Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Hey, podcast theologians, Pastor Wolfmuller here, St. Paul and Jesus, deaf Lutheran churches in Austin, Texas, and host of this what not, the podcast, today's July 1, 2025, the Treasury Daily Prayer. Just before we get to your questions, I was reading the Treasury Daily Prayer and it had the story of the destruction of Jericho and the rescue of Rahab. And I was thinking about this, how this is a common question, actually that comes up all the time. Why did God devote all the people to destruction? But we want to remember that in, in the Scripture, there's the Lord's natural work or native work, the work of his heart, and then there's the Lord's strange work, what Isaiah calls the Lord's alien work. And that's when he devotes people to destruction, when he brings judgment, when he brings the condemnation of the law. And we can see both of those at work. I mean, the Lord does do a strange alien work in devoting the people to destruction. But I think we see the Lord's desire in Rahab and her family.
[00:01:02] They're all saved. And that's what the Lord wants to do. He's determined in his counsel that the people of Jericho and the people, the residents of Canaan, that they have their sin has reached a full measure.
[00:01:16] And so he's going to devote them to destruction, as the Lord does to all sinners. And he's going to let Israel be part of the execution of that judgment.
[00:01:26] But even though he's pronounced this sentence, he hands over all of Jericho to destruction. There is this exception for Rahab, which is what the Lord wants. In fact, if all of the Canaanites would repent of their idolatry and trust in the Lord, then all of them would have joined the Lord's people like Rahab. That was the thing that he was after. But alas, it wouldn't be. Anyhow, thought that was interesting. Here's a question from donmentionmyname who says topic is trauma?
[00:01:58] This is an interesting one.
[00:02:00] The Gospel is about the fact that God is reconciling people to him through Christ.
[00:02:07] I understand how to communicate God's forgiveness to any and all sinners. But what about people who have been sinned against, who have suffered? How can I avoid whitewashing their sins or ignoring their suffering? What is the theology not of justification, but but of comfort and healing?
[00:02:26] This is a phenomenally important question because you're right that the Gospel speaks clearly to my sin that I commit against God and other people, to my guilt, to my burdened conscience for the things that I've done wrong. And it says, christ died for sinners.
[00:02:51] Christ died for my sin.
[00:02:54] So that, I mean, we know this is an interesting thing for pastors to think about, too. We know what to do when someone comes and confesses their sin. We forgive their sin. But what about those who are sinned against?
[00:03:09] Because every sin has a perpetrator and also a victim, someone who is hurt by that sin.
[00:03:16] And a lot of times the sin that troubles us most is not the sin that we've committed, but the sin that's been committed again against us.
[00:03:24] I remember we were talking about this in doxology back in the early days. Dr. Kleinig, a beautiful Australian theologian, was there and he was talking with us, and he said, I like to consider this the sin that are committed against us. The result is shame.
[00:03:38] It's not the technical use of the word shame, but I think it's good for a heuristic that we have the guilt from the sin that we commit and shame from the sin that's committed against us. And what do we do with shame? He was talking about how in the past people might come to the pastor and commit and confess their shame.
[00:03:57] And the pastor would say, oh, don't worry about it. You didn't do anything wrong. You're fine.
[00:04:04] But that's not enough, because shame also registers in the conscience.
[00:04:09] Remember, the conscience is kind of a blunt instrument, like the stomach. The stomach just tells you, give me some food. It doesn't tell you what it needs. It doesn't tell you, hey, I could use some protein or. Or some. Whatever. It just says, give me some food. The conscience is the same sort of thing. It just aches.
[00:04:27] In fact, I think there's these three aches that define our humanity. There's the ache of our stomach. That's the flesh and its wants.
[00:04:36] And there's the ache of the conscience that tells us that something's wrong. Something's wrong with me, something's wrong with you, something's wrong with everything. That's that dull ache of the conscience.
[00:04:47] And then there's a loneliness, too. I don't know where this ache comes from, but the desire for community and conversation, to see and be seen, to know and be known.
[00:04:57] It's this ache for the I to be a we.
[00:05:04] I don't know exactly how to talk about that, but I think there's these three dull aches that really define all of our lives. And so one of them is this ache of the conscience. And oftentimes the trouble is that when I'm sinned, Against it hurts in the conscience like guilt does, but it's slightly different. A lot of times the result is I feel unclean, especially if someone has been abused or hurt. In regard to the sixth commandment, shall not commit adultery if there's been abuse in this way.
[00:05:41] This sense of violation and of uncleanness.
[00:05:45] I think the same is true, like with the seventh commandment. I've talked to people who.
[00:05:49] They've been robbed. Someone came into their house or came into their car and took some of their stuff. And there's this sense of violation and uncleanness.
[00:05:59] You want to sit in the shower and just kind of wash it off. It's like the dreaming queen in Macbeth. Is that Macbeth? Out, out, damn spot where she's just sleepwalking and trying to rub the blood off of her hands.
[00:06:13] That's guilt. But anyway, the shame has this sense of uncleanness. So what do we do about that?
[00:06:22] The Bible talks about shame in terms of nakedness.
[00:06:26] You can think of Adam and Eve who realized that they were naked and they were ashamed and they went and hid themselves.
[00:06:33] Or even Noah, who's uncovered and.
[00:06:39] And his one son, Ham, sees him and mocks him, and his other two sons. Don't go in backwards and cover his shame. Or Revelation, chapter two. In the letter that Jesus writes, is it chapter three where he says, come to me and I will give you robes to cover the shame of your nakedness.
[00:07:02] So that the picture that the Lord uses for those who have been abused is the language, the really the gospel language of being covered.
[00:07:13] That the Lord wraps the righteousness of Christ around you and covers you, that the Lord is not ashamed of you, that the Lord does not despise you. Because that's what one of the results of shame is, that we feel like we're unworthy to come into the Lord's presence.
[00:07:34] And so the good news is that the Lord accepts you, his blood cleanses you.
[00:07:42] This is the promise from John where it says he will cleanse you from all unrighteousness.
[00:07:52] So the blood of Jesus even washes away the stain that's left from the sins that are committed against us.
[00:08:02] Now, there's one more thing I want to say about this, and this is the hardest thing I think, that I have to say as a pastor.
