Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hey, YouTube theologians. Welcome to the Q and A podcast. I'm Pastor Brian Wolfmuller, St. Paul and Jesus Deaf Lutheran churches in Austin, Texas, joined by Pastor Andrew Packer, Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Collinsville, Illinois. Pastor Packer, I understand that you like 93 of the 94 theses. I heard that rumor about you.
[00:00:20] Speaker B: I'd have to count them.
I mean, there are some that are not Lutheran yet, so remember all which ones, though. I'd have to go back and count.
[00:00:28] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. All right, you got some. We're having a Reformation themed Q A today.
Let's have it. What do you got?
[00:00:37] Speaker B: All right.
We're reviewing Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox practices of the inter intercessions prayers of the saints.
The east seems to have a more nuanced understanding of requests for prayers from the saints to Christ on our behalf.
Recognizing this can become problematic and idolatrous if misused. Is there anything wrong with asking our dearly departed loved ones in the faith who are part of the body of Christ and more intimately connected to Christ according to Orthodoxy, to pray to Christ for us on our behalf?
[00:01:08] Speaker A: Yes. We have three problems with that.
I should just pull this up. This is one of the disadvantages of not knowing what the questions are.
Also, I'll do. Let me say a couple things and then while you answer, then I'll do a little bit of research because this is outlined so beautifully for us in our Book of Concord on prayer to the saints about why we don't do it. And it's because this list should be right here in my head. Number one, it's not commanded. So we don't have any command in Scripture to talk to the dead. In fact, most of the discussion about talking to the dead is particularly negative.
Number two, it doesn't have any benefit.
There's no again, promise. So we don't have a command. We don't have a promise. We don't have an example.
And we have warnings of the opposite, especially because if we have all these other mediators, it starts to threaten the assertion of the Scriptures that there's one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus.
So prayer to the dead and prayer to the saints is nowhere commended to us as helpful. And in fact, we see not only scripturally and theologically, but also practically the dangers of said practice. So I would say let's not do that. Although I was talking to Stecker, I was on the line this last week. I was in Fort Wayne and got to see the new studio, which is, I'll admit, better than ours. We got to get our. We got to step up our game. I mean, they got this little fake flame behind them and a logo, and,
[00:02:45] Speaker B: man, it looked like the Pints with Aquinas set.
Have you seen pints with Aquinas? That's what I mean.
[00:02:51] Speaker A: Yeah, this is not.
[00:02:53] Speaker B: This is loggers with Lutheran.
[00:02:57] Speaker A: We're going to have tequila shots with Calvinists.
That's what I want to be on anyhow.
[00:03:06] Speaker B: What do you think about this distinction they're making between.
[00:03:09] Speaker A: Oh, sorry, I'm going to come back to this. But Stecker was really, like, drawn towards prayer to the saints. And the thing that got him was recognizing that our confessions acknowledge that the dead pray for us. Like, that's like on a course that the angels pray for us and that the dearly departed pray for us, but that there's just that connection between us and them. They're at a gulf that we, you know, don't cross between. Only the Lord and the angels cross between that gulf. And so we let them do what they do without, I suppose, interrupting them.
[00:03:42] Speaker B: What do you think about the distinction? Well, maybe before asking that question, who is it? Urbanus Regius has that little book and he says something to the fact, hey, if you in your piety, like, pray for your mom who just died for, like, Jesus to receive her, that's cool and all because, like, you love her, but you don't need to keep on doing that because, right, she's with Jesus. You don't have to keep praying for her because she's with Jesus. But if you did that out of piety, like, no big deal, but then praying to your mom, then that's a whole different thing. Now, right now we're crossing over something different. But then also it seems like what they're trying to do with the question is, well, I'm not praying to them. I'm asking them.
I'm passing on a prayer request. Like, I would ask you to pray for me. So if I message you and say, hey, Pastor Wolfenler, pray for me for the. This thing, I'm just asking one of the saints to do the same thing.
Does that in your mind soften that any. Or does it end up in the exact same place?
[00:04:38] Speaker A: Yeah. So why, like, why. So you know what? The impulse that you have to ask me to pray for you is that we're friends and I also am a Christian, and you know that I'm praying. And it seems good that we actually would approach the Lord together as his church. But when you say, you know, I want that Person who's, who's in heaven to pray.
