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Thursday, May 30, 2024

Blessed are the Merciful, for They Shall Receive Mercy

(Part 5 of a series of 9 articles on the Beatitudes)
by Pastor Paul Wolff

Jesus said, “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.” (Matthew 5:7)

Blessed are the merciful,
for they shall receive mercy.
Matthew 5:7

Mercy and grace are related because they are both expressions of love. Because all of us children of Adam and Eve are corrupted by sin, our love is imperfect – and so is our practice of mercy and grace. God’s love is perfect, and His mercy and grace are perfect. An easy way to distinguish mercy from grace is to think of mercy as God not punishing us as our sins deserve, and grace is God giving us good things which we do not deserve because of our sinfulness. However, in the Holy Bible, the meaning and use of the word “mercy” is much broader than this simple definition, and in practice both mercy and grace can often describe the same thing, which is nearly always God expressing His love in how He deals with us.

Jesus proclaims in His Sermon on the Mount, “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.” (Matthew 5:7) Here Jesus encourages all God-fearing people (and everyone else, if they will listen) to have mercy on their neighbor, and God will have mercy on them, too. God certainly has had mercy on us all by sending Jesus to pay the price of death to redeem us all from our sin and death. Since God has already done this great merciful thing for us to rescue us from the punishment we deserve, we ought to also have mercy on others, even (and especially) when they sin against us. The blessing received by the merciful is that they will also receive mercy from God. God is certainly merciful to all people, though not all receive it because some reject God’s forgiveness in Jesus Christ, and so they miss out on what God freely gives them.

God is the loving father
who has mercy on his disobedient children
and forgives our rebellion and sins.

The concept of mercy is common in the Holy Scriptures. There are between ten and twenty dozen occurrences of the word “mercy” in the Bible. This depends on which translation you read because in the Old Testament there are several different Hebrew words translated as “mercy”, and different translations sometimes translate these words as “love” (especially “steadfast love”) or “grace” or “kindness” (especially “loving kindness”) or “loyalty” (?) or “pity” or “compassion” instead of mercy. Most times it is not immediately defined, and assumes that the reader knows what mercy refers to, as in Psalm 23:6 which says, “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” Though mercy is connected with “goodness” here, it is not otherwise defined. The concept of “mercy” is common in the Psalms, which served as the hymns (and prayers) of the Old Testament times, and still serve as the basis of our hymns today, too.

Psalm 25:6-7 says, “Remember your mercy, O Lord, and your steadfast love, for they have been from of old. Remember not the sins of my youth or my transgressions; according to your steadfast love remember me, for the sake of your goodness, O Lord!” In this Psalm mercy is connected with God’s “steadfast love” (or “mercy”), and the effect of God’s mercy here is that He would “remember not the sins of my youth or my transgressions.” It is verses like this that show us that mercy means that God is withholding from us the punishment which we deserve on account of our sins.

In King David’s great Psalm of repentance after he was confronted with the guilt of his sin by the prophet, Nathan, David immediately begins by asking God for mercy. “Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions.” (Psalm 51:1) Again, here God’s mercy and love are connected, and the expected result is that God would “blot out my transgressions.” The idea here is that God wipes away the stain of our transgressions and sins like a writer wipes away spilled ink on the page (or parchment). Later in the history of God’s people, Isaiah gives God’s people this message which calls to mind King David’s psalm of repentance. “I am he who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins.” (Isaiah 43:25) This is great good news for all God’s people because with sin comes death, and if God does not remember our sins, then we will be spared from sin’s punishment.

Jesus had mercy on the crowd who followed Him,
and miraculously fed 5,000 people to satisfaction
with five loaves of bread and two fish.

The best example in Holy Scripture which describes what God’s mercy (and its opposite) is like is probably Christ’s Parable of the Unmerciful Servant. You can find it in Matthew 18:21-35. In the parable the king forgives his servant a debt so large that he could never repay it. That is how God deals with us in mercy. Our sin condemns us to death, which is a debt that we can not pay without being destroyed. God, Himself, covered our debt by becoming incarnate (Jesus Christ) and taking the punishment of death, Himself, in order to rescue us from the death which would destroy us. In the parable the forgiven servant should have been so appreciative of the king’s mercy that he ought to have had similar mercy on his neighbor who owed him a small debt. However, he was overly harsh with his neighbor, and when the king heard about it he determined that his servant did not appreciate what he had done for him, and withdrew his offer of mercy and put him in prison until he had paid every last penny of the original debt – which was forever, because the debt was so large as to be impossible to repay. This parable shows us that God wants us to be merciful to our neighbors as God has been so much more merciful to us. If we truly understand and appreciate the great cost that our King (Jesus) has paid to cover our debts, then we will find it much easier to also show mercy to our neighbors who owe us much smaller debts. Though our neighbors’ debts may seem large to us, compared to what we are indebted to God, our neighbors’ debts to us are infinitely smaller, and ultimately insignificant in the long run.