[00:08:11] I've said it a number of times, and every time I say it, I'm almost trembling to say it. I mean, my hand is shaking.
[00:08:22] And that is. And I'll tell you more after I tell you what it is. But when someone's been really hurt and abused.
[00:08:31] I think that I am authorized to tell them that not only did Jesus die for the sins that they committed, but Jesus also died to forgive the sins committed against them.
[00:08:46] And the reason I am so terrified to say that is because I think people might say, but I don't want Jesus to be dead for that sin committed against me.
[00:08:56] I want him to be mad. I want him to be the judge. I want him to execute justice.
[00:09:01] Now, it's not wrong to work for justice, and we should work for justice according to all the institutions that the Lord himself has set up for justice. If someone needs to be accused, if someone needs to be arrested, if someone needs to go to court, we can pursue that. It's fine. It's godly, actually, especially to avoid that kind of abuse or affliction happening again to you or anybody else.
[00:09:30] So it's fine to pursue justice, but we have to know that justice will not give us a good conscience.
[00:09:36] There's all these. You've seen it before, these interviews of families who are coming out of court after the man who killed their daughter has now been condemned to a life sentence or to die or whatever. And they ask how they feel, and they've been pursuing justice for years and years. And now it's come and they said, it can't give our daughter back.
[00:10:02] Justice, while good, is not reconciliation, it's not restoration, and it's not the way to a good conscience. Only the gospel can get us to a good conscience.
[00:10:15] So while we do pursue justice, we have to also know that this thing, that Christ has died also for the sins committed against us. And this is what sets us free as Christians in the Holy Spirit to forgive those who trespass against us, so that there's real forgiveness and real mercy extended also to the people who have sinned against us.
[00:10:44] Now, that's hard, but it's beautiful. And I have to say that every time I've said that, I've been surprised because I'm afraid that people are going to be angry at that and people are going to be terrified by that idea and offended by it.
[00:11:00] But every time I've said it to someone who's come to me with this great shame, they've started weeping.
[00:11:08] And so that's the. That's right. That's good.
[00:11:12] And that's what I need to know.
[00:11:14] So the gospel is not only that Christ has died for the sins that I've committed, but Christ has also died for the sins committed against me.
[00:11:24] I hope that's helpful.
[00:11:26] It's a big Time. Question. Thank you. Here's another one from Ben about the real presence.
[00:11:33] Dear Pastor Wolfmuller, I'd love to know a Lutheran response to the question raised by Queen Elizabeth in her poem about the Lord's Supper and the real presence. Huh.
[00:11:42] Specifically relating to Jesus first institution, pre crucifixion. The specific section of the poem I'm referring to is below Queen Elizabeth in 1688. I'd never heard of this poem. Thank you, Ben.
[00:11:56] Here's the poem. He gave his flesh and blood, and bread and wine. For if his body he did then divide, he must have eat himself before he died. We must believe the words of him who said, this is my body when he gave the bread.
[00:12:11] And sure that blood which curdled in each vein did his sacred body still remain till he was crucified and slain.
[00:12:24] So in what sense did the disciples feed on the body and blood of Christ before he died? And is it the same for us today? I hope this all makes sense. Thanks, Ben.
[00:12:32] Yes, it is the same. Now, we do not have in the text Jesus eating the bread or drinking the wine. So we don't know if he participated in the Passover meal. But then the meal is done, and then he takes the bread and he gave it to the disciples to eat. And he took the cup and he gave it to the disciples to eat.
[00:12:50] So he didn't, as far as the text says, participate in it himself. He didn't eat it.
[00:12:58] He was the meal and the host, not the guest.
[00:13:03] And that's the same for us. But the disciples partook of the body and blood of Jesus in the same exact way that we partake of it. Now, because Jesus is the one who says, do this.
[00:13:16] So the thing that we do is the thing that he did. Take bread, bless it, give thanks, and eat it. And with that bread we eat the body of Christ. And with the blood, with the cup, the New Testament, the cup of the New Testament, with the wine, we drink the blood of Christ and we receive the forgiveness of sins.
[00:13:35] Now, how that could happen is. I mean, it's just as strange a miracle if Jesus is there as it is if Jesus is at the right hand of the Father, filling all things according to the communication of attributes, where all the attributes of his divine nature are communicated through the unity of persons to his human nature, which is what we confess about the state of exaltation.
[00:14:06] But it's the same miracle so that the Lord Jesus is able to put his body there for us to eat and put his blood there for us to drink. Now, how do we know that? How do we know that's what Jesus does?
[00:14:18] And how do we know that's what Jesus wants us to do? The answer is because he said, take and eat, this is my body.
[00:14:26] Take and drink, this is my blood.
[00:14:31] So we know that from the words of Jesus, and we just can't. I mean, even though they don't make sense, that's what this poem from Queen Elizabeth wants to do. Put a big question mark like, how can Jesus, who's standing there, put his body in the bread? And how can Jesus, who's standing there, put his blood in the cup?
[00:14:51] And the answer is, well, he's Jesus and he gets to do what he wants and he gets to tell us about it.
[00:14:56] So the key question, and this is not just the key question for the Lord's Supper, it's just the key question for being a Christian.
[00:15:05] What does Jesus want us to have?
[00:15:09] This is this kind of theological life centering question. What does Jesus want me to have?
[00:15:16] And apparently, well, the nice assumption behind that question is that we can know, right?
[00:15:24] And the way that we can know is because he had his apostles and his prophets write down the things that he wants us to know.
[00:15:31] So we can know what Jesus wants us to know and we can have what Jesus wants us to have. And when we come to the Supper, what does he want us to have?
[00:15:38] His body and his blood. And we just say, okay. I remember one time I was on some reformed guy. Oh man, what was his name?
[00:15:46] He always told me that I was his second favorite Lutheran because he knew only one other. He was in Florida. This was funny. And this maybe 10 years ago, I went on this podcast a handful of times and one time he says, you're going to have to. We're going to have to come back and do a show and you're going to have to tell me. Explain the Lutheran doctrine of the Lord's Supper. It's so complicated. And I said, oh, we don't need an hour. I can give you 30 seconds.
