How do you approach a special holiday?  Are you the type that just sort of goes with the flow – “I don’t really care what we do to celebrate my birthday, let’s just have fun?  Are you the type that wants every detail planned out ahead of time?  Or maybe you might make a few subtle suggestions like – did you see that new restaurant?  My sister said the food there is excellent.”  Or maybe you even make it obvious what you want: “It’s my birthday, and I want a book and my couch” or “it’s Valentine’s Day – we need flowers, chocolates, and a night out!”

We have different approaches to special days, but more importantly, how do you approach life with God?  We’re going to talk today about the many things God allows or places on our plate in life that are out of our control: tragedies that challenge our faith, bleak circumstances that challenge our optimism, damaged relationships that test our patience and love.  How do you approach that life – with God?  Is it “your will be done”?  Might we make a few suggestions here and there?  Do we make demands?

Did you notice the opposite approaches we have in these leper stories today?  One leper approaches Jesus with his leprosy interested only in the will of God.  “Leave me a leper or heal me of leprosy; ‘if you are willing, you can make me clean.’”  Naaman is the other leper who doesn’t know God or what it is to have a life as God’s child.   He’s ready to dictate how, when, and where he will be healed.  In Naaman, we’ll see all the approaches to God of our sinful nature.  But today God leads Naaman to love the ways of God, no matter how God works, where God works, or when God works.  It’s our prayer today that the Lord would lead us always to do the same.

As we first meet Naaman, his life is characterized by multiple successes, but a singular problem.  He’s commander of the Aramean army, a great man, highly respected, a tested winner, a valiant soldier.  But he had leprosy.  At the end of such an accomplished list stands this weakness, this vulnerability, this incurable disease.  Mighty Naaman needed help.  How bad the leprosy was, we don’t know, but it must’ve really bothered him.  He seems desperate to have acted on the advice of a servant girl from Israel pointing him to a prophet who served a foreign God.  Suddenly, Naaman himself is someone looking to the God of Israel for his help!

And when Naaman and the king of Aram discuss this trip, we begin to see Naaman’s approach to life.  Perhaps because of his accomplishments and status, Naaman’s approach is to demand and control and plan his cure from leprosy.  Naaman believes he can earn the help of the gods and their prophets.  He felt he could buy his way and then make his demand to be healed.  “Here’s plenty of money, now show me the magic!”

First, they sent this gift with a letter to the King of Israel – why?  Because they believe the king had authority over the prophet.  The king would tell the prophet what to do.  But that’s where Naaman’s frustration started.  He couldn’t buy his way to the king’s prophet because the king of Israel rejected the request.  “Am I God? Can I kill and bring back to life? Why does this fellow send someone to me to be cured of his leprosy? See how he is trying to pick a quarrel with me!”  The king of Israel didn’t have any confidence that Naaman would be healed, so he feared that the Arameans would use that failure as an excuse to go to war!  So we quickly learn that Naaman’s cure would not come because of a bribe or because of a king’s authority.  That’s not God’s way.

But before Naaman returned home, Elisha sent for Naaman so that he would still know there was a prophet in Israel.  Notice Naaman’s intimidation efforts, as he arrived with fancy horses and chariots at Elisha’s door.  He’s showing what a decorated dignitary he was.  It’s like he’s saying, “Elisha, if you want to be in my good graces, you will do as I ask.”  But the prophet didn’t go.  That’s not God’s way.  The cure would not come because of who Naaman was or what he had accomplished.  Instead, a messenger came and told him to wash in the Jordan River seven times to be cured.

Notice where this message left Naaman.  He’s steaming mad.  “I thought that he would surely come out to me and stand and call on the name of the Lord his God, wave his hand over the spot and cure me of my leprosy. ¹² Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than any of the waters of Israel? Couldn’t I wash in them and be cleansed?”

Here he shows how in sin we look for earthly evidence that help is on the way.  Naaman wanted the prophet standing next to him.  He wanted his hand waving over the spot.  He wanted better waters, cleaner, mountain-spring waters of the rivers of Damascus to be used.  He figured those would work much better than the mucky waters of the Jordan.  But that’s not God’s way.  The cure would not come because of a prophet’s skill or technique.  The cure would not come because of clean water or even dipping seven times in it.

So what’s left?  There’s no hope for a cure left except the Word of the prophet of God.  Naaman’s servants lovingly point this out to him using some common sense to at least do the simple thing the prophet commanded.  Even though in Naaman’s mind there was no reason to go to the Jordan – he never bought any help, he didn’t have the authority of the king of Israel; he didn’t have special rank in Israel; he didn’t have the prophet; he didn’t have the best river.  It all depended on the God of Israel – if he was willing to keep his Word through his prophet.  That’s right where God wanted Naaman to be.  That’s God’s way!  He loves it when we realize our only hope is God.  For “when we are weak, we are strong”! (2 Corinthians 12:10)

How do you approach life with God?  Sometimes, like Naaman, we go to God in prayer, mixing in our own efforts and strength.  Perhaps one reason we don’t pray so much is because we are too confident in ourselves and our own ability to get through the hard times.  We don’t want to think of ourselves as dependent.  Instead of approaching life on our knees, we do it on our feet.  Instead of approaching God seeking salvation from all our afflictions, we approach him seeking assistance.  “Lord, just take this little bit, and I will handle the rest.”  But those are all lies!  We face every difficulty and trial in life as a David vs. Goliath moment.  “It’s not my effort, but by the will of God!”

How do you approach life with God?  In the Bible the things God allots to us in life is described as a cup he gives us to drink.  Our sinful nature tempts us to think of God’s ways to us as a cup drawn from the Jordan. Eew – what’s this dirty, smelly water?  “This isn’t right.  I don’t want to drink it.”  Has God given you a bad cup?  Are we ashamed and disappointed with the suffering and challenges God asks us to take?  “This suffering won’t work for me – I can’t handle it.”  Do you demand that God give you better waters for you to be at peace with his ways?  Those were Naaman’s thoughts, the doubting demands of unbelief – thinking God couldn’t bless you with such a cup and arrogantly demanding something else.  We who deserve hell from God are not in any position to make demands.

Behold, the wonderful ways of God!  There is a cup of punishment and hell from God.  But he sent his own Son, who took it and said, “I am willing.”  Jesus drank the bad cup we deserved from God – the cup of his wrath, of our guilt and our punishment for our sins.  Jesus drank that one cup of hell, the cup of our destruction.  And Jesus finished that cup, and he destroyed that bad cup when he rose from the dead and was seated in power over all things!  Jesus took on himself everything that stood against us because of sin.  We are now perfect children in God’s eyes.  Now all we have in life is God-for-us.  We have comfort in knowing that no matter what hardship looks like in our lives, whatever seems impossible or bad timing or more that I can handle, is really God’s greatest blessing.

Just think of Naaman and how God blessed him.  At first, Naaman just wanted a cure for leprosy.  Little did he know God was using his leprosy, the servant girl, the rejection of the king, the lowly messenger, the mucky waters of the Jordan, all to give him more than physical healing.  God revealed himself to Naaman as only true and powerful God.  It was only the work of God that healed Naaman in the Jordan River. We also see God’s great compassion and mercy that Naaman was even healed, though he was so set on his own will and his own way like a stubborn mule.  In the end, Naaman left with something else money couldn’t buy – a faith life with the LORD.

So we learn with Naaman to love the ways of God.  No matter how lowly or humble our circumstances, no matter how impossible the challenge seems, how tested we are by suffering and pain, we are content that God’s will is done.  That’s the comfort we have as we approach all aspects of life.  So when we go to God in prayer for his help, we leave the answers to him, the cure to him, the solution to him.  God may not do what we ask or what we expect or what we hope for.  He does more than we could ask or imagine.  He hears and answers our prayers with perfect use of his power and full expression of compassion and grace – because that’s God’s way.  That’s how God works.  Don’t you love it?  Amen.

Let us pray:  Heavenly Father, sanctify us by the truth; your word is truth.  Amen.

“The Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.”  Those words from Genesis speak of the creation of Adam.  It’s the part of the Bible Michelangelo painted in the Sistine Chapel, famously known for the finger of God reaching out with the touch of life to Adam.  It’s such a personal picture.  God formed him from the dust and then gives him life.  So Michelangelo painted this “touch” of life from God to Adam.  It’s so personal.

Wouldn’t it be neat if you were in that painting?  Can you say that God “touched” you?  Today we’re not talking about God being the Creator of our physical being and bringing us to life.  Instead, we’ll talk about a different personal touch of God – the work of God that calls us to faith, giving us spiritual life!  Let us give thanks to God for that call to faith!

That’s exactly what Paul always is always a good thing to do.  But we ought always to thank God for you, brothers loved by the Lord, because from the beginning God chose you to be saved through the sanctifying work of the Spirit and through belief in the truth.

Thessalonica was a city of idol worshipers.  Paul wasn’t in Thessalonica very long.  After he showed up and preached in the synagogue that Jesus is the Christ whom God sent to suffer and die for your sins and who rose again in triumph from the dead, – yes, the powerful good news is proclaimed in a new place!  But after that, it was all downhill.  Jews instigated a riot, the crowds turned on Paul and some others who followed him; they wanted to throw them in jail.  The whole city was in turmoil.  So late in the night, some believers there secretly sent Paul away, on to the next city.  Some might call that visit an “epic fail”.  And then it got worse.

