Assurance Amidst Terrifying Texts

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. Luke, the 21st chapter.

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Jesus said there will be signs in sun and moon and stars and on the earth the stress of nations in perplexity because of the roaring of the sea and the waves, people fainting with fear and with foreboding of what is coming on the world.

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For the powers of the heavens will be shaken and then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.

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Now when these things begin to take place, straighten up, raise your heads because your redemption is drawing near.

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And He told them a parable. Look at the fig tree and all the trees. As soon as they come out in leaf, you see for yourselves and know that summer is already near.

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So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that the kingdom of God is near. Truly I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all has taken place.

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Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away. But watch yourselves, lest your hearts be weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the cares of this life, and that day come upon you suddenly like a trap.

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For it will come upon all who dwell on the face of the whole earth. But stay awake at all times, praying that you may have strength to escape all these things that are going to take place and stand before the

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Son of Man. This is the gospel of the Lord. In the name of Jesus. So I'm becoming aware of something more and more.

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This is now, we're starting our third time through the one -year lectionary. And you're always told that Advent is a penitential season.

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But when I look at the readings for the one -year lectionary, which is the historic lectionary, one thing has become very clear is that the emphasis is really different than Lent.

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And one of the things I'm beginning to not like about the three -year lectionary is that they tried to turn

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Advent into Lent. But if this is a penitential season, then why on earth are these texts so comforting?

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Well, I would note this, that Advent, I think in its original iteration, was meant to be the penitential season where penitence was brought about by the kindness of God.

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It's God's kindness that leads us to repentance. And so as we work through some of these texts,

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I would note these themes, these texts, legitimately don't harass us in the ways that the

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Lenten texts do. And we rightly need to be harassed by God's law. We need to have God's law look us in the face and go, oh, man, you are not even close to measuring up.

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But that's not the vibe of Advent in its original iteration.

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And so let's take a look, starting at our Old Testament text. Now, I know that what I'm about to read is going to sound like it just takes everything away that I just said.

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But there's a but, okay? And the but is in verse 2, so keep that in mind. So the prophet

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Malachi writes, And you sit there and go, wait, didn't you just say these texts don't terrorize us?

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Remember, there's a but that starts the next sentence, right? So what's going on here? Well, what is going on here is a reminder for each and every one of us what

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Christ has set us free from, what he has delivered and redeemed us from. You'll note that liberals, and by liberals,

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I mean theological liberals, the woke version, the people who fly the rainbow flag during the month of June and other things like that in their churches, they are absolutely incensed that God has wrath.

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And I've read in their liberal texts that they are absolutely scandalized by the idea that Jesus' death on the cross saves us from God himself.

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But isn't that exactly what Jesus' death on the cross does? It saves us from the wrath of God.

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I'm not being saved from a bad hair day, okay? I'm not being saved from a hangnail.

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I'm not saved from being annoyed because my coffee was too cold or it didn't taste right.

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I'm being saved from nothing else than the wrath of God. And so we hear, when we hear this text, we see

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God's wrath is described in fiery terms and in terms of cutting off people root and branch and leaving them no remembrance, no progeny in the world to come.

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And here's the thing. You and I all know we have deserved this.

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Over and again, I am just shocked by people who legitimately think they're good.

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And it's like, where on earth did you come up with this idea? And the problem is is they're comparing themselves to other people.

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They compare themselves to their neighbors. They compare themselves to the prisoners in the prison system. They compare themselves to corrupt politicians and stuff like that.

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They compare themselves to P. Diddy and Jeffrey Epstein. They say, well, I'm a good person compared to them.

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But that's not the standard. The standard is the holy, righteous, just law of God.

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And when we look into His holy law, we recognize that each and every one of us, we have been evildoers.

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We have been arrogant, thinking that we know better than God. And so oftentimes when we read a text like this, that first verse, that first sentence could cause us a little bit of anxiety and a little bit of panic, and rightly so.

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But we're not here to focus on that because that's not our fate, because verse 2 begins with the word but.

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But for you who fear my name, you who trust in the promises of God, that for the sake of Jesus Christ, the one who bore your sin in His body on the cross, who suffered and died in your place, you who fear

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God and have repented of your sin, the sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings.