In Psalm 103:8-10 David also combines God’s mercy and grace and describes it in this way: “The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. He will not always chide, nor will he keep his anger forever. He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities.” Here David praises God because of His mercy and grace because He does not punish us for our “sins” and “iniquities”. He goes on to emphasize this in verse 12 where he writes: “as far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us.” This is another way of describing God’s forgiveness. If He removes our transgressions (sins) from us, then He will not punish us for them. Also, since God removes our transgressions “as far as the east is from the west,” then they can’t come back to condemn us. They are gone for good. This is the result of God’s mercy and grace, and it is also how we ought to forgive our neighbor.

Since God’s mercy is so closely connected with His forgiveness, we should also see that this Fifth Beatitude is related to the Fifth Petition of the Lord’s Prayer: “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” We certainly should remember that God’s forgiveness is not conditional on how well we forgive our neighbor, but that “We love because he first loved us.” (1 John 4:19) It can’t start with us, because in our sin, our mercy and forgiveness is either incomplete or lacking in some lesser or greater way. It must start with God because His mercy, love, and forgiveness is perfect in every case. Likewise, in the beatitudes, we receive mercy from God first, then in response to His mercy and forgiveness and grace, we have mercy on our neighbor.

Jesus has mercy on even the weak and powerless,
as shown by His gentle rebuke of the disciples
who wanted to send the children away.

The Holy Scriptures also give many examples of the mercilessness of sinful men. Solomon observes in Proverbs 12:10 “Whoever is righteous has regard for the life of his beast, but the mercy of the wicked is cruel.” This proverb also shows that if a man is faithful to God, then his mercy also extends to how he treats his livestock. If he is wicked, he also is cruel to his animals. We easily recognize this when we see in the news that some celebrity abuses his animals then he is roundly chastised for his cruelty by everyone. Though sometimes people take this too far when they criticize people more harshly when they abuse their animals than when they abuse their children or spouse. Solomon also observes in Proverbs 21:10 “The soul of the wicked desires evil; his neighbor finds no mercy in his eyes.” Such is the terrible nature of sin that those who love their sin more than they love God actually desire to do evil. They cannot even find it in their heart to have mercy on their neighbors. We can take comfort in Christ’s Fifth Beatitude in this for the opposite case. If the merciful receive mercy from God, then the unmerciful wicked person will not receive God’s mercy (until they repent of their sin and find forgiveness in Jesus). We also see this elsewhere where God condemns the unmerciful, such as Proverbs 3:33, “The Lord’s curse is on the house of the wicked, but he blesses the dwelling of the righteous.” This curse certainly can be removed when sinners repent and ask God for forgiveness. Since God is merciful, He is most eager to forgive and save all who repent and look to Him for salvation. “The Lord is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.” (Psalm 145:8)

Jesus, Himself, had mercy on His neighbors at all times. Many times those who had desperate desires to be healed of various afflictions pleaded with Jesus to “Have mercy,” and Jesus mercifully granted them healing and forgiveness. In Luke 17:11-19 ten men suffering with leprosy saw Jesus at a distance and called out to Him, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.” Jesus had mercy on them by healing them of their leprosy. In the next chapter, Luke 18:35-43, a blind beggar (likely the same man named Bartimaeus, in Mark 10) called out to Jesus, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” Although some of the bystanders told him to be quiet, He again asked Jesus for mercy. Jesus asked him, “What do you want me to do for you?” and he said he wanted to recover his sight, and Jesus gave him his sight back. In Mark 5, Jesus cast out many demons possessing a man, and after the man was cleansed and came into his right mind, Jesus told him, “Go home to your friends and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you.” Here Jesus shows that by rescuing the man from demon possession He had mercy on him. This is also interesting that although Jesus told the demons to go out of the man, He told the man to tell his friends that “the Lord” has had mercy on him. Here Jesus was acknowledging that He is God, or, at the very least, that His healings were done by the power of God, while not denying that He is the one true God with the Father and the Holy Spirit.

Jesus showed mercy to the family of Jairus
by raising his daughter from the dead.
See Mark 5:21-43

This is the first Beatitude in this series which is not quite so clearly a curse in the worldly sense. Few people would say that those who show mercy are inherently cursed by doing so. Though, it is not too difficult to find people who think that merciful people are fools. It is hard to show forgiveness to people who sin against you. Our sinful flesh would more likely want to “assert our rights” and repay sin with vengeful wrath, rather than withhold punishment and forgive. Showing mercy is a great witness to the Christian faith. You show you trust in Christ’s forgiveness when you forgive others.

Indeed, while it is hard for us sinners to have mercy on our neighbors, it was also difficult for God to have mercy on us and cover the great debt of our sin. When it comes to forgiveness, God can’t just “look away” and ignore sin. God is righteous and just, and must punish sin. Yet Jesus took the punishment for our sin Himself when He died on the cross. That was not an easy thing to do, yet, in mercy and love, Jesus did what was necessary to pay the price for our sin so that God could have mercy on us, while still properly punishing sin and pouring out His anger on the man, Jesus Christ, on the cross.