Well, maybe they're closer, you know, like, you know, you get the scene when the disciples are sitting around at the Last Supper and Peter says to John, ask him who he's talking about because he's right there in Jesus ear. So that's the idea. Like, I don't want to talk across the table, but out. John's right there and so I'll ask him to ask him. And this becomes the picture of our kind of prayer to the saints. Well, like they're right there in his nearer presence. So they have some sort of access, but we have the same access.
This is the promise that the Lord gives to us in prayer.
We have the Lord's ear, we have his attention. He's near us, he hasn't left us. So there's no need for that, for that kind of closer access in prayer.
And again, the Bible is pretty clear on not talking to the dead. I mean, it's necromancy and it's everywhere forbidden. I don't know why.
This is something that I cannot quite figure out is why that argument doesn't come up more often in the conversation about prayer for the dead. Why we don't just say, hey, the Bible forbids talking to the dead. Because you get this weird, you get this weird response from the, like from the Roman Catholics and they're like, well, remember that those who die in the Lord are not truly dead, they're alive. Like Jesus says, I'm the God of the living, not the God of the dead. And then you're like, well, then what is it talking about that we're only not supposed to talk to dead unbelievers?
Or like that seems a bit of a stretch on what the Bible is speaking about when it talks about necromancy. But do you know why that is? Like, why the necromancy argument doesn't come up too much?
[00:06:47] Speaker B: No, I'm not sure. But also, doesn't it presuppose at some level that you think they are somehow omniscient?
Like God hearing all of our prayers makes sense because he's God, right? So he can handle all of that. But then how do you jump to pick any saint? Let's even pick Mary, right, Who they're going to put towards the top of the list of people we should pray to.
How is Mary capable, right? Like, how is that possible for her to hear, first of all, to hear the prayers, second of all, to hear all of. Even if she could hear a prayer, how can she hear like, let's say like a million people are praying to her right now.
Like your captives are attributing things to her that would make her way closer to God than I think most Christians would be comfortable with, I would hope, right? Like, you're starting to have to attribute to all the saints some kind of deity.
And that, that seems to be the other problem, right? You, you are starting to make them deities in one sense or another. Because if you look historically, that seems to be what happened anyways, right? We didn't. We have one God, three persons. Three persons, one God. We didn't have many gods. And, and so as the gospel goes into paganism, saints become like these intermediary gods, right? Isn't that just.
I think Herman Saucer wrote a whole essay on this, right, that basically they just kind of fill the gap for these lesser gods. And so you end up just replacing them with like the, the Olympians from Mount. You know what I mean? You just replace those gods with these gods and then you just swap them out and now you've got your gods, but you just don't call them gods, you call them saints.
[00:08:29] Speaker A: It's a danger. It's always. So, I mean, this is the two religious camps as we deny the tri unity. So you get the strict monotheism of the synagogue and the mosque that denies the personalities of God, the tri persons. And you get the paganism, which denies the unity of God. And so one and the other.
I was looking at Augsburg Apology 21, which says, look, the Bible doesn't talk of praying to the saints, but it does talk about honoring them. And it talks about the threefold honor of the saints, which is great.
So it says, whatever your weird sort of worship, idolatrous prayers you're doing, why don't you replace it with something that's sanctified? And this saints means, I think, those great gifts that the Lord has given to the church, but also all who have died. So the threefold honor is number one. We thank God, number one, that he gave them faith and that he also gave them works to do. Like we thank God for Paul and that he wrote his epistles. And just last Sunday we thanked God for Luke and for the Gospel and the book of Acts that he gave us. And then second, it strengthens our faith, especially when we see how they're sinners who are forgiven.
We see the grace extended to Paul, to Moses, to David, to Adam and Eve, to all, to Noah, to all those that went before us who were sinners, who rejoiced in the forgiveness of all their sins. So that strengthens our faith. And then we honor them by imitation, first of their faith and then of their love according to vocation, so that we see how they. How they trusted in God through the midst of great difficulties, like Jacob, we're studying in worldwide Bible class. And then we see also how they loved according to their calling. And that's. This is a true honor that we want to give to the saints instead of just this kind of strange whatever pseudo worship of veneration and so forth.
[00:10:30] Speaker B: All right, here's another one also on the issue of saints.
Cuba theme. This one's though on saints who claim to have visions. So I think this is an interesting question. The way they frame this.
The Lord brought me out of American Christianity into the truth of Sola Scriptura and the Lutheran Confessions. My family loves the new continuity that we share with the ancient church and the celebration of the liturgical calendar which includes feasts to saints. Our confessions state, which you were just showing a moment ago. And our church deceived that the memory of saints may be set before us, that we may follow their faith and good works according to our calling.
