Book of Nehemiah Part 6

We're going to pray and then we're going to get started first with a question regarding the Athanasian Creed which by the way is a good

question that comes up frequently but let's pray.

Lord Jesus again as we open up your word we ask your Holy Spirit to help us to rightly understand what you have revealed so that we may

properly believe, confess and do according to your holy word we ask in Jesus name.

Amen.

Okay so here's a question that comes up.

Did you notice the last few bits of the Athanasian Creed?

Now we Lutherans we believe in salvation by grace through faith alone, right?

You are not saved by your works.

So when you confess the Athanasian Creed it says this at stanza 38,.

At his coming all people will rise again with their bodies, give an account

concerning their own deeds.

Those who have done good will enter into eternal life, those who have done evil into eternal fire.

This is the Catholic faith, whoever does not believe it faithfully and firmly cannot be saved.

So you see those words?

Those who have done good will enter into eternal life, those who have done evil into eternal fire.

Doesn't that mean that we're saved by our works?

No.

And here's the reason why.

I'll explain this to you biblically.

But when we talk about creeds, there are three ecumenical

creeds.

There is the Apostles Creed, the Nicene Creed, and the Athanasian Creed.

Now creeds are true because they say the

same thing as the Bible, right?

If a creed says something different than the Bible, is that a good creed?

If I were to say, I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of cheese pizzas,

pepperoni, and also he loves

bacon and pineapple.

Would that be a good creed?

No.

No.

So you know, no scripture talks about God making pizza.

And of course, there is no official ruling from scripture on whether or not

the origin of pineapple pizza is Mordor or Paradise.

It's unclear on this.

And I know for some people that pineapple pizza is anathema.

I get it.

I understand these things, right?

But as far as I'm concerned, nothing rises to the level of kale.

So, you know, given the choice between pineapple pizza and kale, pineapple

pizza will win every single time.

Do not put kale on pizza.

No, please do not ruin pizza with kale.

Holy smokes.

Yes, sir.

Yeah.

Right.

Uh -huh.

Yeah.

Regarding the Trinity, that is absolutely true.

You know, and it gives a very good description of how the Bible describes it.

There's one God, three persons.

They have unity of substance, but there is different persons.

And so we can say that the Father is Lord, the Son is Lord, the Holy Spirit is Lord, but there is not three Lords.

There's only one Lord.

But here's the question then, okay?

What do we do with this last bit?

Those who have done good will enter eternal life, and those who have done evil into the eternal fire.

The answer is actually simple.

Find the biblical text that is behind this statement.

And I happen to know where it is, all right?

So let's take a look at the biblical text behind this, and we're going to put it into context.

The biblical text behind that statement is found in the Gospel of John chapter 5.

Now, I'm going to back up into the context because I want you to see what Jesus says.

And when you put this back into its context, it's going to define for us biblically

how the ancient church understood what it means to do good

as opposed to doing evil because Christ is the one who defines those terms.

So John chapter 5 verse 24.

Truly, truly, I say to you, Jesus is saying,

Now, I want you to think about this for a second.

Now, does this mean that Christians are not judged?

No, it just means that we don't face a judgment where eternal wrath is at stake.

We've already been declared not guilty.

Isn't that what the absolution is about?

When we're judged, we're judged by virtue of the fact that we will have Christ look

through the record of our good works and reward us for them.

But the record of debt that stood against us, it's gone.

It's been canceled.

Debt paid in full.

There is no record of your sin that Christ will look at on the day of judgment.

So, you know, I always like to put it this way.

Let me give you another cross -reference here so that you can kind of see how this works.

In the book of Colossians chapter 2, one of my favorite passages that

talks about the gospel.

And watch what it says.

See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy.

Recently, by the way, just to bring you up to speed because this has everything to do with what I'm talking about here because we're going to talk about philosophy.

I think I've mentioned the fact that I've been debating combating actual fascists and things like

this.

