Negotiating Peace Terms with the Devil

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.

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Mark chapter 4 verses 26 through 34 Jesus said the kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground

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He sleeps and rises night and day and the seed sprouts and grows and he knows not how

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The earth produces it by itself first the blade then the ear and the full grain in the ear but when the grain is ripe at once he puts in the sickle because the harvest has come and he said

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With what can we compare the kingdom of God or what parable shall we use for it? It's like a grain of mustard seed which when sown on the ground is the smallest of all the seeds on the earth

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Yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes larger than all the garden plants and puts out

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Large branches so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade With many such parables

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Jesus spoke the word to them as they were able to hear it And he did not speak to them without a parable, but privately in to his own disciples.

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He explained everything This is the gospel of the Lord in the name of Jesus All right

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So Jesus has begun to preach in parables and contrary to what some people believe The reason why

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Jesus is preaching in parables is not so that everybody will understand him It's so that certain people will not understand him at all as we read in the gospel of Matthew Jesus says that he preaches parables so that people may be ever hearing but never understanding seeing but never perceiving

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Which means we have to do a little decoding work when we work our way through the parables

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Now that being the case I would point out that the meaning of these parables is actually quite simple not too difficult to Understand and let me explain all you have to do is recognize that the seed referred to here is the

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Word of God So the two parables go this way The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground

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He sleeps and rises night and day the seed sprouts and grows The earth produces by itself first the blade then the ear then the full grain in the air

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But when the grain is ripe at once he puts in the sickle because the harvest has come

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Think of it this way in its simplest form This parable is merely saying and not merely but this is exactly what it means that the kingdom of God Advances through the preaching of the

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Word of God in the same way that a crop is produced in a harp in a field When the farmer sows good seed that seed produces

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Whatever fruit it is supposed to and that's what the Word of God does But also

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Jesus says this parable He said with what can we compare the kingdom of God or what parable shall we use for it?

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It's like a grain of a mustard seed now compared to avocado seeds, which are quite impressive Mustard seeds are the exact opposite mustard seeds are tiny minuscule.

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They are unimpressive. They are well They have no worth at least it seems on the surface

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So it's like a grain of mustard seed in which when sown on the ground is the smallest of all the seeds on the earth

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And yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes larger than all the garden plants and puts out large Branches so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade

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It seems pretty straightforward the Word of God Grows the kingdom the

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Word of God Produces a harvest the Word of God at the surface if you were to judge it by earthly standards looks

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Unimpressive small despised and lowly. I mean, that's all there is to it.

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We can go home now let's consider then this parable in light of a very present reality and That is is that the

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Word of God is under attack today and of all places the visible church in fact the son of Charles Stanley, he's a very famous preacher by the name of Andy Stanley.

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He is set out on a quest to Rescue Christianity from the scriptures.

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He believes that the Bible is the thing that is keeping people away from Actually growing the kingdom keeping them away from Jesus because you know

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The Bible teaches these really offensive and kind of weird doctrines like, you know God created the world in six days and everybody knows that our great -grandparents were actually monkeys in age

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Right, and then of course it teaches that Jesus, you know walked on the water rose from the grave

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You know those kind of miracles who would believe that in a scientific post -modern age that we live in Of course

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It teaches that Moses led the children of Israel out of Egypt right through the Red Sea on dry ground

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As God parted the waters and if everybody knows nothing like that as possible so we must rescue

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Christianity from the embarrassment of God's Word and This attack on God's Word in the visible church has been going on for a long long time

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It is at the very heart of the reason why so many churches have decided to abandon what

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God so clearly says regarding morality And instead are embracing transgenderism homosexuality

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Women pastors and other things what is at the heart of it is a complete embarrassment regarding the

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Word of God Now to help us understand the real state that we find us in let me engage in a little bit of historical

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Innovation if you would I want you to pretend for a moment that we're not living in 2018 in Oslo, Minnesota.

