

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Battle of Hastings, with arrows and archers and swordsmen and guys on horses and cavalry, and there's an interesting little thing in there.

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And that is that there is a depiction of William the Conqueror's stepbrother, who happens to be named

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Bishop Odo. Odo, mm -hmm. Well, Bishop Odo is depicted in the

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Bayou Tapestry as wearing a helmet, he's wearing mail, and he's also wielding something called a baculum, which is a battle bat, a battle club, right?

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And what's really fascinating is the Bayou Tapestry depicts Bishop Odo behind the cavalry, beating them to go forward into a hail of arrows coming in from the other army's archers.

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And the text in this particular portion of the Bayou Tapestry reads, here is

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Bishop Odo holding his club, comforting his boys. Comforting his boys?

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Can we talk about what comfort means in this context? Because here's how the

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Battle of Hastings is going down. You got the cavalry going, ah, here come the arrows, and Bishop Odo is behind them going, get into the battle, you morons, go, go, go!

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Do you feel comforted? But that's an interesting word.

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So here's the idea then, is that the word comfort in the ancient world doesn't have the soft meaning that we've applied to it today.

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The ancient world understood that comfort means to strengthen. In fact, no joke, this is not a play on words, the word comfort has the word fort in it, which is a reference to fortresses.

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The idea of comforting is to strengthen people, to strengthen them, and sometimes you strengthen them with soft words, sometimes you strengthen them by spinning a grasshopper leg in their face and telling them to repent, right?

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Are you feeling comforted yet? It's a fascinating thing. So here in our text, we have

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John the Baptist, and man, who let this guy out of his cage? You'll note that I still,

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I say this every time this guy shows up, I don't know a single congregation on planet Earth that would call this guy to be their pastor.

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By today's standard, he commits the most egregious and unforgivable sin that a society looks upon, and that is the sin of hurting people's feelings, of making them feel negative about themselves, right?

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I was recently, I recently read the book Counterfeit Kingdom by Doug Guyven and Holly Pivock.

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It's a story about the NAR and their practices, and what was really interesting, in the book,

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Holly Pivock actually made a research visit to Bethel Church and was there in one of their, after their church classes that they were holding, where they were teaching people how to be prophets.

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How does one teach somebody how to be a prophet when God is the one who gives the gift of prophecy if it's legit?

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And the teacher of this class put a hard and fast rule for the class if they were going to be prophesying, no negative prophecies.

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And I have heard NAR church after NAR church say that the way you can tell that a word is from the

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Lord that you need to accept is it'll uplift you. It will not tear you down. It will make you feel good rather than make you feel terrible.

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I would note in next week's gospel text, Jesus says of John the Baptist, he says, what did you go out in the wilderness to see, a reed swaying in the wind?

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No. What'd you go out to see, a prophet? Yes, a prophet and more than a prophet.

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A good way to think of John the Baptist is that he is the last of the Old Testament prophets. He's, well, he's dressed like Elijah, camel's hair, thick belt.

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We won't talk about his diet. This is just not going to catch on. But the point then is that John the

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Baptist shows up and well, when we hear his message, repent, the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

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And those who are comfortable in their sin and their false doctrine, he gets right in their faces, squares up with them.

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And rather than throwing fists, he throws words, you brood of vipers. Now think about this for a second, okay?

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A good way to think about it is you'll note that it's female snakes that are the ones that lay the eggs, right?

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Am I correct, if I'm reading this correctly, that here John the

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Baptist is accusing people of being like their mother, the devil?

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Did I just misgender Satan? Ah, oh, ooh, ah, ah, but you brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?

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And when we hear John the Baptist preach this way, we oftentimes think, well, I'm glad he's going after them.

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You're missing the point, he's going after you, right? He is.

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And you'll note that to prepare the way of the Lord is to preach the message of repentance, to preach both law and gospel, and it's not intended to make you feel good.

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God's law is not a soft pillow. And you'll note, if you haven't figured it out yet, why are all of these

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Old Testament texts in the early part of Advent pointing to the second coming of Christ?