When we learn of accounts of those like Saint.
I don't even know how to pronounce it. Eustathius, who points to a vision of the Lord for the radical transformation of their lives that leads to a brutal martyrdom under Hadrian, what are we to make of it?
Leaving behind the endless and unfulfilling pursuit of visions and direct revelation, knowledge that permeates the enthusiastic teachings of American Christianity was a great comfort to us. But we read of accounts like the saint and what some of the church fathers write in private revelation. It makes me wonder, I'm sure of this, that I would not lose an arrow on a buck with Christ between his antlers.
Your servants in Christ.
That's from a vicar.
[00:11:46] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:11:46] Speaker B: So help her out.
[00:11:48] Speaker A: So I was just in the Worldwide Bible class this morning. We're working through Luther's commentary on Genesis and he talks about Purgatory and Chemnitz talks about this. All the Lutherans actually talk about this, how it grows out of all this vision stuff.
And this actually comes up in our Book of Concord as these. These kind of specters and. And things. So that Gregory the Great had a. There was some monk and they found like, he died and they found some gold coins in his papers. And he's not. He's a monk. He's not supposed to have gold coins. So, like, whoa, scandal. So they said mass for him. 50 masses for this guy, that the Lord would have mercy on him. And then he comes and visits Gregory and says, hey, thanks for all those masses. I'm out of purgatory now, I'm in heaven. And so then Purgatory, like that's what it is. And this is how Chemnitz talks about the growth of the doctrine of purgatory as it came through these visions. Even St. Augustine, who we honor greatly as a marvelous theologian, had some vision of someone who was in purgatory and that reinforces that doctrine all the way back then.
So, okay, so here's the vision way. We have to think of a vision. Number one, this has to do with dreams, it has to do with experiences of the afterlife, it has to do with ghosts, anything like that.
One of three things is true.
Either the vision that you get or the ghost that visits, or the dream confirms everything in the Scripture and then it's unnecessary. Or the vision, the dream, the vision, the specter tells you something different than what the Bible says and then we know that they're wrong. Or the vision, dream, specter, personal revelation, whatever tells you something that's not against the Scripture, but not also revealed in the Scripture. And then it is unnecessary.
If we confess that the Scriptures are sufficient, then it's unneeded, it's not important.
So the vision is either unnecessary, wrong, or not important. And all of them, no matter what, are tempting us away from the clarity, sufficiency and power of the Word of God.
So the Lord can, and this is how it comes into our life today. The Lord can take people to visit heaven if he wants to, but that's his business. And if it's for you, it's not for me.
Because if the Lord wants me to see what heaven is like in a dream or something, he can give that dream to me. He doesn't need to give me your book about it, because now I'm tempted to put some sort of faith in that book of yours, which is a bad place for my faith to be. Same thing with near death experiences, same thing with out of body experiences.
Same thing with any of the sort of visionary experiences in the, in the spiritual, mystical or charismatic tradition. Same thing with all of the so called eucharistic miracles or all the visions of Mary or whatever.
All of them are dangerous.
Even if they're true.
They are not public.
And anyone who makes that private vision into a public thing is sinning.
It's bringing a question mark to where the Lord has put an exclamation point. And so this is particularly Dangerous.
[00:15:17] Speaker B: So I looked up the fault, like, hit a summary of his vision.
So he was hunting. He saw a radiant cross and the likeness of Jesus between the stag's antlers. So then he and his whole family are baptized.
And while he's having this vision, he has a voice warning him that he would suffer for Christ, which would lead to the loss of his wealth, separation from family, and eventual martyrdom.
And he was burned in a Bronze Bowl. So St. Eustace, which is easier way to say his name.
So in that case, based on what you just said, then if we apply that to this case, you would say, yeah, it's entirely plausible for him to have this private revelation of Jesus saying, hey, dude, repent. Believe in me, and you're gonna suffer for me. And then it happened. But we don't need to base. No one else needs to base anything on that because that was a private revelation for him for that particular moment. It wasn't designed for you or me to glean anything out of it, because really, like you said, in that case, it sounds like, besides the personal, that he would suffer.
Although even that, you would argue is in line with scripture, since we're all told we're going to.
We're all told we're going to suffer for Christ in some way or another. So is that how you would. How you would handle that? If someone's like, hey, it seems like this guy had this real vision and it led him to be a martyr for Christ, so how can you say this was bad?