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I would instead say that we are living in 1941

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Oslo Norway and if you know your history

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Oslo Norway in 1941 was occupied by the Nazis and after the

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Nazi occupation of Norway, let's just pretend for a second that the pastor of Kongsvinger Lutheran Church was asked to have a meeting with the

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Gestapo and The SS and the SS and the Gestapo have basically instructed me along these lines

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That if we would like to continue having Lutheran Church services and preaching the word, they're all for it

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However, we're going to have to be willing to make some concessions in order for there to be peace

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Concession number one. I must never as the pastor of Kongsvinger say that Jesus is

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Jewish We must get rid of this idea that Jesus is the king of the

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Jews that has got to go Oh, and we must not speak out against any of the Führer's policies

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Especially his extermination of the Jews We must not preach against murder or violence or anything like that.

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In fact any biblical text that is contrary to official Nazi Policy Must not be preached from this pulpit.

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Oh and by the way We're gonna need to replace the cross with the swastika.

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And if we do these things we can live peacefully With the Nazis show of hands everyone in favor say aye

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You see the problem, right? You see in that context you recognize that Hitler and the

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Nazis being one of the ultimate evils that has ever ever stained the pages of human history with the blood of six million

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Jews on their hand to Somehow try to negotiate a peace with them where they get to dictate terms to us by which we can have peace

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We recognize that that's offensive and sinful but the reality of the situation is is that we are actually at war and The tyrant that we are at war with He wants us to do that exact same thing

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To make peace with him and in order to make peace with him We need to shut up be quiet put away the

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Word of God at certain points and stop Bucking his tyrannical rule and so many

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Christians Willingly Make peace with this tyrant.

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Let me explain who he is strange text to go to in this context But Revelation chapter 12 if you'll turn there with me

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I'd like to tell you a story and it's this kind of story that will give you nightmares my apologies in advance

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This may not be safe for tiny little children But here's what Scripture says

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Revelation chapter 12 verse 1 a great sign appeared in heaven a woman clothed with the

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Sun With the moon under her feet and on her head a crown of 12 stars

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She was pregnant and was crying out in birth pains in the agony of giving birth and another sign in heaven appeared behold a great red

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Dragon with seven heads and ten horns on his heads seven diadems

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That by the way is our great enemy the tyrant that I was referring to He's depicted here as a seven headed dragon sounds something akin to a hydra

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But see that's kind of the thing is is that when you realize this kind of put the dots together this way

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Have you ever noticed how it is so strange? That those who reject the

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Word of God can seem to work together with other people who reject the Word of God and Yet they seem that they should be at odds with each other, but they're not like social justice warriors today

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Defending Islam. It makes no sense because Islam well, they

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Execute homosexuals and social justice warriors are all about You know the the rights of those who want to engage in same -sex behaviors

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How is it that they can work with Islam and coexist with them and seem to be promoting them answer?

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Social justice warriors are one head Islam is another head both of them are connected to the same body the body of the dragon

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This is what scripture is teaching The devil manifests with multiple heads around the world and they are all united in one thing and listen to what it says his tail by the way swept down a third of the stars of heaven cast them to earth and This is important for us to recognize that we find ourselves in a war and This war has been going on for thousands of years and it has its origins

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Somewhere in the heavenly kingdom where a Angel a beautiful angel who stood in the very presence of God decided to lead the very first coup d 'etat in all of history and this evil diabolical self -centered tyrannical evil

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Convinced a third of the angels of heaven to join him in his revolt. This is not mythology. This is history and A third of the angels were swept out of heaven by the tail of the dragon by participating with them

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They were sent to earth and those angels became what we call the demons today

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This is again not some fanciful strange mythological tale This is literally the story we find ourselves in the dragon stood before the woman and here we get an interesting picture

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The Virgin Mary in type and shadow and kind of weird mysterious Allegory becomes a picture of the month

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She becomes like the mother of the church and it kind of makes sense if you think about it But you don't want to push it so far where you end up worshiping

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Mary. That's not the point of this text. So the woman Who was about to give birth so, you know, the dragon was there stood before the woman

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She was about to give birth so that when she bore the child the dragon might devour it She gave birth to a male child one who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron

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But her child was caught up to God and his throne and the woman fled in the wilderness Where she has a place prepared by God in which she is now

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She which is to be nourished for twelve hundred and sixty days now war rose in heaven Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon and the dragon as angels fought back and He the devil the dragon was defeated.