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And it's a beautiful picture. It's a little bit of a metaphor because it says S -U -N rather than S -O -N, and that's how the

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Hebrew reads. But this is a reference then to Christ's return in glory to judge the healed, judge everybody, right?

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That's the idea here. And when he returns in glory to judge the living and the dead, he will raise everybody from the dead.

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And you'll note, for everybody who dies in the Christian faith, trusting in Christ alone for their salvation, they will rise with Christ's healing on that day in new bodies that will last forever in a world without end.

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That's the idea. The wicked will also rise with bodies that do not die, but their fate is not the new earth.

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Their fate is the lake of fire. They will be left with no root or branch in the world to come.

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But the butt says, you, y 'all, you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wing.

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You shall go out leaping like calves from the stall. And you sit there and you go, how is this a penitential text?

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Real simple. It's God's kindness that leads us to repentance. And that's really the point.

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You see, we know that we've earned the first thing, but we are gifted the second, not because of anything that we've done, but because of God's great love for us.

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He so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

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And that includes you and I. You shall go out leaping like calves from the stall. The day that Jesus returns in glory, although it is a day of darkness and thick cloud and smoke and weeping and gnashing of teeth, it shall not be that experience for you.

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You will experience great, great joy. You shall tread down the wicked. They will be ashes under the soles of your feet, which means

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Christ himself would have already burned them up. On the day when I act, says the Lord of hosts.

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And then you have this little admonition. Remember the law of my servant

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Moses. And you sit there and go, why do I want to do that? Well, here's the thing.

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This is being written to people who are still living in this world. And this is where we have to embrace what the scriptures teach.

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And that is this, that the law of God is the law of perfect freedom.

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Sin is slavery. Sin is entrapment. Sin is to be driven hard by Satan into the fires of hell.

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Sin doesn't make you free. In fact, I would note this. Think back through your life, times when you have gone on a sinful bender, whatever that sin may have been.

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Do you look back on it and go, oh, man, those were the days of freedom? Or do you look back on them and say,

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I am so embarrassed and ashamed for what I've done? Right?

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So we have this admonition. Remember the law of my servant Moses and the statutes and the rules that I commanded at Horeb and for all of Israel.

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Remember them. These are the commandments that show us what our good works are. This shows us what it means to walk in freedom.

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And then God says these very interesting words through Malachi. Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the

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Lord comes. Now, the great and awesome day of the Lord is the day of judgment. But you'll note the Elijah he's referring to is none other than John the

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Baptist. And when he talks about repentance, I would note there's a lot of different ways to describe it, repentance.

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But I find it fascinating that God has Malachi prophesy regarding John the

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Baptist that he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers.

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That's what repentance looks like. Let me kind of work this out a little bit.

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What would parenting have looked like had we not fallen into sin?

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Think this through with me, right? The world we live in kind of works this way. If you are able, if you have a job that allows you to have your wife stay at home, the man leaves the house.

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He goes out into the world. He puts in his hours at his 40, 50, 60 hour a week job, which means those 40, 60 hours are away from his family.

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Who's with the children? The mother. So who gets the primary responsibility of raising the kids?

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Mom. But in a world without sin, we do not have to toil for our food.

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Both parents would have been in the home the entire time. They would not have been estranged.

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They would not get such little time with dad. In fact, dad being the head of the household would have taken the lead in raising the kids.

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And what a completely different world that would be if we had that, right? But what is the world that we live in?

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Dads are gone, sometimes because they have to pay the bills. Dads are gone because they check out and they disappear into video games.

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Dads are gone because they check out and they head out to the bar and dive into a bottle of booze and come back drunk and mean and abusive, right?

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Dads abandon their children. You think of what's going wrong in the United States in some of our greatest poverty -stricken areas.

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You have women who are bearing children by multiple fathers.

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And where's dad? Where are the dads? Nowhere to be seen. They just go about their merry way, making child after child after child.

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And of course, they were taken to court because they have to give money to raise, to be able to support those children.

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And they always refer to the woman as my baby mama, right?

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Not my wife. And so what does repentance look like here in this text?

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God turning the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers.

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What a wonderful world that would be, right? That's kind of the point.

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Lest I come and strike the land with a decree of utter destruction. God threatens to destroy the entire earth because fathers care nothing about their children.

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And what does that lead to? Just a compounding of sin? Hmm. Repentance indeed.