The Old Testament prophet, Isaiah, foretold what it would cost God’s Messiah to have mercy on us and heal us from sin and all sin’s consequences. He prophesied, “Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned – every one – to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.” (Isaiah 53:4-6) Another time, when Jesus healed a deaf man (Mark 7:31-37), He sighed or groaned upon healing the man. As I explain it in this article Jesus groaned because even in healing the sick and raising the dead, it cost Jesus suffering and pain because all illness and afflictions of the body are consequences of our sin. In healing us from all these, Jesus had to suffer for them in order to remove sin’s effects from us. This is what Isaiah meant by saying, “with his wounds we are healed.” This is another reason why Christians have confidence that on the day of resurrection we will be raised glorious and whole – as God intended us to be. Jesus has had mercy on us – at great personal cost – so that we may be healed from sin in body and soul. This also gives us peace of mind so that we may put aside our pride and, in love, have mercy and forgive those who sin against us. Jesus has done so much more to have mercy on you, that such knowledge makes it easier to have mercy on others. May Christ keep you in His mercy and lead you to be merciful.

Thursday, August 25, 2022

You Shall Not Murder

(Part One in a Series)

by Pastor Paul Wolff

God first wrote the commandments
in our hearts.
But after the fall into sin
God wrote them on stone tablets
which He gave to Moses and the Israelites
at Mount Sinai.

The sin of murder is considered to be the worst sin that a person can commit against another. Though you have to wonder, since murder is so bad, then why is it so popular? And why is murder seemingly gaining in popularity (at least in America and several other places around the world)? As I was researching this topic I saw a news story which said that murders in the United States were up 30% in 2020 over the previous year. Though 2020 was a chaotic year with all kinds of government leaders at many levels all around the world acting like tyrannical dictators. That kind of high profile lawlessness always leads to lawlessness at every level, and murder is the epitome of lawlessness.

All sin is equally evil in God’s eyes. God is holy and sinless, and He first made people holy and sinless as He is. All mankind was condemned to live in sin because of what was essentially Eve’s sin of thievery which was combined with coveting and idolatry (the underlying sin which leads to all other sins). However, that theft was full rebellion and rejection of God, and the equivalent of murder since it has so far led to the death of everyone born before 1903 (and hundreds of millions of people since then), though one man has risen from the dead and still lives.

God gave us the Fifth Commandment (as Lutherans and most other Christians count the Commandments), “You shall not murder,” because God is the “Living God.” God is called the “Living God” not just because He is alive, but because He is the source of all life, and the only one who can give life to the dead. God gave us the Fifth Commandment because He doesn’t want anyone killing the people whom He loves (including you, your neighbors, and your enemies). So we see that this commandment is good, as all of God’s commandments are good. You don’t want your neighbor murdering you, and neither does God – so God commanded “You shall not murder.”

The sin of thievery seems to be of lesser degree
than the irreversable sin of murder.
But both sins need Jesus to forgive them,
so we may be saved.

Although all sin is equally condemned in God’s eyes, there is something unique about the sin of murder. By contrast, we see in Luke 19 the tax collector, Zacchaeus, repented of his thievery (forbidden by the Seventh Commandment: “You shall not steal.”) and promised, “Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.” (Luke 19:8) Zacchaeus was certainly a wicked sinner (though as I have written elsewhere simply being a tax collector was not one of his sins – see also Luke 3:12-13), but since his wickedness primarily consisted of thievery, he was able to pay back what he had stolen, with a little extra as penance to show the sincerity of his repentance, and compensate those he sinned against for their inconvenience. Such “penance” does not even begin to undo nor remove the guilt of the sin, but it shows the sincerity of the repentance, and it can help assuage the anger of the person you sinned against so that they may be less likely to murder you for your thievery. However, when one’s sin involves murder, then what is stolen cannot be returned for love, nor money. Once you take a person’s life, it is gone permanently, and can never be given back. This is somewhat unique in the second table of the Ten Commandments, and makes murder seem worse than other sins committed against other people.

You will sometimes hear people say, “… at least I am not a murderer.” You know that someone is trying too hard to justify their pet sins when they say this. Murder is a pretty low standard for anyone to measure up against. That person is actually saying, “I may be a dreadfully wicked person, but at least I am not the worst person (for now).” Of course, once you get to this point, the sin of murder (in one form or another) is likely to follow soon thereafter.

Despite the horrific nature of murder, there is no lack of examples of murder in the Bible. This shows the corrupting nature of sin. The first person born on the earth (after God created Adam and Eve) ended up murdering his younger brother. When I have taught the Ten Commandments I have noticed that sins against all the Commandments in the Second Table (and likely all of the Commandments in the First Table, also) can lead to murder. From this I have concluded that there are many different causes of the sin of murder, such as dishonoring parents and authorities, adultery, theft, lying, and covetousness. However, as I have studied the Holy Scripture further, I believe there is a single underlying foundational cause of murder which leads to all the other superficial immediate causes of this terrible sin.

Any sin against the Second Table of the Commandments can lead to murder because these sins are committed against our neighbor. Taken to the extreme, every sin can lead to murder because murder is the ultimate expression of the sins against your neighbor, including dishonoring parents and authorities, adultery, theft, lying, and covetousness. There are also the so-called “seven deadly sins” which are pride, greed, wrath, envy, lust, gluttony, and sloth. Although not all of these are always sinful (there can be righteous anger, and possibly pride – though righteous pride is much more rare than you might like to believe), these all could be considered deadly because they can lead someone to murder, and they lead people to lose faith in Jesus or lead us to reject Christ’s forgiveness and salvation.

