{"id":2837,"date":"2021-05-02T19:39:25","date_gmt":"2021-05-02T19:39:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/christforus.org\/NewSite\/?p=2837"},"modified":"2021-05-02T19:39:25","modified_gmt":"2021-05-02T19:39:25","slug":"the-almighty-power-of-gods-word-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/christforus.org\/NewSite\/index.php\/2021\/05\/02\/the-almighty-power-of-gods-word-2\/","title":{"rendered":"The Almighty Power of God\u2019s Word"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>Septuagesima Sunday Sermon<\/strong>| <strong>Rev. Rolf Preus| February 4, 2007<\/strong>| <strong>Jeremiah 1:4-10\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-audio\"><audio controls src=\"https:\/\/christforus.org\/NewSite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/ChristForUs_04FEB2007.mp3\"><\/audio><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Jeremiah lived during a time similar to our own.&nbsp; This may seem strange since he lived over twenty six hundred years ago in a land thousands of miles away with a different language and culture.&nbsp; But there are certain things common to the nation of Judah in the seventh century B.C. and the United States of America in the twenty first century A. D. &nbsp; In ancient Judah and in modern America most of the people are at least nominally devoted to the religion set forth in the Holy Scriptures.&nbsp; And in both countries this outward allegiance is quite thin indeed.&nbsp; While the biblical religion is given lip service, the real worship of the people is quite different from their formal creed.&nbsp; The worship of the gods of pleasure has the people\u2019s devotion.&nbsp; In ancient Judah the gods and goddesses were deities devoted to pleasure.&nbsp; Altars were built to them in the public square.&nbsp; In our day the idolatry is less formal but the spirit of the idolatrous worship is the same.&nbsp; What serves us is the standard for faith and life.&nbsp; Our inner feelings become the judge for good and bad behavior.&nbsp; What feels right is right.&nbsp; What feels true is true.&nbsp; There is no word from God to which we must be bound.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But God has a different idea.&nbsp; He sends Jeremiah to speak His word.&nbsp; Now ancient Judah was God\u2019s covenant people and America cannot make that claim.&nbsp; But surely all Christians may lay claim to a special relationship with God.&nbsp; God chooses His people and He graciously blesses them.&nbsp; They don\u2019t deserve it.&nbsp; It is an election of grace.&nbsp; It is not a democratic election.&nbsp; Only one vote is cast.&nbsp; It is God\u2019s.&nbsp; You cannot campaign for God\u2019s vote.&nbsp; God does not look to see whether or not those He chooses are worthy to be chosen.&nbsp; Worthiness is out of the question.&nbsp; No one deserves God\u2019s grace.&nbsp; God is gracious and that\u2019s that.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>God elects His children.&nbsp; That is, He chooses them.&nbsp; The parable of the workers in the vineyard powerfully illustrates how God\u2019s choices don\u2019t conform to human standards.&nbsp; But then God is God.&nbsp; He doesn\u2019t consult us about what is right and fair.&nbsp; He chooses to bless those who worked but an hour with the same wages that He gives to those who bore the heat of the day.&nbsp; Who can question Him?&nbsp; Does He not have the right to do what He chooses with what belongs to Him?&nbsp; Or shall we resent His generosity?&nbsp; No, it is as Jesus said, \u201cSo the last will be first, and the first last. For many are called, but few chosen.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The doctrine of election is a mystery too deep for anyone fully to grasp.&nbsp; We simply take God\u2019s word for it when He teaches this to us.&nbsp; Attempts to explain divine election in a way that conforms to human reason will inevitably lead to a distortion or even a denial of this precious truth.&nbsp; God loved His people from eternity.&nbsp; From eternity He knew them, chose them, and made them heirs of salvation.&nbsp; He did this for the sake of Jesus Christ His dear Son.&nbsp; Jesus was elected or chosen by God in eternity to be the Savior of sinners.&nbsp; He is the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world, as the Revelation of St. John teaches.&nbsp; We are elected in Christ.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The doctrine of divine election assures us that God\u2019s grace is not an \u201ciffy\u201d or uncertain thing.&nbsp; God is not fickle.&nbsp; What He promised yesterday will be promised tomorrow. He binds Himself to His word and this means that His word cannot fail.&nbsp; God elected Jeremiah.&nbsp; We read: \u201cThen the word of the LORD came to me, saying: \u2018Before I formed you in the womb I knew you; before you were born I sanctified you; I ordained you a prophet to the nations.\u2019\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Jeremiah was a young man, perhaps twenty years old.