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Luke 21, our Gospel text, there's something similar going on here. Now let me explain it this way.

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In the book of Exodus, yeah, you got to think all the way back to the Exodus, right? The very famous ten plagues of Egypt, right?

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Beginning with water being turned into blood, the Nile and all the water of Egypt being turned into blood, and then culminating in the death of the firstborn at the

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Passover. These are some terrifying, scary signs of judgment. You know, from frogs coming up onto the land to there being darkness, hail that is coming down, golf ball size that's on fire.

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That's how the Scriptures describe it, right? Locusts and gnats and all kinds of things. This is terrible stuff.

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And you'll note that these great signs of judgment would cause anxiety for even the strongest of souls.

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But before God went and started swinging his judgment stick on Egypt, he had

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Moses deliver a message to the children of Israel. And it's very similar to Christ's message in our

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Gospel text. Here's what it says in Exodus 6, starting at verse 2. God spoke to Moses and said to him,

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I am Yahweh. I appear to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob as God Almighty. I also establish my covenant with them to give them the land of Canaan, the land in which they lived as sojourners.

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And moreover, I have heard the groaning of the people of Israel, whom the Egyptians hold as slaves, and I have remembered my covenant.

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Say therefore to the people of Israel, I am Yahweh, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the

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Egyptians. I will deliver you from slavery to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great acts of judgment.

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So, outstretched arm, great acts of judgment. God himself says, I'm going to redeem you.

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I'm going to set you free from slavery. I will take you to be my people. I will be your God.

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You shall know that I am Yahweh, your God, who has brought you out from under the burdens of the

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Egyptians. I will bring you to the land that I swore to give to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, and I will give it to you for a possession.

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I am Yahweh. It's very clear. God says,

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I'm going to act in great acts of judgment, and note this. Those acts of judgment are not focused on you,

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Israel. They are focused on the Egyptians who hold you in slavery, and I am redeeming you through them.

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Fast forward into our gospel text today from Luke's account of the Olivet Discourse. Jesus says there will be signs in the sun, the moon, the stars, and on earth, distresses of nations in perplexity because of the roaring of the sea and the waves, people fainting with fear and with foreboding of what is coming upon the world.

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For the powers of the heavens will be shaken, and then they will see the

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Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. Now, this all sounds terrifying, but this is similar to what

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God had Moses tell the people of Israel before he began to act in his judgment.

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Jesus is doing the same. When you see these things taking place, where the sun no longer shines with its current brilliance, the moon is darkened, the stars fall from the sky, and the earth is in distress.

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Even the sea is roaring and things like this, and people on earth are in complete panic, fainting with fear and foreboding of what is coming on the world.

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Note, then, the Christian who's read the words of Christ, the

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Christian who has Christ's words preached into their ears, the Christian who understands that Jesus loves us so much that he has prepared us in advance so that when he begins to act in judgment against sinful, rebellious humanity and even the earth itself, that we are not to faint with foreboding.

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Instead, Jesus says these words. Now, when these things begin to take place, you straighten up, raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.

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So when the sun stops shining and the stars fall from the sky, go grab a good bottle of scotch.

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Pour yourself a drink, sit on your porch, and look up to the sky, because it's just a little bit of time before Christ shows up.

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And if scotch is not your thing, well, whatever your favorite beverage is, right?

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You get the point. While everybody else is running around with their hair on fire and people fainting all over the place in the world in a complete panic, and the crawl on Fox News and CNN is going so fast you can't even read it because everybody's losing their minds, you know that Jesus is just about here.

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And everything that we are experiencing, slavery to sin, the dominion of darkness, the wages of our sin, oh, people just behaving in complete foolish and rebellious ways against God, all of that is being brought to an end, and there is a world coming where there is no end, there is no sin, there is no death, there is no pain, and Christ himself will wipe away every tear from our eyes, so indeed raise up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.

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I don't feel like Jesus is terrifying us here again. And again, it's

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God's kindness that leads us to repentance, because you'll note we didn't earn our redemption,

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Christ gifted us with it. And so Jesus then gives a parable. Look at the fig tree.

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There are no fig trees in Minnesota. I haven't yet to see one. I don't think they would grow here very well.