In the Parable of the Good Samaritan
The Priest and the Levite did not hurt the injured man,
but neither did they help him.

As we consider the Fifth Commandment we should recall Martin Luther’s teaching on the meaning of the Fifth Commandment. “We should fear and love God so that we do not hurt or harm our neighbor in his body, but help and support him in every physical need.” Note that there are two parts: a negative and a positive part. We should first not hurt nor harm our neighbor in his body. This is the negative part. This is the wrong thing that we should not do. You should also note that what is forbidden is not only the extreme of murder, but God also forbids you from hurting or harming your neighbor in any way! However, as with all the commandments, there is also a positive good that we should do to keep this commandment. We should help and support our neighbor in every bodily need. It is not enough to avoid killing our neighbor with our own actions, but we must also help and protect our neighbor’s body and life. An example of this in Scripture is Christ’s Parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37). The priest and the Levite did not lay a finger on the man laying on the road to Jericho to hurt him, but neither did they lift a finger to help him after the robbers left him for dead. So, in God’s eyes, they were just as guilty of murder as the robbers who beat the man and took his possessions. In another article I will show how Jesus kept the Fifth Commandment by not only abstaining from murder, but by helping and healing those who were sick, injured, and dead.

Murder may have many immediate causes such as coveting, lust, greed, envy, hatred, and others. Yet underlying all of these immediate causes there is a fundamental sin which leads all these different causes to end up with the same result of murder. That fundamental murderous sin is an idolatrous selfishness which leads people to take into their own hands the power over life and death, which rightly belongs only to God. When someone begins to justify his pet sins in his own mind he is likely to forget God’s commandments and it is sometimes a short step to think that one’s own sinful desires are good and right. Once that happens, even the lives of others become secondary to what the sinful person desires. This is what we call “hatred”. I have shown elsewhere that no racist person begins by hating others. It can begin with something as seemingly innocent (though still wickedly sinful) as wanting what is best for a group that I identify with – over and against one or more groups that I don’t identify with. Sinful desires can grow into the same murderous hatred even though they have one of several different starting points. This is why we must repent of our sins early and often. Martin Luther suggests that we use our Baptism correctly if we remember our sinfulness daily and “drown” the old sinful nature through contrition (sorrow over sin) and repentance, trusting in Jesus to forgive our sins and give us what we need, even if it is not what we necessarily desire. If we delay repenting then those sinful desires grow into actual sins of word and deed, and can lead to murder long before we realize it.

In the days of Noah, God saw that
“the wickedness of man was great in the earth,
and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart
was only evil continually.” (Genesis 6:5)

Because God created us He knows full well how our hearts are set on evil, including murder. God didn’t create people to murder, but to appreciate His gift of life and also for husband and wife to create new life through their expression of love for one another. Though sin has corrupted all of this, life is still a gift from God for which we can rejoice and be thankful. Also, in history, God has used our murderous desires to accomplish our salvation. Because sinful people desire to be gods ourselves, we believe we have to get rid of the real God because to our eyes He “gets in the way”. In our sinful delusions, we think we are holy, but the ugly truth is immediately apparent when we are in the presence of true holiness. What God did was to become incarnate as a man, Jesus of Nazareth, and when the time was right He let sinful men do to Him what sinful men always wanted to do to God, which is: to murder Him. This accomplished our salvation because Jesus is truly an innocent man, but He allowed Himself to be killed as a substitute for us. Jesus took the guilt of our sin upon himself, and suffered death innocently in our place so that God’s wrath over our sin could be poured out upon Jesus, and we could be forgiven and (eventually) remade as the holy, eternal, people whom God intended for us to be in the first place. The poetic irony of using our murderous tendencies to accomplish our forgiveness and salvation and eternal life is amazing, and the love of God, which caused Him to live and die for us sinners, is so amazing and wonderful that we, who appreciate what He has done to save us, will literally love Him forever in return.

Despite the terrible finality of murder, God still forgives repentant murderers. Murder is a sin in God’s eyes, like any other sin. The number of murderers in hell is not an indication that God does not forgive murderers, but that the murderers feel so guilty that they despair and think their sin cannot be forgiven, and so they do not repent and seek God’s mercy and forgiveness. In this life we think we have to pay for our own mistakes, but the sin of murder is too big. This leads to despair, and an unrepentant attitude which leads to damnation. Murder is not unforgivable, but the guilty murderer must repent and trust in Jesus to forgive him or her.

Jesus is the Good Samaritan
who saved us sinners from death
at the great cost of His own suffering
and death on the cross.

Jesus taught in the Sermon on the Mount, “You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘Do not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to his brother, ‘Raca,’ (a curse) is answerable to the Sanhedrin. But anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell.” (Matthew 5:21-22) This shows us that the sin of murder is more than just the extreme action of taking someone’s life. God gave us all life, and cares for our well being in every aspect of our life. This is why Martin Luther explained the Fifth Commandment as he did (see above).