[00:16:10] I said, all right, go ahead.
[00:16:12] And I said, it goes like this. Jesus says, take and eat. This is my body. And we say, okay.
[00:16:22] Jesus says, take a drink. This is my blood poured out for you for the forgiveness of sins. And we say, okay.
[00:16:30] I mean, that's really it.
[00:16:33] And if Jesus wants us to have his body and his blood, and that's what he told us, then we just say, okay, here's another question.
[00:16:47] Publish it. Don't use my name. It's about Adam and Eve.
[00:16:51] The question is why do we believe that Adam and Eve are saved when it seems that they never confessed or repented?
[00:17:00] I love the question because it pushes us back into the text.
[00:17:05] I remember. So it's true. So, Herod, Adam and Eve, they believe the devil and their eyes and their own impulses more than the word of God. They see that Eve sees that the fruit is able to make one wise and good for food. And it's not poison. I think that's the problem. Well, part of the problem. The devil convinced Eve that what God meant was that the fruit is poison.
[00:17:33] You won't surely die, it won't kill you. And then the real mess is when the devil said, God knows that you will not die.
[00:17:42] So that the devil is much more interested in what Adam and Eve think about God than what they think about the fruit. In fact, the devil is most interested in what Adam and Eve think God thinks about them.
[00:17:55] God knows that you'll be like him. That's why he doesn't want you to have it. Which was a lie. What a mess. So they sinned.
[00:18:03] But then they think there's a moment where Adam and Eve are not yet terrified, they're just troubled. They see their nakedness, but then they think, we can fix this. And so they go and they make their fig leaves and then they come out from behind the bushes and this is the best joke I've ever written. I've told you this a million times. All of you are rolling your eyes now. Oh boy, here comes the Adam and Eve joke. Maybe a few of you have never heard this joke. Get ready. This is actually a hilarious joke. Most of the time.
[00:18:31] If I make a joke up, I would want you to lower your expectations, but not now.
[00:18:36] Get ready.
[00:18:38] So Adam and Eve come out from behind the bushes and Eve says to Adam there with her fig leaf outfit, she says, how do I look?
[00:18:47] These are my fall colors.
[00:18:52] I can almost hear the groaning through the microphone, you guys.
[00:18:56] So they think, here's Adam and Eve in their.
[00:18:59] In their fig leaf clothes, which is a picture of every human religion. All our efforts to cover our guilt and shame by our own mechanisms.
[00:19:12] They are not yet Christians.
[00:19:16] They're not seemingly even bothered until.
[00:19:19] Amazing.
[00:19:20] They hear the sound of the Lord in the cool of the day and they go and hide themselves. And I think this is if you want a picture of what spiritual death is.
[00:19:31] The spiritual death that follows sin. This is it. Adam and Eve instead of.
[00:19:36] So imagine how they should have reacted if they hadn't sinned. And they hear the footsteps of God. Coming.
[00:19:45] And they run to him with joy.
[00:19:51] But here they're dead now. And so they run from God, hiding from God, holding their breath, knowing that they've ruined everything, thinking that God is going to murder them. I think the picture that always comes to my mind is like when my kids were younger and I would get home and if they were hiding in the closet, holding their breath because they thought I was going to beat them up, I mean, that's Adam and Eve here. It's terrible. Not yet Christian.
[00:20:16] But the Lord finds him and he says, what? What have you done? What have you done? And then to the devil he curses him, and then he speaks this promise. So this is Genesis 3:15.
[00:20:29] The, the church has called this the Proto Evangelion, the very first gospel.
[00:20:35] Because the, because the Lord is going to speak to the devil.
[00:20:42] Words of promise.
[00:20:44] And he says to the devil, I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your seed and her seed.
[00:20:52] Think capital S seed. This is the promise of the Messiah.
[00:20:57] And you will crush his heel and he will crush your head.
[00:21:01] It's the picture of a barefoot farmer being struck on the foot by a snake while he smashes the snake's face into the ground and kills it.
[00:21:11] It's an amazing promise.
[00:21:13] It's the promise that the woman would have a son without the help of a man. So it's kind of a pre virgin birth promise. It's the promise that this man would have divine power to be able to destroy the devil.
[00:21:28] So it's a confession of the incarnation and the two natures of Christ. Adam and Eve could resist the devil?
[00:21:36] Apparently not, but they had the capacity to.
[00:21:40] But this seed of the woman was going to be able to destroy the devil. He's also going to be able to be wounded and die, be struck on the heel. So this is the two natures of Christ. So the woman will have a man without the help of her husband, who will die, but not stay dead. And in that dying will destroy the power of the devil and his offspring. Death and hell and sin.
[00:22:06] This is all there in that very first promise. It's so beautiful.
[00:22:11] Now the question that's being asked here is, did Adam and Eve have faith in that promise? Because that's what it means to be a Christian.
[00:22:20] And we see it. It's hard to see in the Hebrew, but Luther helps us with this. Well, I mean, whoever knows Hebrew helps us, but it's Luther who notices this.
[00:22:30] Is that immediately? So, okay, so the Lord then just. I want to look at Genesis 4:1, but before that, there's one more step that the Lord's going to do. He's going to take off their fig leaves and he's going to clothe them in skin. So he's going to make a sacrifice. He's take some animal. Who knows what the animal was, probably unicorn. That's why we don't have them anymore.
[00:22:55] And the Lord himself kills this animal, which is an amazing thing to think that the first blood shed was not by demonic hands or even by human hands, but by God.
[00:23:09] God takes an animal, an innocent animal. He kills it, he drains the blood, he carves the skin off the flesh.
[00:23:19] It's horrifying to think Adam and Eve with these wide eyes, look, what are you doing? And then the Lord takes that flesh and wraps it, still warm and quivering, and it sticks to the naked bodies of Adam and Eve.
[00:23:37] And you just have to imagine, they think this is what it costs to cover our sin and shame. And the Lord would preach and say, no, this is just the beginning. This is just a picture. But just wait, because it's going to cost the death of my son. I mean, that's. This amazing thing is that the Lord told Adam and Eve, on the day that you eat of it, surely you will die. He forgot to mention, on the day that you eat of it, I will also die.