Would your answer be, well, that was personal revelation, and that was. Yeah. So entirely plausible. It happened for him, but that wasn't for you and me.
[00:16:49] Speaker A: Yep, yep, yep. I think that's exactly it. And when it comes.
When it. Yeah, when it comes to.
To these personal things, that. That's part of the burden of it. It has to be just for me.
All right, you got some more?
[00:17:09] Speaker B: Yeah. This one's on Jonathan Cahn, who's written a number of books, and I don't
[00:17:15] Speaker A: know, you'll have to help me with the. With the background here.
[00:17:18] Speaker B: Yeah. Also, I've looked up some stuff about him, too, because he came and spoke in this area recently, so I was curious.
They want to know the Lutheran approach to him. They have family members.
[00:17:30] Speaker A: I've got that. I've. I've got that book hanging around. I've seen this guy on your shelf. Okay.
[00:17:36] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, I was gonna say, he's. I'm sure you've seen him.
So they've got family members who are still like, kind of stuck and brainwashed by his false teachings.
So they're wanting to know how what's Lutheran approach this. From what I've seen and read on him and some things, video clips I've seen and some summaries of his books I've looked at, he appears to me to be someone who takes typology and allegory, which, hey, I'm all for, except for. He applies it not to Christ and his church. He applies it to modern nations, especially United States. So he seems to read the Bible through the lens of the United States is replaying, in some ways, I guess, Israel's history with attendant covenant, blessings and judgments.
So it sees the. The pattern of the Old Testament, I guess, replaying out in America.
So it sees. Kind of sees America. I mean, I think it applies to some other modern nations too. But the impression I get is that America is kind of. So he's kind of seen as this prophetic, like giving these warnings to. To us about modern America being under judgments.
And from what I've seen, I don't see. I've never come across anything particularly insightful.
It all. I don't know, it seems like typical stuff you hear every 20, 30 years, right? In cycles with different people. Because when I was growing up in Baptist churches, right, it was like the late, great planet Earth, those kind of things. The how Lindsay stuff about the world's gonna end, and here's why. In 1988, right, for a while was the date, and then 2000, and then these things never happen. So you keep pushing it out. He just seems to be a long line of people that tend to interpret the Bible under this weird premise that America is the center of God's universe. Like I just saw the other day, this would probably fit him perfectly.
I don't know if he. He saw this, but someone shared on Facebook, three hurricanes that were kind of coming towards the United States all had, like, biblical names, right? Isaiah. I can't remember their names, but one of them was Isaiah. Anyway, they're like, this is proof that God is judging.
Like, God's judgment is here on the world. I'm like, okay. Or that Jesus is going to return because these three hurricanes are coming towards America. And I'm like, wow. So America is the center of God's entire world, right? Like, Jesus is coming back because a few tiny hurricanes are hitting the United States and they happen to have names that were picked out a couple years ago that reflect biblical names, which is not that hard to do, honestly. Like, if you're looking at names in America, but they took that as a sign that Jesus is returning. Now, of course he didn't. So I don't know what they did with that post, but it seems like the same kind of thing to me. Um, get people worked up that the end is near because you have the secret insights into these patterns and you see judgment coming on us and Jesus return based on that.
[00:20:43] Speaker A: I want to. I always want to say that the end is nearer than the people who say it's near is because, you know, if you. If, like here, these three hurricanes are an indication that Jesus is coming back. Well, I think he could actually get here before the hurricanes. Hurricanes him and, and all of this idea of looking for prophecies to be fulfilled so that the way is now clear for Jesus to return actually puts the return of Jesus farther off than it should be in our hearts. It should be right now. Come, Lord Jesus. And the only way it can be right now truly imminent is if all the promises of God are yes and amen in Christ, which they are. So there's one promise left to be fulfilled, which is the return of Jesus in glory. So, so this kind of piecing together all of these events and seeing in them patterns or prophecies is just a fool's errand. But it's exciting for us.
It has that gnostic allure of, ooh, I see something that other people don't. And so I can put the pattern of revelation onto the kind of current reality. Well, fine. I mean, there are these patterns in history.
The problem is, it's like whoever gets to it first gets to connect the dots. Like it's, you know, like the stars. It's whoever started looking at them and saying, hey, those. Those 12 stars look like a bear now. Now that's the bear, and someone else has got to look for the pattern somewhere else. The first person to identify the pattern kind of locks it in. So you just are identifying these patterns the same. I mean, this happens all the time in. In the realm of kind of historical exegeting history and exegeting culture. It's the first person to connect the dots that gets to kind of define the narrative that we're working against. So you come along, you connect the dots, and then people like, oh, now I see the connections that you're making.