Jesus did not murder, in any way, but helped His neighbors by healing them from all kinds of sickness, disease, injury, and even death. Then Jesus allowed wicked men to conspire against Him to have Him murdered. Jesus allowed them to murder Him as a sacrificial lamb so that He could take our place and suffer the wrath of God the Father for the sins of the world. Jesus did this so that you could be redeemed and rescued from sin and death.

Murder is a dreadful sin, and a terrible evil, but it is not unforgivable. Jesus died to pay the price to redeem murderers, as well as all sinners. If you are guilty of murder, or hatred, or neglect, or any other sin which breaks God’s commandment against murder, then repent and trust in Jesus to forgive these, and all your sins. It is a great comfort to know that the almighty and Holy God forgives even the sins of the worst sinners, that God may be praised and glorified forever for His great love and mercy.

Other Articles in this series:
The True God Cannot Murder
The Opposite of Murder

Tuesday, March 31, 2020

Plagues in the Bible

by Pastor Paul Wolff

Psalm 103:1-5 “Praise the Lord, O my soul; all my inmost being, praise his holy name. Praise the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits – who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion, who satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.”

God allowed Job to be afflicted
but Job's friends blamed him for his troubles.

The Bible verse above is a great comfort for Christians in times of sickness or injury. God is the Lord who forgives your sins and heals all your diseases. As I write this it is the end of the first quarter of 2020. The world has gone crazy about a deadly coronavirus (COVID-19), which nevertheless seems to only have a similar death rate as any influenza virus which makes its rounds throughout the world every year. People don’t usually panic over the flu, though it kills tens of thousands of people annually, but on account of this virus people have gone insane. It seems like most of the United States and several other countries have just about shut down over the fear of this virus. The vast majority of people who contract the disease recover from it, just like the flu, but people, reporters, and governments have still gone mad over this disease.

The world’s insane overreaction to this has made me think of Biblical plagues, so I did a study of plagues in the Bible. Every plague in the Bible comes and goes at the command of God to suit His good purposes. He is in control and that should make us fearful and comforted at the same time. Let us look at some representative examples that I found in my study.

Exodus 7:17
“This is what the Lord says: By this you will know that I am the Lord: With the staff that is in my hand I will strike the water of the Nile, and it will be changed into blood.”
The purpose of the ten plagues in Egypt was to get Egypt’s Pharaoh (and the Egyptian people) to know that God is the true King over all kings and God over all gods. The Israelite people who were enslaved to the Pharaoh worshiped the true God, while the Egyptians worshiped a variety of gods which were all false. After ten plagues God showed that He is the true God who has absolute power over all false gods and even over the powerful kings in the world.

God told Moses that He would
protect His people from plagues and diseases.

Exodus 30:11-12
“Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘When you take a census of the Israelites to count them, each one must pay the Lord a ransom for his life at the time he is counted. Then no plague will come on them when you number them.”
God required this of the Israelites because they weren’t just another nation on earth, but they were also the visible church on earth. They were God’s representatives among the nations. Yet, the Israelites were sinners like everyone else, and no better, so God used the occasion of a census to require the Israelites to give an offering to God to ransom their lives. This was a typological prophesy concerning the messiah who was to come. He would pay the ultimate ransom to redeem the lives of all people from their sins. This periodic ransom was also a reminder to God’s people that because of our sin we are under the condemnation of death, were it not for the mercy of God who accepts the ransom of Christ in our place.

It is most likely a coincidence that in 2020, as I write this, we are in the process of conducting a census in the United States. The coronavirus plague did not come to afflict only the USA, but it originated in China, and afflicts most of the nations of the world. I don’t know how many nations are conducting a census in 2020, but I suspect that not all the affected countries are conducting a census. It is certainly not good that wicked, lawless judges prevented the Trump administration from asking how many people were U.S. citizens and how many were foreigners living here. The results of the 2020 census will be missing important information, but it is not clear that this is why God sent the coronavirus plague.

However, the coronavirus plague is a good occasion to repent of your sins, and trust in Jesus Christ to rescue you from sin and illness and death. In Luke 13:2-3, Jesus responded to a question about an incident which resulted in tragic deaths by saying, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered in this way? No, I tell you, but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.” God protects His people from plagues and disaster all the time, but we should not grow complacent thinking that we are invulnerable or that we don’t deserve to die of the plague. We are all sinners and do not deserve life. You only live by the grace of God and the love of Jesus Christ who gave His life as a ransom for your life.

Jesus is the Good Samaritan
who heals the wounds of His enemy.

Exodus 32:35
“And the Lord struck the people with a plague because of what they did with the calf Aaron had made.”
After the Israelites made a golden idol and worshiped it as their god, the true God sent this plague upon the people to punish their idolatry. However, we ought also to remember what is written in Hebrews 12:6, “The Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives.” This is to keep us trusting in God for forgiveness and the blessings of life, which we in no way deserve. Scripture goes on in Hebrews 12:7, “God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline?” This is a great comfort in a time of trial or disease. God is treating us as his beloved children to discipline us and make us trust in Him more so that we may receive greater blessings, and testify to others that God is merciful and will rescue us from all trouble.

