Sermon in Minneapolis 16.11.2014

Grace be unto you and peace from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Let us pray.

Dear Heavenly Father, as we have come here this morning to gather around your holy and precious word, we come wishing to thank you for the many blessings you have bestowed upon us. We thank you for our homes and our families. We thank you for all that we have in this temporal life. For we know, dear Father, all things come from your blessed hand.

We also wish to thank you for the dear escort that you have given unto us to help us along life's way. Dear Father, above all these blessings, we wish to thank you for this greatest gift, this gift of your dear Son, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, whom you saw as good, dear Father, to send down from heaven to save the sinner.

Dear Father, we ask this morning that you would increase our weak faith, that you would give us childlike hearts and minds to trust in your undying word, to believe that our sins are forgiven so that we could one day attain the glory of heaven.

Dear Father, remember those who are battling with difficulties in this temporal life. Remember those who are battling the onslaughts of the enemy. Maybe there's fierce battles going on. As we know, dear Father, all power comes from you in this battle of faith.

And we pray as your dear Son has taught us to pray: Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever. Amen.

I would first like to bring you, dear brother and sister, greetings from children of God there in Cocado. We ask for your prayers that you would remember us. It seems there has been plenty of sorrow there in my home congregation. But yet with this sorrow and longing in our hearts, there's great reason to rejoice for those ones that have been called from this temporal life.

Certainly we're clinging on to this gift of faith that God has gifted them. And they were travel ready. Carnal mind oftentimes questions. But yet we want to have this kind of heart that the will of God is always best.

Thinking about this Sunday, the theme for this Sunday is Watchful Sunday. The theme is watch. I thought I would read a portion of God's Word from Hebrews in its third chapter, verses 12-15. And we read these words with that prayer that God would give on to us as He sees good at this time, and that He would give us hearing ears, He would give us believing hearts to believe His undying Word. The words are in Jesus' name:

Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God. But exhort one another daily while it is called today, lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. For we are made partakers of Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast unto the end. While it is said today, if ye will hear His voice, harden not your hearts as in the provocation. Amen. Amen.

In the beginning, dear brother and sister, I come with heavy doubts and fears and I ask if you can bless me with the gospel. Amen.

As I already mentioned, the theme for this Sunday is watch. When we think about this theme, dear brother and sister, I'm sure there are many things that come to your mind, but yet what is exhorting us? What is the Bible exhorting us to do when it exhorts us to watch? It is simply this: that we would preserve faith and good conscience before God so that we would be travel ready when that call comes for us.

We certainly don't know when that call will come, as we have been reminded very much of this lately. The gospel text for this Sunday is found in Mark chapter 13, and there were Jesus' words, and he says, "But of that day and that hour knoweth no man, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father."

Jesus himself does not even know when that time will come, as he states here, but God only. Jesus certainly had a way to bring out matters pertaining to life when he spoke to those around him. And he reminded those there of a certain man taking a journey and how this man had left this one to watch his house.

He said, "For the Son of man is a man taking a far journey, who left his house and gave authority to his servants and to every man his work, and commanded the porter to watch."

And he says, "Watch ye therefore, for ye know not when the master of the house cometh, at even, or at midnight, or at the cock crowing, or in the morning, lest coming suddenly he find you sleeping."

Dear brother and sister, and dear youth, we can oftentimes turn to this example: if we were to know that, say, a thief was coming that night to break into our house, what would we do? I would say each of us would probably not go to sleep; we would probably wait for that thief to come and be there ready for him.

I think this gives us a pretty good example, dear brother and sister, about watching. The enemy of souls is a thief; he wants to enter into our house, into each one of us, and steal that most precious gift, that gift of living faith that God has given us.

Dear brother and sister, it is a gift from God. It is a gift that we do not want to take lightly. It is a gift that we don't want to take for granted, and it is a gift that we want to take care of.

And how do we take care of this precious gift? By watching and waiting in faith, putting sin away as it so often besets. The enemy of souls has one purpose, doesn't he? And his purpose is to make us tired, make us weary, tempt us to fall into sin, preach those many lies that when we have fallen into sin, that we cannot go speak of that sin that we have fallen into.