We had a meeting this week at El Gordito.

And as part of that meeting, we were spitballing a new language to describe this group of people that

we're fighting that are legitimate fascists.

And we came up with the phrase for them, the Bud Reich.

Okay.

So, we are doing battle against the Bud Reich.

And it's just the perfectly—it's the perfect wrong rhetoric to use.

It's just—it's too good to not use it.

But some of the members of the Bud Reich, they are making claims like this.

That men and women are ontologically different.

And because they claim—and I'm making this up—they argue that women are

the—that wives are the property of their husbands and that girls are the property of their fathers until

they're married off.

Okay.

And they argue that this—partly the reason why this is true because women are ontologically different

than men.

Now, I would note we're not interchangeable.

That's for sure.

But what they—one of their supporters ended up writing an extensive article that was posted on a

very, very normally decent Lutheran website

arguing how there is an ontological difference between men and women.

But here's the issue.

The article didn't quote any scripture.

It quoted Aristotle.

Right.

Okay.

So if you're going to try to make the case that men and women are ontologically different and you're going to try

to make that case in the context of Lutheran theology, you had better have a Bible opened.

Okay.

Aristotle has nothing to say to us.

It has to do with isness.

Okay.

Okay.

Ontologically speaking, it has to do with your very being itself, the isiness of isness.

Okay.

That's how I was taught what ontology means.

You're sitting there going, well, that didn't clear anything up.

It was never meant to.

Okay.

It's the nature of being.

That's really what it has to come down to.

It has to do with how you are.

Now, did we not hear in our Old Testament text that God created us, male and female, in the

image of God?

Are we not both created in the image of God?

Yes.

Okay.

In Christ, are we not all equal before God?

Yes.

We are.

Okay.

You're going to note that although we are different, I don't know how to explain this to

you, other than to say that I recently saw the cover of a very well -known magazine where they had a

trans person who was biologically female, but

wears the crew cut hair kind of thing, and the claim is that this

person is a male who is pregnant.

This just makes no sense at all.

It's just stupid beyond all belief.

Okay.

Let me be clear on this.

I'm a male.

I'm a man.

I will never give birth.

It's just not possible.

In fact, if you look at human history, males giving birth

to children from the beginning until last week, that

never existed.

Oh, that's just your truth.

That's just my truth.

Am I able to file my truth under my taxes?

You know, that's a good question.

Can I just use my truth to determine what I should pay in my taxes?

I really would like to do that.

I'd like to see that.

The IRS are the biggest bigots on earth.

You don't think the IRS would be keen if I said my truth says that you guys owe me this year, not the other way around?

But that's my truth.

I'm having a hard time selling this here, guys.

All that being said, philosophy has nothing to say to us.

I hate to say it.

When it comes to Christian doctrine, if it's not in the Bible, it's not theology.

So see to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit according to human tradition, according to the elemental

spirits of the world, and not according to Christ.

For in him, in Christ, the whole fullness of the deity dwells bodily.

And you, you have been filled in him who is the head of all rule and authority.

In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by the putting off the

body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism in which you were also raised

with him through faith in the powerful working of God who raised him from the dead.

And you who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your

flesh, God has made you alive together with him, having forgiven us, how many of our

trespasses?

All of them.

By canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands.

What is this?

The record of debt.

You guys remember old school accounting books?

Days before they had QuickBooks and Excel.

Okay, a ledger.

There was one side of the books that was your debits, the other side that were your credits, right?

It kept track of all of your assets and all this kind of stuff and at the end of the day you had to get both sides of the books to what?

Balance.

Otherwise you're going to spend months trying to figure out where that penny went.

You only have to do that if you're not the federal government.

Okay.

Right.

So you'll note that in the scriptures it talks about on the last day what are opened.

Books.

Books are opened.

Now this is where as we as human beings because we're sinful and we know that God is holy and we

aren't.

We know what's in those books.

I know what's in my book.

