Sermon in Outlook 25.03.2012

Let us quieten in prayer. Lord, keep us steadfast in Thy word. Curve those who feign by craft and sword, who would wrest the kingdom from Thy Son, and said it not, all He hath done. Lord Jesus Christ, Thy power make known, for Thou art Lord of lords alone. Defend Thy Christendom, that we may evermore give praise to Thee. O Comforter of priceless worth, send peace and unity on earth. Support us in our final strife, and lead us out of death to life.

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, the power, and the glory, forever and ever. Amen.

Dear Heavenly Father, bless our services today. Amen. Amen.

I was reminded again from the song we just sang that today is Mary's Day. And I noticed that on the assigned text for today, the heading. I thought of different places of Scripture concerning the mother of Jesus, Mary. But, with conversations and things that have come to my mind in the last week, I thought of a totally different place in Scripture. And it is from the first book of the Bible. I think we discussed from the last book of the Bible, Revelation, last week. But I will read from the 18th chapter of Genesis. And I will read from the 16th verse of that chapter to the end of that chapter. And if it be, God will. We'll discuss the contents of this area of the Bible. And the words are in Jesus' name.

The men rose up from thence and looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah, looked toward Sodom. And Abraham went with them to bring them on the way. And the Lord said, Shall I hide from Abraham that thing which I do, seeing that Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him? For I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the Lord and do justice and judgment, that the Lord may bring upon Abraham that which He hath spoken of him.

And the Lord said, Because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great and because their sin is very grievous, I will go down now and see whether they have done altogether according to the cry of it, which is come unto me; and if not, I will know. And the men turned their faces and went from thence and went toward Sodom, but Abraham stood yet before the Lord.

And Abraham drew near and said, Wilt Thou also destroy the righteous with the wicked? Peradventure there be fifty righteous within the city? Wilt Thou also destroy and not spare the place for the righteous that are there? That be far from Thee to do after this manner, to slay the righteous with the wicked, and the righteous should be as the wicked? Be far that be far from Thee. Shall not the judge of all the earth do right?

And the Lord said, If I find in Sodom fifty righteous within the city, then I will spare all the place for their sakes. And Abraham answered and said, Behold, now I have taken upon me to repeat unto the Lord, to speak unto the Lord, which am but dust and ashes. Peradventure there shall lack five of the fifty righteous; wilt Thou destroy all the city for lack of five? And He said, If I find there forty and five, I will not destroy it.

And He spake unto him yet again and said, For adventure there shall be forty found there. And He said, I will not do it for forty's sake. And He said, O let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak yet. Peradventure there shall thirty be found there. And He said, I will not do it if I find thirty there.

And He said, Behold, now I have taken upon me to speak unto the Lord. Peradventure there be twenty found there. And He said, I will not destroy it for twenty's sake. And He said, O let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak yet but this once. This once, peradventure ten shall be found there. And He said, I will not destroy it for ten's sake.

And the Lord went His way as soon as He had communed with Abraham, and Abraham returned unto his place. Amen.

This is quite a repetition or seems pretty repetitious, that this conversation that Abraham had with the Lord. But it seemed to me like there'd be so much we could read, and maybe in your place of watching at home you could take the time to read chapters 17, 18, and 19 concerning the destruction of the people, the Lord's visit with Abraham, and the promises that the Lord made unto Abraham when he sat in the heat of temptation by his abode, by his tent, to the end of the destruction. This all ties together, but for the sake of expedience, there was just too much to read. Read in this place, a precious place and an instructive place in Scripture.

But we can read or we could read how it says in the beginning of this 18th chapter that the Lord appeared unto him in the plains of Mamre, and as he sat in the tent door in the heat of the day. It has been understood that he was in great temptations. This is what it means, the heat of the day. He was sitting in the shade of that tent. And we can assume he was over 90 years old. God had promised that his descendants would be as a sand on the seashore. This hadn't happened. And Isaac had not been born. Abraham was 100 and Sarah was 90 or over 91 when that promised son, Isaac, God finally gave him this son.

And these visitors assure Abraham again that he would receive an heir. And Abraham very happily, when these visitors come, he goes out and he prepares Sarah to prepare a meal for him and slaughters a beef so that they can have a meal. And you can see that there were visitors from heaven.

I wonder if you brothers and sisters, I'm sure some of you have sometimes experienced the same thing as my dear wife and I have. We've had many experiences. One experience, and I've reminisced about this before because it was such a memorable experience for us. We were traveling from Regina to Dakota with Gwesty Hickinen and his wife. I was translating for him. This was quite an extended trip. We ended up in northern Minnesota and Thunder Bay and back to Minneapolis. Had a very, very pleasant journey. He, since a couple of years ago already, has been called to his heavenly rest from his labors.