These are the lies of the enemy. The Bible exhorts us to put our sins away. This is how the way to heaven remains clear.

I'm sure each of us at some point in our life has fallen into sin, maybe even those same sins. The enemy of souls whispers to us, "Don't go and speak about that to anyone."

When we think about this, dear brother and sister, why does he do this? Because he knows that if he's successful and that we don't go and speak of those matters that are bothering us, he knows that he can slowly but surely harden that conscience.

And pretty soon, if we don't put our sins away, pretty soon that conscience is so hard that the spirit of God leaves it. It is a serious matter that conscience then will no longer guide us according to God's holy and precious word.

Dear brother and sister, that is why it is so important that we continue to come to the hearing of God's word, because our conscience also needs to be bound and tied to God's word.

We want to hear what the spirit saith in the church. Dear brother and sister, we can err ourselves, and we do. We err many times, but there's one thing that won't err in God's kingdom, and that is the congregation, mother the Holy Spirit that leads and guides it.

It is the truth. God's word will be here till the very end, and isn't it comforting? Because God's word is unchanging. It doesn't change with the times and the seasons, but it is a word that is always the same.

We don't come to this hearing of God's word to hear some sort of different word preached, do we? But we come and pray that God's word would sound clearly with truth and with grace. This is our prayer.

The enemy of souls preaches otherwise. He wants us to begin to have those itching ears, those ears of those types of ears that we would want to try to hear and be able to justify this or that in our temporal life.

This is why it is so important that we put sin away when it besets no one. Dear brother and sister, has left God's kingdom that has not had sin, unforgiven sin on their conscience? That is the only thing that can separate us from God: is unforgiven sin.

God loves the sinner, but God hates sin. This is why he continues to exhort us in the holy scriptures through the spirit of God to put sin away when it besets.

This portion that we read here this morning says, "Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God."

We know that the enemy works on us slowly. He works on us slyly.

I have had the opportunity this year to serve at Peace Gardens, and I also served at Haskelake Youth Days. We had precious weekends there amongst our youth, and we spoke of many of these kinds of things that the enemy of souls is working overtime on us.

For instance, internet, watching movies, watching hockey games on our computers, or football games, or arranging our day to go and see this sports game or that sports game on that given day.

We had precious discussions around these matters. Dear brother and sister, these matters are temporal matters, but oh how they can eventually cause much sorrow because they eventually steal our faith away.

They eventually steal that hunger for God's holy and precious word.

God, the enemy of souls, starts to whisper to us that "I'm just fine if I don't go," or "I can do this even though it bothers this person because it doesn't bother me."

I would say, dear brother and sister, that we want to listen to that voice that speaks in the church, that we don't want our hearts to become hardened, our ears to become itchy, but we want to come to the hearing of God's word with that childlike heart and mind and with that prayer that God would personally speak to me this day.

We are on a journey, dear brother and sister. This portion that we read in that final verse speaks of those children of Israel on that wilderness journey there with Moses and how it says, "Harden not your hearts as in the provocation."

We know that there were many times there on that wilderness journey that those children of Israel started, the Bible speaks of chiding with Moses, questioning him as to what they are doing, which way are we going.

Why did they begin to question? It was simply this: because there was sin on the conscience.

The way is clear when the conscience is cleansed. Then that vision of heaven remains clear.

In this day, when we speak about watching in faith, you personally, dear brother and sister, you dear youth, brother and all, are those watchers on the walls.

First of all, we personally watch in faith. Faith is a personal gift.

But that portion in Ezekiel comes to my mind, and it's important that we remember this, dear brother and sister, that God has placed in the congregation those watchmen, those servants of the word, to preach in the kingdom, to preach about the warnings of sin, to preach about the dangers in this life, to preach God's holy and precious word.

And they have been placed here by God.

I'm going to read that portion in Ezekiel if I can find it because I think it's important that we know and understand the importance of us as servants of the word and also the importance of you, dear brother and sister, being our brother's keeper.

Listen to what it says here:

"But if the watchman," this is in chapter 33, verse 6, "but if the watchman see the sword come and blow not the trumpet, and the people be not warned, if the sword come and take any person from among them, he is taken away in his iniquity, but his blood will I require at the watchman's hand."

