Church Sermon - May 26, 2002

STAND FIRM TO THE END!

Rev. Mark F. Bartels

Epistle Lesson; 2 Corinthians 13:11-14
Old Testament Lesson; Genesis 1:1-2:3
Sermon Text; Matthew 24:13

If you were a little child and I was your father, and I knew that there was a dangerous child abductor in the neighborhood, who was looking for little children and had a terrible fate planned for those little children, and I had to go away for a little while, leaving you by yourself, I would certainly put you in a place that I knew was a very, very safe place. And, I would tell you to stay there. I would tell you to stay there and not move from that spot, no matter what, even if someone comes and tries to convince you to leave. I would tell you that this is a safe place and you should stand right there, because you will be safe there.

That certainly shows the love that a parent has for their child. We are God's children, God's sons and God's daughters. And, God certainly loves us, His children, even more. He knows that there is a dangerous abductor, Satan, in the neighborhood. God knows that Satan is seeking to abduct souls and take them to a terrible, terrible fate that he has planned for them. In today's scripture reading our Savior speaks to us as His children. It is as if He says, "I have put you in safe place. You stand here and you stay here and don't move from this place no matter what someone may tell you."

If you were a little child and I was your father and I told you to stand in this safe place and don't move, I would also tell you about the different ways the abductor may try to deceive you. I would warn you, because I would want you to know the different ways that the abductor may try to deceive you and try to get you to move from that safe place.

That is exactly what Jesus does, right before he says,

Matthew 24:13

Jesus warns His children of the different ways that the terrible, dangerous abductor Satan will try to mislead us and take us to a terrible fate.

If I were your father, I would warn you about four different things. The first warning is this. I would tell you that if someone comes and tries to coax you away by deceiving you, don't listen to that person. They may tell you, "I am a friend of your dad or your mom. I know your dad or mom." Don’t listen to them. If they want you to come with them, if they want you to get in the car with them, and go someplace with them, don’t listen to them.

A little child can be too trusting, sometimes. A little child could get into that car, trusting the deceiver, who acts like he or she knows the father or mother. That little child could end up with a very terrible, terrible fate. Jesus gives the same warning to His believers, when He says,

There, Jesus warns His people to stand firm and stay where He put you. There are going to be deceivers who try to coax you away from your faith. They are going to speak in His name. They are going to say, "I know God. I am a friend of God. I know Jesus. I am a friend of Jesus." And, they can deceive us. They could cause us to believe that they are God’s friends and Jesus’ friends. And, believing that, we could start to listen to them. How many people have been deceived from the faith, because they listened to someone who was a smooth talker, who maybe was entertaining in their preaching and maybe had a large following. People may think to themselves, "They are God’s friends. They are entertaining. They have a large following, so I will follow after them."

How many have fallen from that safe place, because they didn’t ask, "Does what they say, match up with the words of my savior? Does it match up with scripture?" I wonder how many people have fallen from that safe place and been abducted, because they have been deceived by false teachers?

Dear friends, stand firm. Stand firm in the faith. Be like St. Timothy, that young man, who in the face of all kinds of false doctrine and false teaching that was around him, stood firm in sound teaching and in sound doctrine. May we all say, "Unless I am convinced from scripture, here I stand, so help me God!"

I would warn you of the abductor in a second way, if you were my little child and I was your parent. I would warn you that they may not only try to deceive you, but they may also try to entice you. They may hold out things that look good. "Here is some candy. Why don’t you get in the car with me?" Because the candy looks good, you may get in that car, only to find a terrible fate awaiting you.

Or, they may say, "I have lost my little cat and I need someone to come and help me find my little cat." Pitying them, you could get in that car and go to look for that little cat, only to find a terrible fate waiting for you.

Jesus warns His people against the same kind of deception. He says that there will be wickedness and the love of many will grow cold. Certainly Satan will hold out in front of our eyes, what he perceives to be treats. He will say, "Oh, if only you could just have this. If only you could fall into this sin. Go ahead and get drunk. Go ahead and take drugs. It’ll be fun. Go ahead and commit adultery. It’ll be enjoyable." And, so he will lead us away from our faith, into sins that could cause us to ultimately loose our faith and our firm standing in Christ our Savior.