It's all an artificial exercise which we're drawn to because our mind wants to organize things like that. We want to see the connected dots. We have to say, though, look, if some guy can't get the stuff, that's Right on the top of the page, like baptism saves, then maybe you don't want to trust him for the hidden messages.
Like, if someone can't say it's the body and blood for the forgiveness of sins, if someone can't talk about the bondage of the will and the doctrine of justification, then maybe all the kind of secret Bible code stuff that is being discerned underneath is not so trustworthy either. And it just so happens that when someone can read what's on the page and confess the catechism, all those other things become less urgent. It's like we always have to be on guard for people trying to work us up into a frenzy.
This is. Now, I mean, back to the question of how do we rescue family members who are trapped in this frenzy? Feels like the Spirit to them.
And so if you are bringing them to the calm of the rule of Christ, if you're bringing them to the peace of the kingdom of God, it feels less spiritual. It feels like a departure from that kind of ecstatic or frenzied state that they're in. And it's tough. This is really tough.
So always the question is, what does Jesus want us to have?
Whenever we're talking about anybody with any different kind of conversation, denomination, church, whatever, whatever, whatever. What does Jesus want us to have? Is the question.
And if you can introduce that question into the hearts and minds of your friends and family, then you can be on the way towards a good discussion. Like, does Jesus want us to have eschatological anxiety?
Does Jesus want us to have ecclesiological? What is that thing that everyone has ecclesiastical anxiety?
Is this how Jesus wants us to live?
Is it how he wants us to think about him and to believe in him and to love him and our neighbor? And so I think that's the kind of step in. And then, of course, the sort of theological next step is the distinction between law and gospel so we don't have to go straight after baptismal regeneration, or the body and blood and the Supper, or the fact that Christ died for everybody or whatever.
We can start with the long Gospel. And the Lord wants to expose these first two works of the Spirit. He wants to expose our own sin and desperate need for Christ.
And he wants to reveal the deep love of Christ through his death and resurrection. So that's always the good place to start the conversation.
[00:25:28] Speaker B: Two very unconnected thoughts, but one is some people out there will be familiar with this. Most people probably won't get this reference. But did you ever watch Jack Van Impe and Rexella.
[00:25:39] Speaker A: Oh, yeah.
[00:25:41] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. So this guy reminds me just of like the modern version of Jack Van Impe. Like they'd be in the studio and be.
Have like the. The current news on and. And oh, look, this is how this fits into Revelation. Like, and every week, right, more is. You got to cram more and more into revelation. Like, look at all this that's happening. And everything's getting crammed into revelation from the newspaper. And he'd be so excited that it was near and you know, it looks. I just looked him up. Apparently he passed away in 2020, so he's not still making those. But man, not only were they, they're just terrible on multiple levels, but. But I mean, that's the kind of thing he was doing. He's working up people in a frenzy. And there's that. What is that website? Is it raptureready.com? is that the website? Have you seen this?
[00:26:23] Speaker A: Probably. I think I have this really great Chuck Missler. That's the who this guy reminds me of. You know, it's always the secret hidden numerology stuff and like the. The plain reading the words.
I like that Missler guy, man. He's the guy.
[00:26:39] Speaker B: Yeah. Here it is.
Raptureready.com so you can go on there.
I think it's this one. I think this is the one with.
That takes the timeline and gives you the. Maybe it's not this one. There's one that gives a score every day of maybe it's Rapture Ready. Index. There's an index and they take all the news and they put it into this chart and based on that news, they tell you how close Jesus return is. Like, like, I think one other thing is like hold on to your seats kind of stuff. It's like, it cracks me up. It's. It's hilarious. But there's a whole website that weights different world events and like tries to plug them into this matrix. They've been doing this for years. And it's the same kind of stuff to me. It's like making up stuff based on the news and then applying it especially to America, of course, because we're the center of the universe. What else could possibly be more important than us Apply to America and then keep everyone, like you said, in a frenzy. Like, that seems to be the goal. And then you keep buying their books because you got to find out what's going to happen next. And I'm sure it makes them lots of money. So I guess good for them for that.
Scamming Christians out of money so they can keep following this and then no one ever seems to catch on that this stuff never happens like they say it's going to. And then they change their, their messaging and people still buy their stuff. So I don't.