Numbers 14:37-38
“… These men responsible for spreading the bad report about the land were struck down and died of a plague before the Lord. Of the men who went to explore the land, only Joshua son of Nun and Caleb son of Jephunneh survived.”
Again, in the days of Moses, God sent a plague which was specifically targeted at the ten Israelite scouts who gave a bad report about the land of Canaan, and tried to turn the people against God. God had already promised that He would take the land from the Canaanites and give the land to the Israelites as He had promised to their ancestor, Abraham. All ten of the unfaithful men died of this plague, but the other two Israelite scouts, Joshua and Caleb, survived because they were faithful to God and reported that the land was flowing with milk and honey, and that God would give this fruitful prosperous land to them as He had promised.

Jesus healed many people of disease,
and He raised some from the dead,
like Lazarus.

Numbers 16
In Numbers 16 Moses recounts the wickedness of Korah and his followers who started a rebellion against Moses, whom God had chosen to lead the people. God sent fire which consumed 250 men who were community organizers rebelling against God’s appointed leaders. Then God sent a plague against the people, who accused Moses of killing Korah and his followers. The plague killed 14,700 people in addition to the 250 who died in the fire that God sent. Here God targeted those who were affected, and showed the people that He is in control, not Moses, nor any other of the people.

Numbers 25
Numbers 25 recounts a plague that God sent against the Israelites when they began sacrificing to foreign false gods, and indulging in sexual immorality with women who worshiped foreign idols. The plague killed 24,000 people until it was stopped when Phinehas, the grandson of Aaron (Moses’ brother), saw a man bring a Midianite woman into his tent right before the eyes of Moses and Israel. Phinehas took a spear and impaled the man and the woman, and then God stopped the plague.

Deuteronomy 28
In Deuteronomy 28 God gives blessings and curses to His people. God promises that they will be blessed if they trust in Him and do what He asks of them. God also promises that they will be cursed and have all sorts of bad things befall them if they forsake Him and turn to false gods. Among the curses are plagues and famine and all kind of trouble. God wants us to trust in Him for blessings because He is the only one who redeems us from our sin and death. We can’t do it ourselves, nor can we find any rescue in created things. Here the plagues are the Law of God put into action to dissuade us from rebelling against God. The blessings, on the other hand, are positive encouragement to trust in God in all things.

1 Samuel 6

Jesus let Peter walk on the water
but Peter lost faith and began to drown.
Jesus rescued him from his troubles.

In 1 Samuel 6, in the days of the Judges, God allowed the Philistines to capture the Ark of the Covenant of God, because the unfaithful priests of God allowed it to be taken into battle without first consulting God as to whether they should do so. They were trying to manipulate God to do as they wanted, which is how the pagans view their false gods. Though God allowed the Philistines to capture the symbol of God’s presence among His people, He also used it to bring a plague to the Philistines in whatever town the Ark of the Covenant was residing at the time. The plagues did not stop until the Philistines gave an offering of gold to God and put the Ark on a cart drawn by two cows which had never been yoked, but had given birth to calves. The cows calmly pulled the cart straight to Israelite territory as if they were led by God Himself (which they were), and God stopped the plague he sent against the Philistines. Though God also struck down seventy Israelite men of Beth Shemesh because they looked into the Lord’s Ark though this was forbidden for them to do so, and they should have known better. (see also Psalm 106)

2 Samuel 24
In 2 Samuel 24 (and 1 Chronicles 21) God sent a plague against Israel in the days of King David because David conducted an unlawful census (remember God’s instructions from Exodus 30 above). The Angel of the Lord sent a plague on Israel which killed 70,000 people. When David repented of his sinful pride the Angel of the Lord was at the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite. David then bought the threshing floor from Araunah, though Araunah offered to give it to David for pleading to God to stop the Angel of the Lord from killing him and his men, but David insisted on paying a fair price for the site. That location later became the place where Solomon built the temple of the Lord in Jerusalem (See 2 Chronicles 3:1).

The Lord is my Shepherd
He leads me by the still waters.
He restores my soul.

There are many verses in Jeremiah’s prophesy where there is a recurring threat that God will send “the sword, famine and plague” against His people to destroy them unless they repented of their unbelief and idolatry. There are at least 15 occurrences of this formula in the book of Jeremiah warning the people to turn from their sinful ways so that God will relent from the destruction that he prophesied against them. Sadly, the people did not listen to God’s prophet, and God sent the Babylonians to destroy Judah and take the survivors into captivity and slavery in Babylon. The prophet Ezekiel picked up on Jeremiah’s formula and uses the same phrase several times to call the people to repentance in his day.

There are many other instances of plagues described and prophesied in the Scriptures. Without exception they all arrive and withdraw at the command and direction of God. He is in control of all plagues and disease at all times. This is a comfort to us because although God is the one who sends plagues, He is also the one who has mercy on His people who turn to Him and call upon Him to rescue them from their sin and death. We know that God will hear our prayer because in Jesus He became a man to suffer and die to redeem sinners from the consequences of their sin, so that they may be rescued from sin and death and be raised to life in His glorious kingdom where there is no “sword, famine, and plague” and where there is no sin and death. All who call upon Jesus to save them will live with Him in His glorious paradise forever in grateful devotion for the salvation won for us by Jesus.