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Why are they always pointing to the new earth, when the wolf and the lamb will lay down together? Because Jesus, his first Advent, has already come.

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If you want to prepare the way of the Lord, we're not preparing for his first Advent, we're going to celebrate it on Christmas Day.

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We're preparing for his second Advent, and you had better be ready. You and I, we are way too comfortable with our sin.

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We make far too many excuses for ourselves and justify the worst of behaviors.

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And you'll note, if you go into Romans chapter 1, the list starts off with sexual sin, and then it gets all the way worse, and at the very bottom you have gossip, which

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I think is greater than any sexual sin. Have you examined your life in light of the

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Ten Commandments? Are you just a little too lackadaisical when it comes to your prayers?

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Do you think stupidly—and I apologize for using the word, but it's appropriate here—stupidly that you are saved because your grandparents and your parents were

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Lutherans? You'll note that John the Baptist goes after the Pharisees, says, don't even say to me that we are children of Abraham.

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God can raise up children of Abraham from rocks over here, and those rocks are smarter than you, by the way.

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Jesus will make that point later in the gospel. But here in Lutheranism, I've seen this thing that happens.

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It's called cultural Lutheranism, right? You go to a culturally

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Lutheran church, it's like going to a Lutheran ghetto. It is a complete echo chamber, and nobody can get in, and nobody dares leave because their parents or their grandparents would look at them wrong, right?

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And what happens is the reason why you're saved is because your parents were saved, your grandparents were saved, their great -grandparents established this church, and you're woefully unaware of anything going on outside of this tiny little bubble of Lutheranism, right?

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It's a dangerous thing. And in those kinds of churches, when somebody comes in from the outside, oh, be careful.

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Be careful. I warn people, if you ever attend a church like this, a Lutheran church, if you sit in somebody's pew, you are going to get in trouble.

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I'm sorry. Why are you sitting there? Who are you? That's Sister Martha's pew, right?

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Don't think for a second that you're saved just because your parents are Lutheran, and your grandparents are

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Lutheran, and you like Ludafisk. It doesn't work this way. What does he say?

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God is able to, well, raise up Lutherans from snowballs if he wants to.

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And so the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree, therefore, that does not bear good fruit, it's cut down and thrown into the fire.

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Repent! Are you guys starting to feel comforted now? Right, right?

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In fact, the Apostle Paul kind of makes that whole point in Romans chapter 9, talking about his fellow

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Jews. You know that in our day and age, the dispensationalists and many evangelicals, because of their wonky eschatology, they somehow think that God is going to do something super -de -duper special with Jews because, well, they're the people of God.

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Have you not read the Scriptures? Paul says this in Romans 9,

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I'm speaking the truth in Christ, I'm not lying. My conscience bears witness in the Holy Spirit that I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart, for I wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen according to the flesh.

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Think DNA here. They are Israelites. To them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, the promises.

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To them, the patriarchs, from their race according to the flesh is the Christ, who is God over all, blessed forever, amen.

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But it's not as though the word of God had failed, for not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel.

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And here we must pay attention to the Scripture. Only Israel is saved.

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And we, who are Gentiles, we are grafted into Israel.

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I don't know how the sorting hat worked out which clan you're going to be in, but the reality is we have all been grafted into Christ.

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Christ is the vine, we're the branches. He is the olive tree.

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We have all been cultivated and brought into that tree. And just because somebody is genetically

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Jewish doesn't give them an inside track with God. Same with Lutherans.

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Just because your parents are Lutherans doesn't give you an inside track with God. Paul says in Galatians chapter 3, if you are

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Christ's, if you are a Christian, then you are Abraham's offspring and you are heirs according to the promises.

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You see, as the text says, when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his son born of a woman, born under the law, in order to redeem those who were under the law so that we might receive adoption as sons.

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And because you are sons, God has sent the spirit of his son into our hearts, crying

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Abba Father. So repentance recognizes that we are sinners. We need to be saved.