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There was no longer any place for them in heaven So after Christ's ascension the devil is cast down and the great dragon was thrown down the ancient serpent

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Who's called the devil and Satan the deceiver of the whole world? Yeah, that's it seems to be his office

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He was thrown down to the earth his angels were thrown down with him and I heard a loud voice in heaven saying now the

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Salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down who accuses them day and night before our

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God and They have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony For they love not their lives even unto death therefore rejoice

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Oh heavens and you who dwell in them, but woe to you Oh earth and sea for the devil has come down to you and listen to these words in great wrath

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Because he knows his time is short Take the most insane sociopathic creature on earth because that's where the devil is

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Knowing that his time is short. He is acting in great wrath It's like Hitler unhinged to the max and He's not waging war merely against Western Europe He's waging war against the entire world and particularly we'll see in a second the

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Saints The text continues when the dragon saw that he'd been thrown down to the earth

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He pursued the woman who had given birth to the male child But the woman was given the two wings of the great eagle so that she might fly from the serpent into the wilderness

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To the place where she is to be nourished for a time and times and half a time Serpent poured water like a river out of his mouth after the woman to sweep her away with a flood

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But the earth came to the help of the woman and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed the river That the dragon had poured forth in his mouth.

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Then the dragon became Furious with the woman and went off to listen to this make war on the rest of her

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Offspring on those who keep the commandments of God and hold to the testimony of Jesus and he stood on the sand

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Of the sea Find it fascinating that it took the

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United Kingdom a little bit of time to come to grips with the fact that after Hitler invaded

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France and Belgium and Holland that they were at war and There was no way to negotiate with Hitler brothers and sisters.

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We are at war We have been at war since before you and I were even conceived in our mother's wombs

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And unfortunately because of the devil's deceit and the fall of our first parents each and every one of us

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We were actually born on the side of the devil You may as well have wrapped us in the swastika as little babies as that being our swaddling clothes because that's literally what we were we were on that side and God by his grace

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Through the baptismal waters that we were united to Christ and through the preaching of the gospel and his word

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He has raised us from the grave and transferred us. We learned from Colossians from the dominion of darkness into the kingdom of his glorious light

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All of this by grace through faith But notice here the text says the dragon has decided in his fury and his wrath to make war

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Against you Now as trite as this might sound

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What do you call a person who finds themselves in a war in a battle who fails to?

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Recognize that they are in a war and in a battle you call that person a casualty and Unfortunately, there are many

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Christians today who are casualties Because they fail to recognize the very danger that they are in and They fail to recognize the deceit the wrath the fury and the ultimate evil of the devil

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And so the devil comes to us today through his emissaries and the devil says to us put that Bible away

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Stop preaching God's Word. Nobody wants to hear that anymore. It's not relevant

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If you want to grow the church You have to tell people what they want to hear and they don't want to hear about a crucified

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Jewish fellow Who rose from the grave they need? Important things like how to parent their children better how to you know

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Have influence and affluence and find their purpose and nonsense like this and all too many

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Pastors they give in to this and they negotiate with the devil

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The peace terms by which they can live peaceably with the world, but Jesus says the world hated me

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Therefore the world's gonna hate you if you want peace with the world. You're not in the right religion

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You need to join a false one because the world hates Christ and The world and the devil want you to put that Bible away and there's a simple reason why?