[00:28:01] Speaker A: This is the key question is how does Jesus want us to think about the end of the world? And the answer is not to be panicked, to be ready, to be joyful. But our looking is not looking at the signs. We lift up our heads because our redemption draws near. Jesus comes back and he's going to come back in such a way that we're not going to be able to miss it.
So we don't have to look carefully for the end.
That's not the point. And these guys are tempting Christians to look carefully for the end.
That's, that's a bad deal.
[00:28:38] Speaker B: So the Rapture ready index is at 181 today. It was updated, updated a couple days ago. It's at 181.
This means hold on to your seatbelt folks, because things are going to get crazy.
Not that they're trying to keep people in a frenzy. I wouldn't say that. No, no, no, no. But fasten your seat belts, guys. We're above heavy prophetic activity and now we're in. Fasten your seat belts. We're only 8 points away from the all time high 10 years ago. I just don't even know what to do with that information. Okay.
It's like the Rick's gonna change my whole day. It is, it's, it's great. I love it. I love checking it out once in a while just to remember what's.
Remember why I don't hold to that stuff anymore. Okay.
All right. This is an interesting question. Completely different direction though. What are the consequences of a memorialist view of communion? So I understand the Lutheran view of sacraments, but can you help me understand what are the actual consequences of attending a church that is has a non sacramental view of the Lord's Supper? If I attend a non denominational church and do not receive each week the real presence of communion, what's the danger if I struggle with sin? Is it appropriate to expect more spiritual growth or sanctification only if I change churches?
[00:29:58] Speaker A: That's an amazing question, actually.
[00:30:00] Speaker B: It's great. I love it.
[00:30:05] Speaker A: So, wow. There's a lot there.
And it's especially. I appreciate this sort of theological and spiritual sensitivity in the question. In other words, it's not just like is the church right or wrong, but what does it mean? What does it mean when A church has a bad doctrine. What does it mean for me and my soul and my spiritual condition, for my life in Christ?
Jesus wants us to have his body and blood for the forgiveness of sins. So then this question is, what does it mean if I don't have it, and if I'm constantly being taught that, no, that's not what Jesus wants you to have. He wants you to have this meal where you remember his death and resurrection.
But that's it. It's just bread and wine, which is a symbol of the body and the blood.
So you don't have the gifts that Jesus gives in the Supper.
You don't have the body and the blood and the forgiveness of sins, at least the forgiveness of sins through the supper. Now, the forgiveness of sins comes to us through baptism, through the Word, through the absolution, et cetera, et cetera. It comes to us in all these different ways. So Jesus has a number of different ways that he gets his grace and compassion to us. So it doesn't mean that you're apart from his grace and compassion, but from that way that Jesus wants to give it to you. And I think that makes us vulnerable to demonic attack. One of the reasons why Jesus has instituted the Supper is to give us that confidence of his great love for us. And if you don't have that, in some ways, it's like you have the armor of God, but you're missing the boots or the shield or something like that.
There's kind of a chink in your own armor. And that's one of the attacks that we see on every Christian in a Protestant church. It's the attack on the assurance of salvation. It's an attack on their confidence. In fact, Protestantism is trying to find that assurance that is intended to be received through the sacraments, but it's taken away by that doctrine of the sacraments.
If you continue in that church knowing that it's teaching false doctrine, that's also eating away at you because it's closing off your capacity to be able to hear the word that's being preached there.
You're spending so much time discerning right or wrong, right or wrong, that it's very difficult to simply receive.
And a lot of people will recognize this experience is when you're going to a church, and if the devil will put something between you and the pastor, or he'll put something between you and somewhere else, that it gets harder and harder to actually listen to what's being said there.
And so you have to address that pretty quickly or else you get cut off from being able to hear the Lord's Word, but it's undermining everything else that's going on because of that known false teaching that's there. And we also know that going to the Lord's Supper is a confession.
So Paul says, when you break this bread, when you take the bread, you proclaim his death until he comes.
And so if I'm participating in a meal that's not the Lord's Supper, at a church that claims to be a church of Jesus, then I'm making a false confession. And that's where my own fault comes into the whole deal.
So, yeah, this is my first sort of quick response to the question, which I think deserves even more thought than that. But you have ideas.
[00:33:25] Speaker B: I had questions. I guess my first question for them would be, why do you want to know? Because it seems like there's a level of knowledge here that, like you said, they seem to understand that they're not receiving something.