[00:24:03] So that their sin also means the death of God that's on the way.
[00:24:07] And all of this is. This sacrifice is conforming this, supporting this promise, this first gospel, this Genesis 3:15. Okay, so the question is, did they believe it?
[00:24:20] And I think we have the answer in chapter 4, verse 1, where Adam knew his wife Eve, she conceived and bore Cain. And she said, I have acquired a man from the Lord.
[00:24:32] If you look at that in the old Hebrew, the literal Hebrew, this is how Luther will translate it. I have acquired a man, that is the Lord.
[00:24:45] So that Eve thinks that the very first child conceived is the promised child and that the Lord is now born and this one is going to destroy the devil. Now, she was wrong.
[00:24:56] I mean, Cain is going to be the opposite. Boy, oh boy, Cain.
[00:25:00] But that Eve thinks that the Lord has already kept his promise.
[00:25:05] So there's this indication that Adam and Eve have faith in this promise that the Lord has given them and they have now become the first Christians and that they would have preached, offered the sacrifices and preached. This is why Abel knew that he was able to offer the sacrifice from the flock and shed the blood, and that the shedding of the blood would be the forgiveness of sins that we're just, I mean, we're reading into it, but that Adam and Eve are the ones who are teaching the faith, trying to hand it down to their children.
[00:25:41] So that's my best argument for why we believe that Adam and Eve are saved.
[00:25:50] Good question.
[00:25:51] I got some more coffee. Let's see. Let's try this one here.
[00:25:58] This one says personal note. Let me go to the theology question. Aha. Here's one.
[00:26:04] Frank says this topic of end times prophecies, I understand most Lutheran eschatology and why it's against dispensational theology in general. Okay, so a couple words in there that we should define. Eschatology means theology of the end times. Dispensationalism is a particular theology that is mostly about the end times. But actually dispensationalism is a whole theological system.
[00:26:28] It's a new one. I mean, think 1860s and 70s dispensationalism. The big pillars of dispensationalism are that the history is to demonstrate God's glory and the purpose of history is God's glory and not man's salvation. That's interesting that there's a distinction between Israel and the Church. That's another big dispensational thing. And that's probably the thing that drives their eschatology.
[00:27:00] And their third thing is they want us claim to have a consistent literal hermeneutic so that they read the Bible literally and that also they apply to the end times so that when you get things in revelation about battles and they read really, they want to read the book of Revelation chronologically and they want to build in this distinction between Israel and the Church into that reading of revelation so that the Church is God's spiritual people. He's got to get them out of the way so that he can go back to dealing with his earthly people, with earthly promises. That is Israel.
[00:27:36] Okay, so that's dispensationalism. And it. And it's dispensationalism has a lot of stuff to say about eschatology. It's the theology of the rapture, the pre tribulation rapture of the Church.
[00:27:49] Dispensationalism is also pre millennial.
[00:27:52] So we have the 1000 years in Revelation 20.
[00:27:56] And the dispensationalists will say that Christ comes back before that thousand years to set up that thousand years and to rule and reign on the earth.
[00:28:07] However, I understand. Let's see why it's against dispensationalism. However, I don't understand why very specific prophecies are ignored by Lutheran theology. In my mind, these prophecies should not be written off as dispensational interpretations. I see them as very valid prophecies apart from dispensational teaching. It seems to me Lutherans are throwing out the baby with the bathwater in this case.
[00:28:28] Of primary interest are those prophecies regarding the last three and a half years of Daniel's 70th week.
[00:28:35] Satan declaring himself to be God in the temple, Israel being warned to flee to the mountains. Believers warned about such persecution that the Lord has to cut it short or no one would be left.
[00:28:46] I fail to see how these are ignored or explained away. Help me understand.
[00:28:51] There are many of us coming out of the Reformed tradition to Lutheran theology. I've seen many excellent books and articles helping us see the differences there. I've not seen anything like that when it comes to eschatology and the differences between Reformed and Lutheran explanation. The end times. Perhaps such a book exists. I haven't found it yet.
[00:29:10] I'm thinking just off the top of my head, there's a book by Kim Riddlebarger, Riddle something or other.
[00:29:17] He was a Reformed guy who wrote a book on amillennialism against dispensationalism.
[00:29:25] I'll put a link in the description to a paper that I wrote at the seminary about dispensationalism. What and why not and how to regard the prophecies.
[00:29:36] I think, Frank, that you're right about this. We have to take the prophecies absolutely seriously. Prophecies of the Old and the New Testament.
[00:29:46] But the basic assumption of Lutheran eschatology, of amillennialism, that's the kind of the word used to describe the Lutherans. It's not a very nice word, as if we don't believe in the millennium, which we do. Of course we do.
[00:30:04] But the basic assumption is that because Jesus teaches that he could come back at any time, that all the prophecies that the Lord has given have been fulfilled.
[00:30:17] And this is true also of the last three and a half years of Daniel's 70th week.
[00:30:23] I think the Lutheran understanding of those three and a half years is actually more natural and more literal than the dispensational view.
[00:30:32] So Daniel receives this amazing chronological prophecy.
[00:30:38] Do you remember? The angel comes to him and he gives it to him. And he has this prophecy of these 70 years.
[00:30:44] And these are 70 weeks of years. So it's a promise of 400. However, what's seven times 490 years?
[00:30:53] And it describes what's going to happen in that last week of the year.
[00:30:59] It's a really incredible. It's like, it's like a prophetic clock.
[00:31:04] And we understand that that time clock started when the decree went to rebuild Jerusalem.
[00:31:14] And so then the question is what lines up?
[00:31:17] Because in the middle of that last week, three and a half years into it, is the abomination of desolation. And then there's three and a half years and the time is finished.
[00:31:28] And so the question is, what is the mark of that last week?
[00:31:34] Now the dispensational view. I wonder if I have my Scofield.
[00:31:41] I got a Scofield reference Bible. I think I got it at church, I'm recording at home.
[00:31:47] The dispensational view is that there's a pause in that 70 weeks in that last week.
[00:31:56] So that when you get to.