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We need to be redeemed and the good news is that John the Baptist is preparing the way for the first advent of Christ and he shows up and by his death on the cross, he redeems us so that we all, regardless of whether we are

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German or Norwegian or Swede or wherever we come from, that we might all receive adoption as sons and we then are all

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Israel. And then, by the power of the Holy Spirit, having been forgiven our sins washed away, us being taken from slavery to sin, death, and the devil, and given the freedom that comes from being a child of God, we then bear fruit in keeping with repentance.

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And that good fruit shows up in our beliefs and what we believe. It shows up in our works and how we love and care for each other.

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And you'll note then that this time of the year, during these penitential seasons, it's a good time to well consider messages like John the

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Baptist and embrace the strengthening that he has given to us so that we can say, you know what, my good works are still not good enough.

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Now, not good enough, they'll never be good enough to save you. But the reality is that we all have room for improvement on loving each other, being kind to each other, building each other up and meeting each other's needs.

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Our prayers are not as strong as they ought to be. Our worship is not as zealous as it needs to be.

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We all fall short in so many ways. We do not nearly consider

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God's word as much as we ought to consider it and meditate on it and pray on it. And this is a time to recognize we need a little comforting.

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And this is the comforting of John the Baptist with a baculum. Get into the battle, right?

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Take that sin and knock it off. Get rid of it. Cast it aside and run the race that Christ has given you to run.

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Are you feeling comforted now? You should be. And that's kind of the point.

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So when we hear John the Baptist preach like this, it's easy for us to feel offended.

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But at the same time, we must recognize he's absolutely right.

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And he notes that in preparing the way of the Lord, he was the one who was baptizing with water for repentance.

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But now that Christ has come, we have all been baptized into Christ's death and into his resurrection.

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The very things that set us free from slavery to sin, death, and the devil. And Christ has given us his

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Holy Spirit when we were baptized. And it is true. Even like John the Baptist, we are not worthy to untie

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Christ's sandals, but yet he is the one who came to earth and humbled himself so much that not only did he, well, humble himself, but forget untying sandals, he actually washed feet.

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What a humble and merciful, kind, and loving Savior we have.

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And so, brothers and sisters, it is true. Christ is coming. He will come and he will shatter the nations.

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And with his winnowing fork, he will clear his threshing floor. And it is true.

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He will gather his wheat into his barn, and the chaff he will burn up with unquenchable fire.

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Let us then, by the power of the Holy Spirit, cast aside the chaff and recognize that Christ is the one who by grace has made us his wheat.

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And therefore, it is not befitting of wheat to behave in chaffy ways. Right? I'm glad you're here,

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Bruce. With all of that being said, comfort, comfort my people.

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Speak tenderly to Jerusalem and tell her that her warfare has ended, her iniquity is pardoned, and she has received from the

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Lord's hand double for all of her sins. And here, Christ is not promising that we would somehow receive double penalty for our sins.

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Instead, he has given us double grace. His grace is sufficient. His sacrifice is complete.

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There is nothing that you can add to it, and it is super abundant in forgiving you of all of your sins.

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Cast aside the works of darkness, repent. The kingdom of heaven is at hand. In fact,

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Jesus is here today because he's here where two or more are gathered, and we have that tangibly today when we feast upon the very body and blood of Christ, given and shed for the forgiveness of our sins.

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So it is true that we were all born brood of vipers. We were all of our mother, the devil.

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Absolutely true. And Christ is the one who has set us free and brought us into the true patriarchy of the kingdom of Christ so that we can be forgiven.

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And as it says in our Old Testament text today, that when Christ returns, that the thing that we have to look forward to is a world that is absolutely glorious, and it is a place that Christ promises is a place of rest.

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But today is not the day of rest. We are still at war, and we are all soldiers in that war.

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So let me grab John the Baptist's baculum and beat you guys to get back into the battle.

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In the name of Jesus, amen. We thank you for your support.

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