May Christ keep you safe and healthy, or give you healing, as the plague comes through your town. Repent of your sins and trust in Jesus Christ to protect your life, and He will give you His precious gift of eternal life.

Saturday, October 22, 2016

Is it Easier to Heal, or to Forgive?

by Pastor Paul Wolff

Jesus raised Jairus' Daughter from the dead

(Matthew 9:1-8)
Jesus stepped into a boat, crossed over and came to his own town. Some men brought to him a paralytic, lying on a mat. When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “Take heart, son; your sins are forgiven.”

At this, some of the teachers of the law said to themselves, “This fellow is blaspheming!”
Knowing their thoughts, Jesus said, “Why do you entertain evil thoughts in your hearts? Which is easier: to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up and walk’? But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins….” Then he said to the paralytic, “Get up, take your mat and go home.” And the man got up and went home. When the crowd saw this, they were filled with awe; and they praised God, who had given such authority to men.

A paralyzed man was brought to Jesus, and when He saw the man, and the first thing He said to him was, “Take heart, son, your sins are forgiven.” This seems like a strange thing to say. I don’t think that this paralyzed man’s friends brought him to have his sins forgiven. He had most likely heard of the miraculous healings Jesus had done wherever He went, and he desired to walk again.

The paralyzed man likely thought that it was more important for him that he would be able to walk, than to have his sins forgiven. But Jesus saw this man and his greatest need, and He addressed it right away. The man’s greatest need was not that he could not walk, but his greatest need was that he was a sinner. He needed his sins forgiven. And so Jesus dealt with that immediately, saying “My son, your sins are forgiven.”

Adam and Eve brought sin and condemnation
to themselves and to all people.

We, too, need to recognize that our greatest need is that our sins are forgiven. Sin makes us enemies with God, and as long as we are guilty of sin we are subject to God’s punishment. If our sins are forgiven, then God is no longer our enemy, but our greatest friend and protector. All problems, all trouble, all sorrow in this life are a result of sin. So the greatest thing that we can have is the forgiveness of Jesus.

Some of the people who were there with Jesus heard what He said to the paralyzed man, and they were thinking to themselves, “This man is blaspheming. Who can forgive sins, but God?” Well, this is true indeed! However, they didn’t recognize that Jesus is God. There He was standing there in front of them: God in the flesh! But they couldn’t see it. They thought, “this man is insulting God by saying that he could forgive sins.” Well, Jesus is God, and He can forgive sins. Jesus also knew what they were thinking, by His divine power, and so He asked them, “Which is easier to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven’ or ‘Rise and walk’”?

We can answer Jesus’ question on several levels. On one level, it is easy to say anything. It doesn’t take much effort to say something if you are not too particular about what it is you are saying. But of course, this is trivial. Most of us do take some care about what we say, and this is especially true for Jesus.

On another level, we can look at it and say, it is much easier to say, “Your sins are forgiven” rather than say, “Get up and walk”. You can say, “Your sins are forgiven” but there is no outward indication to show if your sins really are forgiven or if they aren’t. We can’t tell just by looking at a person and say, “This person’s sins are forgiven” or “That person’s sins are not forgiven.” So in that sense it is easier to say “Your sins are forgiven” because you really can’t tell if it has been done. God knows, but we don’t. We can’t see forgiveness. We don’t know. We have to live by faith. In the same way, if you were to say to a person, “Get up and walk” and that person does not get up and walk, then you are exposed as being a charlatan, or speaking nonsense, or giving this person hope that you can’t fulfill. So it is easier to say, “Your sins are forgiven” rather than “Get up and walk” if you don’t have the power to make that person get up and walk. But Jesus did have the power to make that man get up and walk.

Jesus did not, however, tell the man “Your sins are forgiven” because it was easier for Him to say that rather than “Get up and walk.” Jesus had the power both to forgive sins and to heal the man from his paralysis, but Jesus dealt with what was most important first. The man’s greatest problem was his sin, so Jesus first declared that his sins were forgiven. But then to show that He did have the power not only to forgive sins, but also to heal him, He told the man, “Get up and walk” and the man was healed and stood up. By doing this great miracle, Jesus showed those who were there that He did also have the power to forgive sins. If this man, Jesus, could make a paralyzed man get up and walk, which no one else had the power to do, then He certainly also had the power to forgive sins. That was one thing that Jesus was showing by this great miracle. Jesus was also showing that He has compassion for all our needs of body and soul.

Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead.

The paralyzed man had more needs than just having his sins forgiven. He was paralyzed and had the need for healing. Though, it would have been all right for him to go through life as a paralyzed man, and yet have his sins forgiven. He could have lived his life as a paralytic, trusting in God to forgive him, and to provide for his other bodily needs, and he would be saved just like all other believers. You should remember that, at some point in history, that man died, and we should all agree that being dead is a much worse condition than being paralyzed. On the last day when Jesus calls him out of his grave, he will be restored to full health, and full strength, and he will be walking and rejoicing in God with a full, strong body forever and ever. Jesus, however, saw the man’s immediate physical needs as well as his spiritual needs and had compassion on him. He restored to him his ability to walk, in addition to forgiving his sins.