[00:32:02] In fact, I think Scofield says, this is how I was taught, I used to follow this prophecy guy named Chuck Missler, that you have 69 weeks of Daniel and you get to the triumphal entry of Jesus and then it stopped.
[00:32:20] In fact, I remember him saying it's like the prophetic stopwatch hits pause and then it restarts at the rapture.
[00:32:29] And that's why the dispensationalists understand that there's a seven year tribulation.
[00:32:34] And in the midst of that seven year tribulation, then the Antichrist will present himself in the temple in Jerusalem, the rebuilt temple in Jerusalem, and offer a sacrifice there on the altar. And, and then that will go into three and a half years of destruction and chaos until that week is over and then Jesus will come back.
[00:32:59] So the dispensationalist has to read into this 70 weeks of Daniel, a pause, you get 69 weeks and then stopped and then you start again. That's not the natural reading.
[00:33:12] The Lutheran reading is, is that the 70th week of Daniel doesn't start at the triumphal entry of Jesus, but rather at the baptism of Jesus.
[00:33:21] So when Jesus is baptized, we mark the last week of Daniel's 70 weeks and three and a half years into that last week is the crucifixion of Jesus, which is the abomination of desolation.
[00:33:38] That's where the Jewish rulers, instead of offering the sacrifices that they're supposed to offer on the altar in the temple, offer the Lord himself.
[00:33:51] But that, remember how Daniel prophesied, that's the sacrifice that ends all sacrifices, which is exactly what the sacrifice of Jesus does.
[00:34:00] So that the crucifixion, this is the Lord showing Himself. I'm going to look up the words from Daniel for that.
[00:34:09] So I'm reading In Daniel, chapter nine, starting with verse 24, 70 weeks are determined for your people and for your holy city. To finish the transgression, to make an end of sins, to make reconciliation for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy, to anoint the most holy.
[00:34:30] Know therefore and understand that from the going forth of the command to restore and build Jerusalem until Messiah the prince, there shall be seven weeks and 62 weeks.
[00:34:42] So seven and 62, that's 69 weeks.
[00:34:44] And that's again 62 weeks, 69 weeks of years. So 483 years the street shall be built again, and the wall even in troublesome times, that's all fulfilled under Nehemiah, Ezra, and so forth. After 62 weeks, Messiah shall be cut off, but not for himself and the people of the Prince. And understand that 62 weeks is after it. So seven weeks, 62 weeks. At the 69th week, the Messia shall be cut off, but not for himself.
[00:35:12] And the people of the prince who is to come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary. That happens with Titus in the year 70, the end shall be with a flood till the end of wars and desolations are determined. Then he shall confirm a covenant with many for one week. But in the middle of the week he shall bring an end to sacrifice and offering.
[00:35:32] And on the wing of abominations shall be one who makes desolate, even until the consummation which is determined is poured out on the desolate.
[00:35:44] So what is this sacrifice that brings an end to sacrifice and offering?
[00:35:48] We say that was the death of Jesus, and then that marks the and so the death of Jesus and then his resurrection, where he set up as the Messiah, the king. That's halfway through that last week. And then it's a question about when the 70 weeks ends.
[00:36:06] And so when is the Lord done dealing with Israel?
[00:36:11] The classic answer, Luther answers it this way, is in the stoning of Stephen, which happens three and a half years after the death of Jesus. So the stoning of Stephen marks the end of Daniel's 70 week prophecy.
[00:36:25] And then it's just a matter of the Lord's patience for how long it will be before Jerusalem is destroyed and the temple is torn down.
[00:36:35] So that happens in the year oh, it's about the year 37 that Stephen is stoned. And then it's another 33 years until the year 70 when Titus comes in and destroys Jerusalem. So there's 33 years of the Lord's patience.
[00:36:51] In some ways, it's like Noah, the flood's coming, and then the Lord sort of delays it a little bit because of his mercy, because of his love.
[00:37:00] So the Lord delays the destruction of Jerusalem, and then all these promises are fulfilled. Where Jesus says, I think Frank mentioned this in the question, but what about fleeing Jerusalem? Well, that's exactly what happens, because Jesus warned them, hey, when you see the eagle coming, which is that standard of the Roman army, when you see it flee to the hills. So that when Jerusalem was destroyed in 70, there was no Christians involved in that destruction because they all heeded the warning of Jesus and headed for the hills, and they were able to survive.
[00:37:33] So I think actually that the Lutheran reading of the 70 weeks of Daniel is more literal than the dispensational reading.
[00:37:47] And we don't believe that there was any sort of pause or stop or. Or anything in there, but that the Lord just kept his promise and we get to 70 weeks. In fact, it's a big part of the argument that Luther makes in his work on the Jews and their lies, which we'll admit is not the most popular. But in fact, if you can kind of work through all the historical stuff and all the bombast, it's a marvelous work where he talks about how literally the Lord fulfilled all the promises he made to the prophets. And it had to be, in other words, one of the arguments that comes from the synagogue, from Jewish people who believe that the Messiah is on the way.
[00:38:33] One of the problems that they have is the 70 weeks of Daniel, because we're way past that. I mean, there's no way to argue that we're not way past it, that it's over.
[00:38:42] But the dispensationalists, it's interesting, the dispensationalists have this theology of the pause, which is not in the text.
[00:38:50] It's not in the text.
[00:38:52] All right, we still got some. Let me check my coffee here. Here's a question on parenting Public don't use my name.
[00:39:00] Question is, my boys have asked indirectly lately centered around when earthly parents fail us.
[00:39:09] What do we do when we're supposed to love, honor, and respect them, but how do they treat us or how they show their love is imperfect?
[00:39:17] It's a good enough question as it is, but I suspect their real question is, if my parent isn't a Christian, how am I supposed to love, honor, and respect them without betraying my faith?
[00:39:26] Remember the fourth commandment.
[00:39:29] It is honor your father and your mother and Luther teaches us, and this is a really important thing, that we should fear and love God so that we do not despise our parents and other authorities, but honor them, serve and obey them, love and cherish them.
[00:39:50] So that the fourth commandment is not first a commandment about how we're supposed to treat our parents, but how we're supposed to think about God.
[00:39:59] We should fear and love God. That's how every commandment is. I got an email from someone.
