And who appears after Babylon falls and Beast is destroyed? Christ Jesus, the Son of Man, coming on a white cloud, a golden crown, and a sharp sickle, reaping the earth of the harvest, you His saints! Thus, we rest confident and hopeful in God’s promise of deliverance, waiting for what we know will come. Steadfastness is about the entire community (e.g., God’s Israel) waiting for God’s covenant to be fulfilled. Cleaving to God in Christ is essential for us to endure and bear patiently life in this world without being ashamed. The Scriptures never call the pious, righteous man to endure in the power of his own steadfastness. The only way to stand fast is to cleave to God, the result of waiting on God.

Satan’s “peaceable kingdom” collapses into conflict and fury whenever the Gospel is preached with its frightening freedom. God makes promises beyond the law. God cannot lie or be thwarted. The law does not dictate the terms of divine power. Satan is a liar who wagered everything on God’s righteousness as a pure command that humanity must fulfill. Sinners would be freed from their false dream of escape through obedience. But then Christ stops adhering to the rules (law) and irrationally and unlawfully grants His absolution to the ungodly, electing the unrighteous unfairly and inequitably.

But the really good news is that Jesus tells us that because He has already overcome, we will win, too. “The gates of Hell cannot withstand our efforts” (Matthew 16:18), He says. And so don’t see yourself as a run-down old shack or even a cute, inviting cottage. Don’t think Christ comes to do a little renovation job. His Word is death and resurrection, confession and absolution. And by His gifts, Jesus Christ remakes you into a palace in which He lives and from which he launches his infiltrations into the lands the devil has usurped from Him.

But most especially today is to hear what Jesus promises Ralph. “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. 26 And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die” (Jn 11:25–26). By His resurrection, He broke death’s hold, burst apart the bars of hell, and opened the kingdom of heaven to His sheep. Everything in all of history is about this moment. He has been working from the beginning of Creation to His crucifixion and resurrection to bring Ralph’s and your salvation and gather His sheep into the God’s flock.

The Scriptures set an impossibly high standard for us to keep, but not beyond what God gives. That’s where Aristotle and Stoics fell short and ultimately failed. They identified the need for self-control to restrain the passions. But they lacked a confession of the eternal and omnipotent God, who created all people. Or God the Son who redeemed all people, always keeping His passions in check for the preaching of the conviction of the Law and forgiveness of sins in His shed blood. Most notably, as we saw from Galatians 5, the ancients did not know or confess that self-control is a gift of the Holy Spirit, working in the hearts and minds of believers whom He has regenerated in Baptism and renewed by His breath.

Even if He hides Himself in a room in the house and does not want access to be given to anyone, do not draw back but follow. If He does not want to listen, knock at the door of the room; raise a shout! For this is the highest sacrifice, not to cease praying and seeking until we conquer Him. He has already surrendered Himself to us so that we may be certain of victory, for He has bound Himself to HIS promises and pledged His faithfulness with an oath, saying (John 16:23): “Truly, truly, I say to you, if you ask anything of the Father, He will give it to you in My name” (AE6:140). […] These are hidden and wonderful things and known only to those who have the promises, in which they are vexed and humbled. Nevertheless, in that humiliation they come forth as victors even over God Himself. (AE6:143).

Whether Jacob, the Syro-Phoenecian woman, or you, dear Christian, God does not want to be your God except in the preached Word of the Gospel, the free and full forgiveness in Jesus Christ. For this reason, faith is always a struggle. Faith holding to Jesus’ promise is active, fighting, and never sleeps. Jacob had stolen the birthright from Esau, grabbing his brother’s heel. Now God is saying, “No!” and “not good!” But hidden yet is the promise and Jacob desperately holds onto it. God Himself exercises it by entering into the ring and contesting with it. In Christ, He has already surrendered for you, but delights for you to conquer Him in the fight. Jacob even gets a new birth and new name after his battle, Israel, which means, “Conquerer of God!”

Knowledge, really knowing, that Christ died for you and has redeemed you from sin, death, and hell is the root and basis for the baptismal virtues. First comes the justifying as the Spirit gives you saving knowledge, the gift of true faith in Christ. And then comes the sanctifying as the Spirit works Christian virtue both as a confession of your justification and for the highest goods that your neighbor needs.