You know what's in your book and we don't need to share notes.

That's not what this is about.

But here's the thing.

The record of debt would have been on that other side of the ledger.

That is the record of every single one of your transgressions and my transgressions.

What does it say about every Christians book?

The record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands.

This he God has set aside doing what to it?

Nailing it to the cross.

So every single Christian on the day of judgment will you be judged?

Yes.

What are you going to be judged by?

What's written in your books?

What's written in your book?

Well there's a bunch of pages missing.

There's a whole side of the ledger that is gone.

To which I say praise Jesus.

Right.

So that means on the day of judgment when the books are opened you're going to look at it and go boy there's a lot of stuff missing there.

And Jesus is going to go shhh.

Right.

Because remember who's your judge?

The one who bled and died for you.

He's the one who paid your debt.

It's not like he did something like illegal.

Right.

What he did is he actually legitimately paid your debt for you in full on the cross.

That's what he did.

As a result of it that whole part of the book's gone.

And so there you are.

You're going to look at that thing and you're going to sit there and go whoa.

And Jesus is going to sit there.

Remember that time Roseboro when you changed the diapers when your wife wasn't home and you didn't want to do it because you thought if you just waited

for five more minutes she'd come home and she'd have to deal with the poopy diaper?

Yeah I remember that.

He says well I'm going to give you credit for that one.

Praise Jesus.

Took one for the team.

God has cooked the books in your favor.

All of your good works are the only thing left.

So when we come back to what Jesus said in John chapter 5.

Here again Jesus says truly truly I say to you whoever hears my word and believes him

who sent me has.

Present tense.

You got it now.

Eternal life.

He does not come into judgment.

He has passed already from death to life.

That's your context.

Now watch what follows because you can hear the language of the Athanasian Creed and what comes next.

Jesus continues.

It's still part of the same discourse.

Truly truly I say to you an hour is coming and is now here.

When the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live.

For as the Father has life in himself so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself.

And he has given him authority to execute judgment because he is the Son of Man.

Do not marvel at this.

For an hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and

come out.

Those who have done good to the resurrection of life.

Those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment.

Is that not the back end biblical basis of what we heard in the Athanasian Creed?

So Jesus himself says those who have done good, done good to the

resurrection of life.

If all of the record of debt that stood against you, all of the iniquity that you've ever committed will commit,

has been canceled and that's not in your books, will Jesus ever see you as one who

has done evil?

Nope.

You see how it all works?

You sit there and go, yeah, but I'm as guilty as Jesus is.

I'm the highest authority in the land.

I cannot undo what I've done.

You're forgiven.

Get used to it.

All right.

So that's the point.

So you'll note then, what does it mean then to do good?

To trust in Christ.

To believe in him.

And your record of debt is canceled and on the day of judgment, the only thing Jesus will see is

all the good that you've done.

And you sit there and go, well, I haven't really done that much.

You've done way more than you possibly can imagine.

Much, much more than you can think.

Because you do all of your good works in your vocation.

You do your good works first and foremost as a child.

In honoring your father and mother.

And then as you grow up, you do it as a student.

You do it as an employee.

You do it as an employer.

You do it as a husband and a wife, a father and a mother.

And so all those times when you pack the kids up into the embarrassing minivan

that you had, because these things challenge masculinity, by the way.

I hated having to drive a Smurf green Dodge Caravan.

It just, man.

Couldn't get rid of that thing fast enough.

I wanted to wear blinders while I was doing it, but it was against the law.

Because I just didn't want to have to see the looks of scorn and contempt.

And you had just the brim hat.

Yeah, right.

It would have been nice to have it in a finish.

And a fanny pack.

A fanny pack?

I don't think I could bring myself to that.

Smurfs were not green.

Yeah, well, this thing was kind of in that.

There were Smurfs that were green.

Yeah.

We call it the Smurfmobile.

But every time you pack the kids up in the Smurfmobile, to take them to soccer, to take them to swimming, to take them to

school.