[00:40:04] They were having a hard time with some of the stuff going on at church. And I said, remember how Luther teaches us the commandments? That every single act of obedience is, you're loving God, you're fearing God and loving God by doing these things.
[00:40:20] And it's really important for us to have that in mind. Especially when the things that we're doing are difficult or when the people that we are required to love are difficult to love.
[00:40:31] How do we honor bad parents, basically, or godless parents?
[00:40:36] And the way that we honor them is by remembering first that God is the one who gave them to us.
[00:40:42] And God does all things well. So that in his good pleasure, he determined that, this is my mom and this is my dad for each one of us.
[00:40:51] He's the one who's given them as gifts. Now, sometimes you can hardly see any good in the gift.
[00:40:58] Especially if parents are neglectful or sinful or abusive or whatever. It's very, very, very difficult to see any good in that, and we should not.
[00:41:09] Honoring your father and your mother is not sugarcoating their own sinfulness. In fact, one of the great difficulties in having parents is when you recognize that they, in fact, are sinners. But if you don't know that yet about your parents, I'll just kind of break the news to you. Your parents are also sinners. And because of this relationship that the Lord gives to parents and children, they are going to probably sin against you more than anybody else.
[00:41:39] I feel it, boy. I feel it as a dad, that the people who have to bear the brunt of my sinful nature, even more than Carrie, my wife, is my kids, they have to endure this.
[00:41:53] So a huge part of becoming an adult is forgiving your parents and not letting the devil pile up the sins that they've committed against you and make you bitter and loveless. And this great victim walking around always with a grudge and stuff like this. This is one of the great things, is that we also can forgive our parents the sins they commit against us. This is.
[00:42:21] It's a big part of maturity, but we still are honoring them in the ways that we can, according to the Lord's will, because the Lord is the one who's given them to us and given us the command.
[00:42:36] Now.
[00:42:38] So we honor. And honor is, in fact, a kind of a higher form of love.
[00:42:45] So when Luther's explaining this, and I would commend to you the. The fourth commandment in the large catechism, when Luther's talking about this, he says that.
[00:42:52] He says, we don't honor our parents because they are honorable. We honor them because of the command, because God is the one who's written in golden script above their heads, mom and dad.
[00:43:03] And we recognize the Lord's handwriting on our parents.
[00:43:08] That's an amazing sort of thing.
[00:43:10] And that honor, Luther says, is above love, because honor is. This is this command to let them be seated next to God.
[00:43:20] The Lord says to parents, you come up here by me. I'm giving you also honor.
[00:43:25] So we want to do everything we can to honor our parents. But now that honor, just like love, is constrained by the sins of the parents.
[00:43:33] So that if we have terrible and godless parents, we have to remember that while we have the command to honor them, we.
[00:43:41] We also, and above that, are commanded to honor God.
[00:43:46] So that there are times when the will of our parents contradicts the will of God.
[00:43:52] And in those cases, we have to follow God rather than man.
[00:43:56] We have to follow the Lord's commandments and not our parents.
[00:44:00] So let's say that your mom and dad are like pickpockets, and they're trying to involve you in their pickpocket scheme. Well, look, the Lord is the one who says, you shall not steal. So you can't follow. You have to dishonor your parents in order to honor God.
[00:44:16] And this gets into this bigger question, which is, I'll outline it for you. It's easy to outline and think about, but it's very difficult to put into practice because the Lord has set us in this life to love.
[00:44:28] So we love all people, including our love for our parents, which is to honor them. But that. That love takes on a different shape.
[00:44:35] And the shape of our love, I think, is constrained by five questions. Okay, so here's the half step back, and I'm going to give a broad outline on how we live as Christians. And I think it's going to be applicable to this particular situation.
[00:44:53] So I know that I am commanded to love everybody.
[00:44:57] And the Lord says. I mean, we say, well, what about my enemies? And the Lord says, yeah, love your enemies just to make sure.
[00:45:03] So that includes everybody. I'm commanded to love everybody. But that love looks very different depending on the circumstances.
[00:45:10] And I'm going to suggest that there's five questions that we can ask that determine the shape of our love. So the first question is, what does the Ten Commandments say? So that we're supposed to have ten commandment shaped love, and that is especially this. It sets boundaries to love.
[00:45:25] So what's the easy way to think about that is the kids that are dating in high school and one says, hey, you know, if you love me, you would lay down with me like we're husband and wife. Well, no. The sixth commandment says, you shall not commit adultery.
[00:45:40] So love doesn't look like breaking the commandments. It looks like keeping the commandments. That's the first thing. The second is, what is my vocation? What's my calling? That's the huge, huge question on what my love looks like.
[00:45:52] My love to my neighbor looks different than my love to my kids because I have a different vocation for them. I'm neighbor for my kids. I'm dad. My love for my kids looks very different than my love for the members of the church. I don't go buy them shoes.
[00:46:09] I guess I really don't buy my kids shoes either. But I could, and it wouldn't be weird, but if I bought the members of St. Paul, if I started showing up with new shoes now.
[00:46:20] So what is your vocation determines what love looks like? This vocation of husband and wife, the love in that vocation looks different than any other love.
[00:46:31] The third question is, what is my neighbor's need?
[00:46:35] And here it's interesting that I normally am not buying shoes for people, but if someone shows up at church and they don't have shoes and they're trying to get to a job interview or whatever, then I could. The neighbor's need now can give a new shape to love.
[00:46:51] The fourth question is, what am I good at? And this has to do with this.
[00:46:55] Like when I'm thinking of going to school or going to some vocational training or thinking what my future will be or what my job should be, how should I shape my overall lovingness of life? I can ask questions like, well, what am I good at? What do I like to do? If I have a day where I don't have too much planned, it's kind of restful, and I go, you know, how do I. I'm going to love, but what am I good at? Well, how do I like to do it?
[00:47:19] That's the fourth question. And it's fourth for a reason, because our neighbor's need comes before what we like to do.
[00:47:26] But I think it factors in there. And then the fifth question is, what is my neighbor's sin? This is really kind of a honing in on the first question, the Ten Commandments, but it's making it more specific because if my neighbor or whoever I'm supposed to love is drawn into some kind of sinfulness, I can't participate in that.