“The truth is rather as Christ puts it: He that is not with me is against me (Matt. 12:30). He does not say: he that is not with me is not against me either, but is in an intermediate position! For if God is in us, Satan is out of us, and then it is present with us to will only good. But if God is not in us, Satan is, and then it is present with us to will only evil. Neither God nor Satan permits there to be in us mere willing in the abstract, but as you rightly said, we have lost our freedom and are forced to serve — sin — that is, we will sin and evil, and speak sin and evil, we do sin and evil!” (Packer, 147)

If anyone knows a thing or two about temptation, it's Jesus. He was led by the Holy Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil, and he came out on the other side victorious. He knew that he wasn't facing temptation alone, that the Holy Spirit was with him every step of the way. And if the Holy Spirit can lead Jesus through it, well, he can lead us through it, too.

All this truth is packed into just three verses! Incredible. God bestows salvation through the Gospel in Word and Sacrament, specifically through your Baptism into Christ. Through the washing of water and the Word, you are given escape from destruction and saved with the promise of the resurrection on the last day. And having been baptized, you are given to participate in the divine nature: the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, the gift of the forgiveness of sins, reconciliation with the Father, and the promise of resurrection through the risen Christ. And then you are sustained and strengthened in these gifts by the Lord’s Supper. “When Christ’s Body and Blood become the tissue of our members, we become Christ-bearers and […] ‘partakers of the divine nature’” (Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lectures, 4.3).

“God has no time for your practitioners of self-reformation, for they are hypocrites […] Now that we have actually come, not just to the doctrines of scripture . . . but to the awful secret of God’s Majesty — that is, as was said, the question why does He work as He does — here you break down the barriers and burst in all but blaspheming! What indignation against God do you not display because you may not see the reason and design of his counsel!”

Jesus opens your blind eyes to see Him not according to your perception of Him or your selfish, self-serving judgments, but according to His heart of mercy and compassion for you. Therefore, you see Him in this way, through the eyes of faith that He gives to you, so that you may walk with Him to the cross, through death, and into new life eternal.  

Every parish member, young and old, is to be nurtured in the faith, to grow in grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, to be saturated with God’s Word, to live lives according to Christ’s commands, to be equipped for Christian service, and to reach out with Christ’s Word of Law and Gospel to those unbelieving, lapsed, or weak in the faith.

The human will is placed between the two like a beast of burden. If God rides it, it wills and goes where God wills, as the psalm says: “I am become as a beast [before thee] and I am always with thee” [Ps. 73:22 f.]. If Satan rides it, it wills and goes where Satan wills; nor can it choose to run to either of the two riders or to seek him out, but the riders themselves contend for the possession and control of it. (AE33:64–66)

God is bending heaven and earth by His Word for your good. He’s taking from you the cares, riches, and pleasures that have choked His Word. He’s tearing down, uprooting, and tilling your hearts to receive His Word, Jesus. God is putting the old world to death, along with Satan and his servants, so that a new creation may emerge and thrive forever with Jesus Christ.

There are many ways to resist Jesus as we sin against one another, causing these “sad divisions.” We gossip about each other instead of holding our tongues. We act with arrogance rather than serving with meekness. We are quick to speak but slow to listen, failing to understand one another. We avoid opportunities to serve others helpfully. We judge and refuse to forgive instead of bearing each other’s burdens. We neglect to listen to Jesus or speak His Word to our children and friends. We take advantage of the authority God has granted us in our homes, churches, and communities, abusing our neighbors rather than loving them. We live as if God did not matter and as if we matter most.

Jesus doesn’t run away from our sins or from the sins of anyone. He meets us in sin with His Word that takes hold of us, invades every pore of our being, and reawakens trust in him. We don’t have to feel guilty about sin. We don’t even have to overcome sin. It’s more than we could ever do anyway. Instead, we admit that, yes, we are sinners, and we need God’s amazing grace to cancel our debts. And Jesus pouring out his blood on the cross proves that He does just that. 

On the surface of it, the problem can be stated quite simply and logically. If God rules all things by absolute necessity, what ability or freedom does the creature possess to do anything at all on its own either to gain rewards or make to just retribution for misdeeds?

The only solution to this kind of necessity is the proclamation. That is, if God rules all things by absolute necessity, then our only recourse is to attend to what he does do. The solution to the problem of the absolute is absolution! There, the immutable God does “what is necessary”! God is “determined” to have us back! But we can see that only in Christ Jesus.  Apart from Jesus, we are on our own.