After Paul left, false teachers came in and spread lies about Jesus, lies saying Jesus already came a second time, lies that were deceptive and confusing.  So put it all together – rampant idolatry, opposition from the Jews, rioting, turmoil, Paul’s exit and false teaching – does it sound like a recipe for making believers and the personal touch of God?

1.  THE POWER OF HIS CALL

And yet, here Paul is writing a letter of encouragement to believers in Thessalonica.  What a powerful miracle!  Despite the opposition, despite how unpopular it was, despite your history of idolatry, despite common sense, despite the lies – some believed!

How did that happen?  Was it just the different choice some of them made?  We make so many choices in life.  Many people think that the choice of religion is one of them.  But the Bible teaches otherwise.  These believers weren’t believers because of their choice, but because of God’s choice.  So here Paul says I have a debt to pay to God, a debt of thanksgiving, all the time, whether night or day, because from the beginning God chose you.  Touch.

It’s so personal and amazing that God would do that to you and me.  We’d like to think it was because God saw I would choose to believe in him someday or because I’ve made better choices in life than others have.  We’d like to think that our gifts and talents made us a better choice.  It’s easy for us to think we look more like God than we really do by nature.  It’s easy to think it’s not such a crazy idea for God to choose me.  But, consider the obstacles.  When Samuel was called, he didn’t even recognize God’s voice, did he?  We are part of a sinful world that doesn’t listen to God by nature.  When Nathanael was invited by Philip to “come and see” Jesus of Nazareth, he despised Jesus’ lowly city of origin and considered the idea foolishness that anything good would come from there.  By nature God’s chosen ways seem foolish to us.  Consider the obstacle of our pride, the obstacle of our self-centeredness, the obstacle of our sin and guilt.

From the beginning God chose you?  It’s sounding stranger every second.  But what are the next three words?  From the beginning God chose you to be saved.  And once again we see that precious and powerful finger of God reaching out to you and me – touch.  He knew what you were because of sin when he chose you.  And yet, by his own doing, by his own power he came to save you, to die for you, to rise for you.  And by his choosing you, by his own doing, by his own power, his Spirit came to do his sanctifying work, to make you holy.  By his own doing and his own power, he called you to believe what seems “foolishness” – to believe in the truth of Christ crucified.

And so just as God breathed life into Adam’s dead body, so he breathed life into our dead hearts by his Spirit.  Just as he alone created light when there was nothing but darkness, so he made light shine in the darkness of our hearts to know Jesus as our Savior.

But Paul isn’t finished giving thanks to God and marveling at the power of his call.  He says, “He called you to this through our gospel…  Now, isn’t this a surprise when it comes to God’s call?  I can understand it if Samuel, after learning to listen to his Lord, said, “I was called by God.”  I can understand it that Nathanael heard Jesus say things about him he shouldn’t know, unless he were God and then say, “I was called by the Son of God.”

But what about the Thessalonians?  What about us?  Isn’t it a surprise that God’s call came through the good news out of the mouth of Paul – who was rejected by that city?  Isn’t it a surprise that when some heard little Paul speak, they didn’t hear the call of a man to believe in Jesus, but the call and invitation of God himself to believe and be saved.

When you hear a pastor preach, when you open a paper book titled “the Holy Bible,” when you share a comforting word based on the Bible – who is really communicating and calling?  Touch. Who is really doing the washing in baptism?  Touch.  Who is really giving himself to you in the Lord’s Supper?  Touch.  Behold, the finger of God at work in your life because he chose you to be saved.  May we always give thanks to God for his powerful call!

2.  THE PURPOSE OF HIS CALL

And may we give thanks for its purpose!  What’s the goal of God’s call through the gospel to us?  Paul says, “that you might share in the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.” 

What kind of path are you on in life?  Sometimes we might think of life having these “bumps along the way” or going through a “rough spot” in life.  We might expect the call from God to bring an end to all those things.  In the Old Testament, the Israelites were God’s chosen people and when he brought them out of oppression and slavery in Egypt, what did he bring them into?  A desert!  And they were quick to grumble and complain about it, saying, “Why did you bring us here?  To die?”  Don’t we ask the same question sometimes?  “Lord, why bring me here?  Why bring me pain?  Why allow such suffering?  Why so much trouble?”  We wonder what path God has put us on.

But Paul says our path is the path of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.  Paul says this when the Thessalonians were being persecuted for their faith.  He urges them to think of the glorification of Jesus, God’s Son, his ascension to the highest heaven, assuming his rightful place in all glory and majesty.  By God’s grace, we have that same hope of glory, because we are sons of God in Christ.  This is the path of glory.  This is not the path where suffering means loss.  It’s not the path where pain is hopeless.  It’s not the path where hard times are times of God’s weakness.  No, just like the life of Jesus, suffering and hardship are part of God’s plan and used for our good and are followed by glory!  Beautiful, Christ-like, eternal glory!

That’s why Paul urges you to never ever leave this path.  “…brothers, stand firm and hold to the teachings we passed on to you, whether by word of mouth or by letter.”  Don’t move – don’t let anything shake your faith.  God has given you the good news in his Word, don’t depart from it for all the world!  Hold on to it!  That’s where God himself speaks and calls you to the sure hope of eternal life, the path of glory.

When you read your Bibles, think of these things and the touch of God at work.  Through this Word and these sacraments, God himself encourages you personally.  He strengthens you personally.  He guards and keeps us on the path to glory through this Word.  We read these pages and rightfully say like Samuel, “Speak, Lord, your servants are listening.”

So let us pray with Paul that God would continue to bless the use of his Word and sacraments among us to create and strengthen our faith.  And let us continue to use God’s Word in our daily lives as God fulfills his purpose of calling us to glory everlasting.  Thanks be to God for his personal, life-giving touch!  Amen.

Sherlock Holmes 2 was a movie in theaters over the Christmas season.  Being a story of the great detective Sherlock Holmes, it’s a mystery film.  You have to see the end to finally make sense of it all.  Before then, all you have are questions and confusion.  You keep asking yourself, “What did Sherlock notice that I didn’t or say what he said in that way?”  But in the end, it all comes together and makes sense.  They mystery is made known!  In fact, my brother-in-law made the comment afterward that “it would be fun to go back and watch the movie again just to see how all the little clues came together.”

What if Sherlock died before the mystery was solved?  What if he couldn’t figure it out?  Or what if he didn’t really care to share the solution and bring justice to the criminal?   It would all still be a mystery…

The Apostle Paul was a lot like Sherlock Holmes, wasn’t he?  He tells us today about the special role God gave him by grace to make know the mystery of how God saved all people from sin and death.

You and I have the same role too.  We’re like moviegoers.  God has led us to know the mystery too.  We have the script and can reread how all the pieces fit together.  Today, it’s time for us to consider our personal mission in life to “make known the mystery.”  It’s the mystery of God’s grace, and the mystery God wants all people to hear.

PART ONE – The mystery of God’s grace

First of all – what a mystery these Magi are!  Picture these total strangers, born in some eastern country, parading down Main Street in Jerusalem to talk to the local dignitaries about a newborn king!    The Magi arrived before King Herod and asked, “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star in the east and have come to worship him.”  What a mystery for King Herod – who scratched his head going, “Huh?”  And urgently sent for the chief priests and teachers of the law – “anybody got any answers for this?”  “Our new king has been born?  And he’s got a star?  And you gentile easterners know about it?”  The Jews may have thought, “How do these wise men know something we don’t know?”

It’s a total mystery – but that’s the beauty of it!  Because the only way those Magi show up at that time with that knowledge is if God revealed it to them.  There is no other explanation for the star they saw or the faith they had.  God led these Gentiles to their Savior that they might worship him.  Isn’t it a little clue among many of what God is all about – a Savior of the nations has come!  And it was done before the eyes of all Jerusalem.

This story probably doesn’t surprise us with its mystery any more since we know it so well, and we’re not Jewish!    It was a mystery of the Old Testament how Gentiles fit into God’s plan, even though little clues are left along the way.  Think of the story of Ruth.  Ruth wasn’t a Jew.  She was a Moabite, a Gentile.  And yet that little book of the Bible reveals part of the mystery because Ruth becomes a part of the line of the Savior.  It’s a story of God’s grace to all, that also Ruth’s gentile flesh and blood is a part of God’s plan.  Jesus did not just come in Jewish flesh and blood, but human flesh and blood to save all of us from sin.

It took a long time for many Jews to understand that.  According to them, Gentiles weren’t law-keepers like the Jews thought they were; Gentiles were law-breakers.  Gentiles didn’t have circumcision or a covenant with God; they weren’t set apart by God as a people like the Jews were; Gentiles were “far away” from God and his love!

But later, in the time of Paul, Gentiles answered back to the Jews: “At least we listened and repented and now believe in Jesus.  You’re the ones blind to who Jesus was; you crucified him; you blew it and now God loves us and not you.”