[00:47:52] And that's when my love for them has to look different.
[00:48:01] If your niece invites you to her wedding with her girlfriend. Well, normally, if your niece invited you to her wedding, love would look like being a good aunt or uncle and going to the wedding and supporting it. But because it's a. It's a pretend wedding of two girls or whatever. Now, now love has to take on a different shape.
[00:48:23] And that's also the case here. When we have bad parents.
[00:48:28] Is it not the normal way that honoring your father and mother would look.
[00:48:33] Has to look different if there's. If there's kind of these weird. If there's narcissistic tendencies or whatever kind of abusive stuff that's going on, and especially when you're grown up and now you're trying to figure out, well, how in the world do I love this mom or this dad?
[00:48:51] At least, you know, the question is, you are to love them.
[00:48:54] And now it's the question of, well, what is. How does. What does that look like? And that's a good question to meditate on, because if you're. If you're working on it in that way, you're heading in the right direction.
[00:49:06] Good question. And we got one more. Let's try one more. Uh, oh, this is titled A Crisis.
[00:49:13] Colby says, see what's happening.
[00:49:17] Thank you for your channel. I've learned so much from you and love your videos. I have a few questions.
[00:49:23] I'm from a congregation and skip the state. We have nearby churches that are vacant and need a pastor. The demographic in my church is primarily folks that are age 65 plus. My wife and I are the only young couple with a baby in our church. And although there are a couple of parents with a couple of older kids, I know the immediate answer is God will sustain his church and grow it or the church will never perish. Which is true. Biblical what I believe. I struggle, though, to know how to differentiate the.
[00:49:51] Let God do all the work versus the other end of the spectrum, where, for example, the Baptists lie, where they focus on just boosting numbers and not teaching Long gospel, the other biblical truths that are more important than simply full pews. How does a confessional Lutheran in today's America focus on growing the spread of Lutheranism in communities?
[00:50:11] I see a crisis blooming for my church and churches in the future in the area. As far as possible, as far as people in church and whether or not it will be open in the next 10 years or so, I'll say the state, Oregon, needs Lutherans and to have the gospel faithfully preached every Sunday just as much as Indiana or Missouri or Minnesota or any other state. Also, should the seminaries make the seminary process more streamlined? Perhaps virtual other creative means to get more qualified pastors in the synod. How's the Synod approaching the pastor crisis? I'm pursuing the call of becoming a pastor within the LCMS in the next five or six years. What are your thoughts?
[00:50:53] Thank you. In Christ Peace.
[00:50:56] It's a good question. I think, by the way, I might be the only person that thinks this.
[00:51:02] If you think this or if you know someone who thinks this thing that I'm about to say, then let me know, so then I won't feel so lonely. But I think that the Lutheran Church is Missouri Synod specifically, but the Lutheran Church is just on the edge of a boom and that we're not going to have room in our churches for the people that the Lord will send our way. And I think it's going to be something like the zombie, the spiritual zombie apocalypse where, like, you know, during the zombie apocalypse, if you've got food in the basement, then everyone comes knocking on your door. And I think that's what's going to happen. People are going to come knocking on the church door, be like, we know you got law and gospel in there. Let us have it.
[00:51:40] And even the kind of loose Lutheran pastors who don't know how to think about these things and are trying to diminish our Lutheran identity rather than extol it, will be almost forced to preach law and gospel and teach Bible classes on the Augsburg Confession, et cetera, et cetera.
[00:51:58] I think that's on the way. So.
[00:52:00] So I think that.
[00:52:02] But anyway, again, I might be the only guy that thinks that I have a weird perspective because I get to hear from all of you guys from all over the world who are becoming Lutheran.
[00:52:16] And it's beautiful. And not many people get to see that. But, you know, we have now, this is amazing truth. We've never had a Lutheran church in Greece, but we do now.
[00:52:27] We've never really had a Lutheran church in Italy. We do now, there's never been a Lutheran church in Ireland. There's about to be.
[00:52:35] And more and more Lutheran churches that have been kind of dragged along by the liberal Lutheran World Federation are coming along saying, no, we can't give up the scriptures, no matter what it costs. And so they're kind of jumping over to anyway. But that doesn't change the fact that there's a lot of churches that are struggling, a lot of churches that have not even bounced back to where they were at Covid, which was five years ago now. A lot of churches that are really struggling to pay for a pastor. A lot of churches who are looking at the demographics and saying, how are we going to do it?
[00:53:10] And also this command to trust the Lord. But what can we do?
[00:53:16] What can we do to get the gospel out there, to get the good news out there to people?
[00:53:22] The first thing is that we should not maybe the only thing. There's lots of things that we can do and real practical stuff like clean the bathrooms and have someone open the door for church to greet visitors and understand that.
[00:53:41] Here's the thing. Understand that everybody who visits your church is undergoing some kind of crisis. I've been talking to our ushers and elders about this a little bit, trying to. Because if you're visiting a church, something has happened.
[00:53:56] The least crisis thing when someone visits a church is that they're visiting family from out of town and they decided to come to your church because they're Lutheran and they want to go to a Lutheran church. But even there, there's this little crisis that the fact that whoever they're visiting in town is not coming to your church and they're going to a different one. So there's a theological debate that's happening even when you're visiting relatives. But if someone's coming from a different Lutheran church, well, something happened that caused them to not go to their church on a Sunday and come to yours. If they're coming from a Baptist or Catholic or Presbyterian church or whatever, something's going on, either personally or theologically in their life that's caused them to come and look at this thing. If they are not a Christian, if they haven't been baptized but now they're coming to church, it's because there's been some conversation or something happened or some dream or something that caused them to think, I need to be in church on Sunday morning. So if you have someone visiting your church, know that there's some crisis behind it and be sensitive to that, I mean, that's an important thing. For Christians to realize that, I mean, when someone shows up, that's a huge story. You almost want to like rewind. Like, okay, here they walk into the door and you hand them a bulletin and it's like, could I just rewind your life in the last week to see what happened to lead to that moment?