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Look at the armor of God In Ephesians, it lists out all of the kit that goes with the armor of God We don't won't review it in its entirety here but you're gonna note we get all kinds of defensive weapons and we get a shield and a helmet and something for our feet

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But we only get one weapon Literally one and it's not a spear

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It's a sword It's the sword of the Spirit the Word of God and every soldier who claims to be a soldier of Christ who says

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I'm going to put the Bible away is a soldier without a weapon and isn't it fascinating that in the annals of human history

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Every single time an army has laid down their weapons

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It was when they were either defeated or they were surrendering put away the

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Word of God and you are a soldier who's waved the white flag and Said I surrender and we are tempted to do this in all kinds of ways because we all know

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You say something on social media that God's Word says They I don't know who they are because it's always somebody a little bit different They are gonna come out of the woodwork and they are gonna accuse you of being an unloving hateful bigoted racist homophobic rube and that you are the bane of the whole earth and you don't even have a right to exist and I'm gonna

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Report you to social media. So they're gonna block you and get you off because you have no right to be communicating these things

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You know that's gonna happen to you, right? So, you know what we do Fine, we won't

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Say the truth and when you've done that you've agreed to have the swastika on your altar and it's a sin and I would note that in the book of Revelation Scripture is very clear on the day of judgment.

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The first to be judged are the cowards. It's no way around it

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You're at war. You can't change this fact You want to switch sides go ahead It won't go well for you on the day of judgment

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But laying down your weapon is not an option The kingdom of God only advances through the word faith comes by hearing hearing by the word of Christ So don't let the tyrant the devil

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Convince you that you can be at peace with him by laying down the one weapon that you have

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You must speak the truth You must tell people about Jesus that requires you to say this is a sin

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This is not right. This is evil and wrong and you need to repent and Christ has bled and died for those sins

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But we are all too tempted to just put it away to hide it Maybe we need a pastor who isn't gonna rock the boat

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Say things that might alert the media that you know Backwards and upside down and inside out we are over here

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Maybe you don't we don't want that kind of attention So we'll get a pastor who will just tell us niceties and from the pulpit

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We'll preach things that sound a lot like Hallmark greeting cards empty

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Platitudes talk about sunshine and rainbows and bunnies. I like bunnies, but we don't have that luxury

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Scripture is very clear 2nd Timothy chapter 3 Paul writing to young pastor.

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Timothy says this Verse 14 as for you young pastor

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Timothy Continue in what you've learned and I firmly believed Knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings

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Which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus all scripture is

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Theanoustos beautiful word breathed out by God All scripture, it's profitable for teaching for a proof for correction for training and righteousness so that the man of God may be complete equipped for every good work

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So I charge you then in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus who's to judge the living and the dead and by his appearing in his kingdom

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Preach the word Be ready in season and out of season

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Which means that there will come a time Like today when preaching the word is out of season in of all places the visible church

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Congregation after congregation claiming allegiance to Christ will not be so keen on hearing

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God's Word But you preach in season and out of season reprove

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Rebuke. Oh who wants to do that? You can't do that. That's negative. That's politically incorrect. Oh and exhort with complete patience and doctrine

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For the time is coming and I would say and now is when people will not and do not endure sound doctrine

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Instead having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions

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Mm -hmm, and they will turn away from listening to the truth And they will wander off in the myths

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He's not talking about the world He's talking about the visible church And that brothers and sisters is happening today is an absolute myth that God blesses same -sex marriage

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It's an absolute myth that God did not create two genders that there's now 572 of them and we need to somehow adjust our language accordingly

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It's an absolute myth that God ordains women to be pastors. It's an absolute myth that God is okay with Adultery with murder with lying and stealing and coveting.