Isn’t it funny how both Jew and Gentile found a way to exclude each other from the good news that Jesus is the Savior of all?  We would never do that, would we?  How much effort do I put in to welcome a church visitor I don’t know?  What if they’re poorly dressed?  What if they look dirty?  Do you think the Magi would’ve been noticed if they came to King Herod as slaves from a foreign land?  Or what if they talk about God incorrectly or doesn’t know the Bible at all?  Do I wait to get to know new members until they start acting more like “our kind of people”?    By our words or our actions, do we proclaim a culture or do we proclaim God’s grace to all?

This is what God sent Paul to proclaim: “This mystery is that through the gospel the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members together of one body, and sharers together in the promise in Christ Jesus.”  It’s all gift of God’s grace alone, isn’t it – “by grace I’m saved, grace free and boundless”.  It’s grace alone that has nothing to do with race or nationality, gender, age, status or rank.  All have sinned, and this Savior is for all sinners.  What he did in his perfect life, he did for all who are imperfect.  What he did in his death, he did for all who were guilty of sin.  What he did when he rose, he did for all who were under death’s curse.  In Jesus, Paul says we all have rights and privileges before God as his sons: In him and through faith in him we may approach God with freedom and confidence.  We approach the Almighty God with righteousness as our robe and forgiveness as our garment!  We don’t need to be pre-approved to pray to God.  We don’t need to earn some special right to stand before him.  That’s true for the poor Jewish shepherds who knelt before Jesus our Lord just as it was true for the rich Gentile Magi who later came to worship him.  For each of us, heaven is our home.  It’s the mystery we treasure so much – the mystery of God’s grace!

That’s grace of God to all is what motivates us to ignore cultural or societal differences and see others as God sees them – sinners who need his salvation!

PART TWO – the mystery God wants all to hear

God wants “all nations to believe and obey him” (Romans 16:26).  He wants all to know the mystery of his grace as we do.  And the special message Paul shares with us here is that we have a unique opportunity in this age to share the gospel!  He says that this mystery “was not made known to men in other generations as it has now been revealed by the Spirit to God’s holy apostles and prophets.”  Paul is saying that now is the time of revelation!  It’s the time of no-more-mystery!  It’s the time for all people to hear what God has done for them through Jesus.

One surprising way Paul teaches us this point is mentioning the angels.  In this time when what God had hidden is now made known, one of God’s purposes was that now “through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to [the angels] the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms.” 

Now, we know that angels don’t know everything like God does.  The apostle Peter wrote about how the angels long to look into how God revealed his global plan of salvation through the prophets.  But today, in the now age of mystery revealed, the angels get it, Paul says.  The wisdom of God is made known to them “through the church”.  They look at how the one body of believers is built, and see Jew and Gentile hearing about Jesus.  They watch as you and I support missions and missionaries all around the world.  And they rejoice over every sinner that repents, whether Jew or Gentile.

Here’s Paul’s point – the angels see how God is making known the mystery all around the world.  Do you?  Do you see yourself as part of the plan?  Do you see how you have the solution to the mystery that people need to hear?  You’re a wise man.  You’re Sherlock now.  You’ve seen the movie. Don’t underestimate the role you play in someone’s life when you share the one message of life to them.

Not once does the Bible speak of a happy heathen.  Not once does it mention a “decent” neighbor who has a decent life without Jesus.  Not once does it speak of foreigners who worship other gods and idols as being “fine just the way they are”.  Not once does it mention someone who is comfortable living in sin as being a part of God’s family.  All the Bible knows is a people walking in darkness in need of Jesus’ light.  (cf. Balge)

This New Year, remember your privilege and role as one who can make known the mystery.  You will have lots of opportunities to go canvassing door to door in our neighborhoods.  You have tons of opportunities to invite others to worship or Bible Information Class or fellowship events.  Don’t forget Paul’s words today – now is the time of revelation!  It’s time to stir the pot.  It’s time to provoke people’s thoughts.  It’s time to pick their brains and ask about their beliefs.  It’s time to plant the seeds of hope and to share the secret and mystery of God’s grace.  The symbol of our church is not a couch or to only do what is comfortable.  It’s the cross.  We proclaim no matter what reception we may get, or how uncomfortable or awkward it is in society to talk about personal beliefs.  Now it’s time to talk!  It’s time to spoil the ending and share God’s solution to sin!  Make known the mystery!  Amen.

“The LORD reigns forever, your God, O Zion, for all generations.” [Psalm 146:10]  “Blessed are the people whose God is the LORD.” [Psalm 144:15]  Alleluia and Amen!

The camp is cold and dark.  It’s a quiet December night.  A soldier leans back on his bunk and finally has a few minutes to finish his letter home: “I’ll be home for Christmas.  You can count on me.  Please have snow and mistletoe and presents under the tree…  I’ll be home for Christmas, if only in my dreams.”  That last line really brings you down to earth.  A soldier wishes he could be home, but really can’t say for sure.  It may just be in his dreams.  It’s a sobering thought for a soldier.  At the same time, imagine being the one to open that letter.  It’s sad to think about it – not knowing if you can spend Christmas with those you love most.

But being “home for Christmas” takes on a whole new meaning if we think about the One we love more than anyone or anything – our God, the LORD.  The best way to spend Christmas is with the Lord.  Spending Christmas apart from him would be the worst.  But that was exactly the kind of reality God’s Old Testament people faced while held as prisoners and captives in a foreign land.  That’s also the reality we deserve.  Today, Isaiah speaks surprising joy to our hearts and proclaims that the Lord is with us.  Through Jesus we are truly home for Christmas!

Isaiah tells about some pretty excited people.  Watchmen on the walls of Jerusalem who say, “How beautiful are the feet!” and they lift up their voices; they shout with joy and burst into song.  These watchmen see people running over the distant hills with good news – news of peace, news of salvation – that God is king!  But to appreciate the watchmen’s enthusiasm and joy, we need to understand the depth of their despair.

The Israelites were supposed to be God’s people forever!  They were circumcised and set apart to the Lord, who delivered them out of slavery in Egypt, and made his covenant with them.  But they abandoned God.  They went off and worshiped false gods.  After warning them time and again through his prophets, God gave his people away so they would learn how great their sins were and what they deserved.  God brought foreign nations to plunder, rob, and capture them.  God cursed their land.  Jerusalem was destroyed.  It became like Sodom and Gomorrah, a place of ruins and wasteland.

Oppressed and defeated, outnumbered and punished, captured and humiliated, other nations ridiculed them and their God since God had allowed this to happen.  Do you ever hear someone say: “If God is all-powerful, why would he allow sin and death to enter the world?”?  People think that the presence of evil means God isn’t as powerful as we say he is.  It’s just like the mockery of foreign nations as they saw God’s people overthrown by the Babylonians.

The Israelites had lost everything.  How would you expect the people to be emotionally or mentally or spiritually?  They were demoralized.  They were lifeless, dejected, disheartened.  And the worst part of their sadness – now they knew it was their own fault.  Now many of them could see how destructive their sin was.  The greatness of the devastation they experienced emphasized the greatness of their sin.  This was the most humbling and lowest moment of their lives.

Do you know your sins the way they came to know theirs?  Sometimes we don’t take our actions all that seriously.  Or we comfort ourselves by “making up” for our wrongs.  But God warns us that our situation is much worse.

• Sin is like a wrecking-ball.  It destroys your relationship with God.  The thoughts we have, the lies we tell, the gossip we spread, the “hidden” works we do cause us to have no part with God.
• Sin is a disease we can’t get rid of.  Not only are our best works corrupted and stained by sin, but we fall into obvious sin and prove to ourselves that sin is still clinging to us.

With sin that ugly and that destructive, understand you’ve dug our own grave. We are the ones defeated and overcome by sin and death.  God takes our confidence down to zero.  There’s nothing we can do to make a righteous God happy or pleased with sin.  This is what Christmas is like without God.  Hopeless!

But as the watchman on the wall kicks around a piece of rubble and stirs up dry dust into the air, he wipes his face off and rubs his eyes.  And he sees these little shadows flying over the hills.  He sees heralds and messengers racing to Jerusalem from a foreign land.  He hears their cry, “We’re free!  We’re free!  The war is over!  We’re coming home!  God has freed us!  Peace!  Salvation! Your God has shown his compassion again.  He restores your fortunes!  Your God reigns!”   The watchman can’t believe his ears.  As tears of joy fill his eyes he thinks to himself, “How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news…”  He can hardly contain himself and cries out and shouts and embraces the watchmen next to him.

And when he looks back to the hills again, he pauses, almost in shock, for he sees – eye to eye – the LORD, their King, returning in victory to Zion, leading his captive people home.  ^“Burst into songs of joy together, you ruins of Jerusalem, for the Lord has comforted his people, he has redeemed Jerusalem.”  Oh, the great joy of declaring once again, “The LORD makes his home with us again!  He has redeemed us and bought us back as his own!  Forever we shall be the people of the LORD!”

What does their joy then have to do with us today?  Their joy wasn’t just the joy of deliverance from the rule of foreign nations.  It was the joy of a people totally dependent upon their God, with a God who was totally dependable.  It was the joy of the LORD being home with them, fighting for them, ruling in power and might over all things for them again.

Isn’t that your joy too?  Certainly many Jews at the time of Jesus’ birth were hoping for God’s redemption from the Roman Empire.  But many others were like us and looked for help much bigger than that – the redemption of our souls, to be set free from our bondage of sin.