[00:55:19] So it's great. I mean, we should have a joyful welcome hospitality. And that's. I said I was only going to say one thing, and I haven't even said the one thing, and I'm saying all these different things. But we should look for people who have the gift of hospitality, which is you can identify it when someone is just. You meet someone and they are just like, you're with us now.
[00:55:42] And I think the Lord will provide this.
[00:55:45] If your church does not have a few people who are like this to pray that he would provide. These people who just.
[00:55:55] They'll meet someone and they'll say, you're with us now.
[00:55:58] You know, welcome to the family. And they just have these personalities that wrap around people and draw them in. And that first connection is so important. Then you end up meeting people who are more like you or who have things in common or whatever. And you end up settling into different groups of friends, et cetera. But to have that first couple or first person that has that gift of hospitality grab ahold of them. And pastors should pray for people like that and that they would have that gift of hospitality. And here's the one thing that I wanted to say, is that we cannot be embarrassed about being Lutheran. We cannot be ashamed of our Lutheran doctrine. It's the best thing that we've got. I mean, the only thing that the Lutheran church is good at is being Lutheran. And we're not even good at that. But we should not try to be good at anything else than forgiving sins than giving a clean conscience.
[00:56:53] And we should talk about that. I mean, if you come to church for any other reason, to be entertained or to be whatever, to whatever, whatever. No, you're probably going to leave disappointed. But if you come here looking for a clean conscience, guaranteed clean consciences, money back guarantee, that's what the church is like, the good conscience store.
[00:57:13] And when we know that here the world is filled with people who are wearing, remember the picture in Revelation, Their robes are just filthy. And they come and they make them white in the blood of the Lamb.
[00:57:27] The world is walking around with shredded consciences, guilty consciences, shameful consciences. And here the blood of Jesus is applied to the conscience and gives them that Freedom of a good conscience.
[00:57:42] Let us preach it. And then to commend ourselves to the Lord. Here's what we're doing. We're trying to bring people into the fellowship of the good conscience, into the fellowship of the redeemed, into the fellowship of those living forever. And if the Lord wants to end at little church and start another one somewhere else, well, so be it. But we can have a good conscience that the Lord is at work in all these things.
[00:58:05] There's a question here about seminary.
[00:58:08] This is such a big question. Should we do streamlined seminary? Should we do online seminary? I tell you what, the seminary in the preparation of the pastor.
[00:58:19] The seminary, I would say, is 25% and 75% is the man, the man who is doing it. So you could take a good, faithful man and put him to a bad seminary and he'll be a good, faithful pastor. You take a faithless bad man, a man who ought not to be a pastor, and you put him through the best seminary, and he's going to be a bad pastor.
[00:58:43] So we need to be really focused on the men that we are sending to the seminary. That's the key thing that should be our focus. Now, part of the problem is, I suppose, from an institutional perspective, we want to have as good an institution to train pastors as we can.
[00:59:02] And I think to have two fully functioning residential seminaries is important. And I think that we have to.
[00:59:10] I am fine with being of saying the thing that I don't think people want to say, and that is that the more alternate routes that we build to ordination, the more we're diluting the pool of people who go to the seminary and we're making it harder for the seminaries to support themselves.
[00:59:28] And that's just.
[00:59:30] I don't know, it might not be evil, but it's foolish.
[00:59:34] It's a foolish thing to do.
[00:59:36] So we want to support the residential seminaries because then if they can have the resources that they need, they can get better and better.
[00:59:43] And it's good. You know, one of the things that is, I think that the online stuff or the S and P stuff, again, my associate pastor Davis is an SMP pastor, and I don't know what I'd do without him. He's great.
[00:59:58] It's marvelous. But he went through the S and P training and we were able to see, here's the strength and here's a weakness. And one of the huge weaknesses, I mean, we have not thought about this, is that the Lord knows no distinction between a man ordained and an SMP man ordained. But we have all these artificial distinctions that we make, which are temptations.
[01:00:22] It's dangerous. It's dangerous for an S and P pastor to think of himself as less than a pastor.
[01:00:30] It's also dangerous for the church to lock a guy in like that. Hey, you can't take a call anywhere else. But I don't know, we haven't thought through these things spiritually.
[01:00:40] And so all SMP guys are open to really unique attacks from the devil that we just have not.
[01:00:51] I GUESS We've had 2,000 years of sorting through how the devil attacks pastures, but we've only had 10 years of sorting through how the devil attacks SMP guys. So there's a lot of new avenues for distress, and we have not handled those well. And I think the same thing happens when you go to online seminary or when you don't go to residential seminary.
[01:01:14] There's a lot of avenues for spiritual attack and affliction.
[01:01:18] Namely, and I'll tell you the biggest one is when Jesus calls these disciples, he says, you come and follow me. You leave behind your family, your job, etc. And you come and follow me. And there's something about that being willing to leave everything behind that's part of the office.
[01:01:39] And it just is. It's probably not a real wise thing for the church to say.
[01:01:45] We want to have pastors who aren't willing to leave those things behind.
[01:01:52] I just, I don't think we've thought through the spiritual warfare side of online classes. So that's my thoughts on that.
[01:02:03] Anyway, thanks, Colby, for the questions. It's really great. All right, that's going to do it for today. Q and A podcast. If you have questions, Wolfmuller Co contact.
[01:02:13] You can send it that way.
[01:02:15] Thanks for listening, by the way, all the way to the end. God be praised. Hopefully this is helpful for you thinking theologically about some of these things. Rejoicing in our Lutheran doctrine.
[01:02:23] We'll try to do. I'm going to try, try, try to do this every week, so we'll see how it goes. And hey, if you're hanging around Austin, remember that July 19th we're having our continuing education class here. It's free all day. How to listen to a sermon if you're hanging around Chicago, same days, July 1819, the issues etc conference over at Concordia University, they're having. On Friday night, they're having a singles mixer. So if you're looking for a singles event, that's a good one. And on the website, if you go to Wolfmiel CO and hit the about button.
[01:02:55] There's a database of young adult and singles events that are there on the website. I got to put up ours. We're having a young adult conference in October, October 3rd, so I got to put that up there pretty soon too. So if you're a young adult or a Lutheran single and you're looking for events, go check that out as well. Thanks, everyone. God's peace be with you.