&nbsp; He wasn\u2019t qualified to speak God\u2019s word to anyone.&nbsp; He didn\u2019t have the native ability.&nbsp; Besides, he didn\u2019t know what to say.&nbsp; But God had chosen him.&nbsp; God knew him, that is, he chose him.&nbsp; God sanctified him, that is, He set him apart for a holy purpose.&nbsp; God ordained him, that is, He placed him into the public preaching office.&nbsp; And when did God do all this?&nbsp; He did it before Jeremiah was even born.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>After choosing Jeremiah to be a prophet God formed him in his mother\u2019s womb.&nbsp; When a child is born it is God\u2019s doing.&nbsp; Children are not accidents.&nbsp; They are never unwanted.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The same God who formed Jeremiah in his mother\u2019s womb, who set him apart to be a prophet even before he was born is the God who promised to be with him and to give him the words he needed to speak.&nbsp; Listen once more to what God said to Jeremiah when He called him to be a prophet: \u201cYou shall go to all to whom I send you, and whatever I command you, you shall speak. Do not be afraid of their faces, for I am with you to deliver you.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>What God commands the prophet to say is what the prophet says.&nbsp; There\u2019s nothing and nobody to be afraid of.&nbsp; If God tells you to say it God will protect you in the saying of it.&nbsp; The word that you speak is far more powerful than those who will oppose it.&nbsp; You say what God gives you to say and it is done as surely as God gave it to you to say.&nbsp; Listen to how Jeremiah describes it:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Then the LORD put forth His hand and touched my mouth, and the LORD said to me: \u201cBehold, I have put My words in your mouth. See, I have this day set you over the nations and over the kingdoms, to root out and to pull down, to destroy and to throw down, to build and to plant.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When God put His words in Jeremiah\u2019s mouth He gave to Jeremiah power over nations and kingdoms.&nbsp; That\u2019s the power of the word.&nbsp; Has any nation in the history of the world opposed God\u2019s word and survived as a nation?&nbsp; God said to Abraham nearly four thousand years ago:&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I will make you a great nation; I will bless you and make your name great;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And you shall be a blessing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.\u201d (Genesis 12:2-3)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>All the nations of the earth have been blessed in Jesus Christ, the promised Savior, descended from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as God promised through the prophets.&nbsp; Those who belong to Christ are the elect of God\u2019s grace.&nbsp; They are the Holy Christian Church, the Communion of Saints, elected in Christ Jesus before the creation of the world.&nbsp; The nations will rise and fall.&nbsp; God\u2019s word will build and God\u2019s word will destroy.&nbsp; God\u2019s word will not fail.&nbsp; It cannot fail because it is the inherent power of God Himself.&nbsp; So God said to Jeremiah.&nbsp; So it must be.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>St. Peter writes:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Having been born again, not of corruptible seed but incorruptible, through the word of God which lives and abides forever, because \u201cAll flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of the grass.&nbsp; The grass withers, and its flower falls away, but the word of the Lord endures forever.\u201d&nbsp; Now this is the word which by the gospel was preached to you. (1 Peter 1:23-25)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Jeremiah didn\u2019t look like much.&nbsp; He was just a kid.&nbsp; As it turned out, he would preach for many years.&nbsp; They called him the weeping prophet because he had to witness the destruction of God\u2019s holy nation.&nbsp; The reforms of the great king Josiah were short lived.&nbsp; The corruption was too deep.&nbsp; The people didn\u2019t care for the truth.&nbsp; They didn\u2019t want God to say anything to them.&nbsp; They were quite willing to accept every good thing God gave but they weren\u2019t willing to honor Him by listening to what He had to say and taking it to heart.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It was a day very much like our own.&nbsp; People think that they\u2019re doing God a favor to go to church and then it doesn\u2019t matter much what the church stands for as long as there is a religious sentiment that acknowledges a higher power.&nbsp; And when God\u2019s word clearly exposes sin that people don\u2019t want exposed they refuse to listen.&nbsp; God\u2019s clear and authoritative words of law that define what is right and wrong for all people are dismissed as a preacher\u2019s opinion.&nbsp; The blood of Jesus shed for sinners is ignored because there are no sinners anymore.