What do the ruins of our hearts see when we behold a lowly manger on the outskirts of Bethlehem?  What does the sadness of your soul hear in the angel’s announcement to the shepherds – “Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord”?  Immanuel – “God with us” – makes his home among us.  This is not just a baby boy, this is God made flesh, who comes to be our King and fight for us!  We have the same joy, don’t we, from Isaiah 52 that they had!

Remember what chapter of Isaiah comes after this?  What is the prophecy that describes God’s Chosen Messiah fighting for his people?  Isaiah 53: “Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted…he was led like a lamb to the slaughter…Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer, and though the Lord makes his life a guilt offering, he will see his offspring and prolong his days, and the will of the Lord will prosper in his hand. ¹¹ After the suffering of his soul, he will see the light of life and be satisfied; by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many, and he will bear their iniquities.”

Did you hear that?  Jesus justifies us – he makes us right with God again!  We who are ruined and destroyed by sin can burst into songs of joy!  This is how Isaiah says God “will lay bare his holy arm in the sight of the nations.”  In Jesus Christ, history shows how God was not powerless against evil.  Instead, he overcame it all through his Son whose birth we celebrate today.  That’s the power of Jesus’ life, the power of his suffering, the power of his death and resurrection!  Our enemies are defeated – the war is over.  God has restored peace with us again so we celebrate this Christmas being home with him now and forever!

We’ve had special opportunities both this Christmas and last Christmas to think about that.  Last year Flossie Ehlert was taken home to heaven just before Christmas.  This year, Alfred Victoria.  Paul says that this is why God sent his Son.  That’s what God has made us for – to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, to inherit an eternal house in heaven (2 Corinthians 5).  Jesus said, “If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him” (John 14:23). He has called us to faith and given us his Spirit as a deposit so that we have the joy and confidence of knowing we are now and forever will be home with the Lord.

Baby Jesus seems like such a small gift, shrouded in such lowliness and with such a lack of any pomp and circumstance.  But with Isaiah’s help, we see the great beauty of his coming and are filled with an inexpressible joy.  “Burst into songs of joy together, you ruins of Jerusalem, for the Lord has comforted his people, he has redeemed Jerusalem.”  Rejoice, rejoice, believers, for you are home with the Lord this Christmas and always!  Amen.

It’s wartime.  Wartime brings a lot of changes to a nation.  Factories make less goods for civilians and start producing machines for war: tanks, guns, battleships, ammunition.  A nation may ration its food, create new jobs to meet all the needs, and tries to be as productive as possible.  People connected to the common cause of war are focused, pooling their resources and mustering all their strength.[i]   All these things happen with urgency and determination – because it’s wartime.

As we consider this final section of Revelation 12, we realize that we are in a time of war in this life – a war over our souls.  What changes, what impact, does this wartime bring for us?

You’d think the war with Satan was over by now.  So far in Revelation 12, the devil is 0-2.  Two weeks ago the seven-headed dragon sought to devour the woman’s child, but the child was snatched up to heaven.  Last week, Satan and his army was overpowered by Jesus and the angels in the war in the sky.  Now what?  The dragon pursues the woman and makes war on her offspring.

First, John reviews the flight of the woman into the desert we heard two weeks ago.  There we were told how, after giving birth to a male child, the woman, which is the Church, “fled into the desert to a place prepared for her by God, where she might be taken care of for 1,260 days [3 ½ years].” 

John repeats her flight in our section today.  This time, we learn why she fled – the dragon pursued her after being hurled to the earth.  But God gives the woman two wings to fly to “the place prepared for her in the desert, where she would be taken care of for a time, times and half a time, out of the serpent’s reach.” 

We often wonder what kind of threat Satan poses to us and what sort of limitations there are to his power.  The Bible doesn’t give us all the details.  All John sees is this very real threat and pursuit of the dragon, but by God’s power, the woman is safe, in a place God prepared for her, where she is taken care of and “out of the serpent’s reach.”  So we learn two basic truths from this: that the danger is real and yet because of God we are safe.

Satan is after us and does wage war against us.  This warfare characterizes our life right now.  We are being pursued by Satan and at war with him.  The Bible mentions how we are “marked for the slaughter.”  Satan has a target on our backs and all he wants is destruction.  Jesus told Peter and the rest of his disciples, “Satan has asked to sift [all of] you as wheat.”  Satan relishes every opportunity to sift you, that is, to put your faith to the test and seek to cause doubt concerning the truth or fear concerning your sins or despair in suffering.  He is “like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.”  All these are pictures in the Bible to try to describe for us the real attacks of Satan aimed for our destruction.

But…because of God, the woman is safe.  She’s given these great eagle wings (some eagles can fly at 150 miles per hour, with wings that span 6-8 feet).  Now she is “out of the serpent’s reach.”  We know why she is safe.  It’s because of God’s work.  We just read last week how the devil was defeated at the cross.  He can’t touch our salvation.  God has accomplished it in Jesus that anyone who believes in Jesus as Savior has the forgiveness of sins and eternal life.  It’s your hope and mine.  We know what keeps us safe.  We are the church build on the foundation of Jesus Christ.  We are united as believers in the gospel.  Our safety is the gospel of Jesus; it’s in the victory over Satan that just flung him to the earth.   And the devil cannot touch Jesus’ atonement for sin – for he “lost his place in heaven” and “was hurled to the earth.”  He can’t touch heavenly things that have been secured.  He can’t change what has already been established by God, i.e. our inheritance that will not perish or spoil, but is kept in heaven for us, safe and secure (cf. 1 Peter 1).  Paul says, “I am convinced that … neither angels nor demons … nor any powers … nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38-39).  In Jesus, the Church is safe and out of the serpent’s reach.

So, the devil can’t touch our salvation, but he still pursues the woman: “Then from his mouth the serpent spewed water like a river, to overtake the woman and sweep her away with the torrent. 16 But the earth helped the woman by opening its mouth and swallowing the river that the dragon had spewed out of his mouth.”

Notice how the mouth is involved in this attack.  We aren’t told exactly what this attack is in real terms.  However, the mouth is often a metaphor for what you say.  And in the New Testament, the greatest threat of the devil and the Antichrist is the threat of false teaching.  The devil can’t touch accomplished salvation, but he can spread false teaching so that no one believes in what Jesus did for them.  His hope is that all will believe his lies and deceptions and be swept away with the torrent.  Perhaps you’ve seen footage of flood victims trapped in rushing waters.  The devil wants a flood of false teaching to sweep us away from the comfort of the gospel.

Do you remember Jesus’ parable of the farmer who went to sow his seed?  Some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up.  Jesus explains that part by saying, “Those along the path are the ones who hear, and then the devil comes and takes away the word from their hearts, so that they may not believe and be saved” (Luke 8:12).  Paul wrote to Timothy, “The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons” (1 Timothy 4:1).

I saw an article on the top ten lies in history.  #1 was the lie of Nazi propaganda against the Jews.  But on the basis of Scripture, we know that the real #1 lie is that of the devil.  The trick and deception of it all is that his lies are not obvious as coming from demons.  He does not do his worst dressed up like a witch, but masquerading as an angel of light.  His false prophets are “like wolves in sheep’s clothing.”  In fact, the most dangerous lies are those that sound so good and right and true.  A preacher says, “God wants you to be happy!  He wants to pour out his blessing on you.”  It sounds right – surely this preacher speaks the truth!  But then he says, “If you just cast away your doubts and have more faith, God will do it and all your troubles will be gone.”  So it’s all up to you – increase your faith!

The examples are endless, but all false teaching comes from the devil and is aimed at destroying faith in Jesus.  No matter how well-intentioned a preacher may be, if anyone departs from God’s Word, Paul says, let him be condemned!  That is the only way to handle false teaching.  You have to condemn it.  Otherwise you put your faith in jeopardy.  Remember, this is wartime!  We must defend the gospel!

Has false teaching ever brought about the extinction of the gospel?  Has the truth ever been completely lost and forgotten?  No.  John tells us about how the earth swallowed up this torrential river from the dragon’s mouth.  She was kept safe.  We have Jesus’ promise that the gospel will be preached to the ends of the earth and then the end will come.  Somewhere there will always be the gospel and those who believe it, whether in an organized church or a small huddle of believers in hiding.  The devil will not succeed in removing the truth of the gospel from this world.

But it’s still wartime:  Then the dragon was enraged at the woman and went off to make war against the rest of her offspring—those who obey God’s commandments and hold to the testimony of Jesus.  One commentator noted that this is describing how the devil moves on from attacking the Church as a whole, to the offspring, the individual members, anyone who holds to the testimony of Jesus as Savior and therefore loves God’s Word and obey his will in the commandments.  Such believers are the objects of Satan’s warfare and attacks.  One Seminary professor asked us, “How different would we be if we could see all the flaming arrows the devil had pointed at us?”  He answered, “We’d run to the grace of God at every opportunity.”

Wednesday nights, Sunday mornings – gathering together in public worship – or on the couch, around the dinner table, reading a devotion or part of the Bible.  I pray those are quiet, contemplative and peaceful times for you to be encouraged and to grow in God’s Word.  But at the same time, it’s warfare, isn’t it?  Satan wants to mess up your Bible study calendar; he wants to make you passive.  He wants you to be distracted or irresponsible with spiritual needs.  We can’t treat a sermon or devotion or Bible reading as just “nice to do” and “good for me” in a sense.  What an important time it is when we come into contact with God’s Word!  It’s a time to engage in battle – to hear the Word for its armor.  To know the Word for protection!  To memorize it and apply it so that I can use it in my daily warfare!  We’re not just talking about Bible study, but you’re approach to Bible study – it’s serious business!  It’s wartime!