Or he may say to us, in one way or another, "I need help over here. Your mom or your dad, they need your help. Your children need your help. Your job needs you." If that job, those parents, those children become more important to us than our savior, then our love grows cold for our savior.

How many people have fallen from their firm standing, because they have fallen into a sin that has lead them away from their faith? They love that sin more than they love their savior.

How many people have had their love grow cold for their savior, because they have been more concerned about something other than their savior? They have ultimately been abducted from their faith, only to have a terrible fate awaiting them.

Rather, let us stand firm, like Joseph did when he was tempted by the devil through Potiphars wife, who wanted him to come to bed with her. What did Joseph do? He stood firm in his faith and said, "How can I do this great evil and sin against God?" How could I fall into a sin that could ultimately lead me away from my faith in my savior? Dear friends, stand firm and let nothing move you!

There is a third way that I would warn you, if you were my little child. You can be deceived, they can trick you with things that appear to be good, or they can threaten you.

What if someone came up to you and said, "I have a gun. If you don’t get in the car, I am going to hurt you." A little child may, in fear, get into that car only to await a terrible fate.

Jesus also warns his people that there will be those who try to threaten you from your firm standing. He says, "The world will hate you and they will want to kill you. They will put you to death." There may be those who try to threaten you from your firm standing in your faith, in Jesus as your savior. They may say, "If you are a believer, I am not going be your friend. If you want to do what is right, I am not going to hang around with you. If you want to follow your savior, I am not going to date you." And, we in our hearts may think to ourselves, "Well I don’t want that to happen. I want them to be my friends. I want to hang around with them. I want to go on a date with that person." And, we give in to those threats. We walk away from our faith in our savior, because of those threats. The world may hate us, and we may not want to be hated, so we lose our firm standing in Christ, our savior.

Rather, let us stand firm like Stephen, who was threatened with death. He ultimately gave up his life, when he was stoned to death, for his savior. May we say, "Here I stand, so help me God. You can even take my very life from me, because I would rather die believing in my savior and have eternal life, than lose my faith and die without my savior."

There is a fourth way that someone could deceive a little child to get into a car and be abducted. That abductor could make it appear very unpleasant to be in the position that you are in, right now. "Oh. I see you are just standing there. It must be so hard to just stand there. Isn’t it hard to stay there, in that one spot? Wouldn’t it be so much easier, wouldn’t it be so much nicer, if you would just come and sit down in this nice, comfortable car with me? We could go for a nice ride out in the country. Wouldn’t that be nicer?" A little child may be deceived and give in, and think that it is true. After all, it is unpleasant standing there. It would be more pleasant to simply sit down and go for a ride.

And, Satan tries to do that with our faith, too. He tries to make it appear to be unpleasant to be a Christian. And, it very well may be. Jesus said, "Whoever does not take up his cross and follow me, is not worthy of me."

Jesus said to believers in this world, "You will have trouble, but be of good cheer. I have overcome the world." There may be difficulties with being a Christian. It is hard to fight temptation. It is hard to pray. It is hard to get up every Sunday to go to church to hear the Word of God. Satan can try to get us to believe, "Wouldn’t it be so much more pleasant if you didn’t have to fight temptation? Wouldn’t it be nice if you didn’t have to pray? Wouldn’t life be easier if you didn’t have to get up and go to church?"

How many people have lost their firm standing, because the abductor has deceived them into thinking that it would be more pleasant not to follow our savior? What a terrible fate awaits them.

Rather, let us stand firm like Moses. When he was a young man, it would have been very pleasant for him to remain the prince of Egypt and have all the riches of Egypt. But scripture says he considered suffering with God’s people of greater worth than all of the riches of Egypt, because he was looking forward to that home whose architect and builder is God. He was looking forward to Heaven and he would rather go through the unpleasantness of being a Christian and being a believer, than all the pleasures of this life.

Dear friends, stand firm in the faith. Let nothing move you. Ultimately we need to understand this. Our Father wants us to stand firm in our faith as Jesus, our only savior from sin. But you and I don’t have the strength to do that, alone. I don’t have the strength to stand firm. I am easily deceived. I am easily tricked. My sinful nature is weak. It would much rather follow after the wrong path. And, there is no way that I can stand firm, unless the hands of my savior are wrapped tightly around me. He is the one who can keep me standing firm in my faith. He is the one who can keep me standing safe in my faith. Jesus says, "No one can snatch them out of my hands." And so, it is our goal as Christians to have Jesus’ firm hands safely placed around us and remain placed around us.