Every time you nursed a child, every time you took care of a child who was sick and needed to stay home and was vomiting and

messing up the carpets and you had to do all the things that you do, all of those are the good works that you've

been doing.

You are rich in good works.

Each and every one of you.

You say, well, I've never dug a well in Africa.

So?

We do all of our good works in vocation.

Every time you got in your vehicle and you commuted to work and you put in a hard day's labor and you

did what your boss asked you to do and you did it with gusto and you did it really right, then all of that

counts too.

All of those things are recorded.

Yes, sir?

Oh, I knew you were going to do this.

As soon as you raised your hand.

So every time somebody collects taxes, yes, it counts.

I'm not collecting more than I should be.

Okay, that's good.

You shouldn't collect more than you should.

The reason why I can back this up is I know a biblical text.

What do we say?

It's not Christian theology if you don't have a Bible text.

So is it a good work when the government collects taxes from you?

Yes.

And it's annoying, but it is a good work.

It's unlawful how they spend it.

So here's what it says in Scripture in Romans 13.

Let every person be subject to the governing authorities.

Now notice here, I'm going to point this out.

Governing authorities, it doesn't specify what type.

It doesn't say let every person be subject to the governing authorities if they're capitalists, if

they're democracies, if they're republics, if they have a parliamentary government or

things like this.

It says governing authorities, which is also going to include ones you don't like ideologically, right?

Was the Apostle Paul keen on the evil of the Roman Empire?

No.

Okay, so you'll note that's the foil that he's writing this under, right?

Roman Empire, not exactly known for its great moral virtue, okay?

You want to talk about pretty gross and egregious sexual sin?

Rome's your place.

You don't believe me?

Just look at the graffiti from that town where Mount Vesuvius covered it up.

Pompeii.

I always look at it like, there's a new discovery at Pompeii, and it's like, I don't want to see that.

You know, I did find it fascinating that somebody at Pompeii was actually

working their way through the poop places and looking at their diet and stuff

like that.

That's a little more wholesome than the other bits.

But yeah.

Mike.

Yeah.

Poorly.

Yes.

Powers.

No.

Well, actually, I'm going to talk about that.

We'll talk about that.

So I would note, this does create a problem for the founding of the United States.

And I would say that there's a fuller history that needs to be considered in this regard, that it was

really the Freemasons of Boston and several of the lower

states that were the ones really pushing for the revolution.

This was more a Freemasonry rebellion against the king than it was

anything.

It was a Gnostic Freemason rebellion.

Look at the sheer number of Freemasons that were part of the Founding Fathers, and you can make an

argument that this really wasn't pushed by Christians.

This was pushed mostly by Freemasons.

That doesn't mean that there weren't notable Christians who were involved.

And those people who would like to paint George Washington as a pious Christian man and stuff

like this, the guy was a rank Freemason.

And he was only nominally Christian.

That's the best way I can describe this fellow.

But regardless of all of that, the United States is now an established

governing authority.

Okay?

So I've grown up here in the United States.

I'm assuming most of you all have grown up here in the United States, right?

Is it the best place ever?

No.

Is it a Christian nation?

No.

Okay.

Is it getting farther away from Christian values by the minute?

Yes.

Okay.

And here's the thing.

This is a nation that was legitimately founded as a reboot of Roman governance.

Is it any wonder that Rome's debauchery has found its way into our society?

You know, that's kind of an interesting thing.

Yeah, I think sometime in the future of Christ, Terry's people will be foraging through the

remains of what was once San Francisco.

So, you know, we're just like putting our fingers in God's eyes.

But all that being said, let's come back to this thing.

There is no authority except from God.

Those that exist have been instituted by God.

Now, are we to obey Hitler?

Hitler creates an interesting problem, and quite an interesting one.

And I would note, looking at somebody like Dietrich Bonhoeffer, regardless of his theology,

he is an interesting fellow because his Christian convictions convinced him that he was

morally obligated to participate in a plot to murder the Führer.