When Paul writes about putting on the armor of God, how does he start?  He says, “Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes.  For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. ¹³Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground…”  And then Paul describes the armor of God as the truth and righteousness and the gospel that brings peace and the Word of God.  Our full armor is the Word of God.  Through it God makes us strong, firm, and steadfast in faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.  Through the Word of Christ, we win!

When God told Pharaoh through Moses and Aaron, “Let my people go,” one sign of his power was the changing of Aaron’s staff into a snake.  But then the magicians and sorcerers of Egypt also changed their staffs into snakes by the power of the devil.  But then Aaron’s staff “swallowed up their staffs.”  The devil has real power and real attacks aimed against us, but he cannot overcome those who trust in God’s power!  By Jesus’ grace, may you and I be kept strong unto the end!  Resist the devil, Paul says, and “he will flee from you!”  Amen.

Grace and peace be yours from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Have you opened any Christmas presents yet?  I wouldn’t be surprised if you have, because I know there is such a thing as an “early Christmas present.”  You know, something someone gives you and says, “You can open it now.”  Sometimes that happens because it’s something that you can use right away.  Like jewelry or clothing you can wear to a Christmas party, or something you can use for your trip over Christmas break.  So you are asked to open the present early.

This morning we are but two weeks away from Christmas Day.  That being the case, we are in the midst of waiting for Christmas.  The same is true for the Last Day – as believers, we are waiting for Jesus to come again.  So, I know it’s early, I know it’s not Christmas nor has Christ come again.  But God reveals gifts to us today that he wants us to open and use before Christ comes. 

Let’s read what those gifts are:

Be joyful always; ¹⁷ pray continually; ¹⁸ give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. ¹⁹ Do not put out the Spirit’s fire; ²⁰ do not treat prophecies with contempt. ²¹ Test everything. Hold on to the good. ²² Avoid every kind of evil. ²³ May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. ²⁴ The one who calls you is faithful and he will do it.

I know what you’re thinking.  You heard, “Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances.”  Now you’re thinking, “This isn’t a list of early Christmas gifts.  This is a ‘to-do’ list!  God wants me to do better before he comes.  I need to practice on being happier, work on my prayer life and remember to say ‘thank you’ to God for all his blessings.”

Paul seems to write to us like a golf coach trying to fix a golfer’s swing – loosen your hands, keep your weight back, watch your rotation, “Believer, be joyful, pray, and give thanks – that’s what you need to be doing.”  But that’s not the case – he says, “for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.”  Paul’s point here isn’t to add to your list of failures and shortcomings and show you what to fix.  He’s saying, “Look at what God has willed for you, look what he planned and accomplished for you, open the gifts he gave you in Christ Jesus.”  Joy and prayer and thanksgiving are things we have through Jesus!  Open these gifts now while you wait for Jesus and use them in your everyday life!

Here Paul is unpacking these gifts of God before our eyes.  They are gifts God knows we need right now.  God knows your sin.  He knows your weakness and struggle with temptation.  God knows about the miserable day you just had.  He knows the problems you are facing.  He knows the challenges in your spiritual life you can’t seem to overcome.  He knows the pressure you feel to keep your faith private.  He knows the injustices you receive at the hands of wicked people.  This time of waiting before Christ comes is warfare with sin and filled with its consequences.  BUT…!

Open it, says the Lord.  Open it now – you need this.  I, the Lord, give you the gift of my Son.  This gift of a Savior is the culmination of God’s eternal will for you.  His is truly a God of peace who always had a plan to restore a fallen people back to a perfect and peaceful relationship with him again.  That’s what Jesus did by removing at the cross the sin that separated us from God.  In Jesus I have an answer to sin – it’s the joy of forgiveness.  I have God’s strength as my help against temptation.  I am given a heavenly Father who listens to me and answers my prayer, even telling me that my prayers are powerful and effective.  I can even give thanks in any circumstance, even after the worst day. Even then, I know that God worked something good for me and for others by what happened that day.

Open the early Christmas gifts in Christ Jesus = the joy, the gift of prayer, the ability to give thanks in all circumstances – because that’s our reality with God, it’s what we have from him through Jesus.  So take these early gifts and use them while you wait for him to come.  Remember that reason to rejoice always.  Pray whenever and wherever about whatever – that’s God’s gift to you.  Give thanks whether you’re with Paul in prison, being persecuted for your faith, or staring trouble in the face.  In Christ, God has brought victory over sin and its consequences into your life through faith.  Take that victory and use those gifts in your everyday life – not because you have to, but because they’re all yours to use, for your benefit and help.

What peace God brings to all parts of our lives.  It’s a peace revealed to us in God’s Word.  And that’s Word which Paul talks about next: “Do not put out the Spirit’s fire; ²⁰ do not treat prophecies with contempt. ²¹ Test everything. Hold on to the good. ²² Avoid every kind of evil.”

Put yourself in the context of the early church.  At that time, God’s people didn’t carry around a Bible with them.  Jesus promised them however that he would send his Spirit who would guide them into all truth.  So, when they gathered to worship, the Spirit gave the gift of speaking in tongues and interpretation, and also of prophecy, which is a “speaking forth” of God’s Word.  Through these messages, the Spirit didn’t just talk about the future, but gave encouragement, guidance and comfort.

But if prophecy was such a good thing, why would anyone want to extinguish it or treat it with contempt?  Imagine if for every prophet back then there was a false prophet.  And so all the prophecies around disagreed with each other.  Pretty soon prophecy didn’t have much meaning because “one says one thing” but “the other says another thing”.  When prophecies disagree, then how do you know who is telling the truth?  It’s a lot like today, when believers get frustrated that there are so many different churches with different “interpretations” of the Bible.  How can you say one is right and the other wrong?  So, some Christians decide to promote “deeds, not creeds.”  Why get hung up on doctrinal differences?  Just skip it.  That’s what some were doing with prophecy in the early church.  Prophecy had become meaningless to them.

Paul had a better idea.  He says, “This comes from the Spirit!  Don’t treat [them] with contempt.  Test everything.  Hold on to the good.  Avoid every kind of evil.”  Just because there are differences, doesn’t mean give up.  It means do your homework.  Study the Word to see which teachings you should hold on to and which you should avoid.  If we give up that necessary homework and Bible study, do you know what will quickly be lost as well?  Our peace and our confidence.  When we aren’t able to test teachings for ourselves, we lose the truth that brings peace and confidence.  We lose our early Christmas present to help us in our waiting for Jesus to come.  Don’t the great number of teachings keep you from doing your homework and studying the Bible so that you have a solid foundation on which to put your trust.  Otherwise you lose the ability to determine what is God’s truth and what is Satan’s lie.

All these things so far are weapons in our hands – given by God – the joy, the prayer, the thanksgiving in all things, the Word given to us by the Spirit.  They all are God’s early Christmas presents for our use before Christ comes.

Now Paul concludes with a prayer and the answer to that prayer.  ²³ May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. ²⁴ The one who calls you is faithful and he will do it.

What a perfect finish!  In Advent weeks earlier, we’ve seen our wretchedness in sin.  We’ve heard our need to repent and believe.  We’ve learned what life without God means – no joy, no answered prayer, no reason to give thanks, no truth, and no blamelessness on the Last Day.  But as surely as the candle color on the Advent wreath is different this week, so surely does God reveal his works and his gifts on our behalf.  The one who calls you is faithful and he will do it. 

God will not fail to support you when you need it.  He will not fail to deliver you from evil.  He will not fail to keep you, to guard and defend you.  We need that confidence while we wait for Christ to come!  Just to know that God won’t stop bring me joy, answering my prayers, and giving me a reason to give thanks in all things.  While we are lacking so much of ourselves, God fills up every missing piece with his gifts.  He will do it!

So be bold in your prayers, courageous in our joy, and give thanks when you have absolutely no earthly reason to give thanks.  What great gifts God brings to the table in these words as he fills our hearts with peace and confidence.  I know it’s too early, but there’s only one thing to say when you open such blessed gifts of God this morning: Merry Christmas!  Amen.

“There are two sides to every story.”  One of our children’s books at home is the story of the three little pigs, told by the wolf.  He claims he was only going to the pigs’ homes for a cup of sugar, and accidentally blew their homes down with a sneeze because he had a cold.

Revelation is a picture book, using visions to help us see the spiritual victory we have in Jesus.  This picture tonight shows us the unseen side of the Christmas story.

In this picture, we don’t find any of the cuteness of Christmas Eve, no cozy manger scene on a star-lit night; no peaceful and quiet animals nearby, no friendly shepherds dropping in to worship.  Instead, Revelation’s picture of Christmas Eve introduces us to the one who hates Christmas Eve more than anyone – the great red dragon, Satan, and his failed attempt to ruin Christmas and rob us of a Savior.  This account gives us perspective on the great power of this dragon, but also the greater power of the Christ-child, our Lord Jesus.

