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Psalm 144
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Blessed be the LORD, my rock, who trains my hands for war, and my fingers for battle; he is my steadfast love and my fortress, my stronghold and my deliverer, my shield and he in whom I take refuge, who subdues peoples under me. O LORD, what is man that you regard him, or the son of man that you think of him? Man is like a breath; his days are like a passing shadow. Bow your heavens, O LORD, and come down! Touch the mountains so that they smoke! Flash forth the lightning and scatter them; send out your arrows and rout them! Stretch out your hand from on high; rescue me and deliver me from the many waters, from the hand of foreigners, whose mouths speak lies and whose right hand is a right hand of falsehood. I will sing a new song to you, O God; upon a ten-stringed harp I will play to you, who gives victory to kings, who rescues David his servant from the cruel sword. Rescue me and deliver me from the hand of foreigners, whose mouths speak lies and whose right hand is a right hand of falsehood. May our sons in their youth be like plants full grown, our daughters like corner pillars cut for the structure of a palace; may our granaries be full, providing all kinds of produce; may our sheep bring forth thousands and ten thousands in our fields; may our cattle be heavy with young, suffering no mishap or failure in bearing; may there be no cry of distress in our streets! Blessed are the people to whom such blessings fall! Blessed are the people whose God is the LORD! (ESV)
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New Not So Good
The Ecumenical Council of Nicaea, AD 325
12 June 2012
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How itching ears want to hear something new (2Ti 4:3-4)! There are plenty of preachers out there ready to satisfy that desire. We have such a penchant for seeking the new and the different. In the world of advertising one of the ad hooks that is used is the claim that a product or service is "new." That by itself will entice large numbers of people to buy the product or use the service. If it's new, it's got to be good! As a parish pastor I used to struggle with this. I worried terribly at the high feasts of the Christian church, like Christmas and the Paschal feast, that I would preach the same old thing to God's people. I wanted to be able to give a new or exciting slant on God's Word. I have come a peace with the feasts of the church because I recognized that exactly what needed to be preached was the same old thing. I recognized that the divine truth was true exactly in its ancientness. I recognized that God did not change His mind about His grace toward us. We need to have the same thing preached to us; especially when it is the same thing which saves poor sinners like us. On this basis, I believe it was the Lutheran theologian, David Chytraeus, who said that if an idea is new, it must be wrong.
How easily we can despise what is true in our hankering after something new. Theologians are especially susceptible to make an idol of new doctrines. They want to be remembered and acclaimed by the crowd for their cleverness, so that they make a name for themselves. When I was a seminary student, I had a professor who would facetiously say, "Gentlemen, who can come up with a new doctrine? I would love to have a new doctrine." Of course, the idea was risible. While the same teachings may be applied in different ways in unique situations, the teachings themselves must stay the same. How important that is today when everything is new and everything we once thought quite certain is up for grabs. We live in a changing world and a world that is not necessarily changing in a good way. It is such a joy these days as a parish pastor watching young people gravitating to the church's "old" ways. They have become disenchanted with the feckless new ways idolized by their parents and grandparents and are seeking to be reintroduced to the old ways of God, who is ancient of days (Dan 7:9).
Recently, a member of our church spent a significant period of time in a long term acute care hospital (LTAC), where he became weaker not better. When he arrived, the doctors at the LTAC changed the patient's regular medications. The patient was stronger when he left the primary care hospital and became weaker the longer he stayed at the LTAC. The new medication was not good. The patient would have recovered faster if the doctors had kept him on his old medications. If we try to improve on the prescriptions which the Lord has given to sinners like us to bring us the healing of His mercy and the gift of Christ's righteousness, we too will sicken and perhaps die. We beg for the same old thing. We should be deeply suspicious of the new. The only truly new thing in the world is the preaching of the gospel and that new thing is old (Eph 1:4). |
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Martin Luther
"Paul inveighs not only against the false apostles, who disturbed the churches at his time, but in spirit he foresees into the distant future to the end of the world that those who with the most pestilential, contaminating vice, without any call [from God] would break into the church, and chase out the Spirit and the heavenly doctrine, and under a pretext overturn the true doctrine and faith. We see many such people in our day, who are not called, and yet inject themselves into the kingdom of the Spirit, that is, the ministry of the Word. Up to a point they wish to appear to be teaching the same doctrine as we do. With this counterfeit they acquire for themselves a name and reputation as teachers of the gospel, who live by the Spirit and follow in good order. However, as soon as they overcome the minds of the common crowd with insipid speeches and have a chance, they sidetrack them from the right path, begin to teach them something new, so that in this way they might be celebrated. They persuade the common crowd that they were first to point out the errors in the church, to abolish and correct the abuses, and to confound the papacy. They invent some smooth new dogma and therefore they merit being considered the first among evangelical teachers. Because they glory in themselves and not in God, but are established by the human mouth, they are not able to be firm and stable, but according to the prophecy of Paul confusion arose and its end is damnation (Phil 3:19). These unbelievers cannot stand in the judgment, because they are snatched up like chaff and blown away by the wind (Job 21:18). That same judgment remains for all those who seek their own, and not the things of Christ Jesus, in the evangelical teaching."
Martin Luther, Lectures on Galatians, 5.25
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Prayer
Lord Jesus Christ, You are the new song of the church. Keep us from defecting from You seeking what we think to be new things, but which are just the lies of Satan. Confirm us in the baptismal faith into which we were placed by Your eternal and unchanging Word. Amen.
For Aubrey Doggett, that the Lord Jesus would watch over him and give him strength
For Steve Narr, who is undergoing medical testing, that the Lord would grant him good results and strengthen him in the midst of trial
For Louis Harvey, who has been diagnosed with brain cancer, that the Lord Jesus Christ would be with him and strengthening him in body and soul
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Art: D�RER, Albrecht The Adoration of the Holy Trinity (1511)
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 � Scott R. Murray, 2011
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