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These are myths But as for you to Timothy be sober minded endure

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Suffering which is what we're called to do do the work of evangelist fulfill your ministry and this only happens then through the preached

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Word of God The Apostle Paul in correcting one of the many errors of the

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Church of Corinth Which was a church that was really dysfunctional and screwed up, which I think gives us all hope

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But they were engaging in the silly behavior there They had set up this kind of cult of personality and the church was dividing up over this

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See some in the Church of Corinth were saying I followed Paul and then there was an evangelist

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Who it looks like may have actually may had made it to the ministry and became the pastor of The church in Corinth and his name was

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Apollos and some were saying well I follow Paul and others were saying I follow Apollos, which is silly

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Okay, which is silly you don't follow Chris Rose, bro. You don't follow

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John MacArthur. You don't follow name the preacher cults of personality are

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A bad thing and so Paul correcting them in 1st Corinthians 3 says this verse 1 brothers

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Listen, I could not address you as spiritual people instead. I had to But as people of the flesh you were literally just infants in Christ So I fed you with milk not solid food for you're not ready for it

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Even now are you not you're not yet ready for you're still of the flesh. There's jealousy and strife among you

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Are you not of the flesh and behaving only in a human way For one one says I follow

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Paul and another I follow Apollos. Are you not being merely human? It's a pretty firm rebuke and yet at the same time

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Kind in its delivery and then Paul says this what is Apollos? What is

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Paul? Yeah, and then he says this slaves That's who they are they're slaves they're servants through whom you believed as the

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Lord assigned to each and then watch this I Planted Apollos watered

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It was God who gave the growth and see that's how the

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Word of God how the kingdom of God grows one person takes the Word of God and sows it like seed in an open field and Then another comes along and waters those seeds

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But then he says this so neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything It is only

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God who gives the growth You see the greater is the one who does the real work and that's God He causes the growth he who plants and he who waters are one each will receive his wages according to his labor

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For we are God's fellow workers. Keep that phrase in mind for next week, by the way important You see when we preach the word and we tell people about Jesus we confront them with their sin

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Call them to repentance and tell them the good news that God is in Christ Reconciling the world to himself and that he will not count these sins against you because Jesus has bled and died for your sins

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So repent and believe that we in doing that are now fellow workers with God He's doing all the heavy lifting though He's doing all the miraculous work and you are

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God's field You are God's building So brothers and sisters think of it this way

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Let us again repent of the sin of cowardice the sin of being willing to negotiate terms with the ultimate dictator whoever

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Existed from the beginning of human history until now The one who is at war with us and in great wrath and fury is

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Destroying the church and convincing people to lay down their weapons Let us repent of being tempted along those lines of also

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Capitulating to the devil and let us again Receive the mercy given to us in Christ Because as our epistle text says we who are in Christ are a new creation

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The oldest past the new has come He has even bled and died for your cowardice nus for your willingness to lay down the only weapon and He himself is merciful and kind and will not hold that sin against you so repent be forgiven

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Christ has bled and died for your cowardly ways and Then bear fruit in keeping with repentance by recognizing that the kingdom of God advances

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Through the teaching and the preaching and the proclamation of the Word of God Stand your ground

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Raise the shield of faith to extinguish the flaming darts of the evil one. Do not make peace with him there will be no swastika on our altar and If it means losing your life, so be it worse things have happened worse things have happened and Let us thank

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God that this word that Jesus describes as lowly and despised as a mustard seed

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Growing even to this day and then when he appears this lowly mustard seed

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The plant that was planted will grow so large it'll fill the whole earth and We who are already resting in the shade of Jesus's shed blood for us

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We'll see him face to face and enter our eternal rest forever

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Making our nests in that wonderful kingdom that he has built by such a small and despised seed in the name of Jesus Amen If you would like to support the teaching ministry of Kungsvinger Lutheran Church You can do so by sending a tax -free donation to Kungsvinger Lutheran Church 159 50 470th

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Avenue Northwest Oslo, Minnesota 567 4 4 and again that address is

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Kungsvinger Lutheran Church 159 5 0 470th