First, before we get to the dragon or the child, John reports seeing a woman.  He writes, “A great and wondrous sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head.”  This woman is a symbol of the church, with a crown of twelve stars.  Think of the twelve tribes of Israel or of the twelve apostles.  Twelve is the number that identifies the church.  All believers in Jesus are clothed with the sun of his righteousness and share his power over all things – as the moon is seen under her feet.

She was pregnant and cried out in pain as she was about to give birth.  From the beginning, God promised Adam and Eve that one of their own offspring would come to crush the serpent’s head.  Out of this line of the Savior, their own flesh and blood, would be born a Savior of all who are flesh and blood.  To save a fallen human race, God sent his Son, born in human likeness.  “Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil— ¹⁵ and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.  For surely it is not angels he helps, but Abraham’s descendants.”  This child to be born is coming as your representative!  The fact that Jesus “made his dwelling among us” shows you that all he would accomplish is accomplished for you, on your behalf!

But before this child is born, John sees the dragon standing nearby:  “Then another sign appeared in heaven: an enormous red dragon with seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns on his heads. 4 His tail swept a third of the stars out of the sky and flung them to the earth.”  We’re not given the precise meaning of the number of heads and horns and crowns.  We’re not given the meaning of the tailing sweeping stars out of the sky.  This dragon is the devil, Satan.  Whether or not the stars he swept away are the other angels who followed him in his rebellion against God isn’t clear.   Nevertheless, the sign that appears here is of power.  This dragon is no pushover.  Other passages of the Bible call Satan the “ruler of the kingdom of the air,” “the prince of this world,” “the god of this age.”  These are ways God shows us the power of Satan and his kingdom.

“The dragon stood in front of the woman who was about to give birth, so that he might devour her child the moment it was born.”  There’s our Christmas Eve unseen picture now revealed.  We don’t usually have an enormous red dragon in our miniature manger scenes at home.  It wasn’t just the angels who knew the Christ was born when they announced it to the shepherds.  The demons knew it too.  Satan was there to devour the child the moment he was born.

Did he really think he had a chance to spoil the party, to steal the shepherd’s joy and rob Mary of the treasures of her heart?    Did he really think he could ruin Christmas?  Obviously, in total hatred of God and his people, he did and so he tried.  Call it insane rage, being hardened and confirmed in evil and destruction, but Satan tried again and again to devour this child and keep God’s plan of salvation from being fulfilled.  We see the fruits of his efforts when:

1. Herod, filled with sinful pride and envy, orders the babes of Bethlehem to be murdered.  “Find that child and kill him!”
2. Satan temped Jesus for forty days, a temptation that was real – Jesus himself “suffered when he was tempted.”  He was “tempted in every way,” not just the mere three temptations that are recorded for us when Jesus was tempted in the wilderness.  Those were just a sampling of the temptations Jesus faced.
3. Just after that story in Luke, Luke records how the people of Jesus’ hometown of Nazareth tried to throw him off a cliff in rejection of him.
4. Just after that story in Luke, Jesus was preaching in a synagogue when a demon-possessed man cried out, “I know who you are, the Holy One of God!”  Because who would want to believe the truth if it came from a demon?
5. Later, as Jesus set his face toward going to Jerusalem where he knew he would suffer and die, Peter, his own disciple, rejected the idea of that happening, and Jesus said, “Get behind me, Satan!”
6. And when Jesus was alone with his disciples in the Upper Room, Judas Iscariot, his betrayer, took the bread and Satan entered into him.  Jesus said, “What you are about to do, do quickly.”

“The dragon stood in front of the woman … so that he might devour her child.”  Satan knew we were slaves in his kingdom without Jesus, hopeless without this child.  He tried and tried again to devour him.  But that’s the last we hear about the dragon in these verses.  Though Satan tried with all his might, our salvation was never once in doubt.  “She gave birth to a son, a male child, who will rule all the nations with an iron scepter. And her child was snatched up to God and to his throne.”

Just like with Job, where Satan was limited in what he was allowed to do and not do, so in the life of Christ.  We see Satan’s power at work, but never overcoming the power of God.

1. The baby-hunting of Herod in Bethlehem fulfilled Scripture.  “Out of Egypt I called my son.”
2. Jesus was truly tempted and suffered when he was tempted, but still it was not possible for him to sin and he remained our sinless Substitute.
3. Jesus walked right through the crowd that wanted to throw him off the cliff.
4. Jesus drove out demons and people marveled at his authority and power that even demons had to obey him.
5. No matter what Peter said against the idea of suffering, no matter how agonizing it was in Gethsemane, still Jesus willed to die for us.
6. Jesus was unjustly punished after Judas betrayed him, but it was a punishment that “brought us peace” with wounds on the cross by which “we are healed.”

Jesus was God-made-flesh, who was powerful to overcome every attack of the dragon and carry out his plan to save us from our sins.  He “rules with an iron scepter.”  He shepherds in such a way that no one can withstand him.  He was not devoured, but was snatched away and he ascended on high to his throne.

In such a striking picture, God shares the unseen story of how such a powerful dragon still failed to ruin Christmas and rob us of our joy.  As far as the church is concerned, “the woman fled into the desert to a place prepared for her by God, where she might be taken care of for 1,260 days.”  Even while we live “in the desert” and are not yet snatched up to heaven ourselves, what kind of place are we in?  We’re in God’s place, which he prepared for us where we are safely fed and nourished and taken care of.  Satan is our powerful enemy, but as God’s people through Jesus, we are not overcome; we are safe in this desert!

You certainly don’t need to add a seven-headed dragon to your manger scene this year, but take the comfort of this vision as a way to see the whole picture of God’s mighty arm at work to save us – as the angels sang: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests.”  Amen.

You know what it’s like.  You mop the kitchen floor only to find food splattered on it moments later.  “I just cleaned this!”  You vacuum the carpet and then a plant is knocked over, spilling dirt all over it.  You wash a shirt and put it on and then drop your drink on it.  You clean out the car only to pick up your kids who have muddy shoes or cleats.   Nothing stays clean for that long.

Today, God’s Word tells us about something filthy – the corruption of our own sinful nature.  Through Jesus, we are saved from that corruption, but God also makes it clear that we can go back to being entangled in the corruption of the world and overcome by it, like a dog returning to its vomit or a washed sow going back to her wallowing in the mud (2 Peter 2:22).  Through this account before the flood, we’ll hear God’s warning about making ourselves dirty again and learn how it is that God makes and keeps us clean.

Before we look at the “sons of God” and the “daughters of men”, let’s think back to the first two family trees.  Adam and Eve had a son Cain, who killed his brother Abel, and later they had Seth.  So after Adam and Eve, the Bible shows us the worlds-apart-difference between the descendants of Cain and the descendants of Seth.

As for Cain, he was sent away to be a restless wanderer on the earth, but instead, in order to spite God, Cain started to build a city.  And he raised a family tree that cared nothing for God, but instead cared about music and the arts, developing strategies to make more money, making advancements in tools and “technology” and boasting of their own accomplishments.  Their focus was on the things of this world, making this life as pleasant as possible.

As for Seth and his family line, we’re told one thing, one focus: “At that time men began to call on the name of the LORD.”   Their focus was on worship.  They were believers, the “sons of God,” and the Bible gives a genealogy of this family because they are the forefathers of the promised Savior.

But this sad introduction to the flood shows us that the clean cut difference between these families trees didn’t stay that way.  “When men began to increase in number on the earth and daughters were born to them, ² the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful, and they married any of them they chose.”  So the believers were no longer seeking a spouse that would share their fear of the Lord and worship of him.  That wasn’t a big deal anymore in the choice of a spouse.  Instead, we’d say they became “superficial,” seeking only the most beautiful woman to marry.  The Cainites had long been rejecting God’s Spirit and repentance, and now the “sons of God” were also rejecting God, returning like dogs to their vomit.  It’s this falling away that brings God’s great sorrow and change of action.  Now, God would declare a day of judgment, but give fallen man 120 years of patient grace to repent.

God said, “My Spirit will not contend with man forever, for he is mortal.” [He is flesh, he says, and in the context it’s clear he’s talking about sinful and corrupt by nature flesh.]  God describes what he sees in their nature: “The LORD saw how great man’s wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time.”  The apostle Paul said the same thing: “I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature.”  You are born with such a nature that it’s as if a tornado has already run amuck in your heart and ruined every good thing so that nothing good remained.

Our nature always seeks the way of Cain; you always see the world as centered on you, caring more about yourself than God, caring more about yourself than anyone else.  You always seek to be of the world and not just in it.  You always are more concerned about this short life on earth than eternal life.  You always take more time and effort to plan Black Friday or Cyber Monday or think about what you can do to get to see this movie or that sports game or enjoy some other entertainment, rather than planning life around worship and spiritual growth.  That’s your nature and mine.  Because of it we are a fallen race that deserves to be cleaned up, wiped out and destroyed, just as the LORD said, “I will wipe mankind, whom I have created, from the face of the earth.”

And it’s important for us to understand why we say we are spiritually dead in sin.  When the LORD explains to Noah why he will destroy all people and the earth with them, he says it’s because they were “corrupt”; they had “corrupted their ways”; they were “full of violence.”  To say our nature is corrupt means it’s already been ruined and destroyed.  These were a people who had given themselves over to the full corruption and ruin of their nature.  They didn’t seek God’s help in any way. They were a ruined people who had destroyed themselves in wickedness.