So how do we see to it that we remain safely in our savior’s hands no matter what the deception may be? Here scripture tells us,

there is

one way,

that our savior

keeps us safely in our faith,

keeps us growing in our faith,

keeps us standing firm in our faith,

so that we won’t be deceived.

That is through The Gospel,

The Good News of Jesus!

When we use The Word and The Sacrament, the Holy Spirit works. He promises to work through The Word and The Sacrament to keep us in our faith, to keep us growing in our faith and to keep us firm in our faith. How critical it is for us, then as Christians (and I cannot say it enough), that we stay faithful in our use of those means of grace. Those are the tools that the Holy Spirit uses to keep us standing firm and to keep Jesus’ hands safely wrapped around us. How critical it is to use the Lord’s Supper, because through that Jesus comes to you personally and He tells you this is my body and my blood for the forgiveness of your sins and He strengthens you in your faith to remain standing in Him. How critical it is for us to regularly use the Word of God, through which the Holy Spirit strengthens us in our faith and in our commitment toward our savior. And, what is it that we hear in the Word of God that keeps our faith strong and our commitment strong? It is the Gospel.

Consider this story. Several hundred years ago there was a man who was fighting against the unbelievers, the infidels. He was captured by an unbeliever, by the name of Saladin. Saladin was going to take this young man’s life. He was planning to kill the young man. But the young man pleaded with Saladin. He said, "Please don’t take my life. Not for my sake, but I have a lady back in England who loves me. And she would be devastated, if I were to die. So, for her sake, please save me."

Saladin laughed at the young man. He told him, "You are deceived. If you are gone, she will find someone else. She will marry someone else and she won’t even miss you, after a while." This young man said, "No that is not true. She would not do that. She would not go after someone else and she would miss me, all of her life."

So Saladin said that he needed to prove that. He told the young man to write that lady a letter and tell her to send her right hand back in a bag. If she does that, then her love will be proved. So the letter was written and sent back to England. The young lady had her right hand removed and sent in a bag to Saladin. When Saladin saw that lady’s love for the young man in prison, he let that young man go. That young man went home to England and he committed himself to that lady for the rest of his life. And, still to this day, there is a tomb with a statue of a man, holding a woman’s hand, whose other hand is missing.

Wouldn’t it be awesome if someone loved you that much! Well there is someone who loves you that much, and more, and that is God’s Son! Your savior Jesus, not only gave up His hand for you, but He gave up His feet, His eyes, His ears and His entire life for you, to pay for every single one of your sins and to set you free from prison. It is because of what Jesus did, alone, that God forgives you and calls you His child. He has set you free from sin. There is a home waiting for you, in Heaven! Aren’t we committed to living for our savior and standing firm in Him, because of what He has done for us? When we use the Word of God and The Sacraments, then our faith in our savior grows, knowing what He did for me, and being committed to Him. Dear Friends, stand firm in the faith, because he who stands firm to the end will be saved.

Let me just wrap up with this reminder. If you saw a little child getting into a car, about to be abducted, what would you do? Would you just stand idly by and say to yourself, "Oh dear. But, that is not my child, so it is not any of my business. I should not really get involved in this whole situation." Would you let that child get into car and be abducted? No, you wouldn’t. You would run to that child and say, "NO! DON’T! STOP!" And, you would do everything in your power to see to it that it didn’t happen.

If you see one of your Christian friends about to be abducted by Satan, should you stand on the sidelines and say, "This is none of my business. I shouldn’t really get involved." NO! You should run to their aid and run to their side. And if you see them growing weak in their faith, you should strengthen them with the Word of God. If you see them being lead astray, shouldn’t you grab them by the hand and lead them back to safety? If you see them fall, shouldn’t you run to them, pick them up and stand them on their feet again, through the Word of God? That is our duty and our privilege to all of our fellow believers, for the sake of Jesus, because he who stands firm to the end will be saved.

Amen.

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