Dear brother and sister, how important is this, that if we know or see someone that is not traveling according to God's precious word and we don't remind them, we are guilty of that same sin.

This is why it is so important that the trumpet sounds in God's kingdom, and it sounds clearly.

God's kingdom, we must and do preach sin has sin and grace has grace, but we don't want to have this kind of heart that because there's grace we can sin.

The Bible speaks very clearly about this, that God forbid.

Of course, we know we fall into sin daily in thought, in word, and in deed, but dear brother and sister, there needs to be that battle against the threefold enemy.

There's such a big difference between living in sin and battling against it.

Living in sin, sin no longer bothers us; we become sleepy, we become lenient.

But when we battle against the threefold enemy, putting sin away, that battle in that way remains clear.

Peter once asked Jesus this question: "How oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him?"

Here's a portion of God's word that speaks to us very clearly about the heart of a child of God.

Peter himself, as flesh and blood just as you and I are, he was thinking that seven times in a day would have been great plenty.

Jesus rebuked him of this and he told him, "No, not seven times, but seventy times seven."

In other words, that one that is wanting to hear the gospel needs it; we preach it.

So there it comes down to the heart. God knows each one of our hearts.

And it's important also, dear brother and sister, when we think about the forgiveness of sin, first of all, there is the penitent heart that we know that we have done wrong.

And when we go and speak of that matter to some dear brother or sister, we put that sin away.

Then we must believe it, believe that that sin is forgiven.

And when we believe this, dear brother and sister, there's a complete change of heart.

No longer do we want to do that same sin, but rather there's power in that gospel to give us strength to battle against those temptations that are so close to us.

How has it been? I know for me those temptations that are close, we oftentimes fall.

But dear brother and sister, when we fall, go and put sin away so the conscience remains cleansed.

That is why God's word exhorts us that the power of God unto salvation is through that gospel.

It renews that strength in us; it renews that desire; there's a change of heart.

The enemy of souls, he preaches otherwise.

When we fall into some certain sin, he says, "Don't go speak of that, and you might as well go and fall into that same sin again because it doesn't matter anymore."

You've succumbed to the enemy; that's his sermon.

Don't listen to the enemy, dear brother and sister, but rather go and speak about those matters, believe that precious gospel.

There is great power in that gospel; it is the power of God unto salvation.

That is why it is so important that we watch soberly in faith.

This text continues, "But exhort one another daily while it is called today, lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin."

This is so important, dear brother and sister, that we help each other on this journey, encourage one another with that gospel.

Even if one doesn't audibly ask for that gospel and we see that they are troubled, preach it, preach the gospel to them.

There's power in it; it renews that power to battle.

What is our purpose here? Our purpose is not for this life, but it's to get to heaven.

And dear brother and sister, God will help us; God will help us get there by and through that living gospel, by and through his spoken word to those who believe it.

It pays to believe, dear brother and sister, even amidst your many heavy doubts and fears.

Maybe sin has fallen and beset you on this journey; uplift your hearts and believe all of your sins and doubts forgiven in Jesus' name and precious blood.

We have a good God, a God that has promised to lift and to carry us to that destination there in heaven.

God keeps his promises; pays to believe.

Believe all sins and doubts forgiven in Jesus' name and precious blood.

It is a worthwhile battle, and the Bible exhorts us to remain personally watching in faith, personally putting sin away as it besets so that one day we can attain that which Christ has prepared for us there in heaven.

It will be a wonderful day when we can lay down this travel staff of faith and be joined with the former saints and with our heavenly Father in heaven.

Remain battling; it is a good battle, a battle that has great reward at the end of it.

Believe all sins and doubts forgiven in Jesus' name and precious blood.

Believe all sins and doubts forgiven in Jesus' name and blood; sins are all forgiven.

It pays to believe.

I want to hear that gospel again for myself: "Can I have my sins and doubts forgiven?"

God will carry us to that home in heaven in Jesus' name, always a blessed name. Amen.

Let us quiet in our hearts and closing benediction:

The Lord bless us and keep us; the Lord make his face shine upon us and be gracious unto us; the Lord lift up his countenance upon us and give us peace; in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.