&nbsp; How can there be real sinners without real sin?&nbsp; Where is the sin if there is no law to condemn it?&nbsp; And as the religiously self-indulgent congratulate themselves on their so called \u201cspirituality\u201d the word of God is silenced and those who faithfully preach it are scorned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But this is nothing new.&nbsp; We can understand Jeremiah\u2019s fear to confront the false prophets of the false religions of his day.&nbsp; Jeremiah taught an exclusive message that positively angers people and human nature hasn\u2019t changed over the years.&nbsp; We preach the same exclusive message.&nbsp; It is that God\u2019s word is true and all men are liars.&nbsp; It is that what God says matters more than anyone\u2019s religious feelings.&nbsp; It is that God has the right to be gracious to whom He chooses and nobody has the right to judge Him for it.&nbsp; If God wants to treat someone who has done no good deeds at all with the same generosity as He treats those whose good deeds require them to bear burden after burden, well, God can do as He pleases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And what He pleases to do is to come to people like Jeremiah.&nbsp; No, not all are gifted to prophesy or to preach.&nbsp; And not all are called by God to do so.&nbsp; But every single Christian is chosen by God.&nbsp; Every single Christian\u2019s life is given by God to live.&nbsp; And whether you are student or a mother or a truck driver or a mechanic, a teacher or a preacher or a father, God has called you.&nbsp; You say, I can\u2019t do what you\u2019ve given me to do.&nbsp; Maybe not.&nbsp; But consider.&nbsp; The word of God enables you to do what you cannot do.&nbsp; When God speaks to you He makes all things new.&nbsp; His words destroy and throw down, this is true.&nbsp; His law doesn\u2019t assist you to find within yourself the answers you need.&nbsp; His law kills you dead.&nbsp; It reveals your selfishness, your greed, your lust, your hatred, and everything dirty.&nbsp; It throws you down to where you cannot get up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And His gospel builds you up.\u00a0 It brings to you an innocence so pure that God in heaven can see nothing wrong with it.\u00a0 It is Christ\u2019s.\u00a0 It was won by His obedience and death.\u00a0 Now it is yours.\u00a0 God said so.\u00a0 Your sins are forgiven for Jesus\u2019 sake.\u00a0 Your heart doubts.\u00a0 Then the gospel\u2019s power penetrates into your doubts and dissolves them, replacing unbelief with faith.\u00a0 This faith is the most precious gift we have.\u00a0 And it comes to us from the word, the same almighty word given to a frightened boy over twenty six hundred years ago.\u00a0 It\u2019s a word that takes all our fears away. Amen. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Septuagesima Sunday Sermon| Rev. Rolf Preus| February 4, 2007| Jeremiah 1:4-10\u00a0 Jeremiah lived during a time similar to our own.&nbsp; This may seem strange since he lived over twenty six hundred years ago in a land thousands of miles away with a different language and culture.&nbsp; But there are certain things common to the&#8230;<\/p>\n<p class=\"read-more\"><a class=\"btn btn-default\" href=\"https:\/\/christforus.org\/NewSite\/index.php\/2021\/05\/02\/the-almighty-power-of-gods-word-2\/\"> Read More<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">  Read More<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,32,17,4],"tags":[488,238,178],"class_list":["post-2837","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-latest-sermons","category-septuagesima","category-sermons-by-historical-lectionary","category-sermons-by-rolf-preus","tag-jeremiah-1","tag-rolf-preus","tag-septuagesima"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christforus.org\/NewSite\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2837","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/christforus.org\/NewSite\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/christforus.org\/NewSite\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christforus.org\/NewSite\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christforus.org\/NewSite\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2837"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/christforus.org\/NewSite\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2837\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2839,"href":"https:\/\/christforus.org\/NewSite\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2837\/revisions\/2839"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christforus.org\/NewSite\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2837"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christforus.org\/NewSite\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2837"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christforus.org\/NewSite\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2837"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}