And as we were going to eat since Jackson, Whitewood, I believe, there was a nursing home there, and I remembered we had stopped there before to see an old sister that was in that home. And I asked Gwesty, I suggested that we could stop at that place to visit that the old, last believer that was in that New Finland area, eastern Saskatchewan, where there had been at one time a much bigger congregation than it was in the Dunlane area, in the early days of the last century. And he said, by all means, I said, there is time, we can take the time to stop on the way to Turala room.

And we went into that, went to that place. And they wheeled her from the lounge where she was sitting into the room. And she was an old person, I suppose she would have been 80, in her high 80s or whatever it would have been. And her hearing aids weren't working. And she was absolutely deaf without those hearing aids. And she was grouchy besides. And I cut my hand and called into her ear, almost as loud as I could, that, Himalaya said of her, God speak. And it didn't, it didn't, couldn't, she could not hear.

And I already was thinking that, well, what, why did we even stop here? What's going to come out of this visit? But Irene took and wrote on a piece of paper that greetings from Alma, her sister-in-law. She read that and she just brightened up. Her memory wasn't in good shape. She said, Where is Alma? Irene wrote again how she is living in Dumblay. She read that again and she said that, Oh, if Alma was here, that she could forgive my sins. I could forgive my sins.

Again, Irene wrote in response who we were and we could also forgive her sins. And she asked to hear the gospel. All four of us preached the gospel to her. To that she responded that, I can't hear what you're saying, but I know what you're saying, and I want to believe.

I thought of that later, that the apostle Paul in Romans says that faith cometh by hearing and hearing by or through the word of God. And so we believe. But that old lady could not hear. But she still had faith. It isn't as though she was repenting from unbelief, but I'm sure she, like we, needed to hear that gospel to assure her that she is yet today a child of God. And she can continue to believe just as we all want to believe that our sins are forgiven in Jesus' name.

And there's the ton of blood when that gospel is preached to us. And we visited yet for a while with her although it wasn't much of a difference because of her situation. And we continued on our way. But we were all so touched, so moved with this experience. Even Christian, his wife, were on this trip probably for, I don't remember, but I imagine at least two months or more. He said this was the most touching experience on his whole visit out here. And I know that he had mentioned it different times after visiting with one of his sons in Finland. Had mentioned it when he also went back about this experience.

It's good that we remember these. And it's good that we think to visit those that are infirm, can't come out to the fellowship of God's children and don't have the opportunity. It is good that we remember, though, just like Abraham was remembered here, with this promise. And we have the same kind of a promise that we can continue as God's own.

Another time we were on our way to Phoenix. We had heard that there was a Christian woman whose husband was not in faith from Finland that were spending some time in Denver where his work had taken him from Finland. And it wasn't the days of GPS at that time. And I remember that it was a little bit of a daunting task even to get to her place, where they were living, the apartment that they were living in. But nonetheless we went. And it was needful. And it wasn't by chance that we went there or necessarily our desire to go there. But when we are obedient to God's spirit and we think of these things, let's continue in these thoughts, which we did at that time.

And we found her place. She was there with a couple of her little children. And we didn't visit there very long when she lamented about her aloneness and lonesomeness from the activity of God's children in Finland to where she was now all by herself. And we certainly had precious services many years ago there preaching the gospel to her and receiving the gospel and again reassuring her that she, just as she finds herself and where she is, she can believe that her sins are forgiven.

But this is what happened. This was the experience that Abram had. But then when we, this red text that we read and considered here today, further on we read that those men, they rose up from thence and looked towards Sodom and Abram went with them to bring them on the way. He went to bid them farewell. And Abram realized what mission they were on. To check out the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah, the cry of sin that had reached the Heavenly Father.

I read, I remember that years, long, long, long time ago, taking, reading this in the Bible history, in the small catechism. And I went down to the basement and I found one of our kids' catechisms there. Yes, there was about destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, a kind of a sketchy narration about what happened there because of the sin of the city. But that sin of Sodom and Gomorrah was homosexuality. Very plainly described as such.

When we read further, when those angels went to Sodom and went to Lot's house, who was a believer in that city, one of those four that were commanded of the Lord, the angel of the Lord, to escape the city before God would destroy it. God's patience had run out with Sodom and Gomorrah.

And even this long text that we read, it shows the patience of those that are God's own. God's spirit teaches us this patience. And we as His children, in spite of our sin-crop flesh and our impatient nature—I certainly have a good measure of it—God's spirit still encourages and teaches us to be patient as God Himself is patient. And Abraham showed this patience, asking and pleading for that city, for the righteous that would be in that city.

Where there were only four righteous left in that city. And even one was not saved. There was Lot and his two daughters. The sons-in-law weren't saved. They stayed in that city. They wanted to stay in that city. This is how the sin and that sin of that they had overwhelmed that city.