To confess, “I am by nature sinful” is perhaps too mild if we forget what that means.  Here, God shows us what it means to be by nature sinful.  It means you have a nature that is dead and destroyed because of sin.

What a way to start the church year!  Let’s just get right down to it – flood style – nothing could more pointedly show our need for the coming of Christ at Christmas.  So we pray, “Stir up your power, O Lord, and come.  Protect us by your strength and save us from the threatening dangers of our sins.”  I need God to save me or I am ruined forever!

And, brothers and sisters, what we learn most from the flood is our LORD’s powerful deliverance, mighty to save!  You might notice that Moses, who wrote Genesis, did not give this section of history the title “The Story of the Destructive Flood,” but [in verse 9] “this is the account of Noah.”  There is judgment here, to be sure, but it is a flood that shows the Lord’s saving deliverance of Noah and his family.  The Lord knew his eternal plan to save.  He already promised Adam and Eve a Savior from their offspring, and through Noah’s line God kept that promise!  That’s a huge point!

Think about how we see in our short lives how the world goes from bad to worse, imagine the temptations Noah faced as he lived with a corrupt nature in such a corrupt world for almost 500 years!  And yet he dared to father three children, raising them up to know the promises of God’s grace to save them from their sins.  And our faithful LORD kept his Word!  “Make yourself an ark,” he said.  “Yes, I’m going to bring floodwaters to destroy all life on the earth.  Everything will perish.  But I will establish my covenant with you.”  The LORD said, “You, live, you and your family; you, be saved.”

What power of God and his Spirit to keep Noah and his family in faith, to help them condemn the ways of the world and walk with God, to hold them with his promises and use them to preach repentance to the world around them.  How powerful God is to rescue them from wickedness by these saving floodwaters!

That is the power of your baptism and its saving floodwaters.  Here you were rescued as everything born in you of your Old Adam and everything you do with your Old Adam is drowned and put to death.  What destroys you by nature is destroyed through Jesus’ death on the cross and resurrection to life.  Our sins are washed away and wiped out in the flood of forgiveness through him.

God help you to live as pre-flood Noah did, by faith in the promises of our LORD of grace.  We live longing for a new world, looking forward to a new heavens and a new earth, the home of righteousness!  Now we condemn with Noah the ways of the world and its misplaced priorities.

We also pray that God would help us to live as post-flood Noah did.  Imagine living after such an incident!  After the flood, Noah lived for another 350 years.  How much would you value the rainbow God put in the sky promising never to send another flood?  How clearly Noah saw the difference between the way of Cain and where that road leads and the way of Seth and where it leads.  No wonder that when Noah first got off the ark, he didn’t start by planting or building.  He offered up a sacrifice of thanks and praise to God.  My need for God is more important than planting seeds or building a house.  My need for God is more important than my next breath of air.

And so Jesus tells us, “Be alert!  Let your life have one focus to it, day in and day out, every week, every month, every year of your life – one focus on the Lord and his coming!  Keep watch, he says, “think of heavenly things, fix your eyes on me, focus on eternity!”  I need God to keep me and my family focused on him!  This too we learn from the flood.  God keep us in the spiritual line of Seth, as those who continue to call on the name of the Lord!  Let’s continue to gather and set apart time away from worldly affairs so that we can share our true focus in life on the things of God, to hear what he speaks, to follow his way, to serve him in all things.

The LORD sure knows how to clean up a mess!  God keep us watchful and waiting as we cling to his Word for light and salvation in his coming Son!  Amen.

Almighty God our Father, your generous goodness comes to us new every day.  By the work of your Spirit lead us to acknowledge your goodness, give thanks for your benefits, and serve you in willing obedience; through your Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.

“How’s your heart?”  That’s a doctor’s concern, isn’t it?  A doctor will often explain how diet and exercise are good for  your heart and how your heart performs.  Today, we have a parallel question as Paul turns our attention to our spiritual hearts.  This heart mentioned in the Bible is your inner self – sort of like what we think of as our mind.  This heart is where the voice of your whole inner self speaks – what you think, what you will, and what you desire.  The Bible talks about the purposes of your heart, the thoughts of your heart, or the desires of your heart.  “The heart” – it’s that place that where your actions and behavior begin, as Jesus said, “out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, etc…”  Jeremiah also diagnoses our sinful heart and says, “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure.  Who can understand it?”   Our hearts are called “stubborn,” “disloyal” to God, “perverse” and “calloused” by nature.  And so we pray with the psalm writer, “Create in me a pure heart, O God.”

And we will see how our Savior Jesus Christ, the Great Physician of the soul, changes our hearts and at the same time changes how our hearts perform in everyday life.  This Thanksgiving, may your heart belong to Christ alone – ruled by his peace and filled with gratitude.

First, Paul says, “Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace.” 

You’ve probably heard the phrase “No Jesus, no peace; know Jesus, know peace.”  Jesus Christ and peace go together, one with the other.  Outside of Christ, there is no peace.  Outside of Christ, the heart is left empty, restless, and unsatisfied.  There were Judaizers with such hearts affecting the congregation in Colosse.  They didn’t have Jesus, so they didn’t have real peace.  Instead, they had strict rules and regulations that had to be followed – or else!  They had mandatory customs and traditions.  They emphasized denying yourself to get closer to God.  They spoke of the greatness of their accumulated human wisdom and philosophy.  Always striving, never attaining; always working, never finding total joy or complete comfort; always trying to sound smart, but doubting yourself since you still didn’t have true wisdom.  No Jesus, no peace.

If that’s the condition of their heart, then what do you expect to see in how they lived?    They weren’t concerned with loving your neighbor or serving them as God loved you, they were preoccupied with keeping laws.  They were nitpicking at every little thing you did.  They put on an outward show of works to receive praise from men.  They boasted over you of being more mature or complete followers of God.  And if you wanted to be more mature and more complete before God, you had to be like them.  Otherwise you were incomplete.

How often our hearts are motivated by the same thing.  We do our “random act of kindness” because it looks good to others or because it’s comforting to “do the right thing.”  We act as if the more mature we are as Christians, the more secure we are before God.  I think of others less in terms of service and more in terms of comparison.  That’s not peace ruling in your heart, that’s restlessness – me trying to make it on my own.

Do you know what really fills an empty, restless heart?  Consider Christ.  In him the fullness of the Deity dwells.  In him God reconciled us and all things to himself through the blood he shed on the cross, making peace for us.  All the things we couldn’t do under the law, all the hurdles and obstacles, Christ took away, nailing them to the cross.  So in him we have redemption and forgiveness.  In him we are made complete, buried with him in baptism and raised with him through faith.  In him we have been made alive and brought from darkness to light.  In him we are holy.  That’s the peace of Christ.  Those are all things that Paul mentions in this letter!  It all comes in Christ – that which changes our hearts and makes them clean and new.

So Paul says, “Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts.”  The word for “rule” is like a sports term in Greek.  Think of the “ruling on the field” by referees or the call that is made by an umpire. Paul wants us to let the peace of Christ make the call in your heart.  Don’t live out your days feverishly working to win God’s favor.  Let the peace of Christ make the decision – know that you win over sin and death and the devil because of Christ.  His peace to you declares you the victor!

That’s one way the peace of Christ rules.  And how does a heart ruled by peace perform?  We seek peace with others; we do whatever it takes to promote peace with someone else in our relationships.  If something is hurtful or divisive, then consider it “illegal” or “out of bounds” – against the ruling of the peace of Christ.

And be thankful.  What does a person sound like or look like whose heart is characterized by thanksgiving or gratitude?  Sometimes people talk about how they are so happy that nothing could bring them down from the clouds.  Because of the peace of Christ ruling in our hearts, every moment is lived as a fruit of thanksgiving in my life.  Being thankful is the new realm I have in Christ.  I’m not in the constant striving to be good enough for God and yet total failure world anymore.  I’m in a new place, a place of peace where everything I do is not for merit, but an expression of thanksgiving.

Then Paul goes on: “Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God.”  [First the peace of Christ, now the Word of Christ – they are synonymous – you see how all we need to pay attention to and focus on is what God has done for us in Christ!  That Word of Christ is source of all wisdom!]

Here we go from the sports arena to a home.  You are the house.  And Paul urges that the good news would take up residence in you and live in you, filling up the whole place.  You don’t need anything new; you just need the Word of Christ for your teaching and admonishing.

This is what we do when we study and apply God’s Word, whether on your own or in Bible class.

• The Word is our teacher and gives us knowledge of God’s revealed grace.
• It also admonishes as we apply the truth to how I live.  Admonishing means to address our attitudes and behaviors that are changed by the Word of Christ.  Like those baptized by John the Baptist, we seek from God’s Word the answer to “What shall we do?”

We teach and admonish and sing in our psalms and hymns and songs too, don’t we?  Pick any hymn and you’ll find that it either applies God’s Word in prayer or teaches by proclaiming the reason for our hope or it admonishes how we live by urging us to do this or that.  All this attention is given to God’s Word and how it applies to our lives out of thanksgiving for what God has done for us.  With gratitude, we go to his Word so that we might be instructed and admonished in how to thank him with my life.

