“Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.” Exodus 20:8

In Luther’s Small Catechism, under the third commandment, we read: “Thou shalt sanctify the holy day. What does this mean? Answer: We should fear and love God that we may not despise preaching and His Word, but hold it sacred and gladly hear and learn it.”

The Lord God required His people (under the old covenant) to set aside the seventh day as a day of rest from their labors and as a day to consider Him and His ways. Since God Himself created the heavens and the earth in six days and rested upon the seventh, so also His people were to refrain from their labors on the Sabbath, hear His life-giving Word and honor Him (cf. Ex. 20:8-11; Deut. 5:12-15; Isa. 58:13-14).

We are no longer required to rest from all our labors on the seventh day, or on any particular day of the week (cf. Col. 2:16-17; Rom. 14:5-6). But, as God required the children of Israel to rest on the Sabbath Day that they might have time to hear His Word and worship Him, so He requires that we set aside time from our earthly labors that we also might hear and consider His Word and glorify His holy name (cf. Isa. 58:13-14; Heb. 10:24-25; Col. 3:16; 2 Tim. 3:14-17; Lk. 11:28; Acts 2:42; Ps. 95:1; Ps. 111:1; etc.). For this reason, we have set aside Sunday as a time for worship and meditation upon God’s Word and ought to take time each day for Bible reading and prayer.

To despise preaching and His Word does not necessarily mean to hate it, but it is to count it as unnecessary or of such little importance that we neglect it and put it off. Instead of it being first and foremost in our lives, other interests and things always seem to get in the way and crowd it out.

To neglect the services of God’s house, and not to take the time for Bible reading and prayer in our homes, is a sin against God’s commandment. When we neglect to hear and carefully consider the teaching of God’s Word and partake of the Sacraments, we endanger our own souls; for it is through the Word of God and the Sacraments of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper that the Holy Spirit makes known to us our Savior and what He has done for us and assures us of forgiveness for all our sins and eternal life through faith in Jesus’ name.

Hearing God’s will and commandment regarding the Sabbath should move us to repent of our erring ways and turn back to Him for mercy and forgiveness in Messiah Jesus, God’s Son. It ought, then, also guide us as we then seek to amend our ways and live for Him, so that we regularly attend the services of God’s house and set aside a portion of the time God has given us to meditate upon His Word and to offer Him our worship and praise.

Dear LORD God, forgive us for neglecting to set aside time to hear Your saving Word, to partake of Your Sacraments, and to worship You. Give us true love for You and Your Word, that we may continue to learn of the salvation You have provided for us in Christ Jesus, our Savior, and receive Your mercy and forgiveness which are offered and given to us through Word and Sacrament. In Jesus’ name, we pray. Amen.

[Scripture quotations are from the King James Version of the Bible.]

Why do I continue to be a Lutheran in a place where most are Baptists or hold to some other flavor of Reformed or Arminian theology and at a time when so many who use the name Lutheran have departed entirely or, at least in part, from the Lutheran Faith?

The historic Lutheran Faith is Biblical. It teaches the truth about my sinfulness and God’s judgment upon sin and it teaches the truth about God’s eternal plan of salvation (John 3:14-18; Gal. 4:4-5; Eph. 1:3-14; etc.) — His love for us lost sinners and His desire to save us from the condemnation of His holy law which we justly deserve; His sending His only-begotten Son to redeem us by becoming true man, fulfilling the righteous demands of the law for us and then bearing on the cross the full punishment for the sins of the entire world. It teaches the truth about God’s working to save us — sending men to preach the Law, which points out our sinfulness, and His Gospel, which reveals to us how to receive mercy and forgiveness and be counted righteous and holy in God’s eyes through faith in Jesus Christ and His atoning sacrifice on the cross. And it teaches the truth about the working of God’s Holy Spirit through His Word (and His Sacraments of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper) to create and preserve in us saving faith in Christ Jesus (cf. Eph. 2:1-10).

Yes, I’ve studied and compared, at great length. I’ve listened to the arguments of Calvinists, Arminians, and just about every Christian denomination and non-denomination out there. Sad to say, in the end, the teaching of these other churches just does not agree fully with the Bible, leaving me no choice but to regard such teachings as “good words and fair speeches” which “deceive the hearts of the simple” (Rom. 16:17-18).

And, I have to say that other faiths and churches do not meet my needs. How is that so? Well, as the Bible teaches (Eccl. 7:20; Ezek. 18:20; Matt. 5:20, 48; Rom. 3:23; 6:23; Gal. 3:10), I am a sinner and cannot measure up to God’s holy commandments, and the just punishment for sinners is death — temporal and eternal. To go to a church which only urges me to try harder and be more committed to Jesus and tells me how to live my life as a Christian, or worse yet, tells me that Christ only died for the elect and that I may or may not be among the elect, leaves me in despair over my sins and failures to live up to what God expects and requires of me.

In a truly Lutheran church (and there aren’t many of them left because Satan fights hard against them), the first thing I do in the church service is to confess my sins and sinfulness and look to God for mercy for the sake of the perfect righteousness and innocent sufferings and death of His Son, Jesus Christ. I’m like the tax collector in Luke 18:9ff. who would not even lift up his eyes toward heaven but beat upon his breast and said, “God be merciful to me, a sinner.” And then the minister of God assures me, in the name of Christ, that my sins are forgiven because of Jesus’ atoning sacrifice on the cross for the sins of the world (cf. John 20:21-23; Matt. 16:19; 18:18; Luke 24:46-47).

It is then that we come before the holy God as His forgiven people with our prayers and praises. God ministers to us and teaches us through the reading of the Holy Scriptures and through the exposition and application of those Scriptures by His called minister of the Gospel. We hear and learn the truth of our lost and sinful condition, but we are comforted in hearing that Christ died for all our sins and rose again on the third day that we might have God’s pardon and forgiveness and everlasting life — all through faith alone in Christ Jesus.