We wonder about the cry that's reaching heaven now. How long will the patience of the Heavenly Father keep this world? God, we know that this world will stand as long as there is one of God's children left in this world. When that last one is not here any longer, this world will be destroyed and everything with it.

There it seems that this sin, which God's word calls an abomination, a terrible thing, where the apostle Paul writes so plainly in the first chapters of the letter to the Romans describing this, that was in the unbelieving nations around that, in those lands, and it has been suppressed throughout many, many years. My childhood, it was unknown; it was unheard of. Maybe spoken in whispers amongst adults, but it wasn't like it is now.

It seems like it developed so fast where the laws of our land accept it. Society accepts it with few exceptions. There are still a few organizations, religions, so-called religions on the outside of God's kingdom that still do not accept this kind of a lifestyle between men and women. But they are less and less and less.

And maybe this—and I'm sure this is like whenever there's a certain sin abounds in the world—it wants to make inroads into God's kingdom too. And we want to—we're not immune from the effects of the world. And it is so that we need to remember as parents that these precious young gifts of heaven around us in our home that we speak openly and honestly.

When I was a child, it wasn't necessary for my mom and dad. There were many other sins that we were warned of and spoken of, but this was one that did not affect. But it wants to make inroads into God's kingdom as well. It becomes hardened and accepting of such lifestyles.

One of my acquaintances here in Outlook, an old man somewhat older than I was, we got into this discussion with him. He was, I'm sure, an accepted and righteous member of his congregation, but here again that they live their righteousness is the righteousness of life, and this righteousness of life does not flow from the righteousness of faith like it is with God's children.

And I am sure that his upbringing from 80 years ago was such that it wasn't acceptable in his church either, and I am sure in his heart he wasn't accepting it now. But he came up with that statement that it is becoming more and more prominent, and I agreed with him, yes it is. This was a few years ago.

And then he spoke further and maybe kind of tongue in cheek, knowing that I'm a servant of the word in our congregation, he said that even there's preachers that are coming out of the woodwork so to speak. And I said yes, but I said God's word still calls this an abomination, a terrible sin. And she almost like he would have defended, well, if the servants of the word are such, is it that big a thing?

And I told him, I said, well, I don't—I’ve never met a pastor that would defend homosexuality. But I told him, I said, if you have a pastor friend that accepts it, I invited him to bring him over to our place, and I said we could have a discussion about this. I said I don't know what he bases his decisions on, but I want to base and we continue to base all our decisions on God's word. And I said that this is where I would stand on my statements based on God's word.

This was a few years ago, but he hasn't brought anybody over. But it is good that we are—we don't want to be abusive in these things or cut their ears off as so it is, but we need to stand in the righteousness and the sobriety of God's word so that our children would not be carried away in this sea of falseness and sin that is so prevalent in the world.

That we still, thanks be to God, that we have still the right because of our freedoms in our land to call sin with its name, which is sin. And it is not wrong for us to pray that God will allow us this freedom. We don't need to worry about being burned at the stake or slaughtered or so innocent like the early believers of the New Testament had to suffer death of martyrs. We are living a beautiful and a glorious time.

Luther says that it is a beautiful day and a wonderful time, a time when brother can say to sister and a sister can say to brother that thy sins are forgiven me. We still have that precious gospel to protect us from the onslaught of the world, and we want to be obedient to God's word even in these matters that the enemy of the souls, which is always looking for inroads into God's kingdom where he can defile us, the children of God, that we can continue in childlike faith believing what God's word and His spirit speaks in His churches like the book of Revelation tells us.

And let us continue in this. There was a difficult time in Sodom and Gomorrah. Those two cities were destroyed utterly, and only Lot and his two daughters were saved. His wife looked back and was turned into a pillar of salt. There might be spiritual significance to this, and I'm sure there is, like all the Scripture, but all doesn't open to everyone at any given time.

But it was that she certainly did not leave a testimony. But let us pray and endeavor in faith that when our time comes that we can be accounted worthy of salvation and the glory of heaven. And there is only one way that we can be, and that is by and through the power of the gospel.

Our own endeavors, our best efforts so many times go to naught, but how wonderful it is that we can keep a tight hope of this gospel. Brothers and sisters, you dear young ones, you dear children, you can continue in this fellowship of the saints that are going and on our way to heaven. Remain at this moment believing all your sins, your last doubts and temptations truly forgiven in Jesus' name and precious atonement blood.

We live because Jesus lives. He has died, shed His blood on Calvary's cross, that in that shed blood there is the forgiveness for our sins and the sins of the whole world if only they would believe. Will you yet believe this? Preach this gospel to me, brothers and sisters. I want to believe, and I want to make journey, and I want to make this journey in childlike faith like scriptures instruct us.

In spite of our own pride and arrogance, we can only through the power of faith keep it in the right perspective. In Jesus' name, Amen.