It’s just as Paul says, “And whatever you do … do it all in the name of our Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.”  Our hearts and lives belong to Jesus, so we seek to honor him as Lord by doing everything according to his revealed Word.  And look how Paul describes it – whatever it is you do – he says.  Word, deed, doesn’t matter.  We can give thanks to God for so many gifts each and every day.  And we can also live our thanks to God in every moment of every day – the words we say private, the words we say in public, what goes on in front of others and what goes on unnoticed by anyone except God.  We don’t just give thanks in prayer or in church.  But wherever you are and whatever you are doing – it’s all an opportunity to give thanks to God, doing it in Jesus’ name – remembering all that Jesus has done for you.

How’s your heart?  Let me remind you of another Colossians verse just before these – “Since you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.”  Think of all the heart-healthy things God pours into our hearts through Christ!  May God lift up your hearts, filling them with the peace of Christ and his Word that out of our hearts might come thankful living.  Amen.

Fellow saints, Jesus says to you: “I am coming soon.  Hold on to what you have, so that no one will take your crown… ” (Revelation 3:11)

I remember the large cans on nonperishable foods – fruits, vegetables,etc.  I remember the bundles of bottled water.  The flashlights and batteries.  The powdered milk and vitamins.  The First Aid Kit.  It was December of 1999.  We were prepared for Y2K.  My mom seemed to be in charge of it all and built up our supplies over several months.  But, as you know, Y2K came and went without any problem.

Recently, my wife read a fiction book where all the electricity got wiped out by an EMP (electromagnetic pulse).  Cars wouldn’t start, planes wouldn’t fly.  Water supplies don’t work.  Cell phones, computers, telephones, heat and air conditioning, refrigerators – none of those function.  No hospital service, no emergency services, no credit cards or banks.  And the list goes on.  If it happened today, people presume most of us would die of starvation (see http://www.newsmax.com/RonaldKessler/emp-attack/2009/09/09/id/334894).  So my wife said to me with a straight face, “We should really prepare for this now – or we could just go to your mother’s…”

Today, Jesus speaks to us about an even more important preparation that must be done now - the preparation for his arrival on the Last Day.  His desire is that his coming would not be a day of terror for us, but a day of triumph.  So, through this parable of the Ten Virgins, Jesus says, “Don’t let down your guard while you wait for my coming, but be prepared for it.  Believer, keep watch!”

Jesus’ message to us today is pretty simple – you don’t know when he will return, so always be prepared.  That’s really the only way you can prepare for something that can happen at any time; you must be constantly ready.  It’s like having a baby – if you didn’t know when the baby would come, then you’d need to finish a baby room and hospital bag right away.  If a teacher says, “I will give the final exam at any time during the year,” then the only way to prepare is right away. Jesus said his coming will be like that of a thief in the night, happening at an hour when no one will expect him.  If the owner of the house knew when the thief was coming, he wouldn’t let the thief break in.  But the fact of the matter is, the owner doesn’t know.  So it is with us.  We simply don’t know the moment of our Lord’s return, so we must always be ready.

The picture Jesus uses in these verses is that of a wedding procession.  The wedding custom was that after bride and groom were formally married, there was a gap of time before they actually lived together as husband and wife. It wasn’t until a later date that the groom would come some evening in a festal procession, meet up with the bridesmaids, go and get his bride and take her to a banquet to mark the start of the rest of their lives together.

If you were a bridesmaid, your goal is to be ready for the groom to escort him to his bride and then follow the procession to the banquet.  Jesus uses this situation in the parable, saying that some of the bridesmaids were wise and some were foolish.  He says, ^“The foolish ones took their lamps but did not take any oil with them. ⁴The wise, however, took oil in jars along with their lamps.”  There’s a lot of attention on the oil here, and here’s why.  Normally, the oil already inside all their lamps would be enough.  It would usually last long enough after sundown to wait for the bridegroom and to participate in this whole procession.  But this time the extra oil makes a huge difference because: “the bridegroom was a long time in coming.”  In fact, he didn’t show up until midnight!

What makes five of the virgins truly foolish is not really the lack of oil, but the reason why they had no extra oil.  They were only prepared for an evening bridegroom.  They weren’t prepared to escort a midnight bridegroom.  Only the wise virgins were ready and prepared for a groom that could come at any time.  Jesus turns to us with the admonishment, “Therefore keep watch, because you do not know the day or the hour.”  So not only is preparation a necessity, but constant, ongoing preparation, preparation for any day, for any hour.

Jesus commands us to keep watch for one reason: because he understands that there are those claiming to be Christians, who say, “Lord, Lord,” yet they will not enter the kingdom of heaven.  There are those who wait for his return and think they are ready for it, when in reality they aren’t.   Some honor him with their lips, but their hearts are far from him.  Some think they are standing firm so they are not careful about falling.

What’s the problem?  Believers may have a trust in Christ, but since our sinful nature is still with us, we can become complacent.  We can be short-sighted and think that we can give attention to other things for a time.  We think “I’m ready for Jesus,” so we think the time of my spiritual preparation for Jesus’ coming is over.  A pastor once shared with a Bible class a personal story about why his own spiritual preparation was so important.  His own brother, after being raised Lutheran and confirmed and a WELS member for years, had completely fallen from the faith and now denies that God even exists.

Jesus makes it clear to us today that we can’t trust ourselves to take a break in spiritual preparation.  We can fall from faith.  We can fall back into a life of sin.  If you were to think of our hearts like lamps holding the precious oil of the gospel, what kind of heart or lamp do we have?  We have a defective one.  With a sinful nature, there’s a hole in the bottom of this lamp.  Extra oil will be needed.  I can hear I am forgiven in Jesus and trust in it, but later I will need to hear it and believe it again.  I can hear a beautiful promise of God, but later I need to be reminded of that promise or I will forget it.  Our hearts have holes in the bottom.  If there’s a hole in the bottom, the only safe place for us is to stay beneath the spout of the oil jar.  We can’t take a break because we can’t trust ourselves.

Perhaps at one time, you were there beneath the oil jar, conducting family devotions; perhaps at one time you reserved set time for personal Bible reading and prayer.   Maybe that time was five years ago or last year, or when I was in high school or last month.  But what about now?

Perhaps at one time you came to Sunday Bible class; perhaps at one time you were in Bible Information Class or Catechism Class; perhaps at one point you came to church every Sunday; perhaps at one time you remembered your baptism and the comfort it brings.  Perhaps last communion Sunday you received the Sacrament with thanksgiving and remembered Jesus and were filled up with the oil of his forgiveness of all your sins.  But what about now?  Our lamps need oil again.  Our Lord is “a long time in coming.”

In our weakness, we lapse back from preparation mode.  Sometimes my mouth may say what is right and my body goes through the motions, but there is no exercise of my heart.  I leave church unable to remember if we had communion that day or unable to remember what God’s Word said to me or the theme of the service.  Such lack of preparation is a mini-drought of the gospel in your lamp – and what if that drought continues?  Jesus tells us what happens when you run out of oil – you knock at the door, but the groom says, “I don’t know you.”  Jesus knows such a thing can happen to us in our weakness. It’s the whole point of his parable – Keep watch!

But before you and I say to ourselves, “I must be one of the fools in Jesus’ parable.”  Consider the right now message Jesus gives you – “Where sin increased, grace increased all the more.”  All died in Adam’s fall, but in Jesus Christ, God’s grace overflows to you. In this parable, Jesus refuses to finish his days on earth without telling us we can’t trust ourselves, but must keep watch.  But that doesn’t mean our salvation depends on our preparation and our faith rests on our ability to keep watch.  No, Jesus simply shows us our necessity to flee all confidence in ourselves so that we instead run to him for oil again and again.  In him we find water for our thirsty souls.  In him we find all oil for our lamps.  In Christ there is no shortage of supply.

By his life he gives to us nothing but God-pleasing perfection.  By his death he gives complete payment for all your sins.  We cannot trust ourselves, but because Jesus rose again from death we know we can trust him.  God gives us in Christ the hope of eternal life, the comfort and joy that overflow into our hearts, the peace that surpasses understanding.  In him, “under the faucet” of his blessings, we are prepared.  For his sake, we are given it all.

So let us stay busy in spiritual preparation.  “Seek the Lord while he may be found, call on him while he is near.”  “Continue in what you have learned…” “Continue to walk in the truth…”  Continue to behold the font, remembering the comfort of your baptism and the overflowing of God’s grace that washed your sins away.  Continue to come to his Table seeking and finding comfort that the gift of Jesus’ own body and blood brings.  Continue to read his Word not just to know what it says, but because it’s your life-source.  Mine it and memorize it for the strength, the encouragement, the correction and the peace it brings.  “All Scripture is God-breathed as is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.”

Jesus is our supply for being prepared for his coming again.  And in this parable we find him also serving us as watchman over our supply, showing us our need for constant preparation.   He desires that we both have him and keep him.  So put into practice the means Jesus has given to you that keep your faith fueled.

And someday, any day, Jesus will come to deliver us once and for all from ourselves and from anything else that would harm us.  On that day, we will put down our lamps and snuff them out.  No more need for oil.  No need to keep watch.  For our Lord Jesus himself will be our light at the wedding feast.  Amen.