We offer up to God our gifts of thanksgiving and bring our prayers before Him. And then, before we go, God serves us yet again in the Lord’s Supper, the Sacrament of the Altar, by giving us to partake of the sacrifice of our Savior Jesus Christ. As the children of Israel partook of the Passover lamb, whose blood had been shed and was smeared on the doorposts and lintels of their homes in Egypt that the angel of judgment who struck down the firstborn among the Egyptians might pass over their homes (Exodus 12), so we are given to partake of Christ’s very body and blood which were given and shed for us on the cross for the forgiveness of our sins that God’s judgment upon this sinful world might pass over us and that we might be assured of eternal life through faith in our Savior who died for us and rose again (Matt. 26:26-28; 1 Cor. 11:23-29).

And while I neglected to mention it earlier, it is in the Lutheran Church where Baptism is administered in accord with the teaching of God’s Word. As St. Paul teaches in Romans 6, in Baptism we are joined to Christ in His death and in His resurrection and are brought under God’s new covenant which was established by the shedding of Christ’s blood for the sins of the world (cf. Jer. 31:31-34; Heb. 8-10). All our sins are laid upon Jesus, the Lamb of God who atoned for the sins of all; and, as Jesus was raised up again on the third day, we are raised up to new life in Christ Jesus as a new creation of God. Our sins are washed away and forgiven in Jesus’ shed blood, and we are children of God through faith in Christ Jesus (Acts. 22:16; Gal. 3:26ff.).

Jesus commanded His disciples to make disciples for Him by going out into world, baptizing in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and by teaching them to observe all that He taught and commanded (Matt. 28:18-20; cf. Mark 16:15-16). Since baptism is done in the name of the Triune God, it is God’s work and not ours. He works through Baptism to wash away our sins and to make us His redeemed children (Eph. 5:25-27; Tit. 3:4-7).

And, since little children are certainly included in the words “all nations,” “every one of you,” and “unto you, and to your children” (Matt. 28:19; Acts 2:38-39), as well as in the whole households which were baptized, and since Baptism is called “the circumcision made without hands” (Col. 2:11-15), the Lutheran Church does not exclude little children from Baptism and the covenant blessings of forgiveness of sins and eternal life won for them by Christ Jesus but welcomes them as did Jesus, who even spoke of infants with the words, “Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God” (Luke 18:16; cf. v. 15-17).

But, getting back to the Lutheran Church service, it concludes with the blessing God commanded Moses to speak over His people, recorded in Numbers 6:24-26 : “The LORD bless thee, and keep thee: the LORD make his face shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee: the LORD lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace.” And the blessing includes the promise: “And they shall put my name upon the children of Israel; and I will bless them” (v. 27).

We leave the service with God’s blessing upon us. And, indeed, we are blessed, for we have forgiveness for all our sins in Christ Jesus and we have the certainty of eternal life for Jesus’ sake! God’s face shines upon us in grace and mercy. He looks upon us in favor as His redeemed children and sends us forth in the peace of sins forgiven! We are sent out into the world — to our jobs, our schools, our stations in life — with God’s blessings and we cannot help but show forth the praises of Him who has called us out of the darkness of our sin and into His marvelous light (1 Pet. 2:9)!

[Scripture quotations are from the King James Version of the Bible.]

“Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.” Exodus 20:7

Many consider it a light thing to misuse God’s name in their language and speech. They curse, swear, lie and deceive by it. Some use God’s name or His Word, the Bible, to support their own false beliefs and teachings. Some use it superstitiously, as though their use of God’s name or things connected with it will bring them good luck and fortune. And, all too seldom, is God’s name used rightly to pray to Him, to praise and glorify Him, and to give Him thanks!

God says that He “will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.” It is not a trivial offense with God to abuse His holy name, but a serious offense which will bring His wrath and judgment!

This commandment condemns us all for our misuse of God’s name and for our neglect to use it rightly in ways that bring to the LORD God honor and glory and praise. God’s Word applies to each of us, when it says, “The LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.”

Our only hope is in Jesus Christ, God’s Son, for He kept this commandment perfectly for us and used God’s name rightly. Jesus called upon His Father in prayer and praises. He taught God’s Word rightly. And His whole life brought honor and glory to God’s holy name – whether that be through His manner of living, His teaching or His miracles.

And, in His death and resurrection too, Jesus brought honor and glory to God’s holy name. He willingly carried out His Father’s will and went to the cross and bore the guilt and shame and punishment for the sins of all mankind that God might show us mercy and give to us forgiveness in His Son, Christ Jesus. And Jesus rose again and is ascended to the right hand of His Father and continues His work of bringing life and salvation to lost sinners.

Jesus, rightly prayed, “Father, the hour is come; glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee: as thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him. And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent…” (John 17:1ff.).

Jesus Christ, on the tree of the cross, brought glory to His Father’s name and bore the full punishment for all our sins. He desires that we, too, bring God glory by repenting of our misuse of God’s name and of our failures to live and speak in ways that bring God’s name glory. He desires that we turn to Him for mercy. And, in His Word, He promises that forgiveness for all our sins and life everlasting, as well as the help to use God’s name rightly, are ours through faith in Jesus’ name.

And placing our faith in Jesus – trusting in Him alone for forgiveness and life – brings glory to God’s name!

O LORD God, forgive us for taking Your holy name in vain, and for neglecting to use it rightly. Graciously help us to hallow Your name among us. We ask this for the sake of Jesus Christ and His innocent sufferings and death upon the cross to redeem us. Amen.

[Scripture quotations are from the King James Version of the Bible.]