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, given 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. 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, okay?

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.

Regarding the Trinity, that is absolutely true. 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. 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, whoever hears my word and believes

Him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.

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. All right?

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. 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 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... 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 is 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.

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. In Christ are we not all equal before God?

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 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 fizz?

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 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 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. A ledger.

There was one side of the books that was your debits, the other side that were your credits. Right? They 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.

Okay. 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 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 Christian's 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. 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.

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 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. 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. That's right. 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 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. 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. Okay? You do your good works first and foremost as a child, in honoring your father and mother.

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. And a fanny pack. A fanny pack?

I don't think I could bring myself to that. Yeah, well.

This thing was kind of in that. Yeah. Yeah. We call it the

Smurf Mobile. But every time you pack the kids up in the Smurf Mobile 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 see they go, well I've never dug a well in Africa. So? Okay. 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. Every time somebody collects taxes.

Yes, it counts. 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. Is it a good work when the government collects taxes from you?

Yes. It's annoying, but it is a good work. Here's what it says in Scripture in Romans 13.

Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. 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.

Was the Apostle Paul keen on the evil of the Roman Empire? No. That's the foil that he's writing this under.

Roman Empire. Not exactly known for its great moral virtue. 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. 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. So like our founding fathers of this country how would they in my understanding of the

American Revolution how did they handle

Romans 13 -1? Poorly. It's subject to the governing case of where you would rise up against evil.

Powers. You don't need to obey Hitler.

I'm going to talk about that. We'll talk about that. This does create a problem for the founding of the

United States. I would say 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.

Those people who like to paint George Washington as a pious Christian man and stuff like this, the guy was a rank

Freemason. He was only nominally Christian. That's the best way

I can describe this fellow. Regardless of all of that, the

United States is now an established governing authority. I've grown up here in the

United States. I'm assuming most of y 'all have grown up here in the United States. 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! 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? That's kind of an interesting thing.

Yes? Yeah. I think sometime in the future of Christ Terry's, people will be foraging through the remains of what was once San Francisco.

We're just putting our fingers in God's eyes. 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. Are we to obey

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

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. He was in one of those really odd situations that we find ourselves in as Christians sometimes because we live in a fallen world.

That is that regardless of what you do, you're going to sin. Let me put it on the positive side.

You had Christians who were hiding Jews during Nazi occupation of Europe.

That would require them to, one, break the law, two, lie about it, and risk their own deaths in doing 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. 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.

You're going to have to prioritize things. 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. Pharaoh says, why are you not killing these boys?

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

That's what they end up telling Pharaoh. What does it say about Shifra and Pua? God blessed them.

They straight out disobeyed the governing authority and they lied. 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. You have Dietrich Bonhoeffer participating in the plot to kill

Hitler known as Operation Valkyrie. The bomb went off but Hitler was alive afterwards.

Thank you laws of physics. It was just placed in the exact wrong place. Hitler gets out of there alive.

Then when the Nazis hunt down whoever was responsible for the bomb, who gets caught in the dragnet?

Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, his job then was to obey the

Nazi government when they put him on the gallows. They did. You think of the

Apostles Peter and Paul. Both of them obeyed the

Roman government when it came to their own executions. When the Roman government said, you can't be preaching

Christ, they said, neither. We're going to keep doing it. They ended up dying for it. You'll note that there's some interesting things that go on as a result of where we're at.

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

In those situations, life is more of a value than obedience to the government or even speaking the truth.

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. 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's 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.

In the interest of history, a tax on tea might not be a reason to do evil.

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 it? 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. 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've got 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. 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? If you want a template for 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 Kongsvinger. 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 state and the nation called the United States of America. And it's becoming more like Old Testament Babylon by the minute.

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

Yeah, Don. The leaders of the

Islamic countries see all the garbage. They place that on the

Christians in their Islamic countries and say, this is what Christianity is, and of course those morals are against the morals of Islam as well.

And it gets people killed. 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, you know, 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.