So do you want to know because you realize you shouldn't be there, and so you're wondering what is the actual danger? Because my first thought is, well, if you know all of this, then please find a church where you know that it's being done correctly. Right? Like, the church is where the Gospel's preached purely and the sacraments are administered rightly. Like, find that place as quick as you can. And then you don't have to wrestle with this question like, so my thought is like, let's get you into a church where you don't have to ask this question all the time.
But I do think there is a.
Like, if we really believe that the Lord's Supper is for forgiveness, life and salvation, as for the strengthening of our faith, then. And like you said, you're going to be struggling to hear the Word. Because my guess is too, though they're not also pronouncing right, absolution, for example, there's probably.
There might be a real lack of proclamation of the actual gospel for the forgiveness of your sins in this setting. Maybe it's there, but probably not as much as it should be.
I do think that is going to affect you spiritually.
Like you said, these things will, like, kind of eat away at you.
And it's going to, I think, hinder you in various ways, especially because you seem to have this knowledge that you're not receiving this thing that you believe you ought to be receiving.
And I don't know how that cannot damage you over time.
You know, I'm not saying, like, you're Gonna lose your faith, like in a week because this happens. But it seems like over a long period of time, this is just gonna really eat away at you and caused you. I think it's gonna keep burning your conscience. You're gonna keep asking these questions, and there aren't a lot of great answers for them, like, at least none that you're going to like.
And you're going to continue to wonder, I think, what am I doing in this church if they're not giving me all they should be giving me, which are good questions to ask. But then at that point, I think you gotta leave.
Or, you know, talk to the pastor first and say, hey, I struggle with this. Why do we believe this if they don't, you know, if they're not like, hey, you're right, we've got this wrong, which, you know, it does happen from time to time, actually. It's not like, you know, we say it like it could never happen, but it does happen. Churches switch denominations and change and realize they were wrong, ask questions. And then I would find a church where you get those answers and get that comfort and get those gifts. Which goes back to something you've been saying a number of times lately, right? What does Jesus want to give us and where does he give it? Well, go. Go find that. That place and rejoice that you get to receive the gifts. And then you don't have to ask questions like this.
That'll be. That'll be the number one thing for your conscience, is not having to ask this question.
Because the more you ask this and wrestle with this, I think the more you're going to realize you are actually missing out. It's also because you're also. We also believe it's uniting you to Christ, right. And to his body. Those are also things that are not taking place as much as they should for you. So find a place where you're getting that.
[00:36:44] Speaker A: And this word can probably cut through. So Jesus says, do this. So we have a command from the Lord even before we know why or what the benefit is, he says, do this. And the thing that he commands us to do is to take and eat his body and to take and drink his blood.
So that's a command that Jesus has given. So we can't put that off. And if the church says, no, no, you can't keep that command of Jesus.
That's already bad.
And it cuts us off from receiving the gift.
[00:37:18] Speaker B: All right, are you ready for the next one?
[00:37:20] Speaker A: Sure.
[00:37:22] Speaker B: How specifically does sin destroy faith?
Scripture says sin harms faith. And that faith can be forfeited. How does that happen exactly? For those of us who attend weekly, confess, receive absolution and commune, how do we avoid treating sin casually and take its danger to our faith seriously?
[00:37:43] Speaker A: Another very closely related and interesting question.
[00:37:48] Speaker B: Yes, it is.
[00:37:49] Speaker A: Sin is.
You know, the flesh is always wanting and acting against the desires and will of God.
So we have this sinful flesh which is working in the wrong direction.
And we.
And so it is always of unbelief. It's never of faith.
On the other hand, we have the Spirit, which is always trusting God's command and then endeavoring to keep his promise, promises, sorry to keep. So he's trusting God's promises and endeavoring to keep his commands. So these two are at war with one another.
When we give provision for the flesh. This is how Paul talks about it. When he says make no provision for the flesh, he's saying that we're trying to fight against sin, cultivating our faith and trust in the Lord and our love for him and his people and our neighbor, so that something is happening there when in that battle and when we are sinning, we're giving fuel for the fleshly side of life. And that that is going to be always fighting against our faith. That's at least the picture that I've got in my mind. But you were grabbing something like you're going to give us a great quote.
[00:39:07] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm also looking up another quote too, that two different Luther things on this.
Let me see if I can find this one really fast.
The one is on the second half of the question, which I'm going to go out of order because I'm still looking for the other Luther quote. But this is from the Christian Questions and Answers, the back of the Catechism.
I just quoted this in a sermon recently. It's one of my favorite parts of here that I think we overlook sometimes.
Why should we remember and proclaim his death?