Besides the question that Jesus asks, “Which is easier: to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or ‘Get up and walk’?” I think we can contemplate another question Jesus did not ask, but is important for us to consider. Which is easier to DO: to heal a man who is paralyzed, or to forgive sins? Now, even today, depending on what is the cause of paralysis, in nearly all cases, healing paralysis is still an impossibility even for the most skilled doctors. If someone has a damaged spine, and cannot walk it is virtually impossible for modern medicine to heal them. Many doctors have tried different treatments, but sometimes it is just impossible. For a severe injury, if you cannot walk, you will never walk. And yet, physical problems often have physical cures. It may be possible sometime in the future to develop some healing that we cannot do now. So we may hold out some small hope for that possibility. It is now impossible, though some time in the future, it may be possible. On the other hand, it is absolutely impossible for sinful man to forgive sins.

We sinners cannot accomplish the forgiveness of sins on our own. We cannot do anything that could appease God of our own doing alone, much less for anyone else’s sins. We are guilty of sins, each of us, as we have inherited that guilt going all the way back to Adam and Eve. Even if we could overcome our own sins, we could not overcome someone else’s, and we can’t even overcome our own sins. People sometimes think that if we do enough good that we can make up for sin, but God has given us His commandments. We ought to be doing good in everything we do. How can we do more than everything to overcome our sins, especially once we are guilty of sin? It is impossible. We cannot overcome sins. God says, “The wages of sin is death.” (Romans 6:23) You might, then, think that death might be enough to overcome our sins, but as sinners, to suffer that death would destroy us. We would be destroyed by death on account of our sin. We cannot overcome sin. It is impossible.

Only God can accomplish the redemption of our sins, and in God, only Jesus can do it. God, in His nature, is an eternal Spirit. He cannot die. But in Jesus, God has become a man in order to be able to die and to pay the price for our sins. Because Jesus is a man, He could die for our sins. He could pay the price to redeem us from our sins. And in His grace, Jesus desired to do all that was needed to win forgiveness for us, and so He became a man. As a man Jesus put himself in a place where he could do what was necessary to pay for our sins. He could live the perfect life that we were unable to do, to keep God’s Ten Commandments that we were unable to keep in our sin, so that He could present Himself before the Father as the perfect atoning sacrifice, and to offer His life in payment for ours. This is what it takes to accomplish our forgiveness. God does not overlook sin. He cannot do that in His nature. He is a just God. Sin must be punished, but Jesus took the punishment in our place, as our substitute.

Your Forgiveness was won through
the death of Jesus on the cross.
And the benefits come to you through faith.

This is why it is good for us to ask, “which is easier to do.” What does it take to forgive our sins? It wasn’t just as if Jesus had said, ‘your sins are forgiven, I’ll overlook it this time.’ In order for Jesus to forgive sins, He had to go to the cross. He had to suffer and die to pay for those sins, and for the sins of the world. It was not easy for Jesus to do that. It was more than just saying, “Your sins are forgiven.” It was putting that into action: going to the cross; suffering and dying; having sinners put the crown of thorns on His head; and they beat Him and slapped Him and insulted Him; nailing His hands and feet to the cross; and Jesus remained up on that cross while people were insulting Him and laughing at Him. The worst part of His death was that Jesus felt God, the Father, forsaking Him on account of our sin. He felt God’s wrath over the sins of the world, which He had nothing to do with, but that He was carrying in His body to take away from us. All of this is what it took for Jesus to forgive our sins. Jesus did all these things out of love for us all. He did these so that our sins would be taken away from us, that we might have life forever.

It was not easy for Jesus to do this, but He did it out of love for us. Which is easier? It was not easy for Jesus to do, but He did what was necessary to forgive our sins. So that when we hear the pastor telling us, “Your sins are forgiven, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” It is true. It has been done. Jesus did what was necessary. The pastor speaks words to us, but it is more than words, it is what Jesus has done for us. Those words are God’s Word that comes to us to give us life and salvation, to heal us from our sins. This is what we have in the Word of God. This is what Jesus brings to us through His Word, and through the Sacraments, that we receive the forgiveness of Jesus. That we receive what He paid for us. This is the great gift of God which gives us life.

It was not easy for Jesus to do, but He did it all for you, and for that you should thank and praise God that you have such a savior in Jesus. May Jesus strengthen your faith to know that you are forgiven. That He has done everything necessary to redeem you, to make you His Child. That you might live in that faith, trusting in Jesus to forgive your sins, and on the last day you will be raised in glorious life to live with God forever.

Jesus said,
“Let not your heart be troubled.
I have gone to prepare a place for you.”

Thursday, May 30, 2024

Blessed are the Merciful, for They Shall Receive Mercy

(Part 5 of a series of 9 articles on the Beatitudes)
by Pastor Paul Wolff