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So thankfully, Jesus said, and all the trees. Yeah, we have those too. He says, as soon as they come out and leave, you see for yourselves and know that summer is already near.

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Now a little bit of a note. Remember the cold snap we just had? I've been having to run my humidifiers in my house, which is ridiculous.

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I mean, on average, I'm pumping eight gallons of water into my house during the winter every single day, and when it's like 30 below,

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I'm putting 11 gallons into my house, and it's still dry. Got to figure out how to get this thing to stop leaking.

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But I looked at my wife the other day while I was filling up the humidifiers, and I said, honey, we only have six months to go.

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She's all, we're almost there. Because when do the trees here put their buds out?

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May. May. There's been a couple of years that we've been here where on my birthday, the trees still hadn't put their leaves out, and my birthday is the second week of May.

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Just saying. So it's fascinating when this all happens. But Jesus' point is this. So when you see all of these signs, that's kind of the point.

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When you see these signs taking place, you know that the kingdom of God is near. Finally, the kingdom of God will be on the earth visibly forever and ever and ever, and we never have to go through an election like we just went through or anything.

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Truly, I say to you, this generation, the generation that sees these signs, will not pass away until all this has taken place.

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Now, next statement. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.

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Stop and consider the implications of what that sentence is meaning here. I want you to think about this.

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This is another comforting thing that Jesus tells us, that even though the earth and the heavens give way and they're destroyed, his words will not pass away.

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Why is that important? Because his words will always stand for eternity as a testimony to the fact that God has kept all of his promises.

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Ever thought that, you know, will God get bored with us after we've been there for 10 ,000 years?

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Right? We sing in that hymn, when we've been there 10 ,000 years, bright shining as the sun, we know less days to sing

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God's praise than when we first begun. But my little wicked mind sits there and goes, yeah, but in the year 10 ,001,

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God said, this is boring, and decides to just get rid of us and start all over.

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No way. Because God's word will not pass away, there will never be a time when it will not stand as a testimony to his faithfulness, to the fact that he keeps all of his promises.

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We can look for all of eternity and say, we are here because God forgave us.

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And his mercy is new every morning, even into the new earth, and he will never tire of us, nor will he ever change his mind and send us to where we really belong.

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His word endures and will not pass away. And this comforts us as well.

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So he says then, watch yourselves. You know, the world that we live in is wicked.

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Have you noticed that in our lifetime, in the last decade, there's been notable

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Christians who've gone about and deconstructed their faith, and they're no longer

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Christians? I would say that seems to be a predominant problem among the self -righteous, but it's also a predominant problem among people who call themselves

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Christian musicians and things like this. They've deconstructed their faith. I would note when

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Barb and I went to, what was that, our 20th?

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When we went to our 20th high school reunion, after 20 years, we went to a

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Christian school. And when people were reacquainting themselves with each other, having not seen each other since high school, the question that was always asked, and even asked of me and asked of Barb, with kind of a hushed tone, are you still a

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Christian? There were plenty of people who said no, not anymore.

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And I want you to think about this. The world we live in is wicked, and the people who seem to always get the upper hand are the wicked.

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Again, if you don't believe me, think of Jeffrey Epstein. How long did that man go on in his wickedness?

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And he was considered one of the most powerful people on planet Earth. What about P. Diddy? Powerful, powerful person.

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What about all the people who are in his orbit or Epstein's orbit? Were they not powerful, powerful, powerful people?

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And there was all these rumors that this kind of stuff was going on, that there was some kind of thing going on with abuse of children in ways that cannot be mentioned from pulpits.

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P. Diddy and by Epstein. And everybody said, oh, that's just a conspiracy theory. It's a conspiracy theory.

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You right -wingers are nuts, right? But it turned out to all be true.

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And so the world we live in is legitimately wicked. And we have a saying. The saying goes like this.

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If you can't beat them, join them. What benefit is there to being a Christian? What benefit is there to doing it

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God's way, right? Because, you know, doing things God's way oftentimes requires you to make serious, painful sacrifices for other people, your children, your spouse, people at your job.

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And you never seem to get ahead, do you, right? So what's the point of being a

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Christian? That's kind of the thing that Jesus is saying here. So watch yourselves. Watch yourselves.

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The world is deceitful and wicked, so don't be weighed down. And he says three things.