First, so that we may learn to believe that no creature could make satisfaction for our sins.
Only Christ, true God and man could do that. Second, so that we may learn to be horrified by our sins and to regard them as very serious.
Third, so that we might find joy and comfort in Christ alone and through faith in him, be saved.
So Luther says, as we prepare for the sacrament, as we take the sacrament, we have three things going on. One, we see that only Christ can save us.
Two, we see that our sins are really wicked and awful and horrific and we need that. That how do we avoid treating them sin casually? Well, if you're communing weekly and thinking through what you're doing, Luther says that's going to happen every time you commune because you're going to be horrified that your sins demanded that Christ die for you, right? That they're that awful that Christ had to die. And then third, that you can find joy and comfort in this and Christ alone and through faith in him be saved.
I think those are like the. That answers the second half. Like, how do you take this seriously? Well, while you're receiving that, right, then you think about what you're doing and receive it in faith. And then you're going to do all those things you're asking about.
The second thing is on losing faith.
This is small called articles, Article 3 of repentance.
This is paragraph or line 43, which is where I always go on this question, because I think it's the most concise place where Luther put this, and perhaps even in our confessions, maybe the most concise.
It is accordingly necessary to know and to teach that when holy men, still having and feeling original sin, also daily repenting of and striving with it, happen to fall into manifest sins as David into adultery, murder and blasphemy, then faith in the Holy Ghost has departed from them.
They cast out faith in the Holy Ghost.
The Holy Ghost does not permit sin to have dominion, to gain the upper hand so as to be accomplished, but represses and restrains it so that it must not do what it wishes. But if it does what it wishes, the Holy Ghost and faith are certainly not present. For St. John says, whoever is born of God does not commit sin, and he cannot, and he cannot sin. And yet it's also the truth. When the same St. John says, if we say that we have no sin, we. We deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.
So that's. I think one of the most concise things we have that sums up what exactly happens in that context is that we give ourselves over to those, as Luther calls them, manifest sins.
And notice what he mentions, right? He's not talking about the daily struggles with sin. He mentions murder, adultery, blasphemy. Like, he's not talking about, like, struggles against the flesh. He's talking about these sins that, like, I'm not gonna accidentally. Or my sinful flesh isn't gonna, like, cause me to stumble into murdering someone today, even if I get really angry, right? My sinful flesh may provoke me to anger, but it's not gonna. It can't just lead me to murder. There's gonna be Some thought, same with adultery, same with blasphemy. Those aren't just gonna, like, happen. Cause I'm struggling against the sinful flesh.
So I think those two sections from Luther, from the small catechism and from the small culture are where I would go and look at and study a little more deeply.
[00:42:58] Speaker A: That's great. I mean, it's perfect too. I mean, how Luther was talking about how faith and the spirit fight against sin. And your point, that second point, first point.
The second point of your first point, that we are learning to despise our sin. That is really important.
That it's not like, well, I'm a sinner because only I know God told me I am. But I don't. I don't feel it in my own flesh. I don't. The Spirit is cultivating in us a disgust for our own sinful flesh.
So that's also really important.
[00:43:31] Speaker B: Okay. Elsewhere in the small cult he says, right, that our hearts are this bottomless pit of sin and iniquity that we can't see the bottom of.
And I do think one of the.
One of the ironies or paradoxes, however you want to talk about it, of the Christian faith is as we grow, I always teach it like this. As we grow in faith, as we grow in grace, as we grow in Christ.
The mature Christian is the one who sees their need for Christ more because they see their sin more and more for what it really is, right? It's the immature Christian who doesn't see sin for what it is and their need for Christ for what it is. It's a mature Christian who's like, man, I really need.
I need the word and sacrament because otherwise I'm going to bring myself and everyone around me to ruin. Because I am just like, I'm a mess, my heart's wicked, my sin's horrific. It's the immature one who's like, it's not that big of a deal, you know, if I skip church or miss church for three weeks, it's not really going to harm me. The mature Christian's like, I can't live without this.
This is everything. Because I see myself rightly.
[00:44:32] Speaker A: Praise the Lord. Thank you, Pastor Packer. Thanks everyone for the questions.
We did it, right?
[00:44:38] Speaker B: We did it. We're done for today.
[00:44:39] Speaker A: Wolfmuller co contact. Send yours our way. We'll get to them post haste. It only takes us normally a couple of days to respond to every question or years.
But thanks for sending them in. Blessed Reformation Day. God's peace be with you.