And he was in one of those really odd situations that we find ourselves

in as Christians sometimes because we live in a fallen world.

And that is that regardless of what you do, you're going to sin.

Let me put it on the positive side.

So you had Christians who were hiding Jews during Nazi occupation

of Europe.

And that would require them to, one, break the law, two, lie about it,

and risk their own deaths in doing so.

So if the Gestapo shows up at your house, we hear that you are hiding the Jews in your basement.

What do you say?

You say, of course I am.

Yes, you're welcome to go out and have a chat with them if you like.

No, you don't do that.

What do you do?

You lie to their face.

You say, I'm not hiding any Jews.

You want to look?

Go for it.

And so in a situation like that, have you lied?

Yes.

Have you disobeyed the authorities?

Yes.

Have you obeyed God?

Yes.

Have you disobeyed God?

Yes.

You'll note that sometimes there's no way out of it.

And you're going to have to prioritize things.

And I would note we have a precedent in Scripture when it comes to that type of thing.

You think of Pua and what is her friend's name?

Hang on a second here.

Shifra.

Pua and Shifra.

Who were Pua and Shifra?

These were the Jewish midwives that when Pharaoh said you have to kill the male children,

they didn't kill them.

When they were brought before Pharaoh, they lied to Pharaoh's face.

And Pharaoh says, why are you not killing these boys?

And they lied and they said, oh, Jewish women, they're so hardy.

I mean, they poop those babies right out even before we get there.

That's a paraphrase of what they said.

They come out so fast they're ricocheting off the walls.

So that's what they end up telling Pharaoh.

And what does it say about Shifra and Pua?

God blessed them.

They straight out disobeyed the governing authority and they lied.

So in that particular case, you'll note then that when the government is intent on doing evil and

breaking God's commands because governments are only instituted by Christ for the purpose of punishing

evildoers.

That's their mission.

When they deviate from that mission, then Christians have to disobey them at times.

And so you have Dietrich Bonhoeffer participating in the plot to kill Hitler, known as

Operation Valkyrie.

Well, the bomb went off, but Hitler was alive afterwards.

Thank you, laws of physics.

It was just placed in the exact wrong place.

And Hitler gets out of there alive.

And then when the Nazis hunt down whoever was responsible for the bomb, who gets

caught in the dragnet?

Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

And so Dietrich Bonhoeffer, his job then was to

obey the Nazi government when they put him on the gallows.

And they did.

You think of the apostles Peter and Paul.

Both of them obeyed the Roman government when it came to their own executions.

And so when the Roman government said, you can't be preaching Christ, they said, neither, we're going to keep doing it.

Well, they ended up dying for it.

So you'll note that there's some interesting things that go on as a result of where we're at.

So we do not obey corrupt governments who would have us go against the laws of God.

And in those situations, life is more of a value than obedience to the

government, or even speaking the truth.

And you're not going to get out of it without sinning, so you need to have a pastor who's going to absolve you at the end of it.

This is just how this goes.

We don't get out of this life with clean hands.

So whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed.

Those who resist will incur judgment.

The rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad.

This is their charter, by the way.

When this gets flipped, you know something's really wrong.

When the bad are the ones who are not being punished, but the good who are speaking out against evil are the ones being

punished, you know you have a government that's gone rogue and are not obeying Christ here.

Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority?

Then do what is good.

That's what they're supposed to be doing.

And you will receive his approval.

He is God's servant for your good.

If you do wrong, be afraid.

He does not bear the sword in vain.

He is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God's wrath on the wrongdoer.

Again, the charter of the left -hand kingdom of Christ is for them to be the

vehicle of God's wrath against those who do evil.

When this gets flipped, the government is in stark disobedience to Christ.

And I would note, are we living in a day where our government is punishing those who are doing good?

Are they rewarding those who are doing evil?

Yeah.

Okay.