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With dissipation, drunkenness, and the cares of this life. Dissipation in this context is probably referring to wanton sexual immorality.

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Drunkenness, we all know what that is. But then there's this other one, the cares of this life. Don't we all have cares in this life that we need to tend to?

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But the point that Christ is making is that each and every one of this constitutes a form of idolatry.

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Where rather than looking to the good things that we need from God, we decide we're going to figure out what those good things are for ourselves, and then those things become our little deities.

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Sexual immorality, drunkenness, the cares of this life, the list could go on. And so Jesus' point is this, is that when you slip into that kind of idolatry, when you deconstruct your

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Christian faith and basically says, I can't beat him, so I'm going to join him, then here's the problem.

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You're no longer focused on Christ and his word, and there is a real possibility, in fact a high probability, that when

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Jesus shows up that that day will come upon you suddenly like a trap because you're completely distracted.

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Jesus says this because he knows full well just how deceitful and seductive the world is.

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He's been tempted in every way that you and I have been tempted and is without sin. But he says this, it will come upon all who dwell on the face of the whole earth, so stay awake at all times.

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And to stay awake is to stay in the faith, to keep coming and hearing the word of God, to keep coming and confessing that you are a sinner and that you are unclean and unworthy of the gifts that God has given you and that you've sinned against him in thought, word, and deed, and hear the absolution and believe that the word of Christ says that you are forgiven.

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It means coming and receiving the body and blood of Jesus Christ, given and shed for the forgiveness of your sins.

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It is through these means that God continues to sustain our faith and keep us awake.

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In this context, then, the word of God, the praises of God, the absolution from Christ, and the body and blood of Christ, they are a high -energy drink, even stronger than coffee.

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They keep our faith awake. And then Jesus adds to this, praying, praying that you may have strength.

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And you'll note, none of us has the strength in and of ourselves to combat the devil, the world, or even our own sinful flesh.

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So we must humble ourselves and continue to ask God that we may have strength to escape all these things that are going to take place and that he would give us the ability to stand before the

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Son of Man on the day of judgment. So, brothers and sisters, we know what we must do.

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And you'll note here that Jesus isn't browbeating us. He's comforting us. And it's his kindness that leads us to repentance.

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And in this context, then, we consider just a portion of our epistle text. Paul writes in Romans 15, a chapter that very few people ever seem to get to or focus on, but yet it is the primary epistle reading for this

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Sunday. Paul writes, whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, so that through endurance and through the encouragement of the

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Scriptures, we might have hope. Now, that is a wonderful sentence. And the reason why it is wonderful is because you'll note that Paul knows full well that Christianity is not a sprint.

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It's not even a marathon. It is a long -distance, multi -year, practically a generation -long endurance race, and you don't have what it takes to endure this life as a

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Christian. So that we need endurance, and we need endurance so that we might have hope, and the

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Scriptures were written for us in order that we would have endurance and have hope. And then he gives a little bit of a prayer.

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May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another, in accord with Christ Jesus, that together you may with one voice glorify the

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God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. You see, brothers and sisters, we don't have what it takes.

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We don't have the strength to endure, and we don't even have the ability to encourage ourselves because of just how far short we fall.

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But God is the God of endurance. He is the one who gifts you with faith.

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He is the one who has gifted you with the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit is the one who gives you the strength to endure, and he wants you to know that he is doing that so that you might have hope.

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Because this world is hopeless. We're all heading to the grave or the return of Christ.

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This whole thing is coming apart. You and I are coming apart. So then note, we need to pray to the

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God of endurance that he would give us endurance so that we might have hope and that we with one voice would continue to glorify

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Christ Jesus. So brothers and sisters, be encouraged. Look at the kindness of Christ.

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Look at his comforting, soothing words spoken to you in our text during this penitential season, and note you don't deserve a single one of them, and yet it is

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God's kindness that leads us to repentance. So let us stand tall and look because our redemption draws near.

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In the name of Jesus, amen. If you would like to support the teaching ministry of Kungsinger Lutheran Church, you can do so by sending a tax -free donation to Kungsinger Lutheran Church, 15950 470th

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Avenue NW, Oslo, MN 56744 And again that address is

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Kungsinger Lutheran Church, 15950 470th

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Avenue NW, Oslo, MN 56744 We thank you for your support.

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