Pay attention to what's going on here.

It's not going to get any better, right?

Therefore, one must be in subjection not only to avoid God's wrath, but also for the sake of conscience, for because of this you

also...

And here it is.

I can't get it out of my lips.

Taxes, right?

Yeah.

Right.

When you look at the instigating circumstances regarding the American Revolution, I

don't see that the Founding Fathers had a moral justification for the Revolution.

I'm just being blunt, you know?

And who was the guy?

Was it Thomas Paine?

He was one of the greatest enemies of Christianity at the time.

I mean, writing tract after tract against Christianity.

I mean, some of these guys were just wicked.

So keep in mind, we are the inheritors of a nation that was founded on some

pretty morally garbage circumstances,

right?

But that's the reality of the situation.

Yeah, that's why we pay our taxes.

So yeah, collecting taxes is a good word.

Did I say it loud enough?

So note then, authorities are ministers of God attending to this very thing.

So we can see then, again, the purpose of a government is to punish the evildoer.

Straight up, that's what it's for.

And so we gladly pay our taxes so that the government does its job.

When the government isn't doing its job and it's got everything backwards, what do we have to do?

We have to call the government to repentance.

And say, this has got to stop.

But you're going to note then here, and this is where I'll throw in a little bit of a bonus idea and then I've got to

wrap up and head off to Emmanuel.

And that is that there's a growing movement among people.

So the Bud Reich that I've been fighting for two months now, they're part of a bigger

group of people that call themselves Christian nationalists.

And they legitimately are trying to push for the establishing of a Christian nation.

Okay?

And as if somehow this is something we're supposed to be about the business of doing.

And I'm just sitting there going, what are you guys thinking?

Okay?

If you want a template for what, how we as Christians are to view ourselves in the present circumstance in

this particular country, one of the things I've had the privilege, and I really mean it, it's a privilege, I've had the privilege of

traveling to multiple nations.

We serve people from other nations here at Kangsvinger, right?

And Barb and I travel and we go and visit them.

We visit them in Australia, the Netherlands, we visit them in Germany, we visit them in the UK and other places.

And I can tell you this, is that every time I cross a national border, I have to show my passport.

But nowhere in Scripture do I see that the church is tasked with the job of once people

become Christians and churches are up and running, they have to then set up a political movement to turn their nation into a

Christian nation.

Nowhere in Scripture do I see that.

Instead, we are called to patiently endure, and the template for what we're doing, look at Esther,

look at Daniel.

These are people who were sojourners and they were in captivity in

Babylon.

And you'll note that theme comes up in Scripture for Christians.

So like in 1 Peter, opening part of 1 Peter, listen to how he opens his beginning.

Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who are elect what?

Exiles.

To those who are elect exiles.

I am an exile of the kingdom of God in Babylon.

Babylon in the nation called the United States of America.

And it's becoming more like Old Testament Babylon by the minute, right?

It is not my job as a Christian to create a political movement to figure out how to overthrow the current

Babylonian system and replace it with a Christian monarchy.

To that I would say anybody who thinks they're going to pull that off here in the United States has lost their minds.

That ain't going to happen.

And especially the Bud Reich, because they not only want to set up a Christian nation, they want to take Africans,

send them back to Africa, enslave those who remain, and then

reinforce and reinstigate segregation.

Good luck on that.

I don't know what those guys are smoking, but it's some good stuff, man.

Yeah, Don.

Any movement

in their

Islamic countries can say it

as well.

Yeah, Don, you're not wrong.

And it gets people killed.

Yeah, you're not wrong.

Muslim nations think that Christianity is pro -homosexuality.

They look at the Hollywood movies and they think that, well, the U .S. is a Christian nation, that's what Christianity is all about.

It's just a mess.

Anyway, I can go on and rant some more.

So that's the answer to the question, are we saved by our works?

In conclusion, I would like to say thank you for listening.

And Lord willing, we'll see you guys next time.