Matthew | Confident.Faith

Readings* Job 38:4–18 * Psalm 18:1–16 * Romans 10:5–17 * Matthew 14:22–33

Readings* Isaiah 55:1–5 * Psalm 136:1–9, 23–26 * Romans 9:1–13 * Matthew 14:13–21

Readings* Deuteronomy 7:6–9 * Psalm 125 * Romans 8:28–39 * Matthew 13:44–52 Homily TranscriptScripture is full of metaphor, analogy, symbolism, and dozens of other such rhetorical devices and figures of speech. This is, of course, not to say that there are not parts of Scripture that are simply literal — we do not want to wander off into the desert with those who try to torture everything into symbolism — or allegory. And yet we must recognize symbolism when and where God has employed it and then endeavor correctly to exegete and understand it. And so we must discuss ‘Jerusalem’.

First, there is not one Jerusalem — there are two:

Galatians 4:21–31 (ESV):
»21 Tell me, you who desire to be under the law, do you not listen to the law? 22 For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by a slave woman and one by a free woman. 23 But the son of the slave was born according to the flesh, while the son of the free woman was born through promise. 24 Now this may be interpreted allegorically: these women are two covenants. One is from Mount Sinai, bearing children for slavery; she is Hagar. 25 Now Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia; she corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her children. 26 But the Jerusalem above is free, and she is our mother. 27 For it is written,

“Rejoice, O barren one who does not bear;
break forth and cry aloud, you who are not in labor!
For the children of the desolate one will be more
than those of the one who has a husband.”

28 Now you, brothers, like Isaac, are children of promise. 29 But just as at that time he who was born according to the flesh persecuted him who was born according to the Spirit, so also it is now. 30 But what does the Scripture say? “Cast out the slave woman and her son, for the son of the slave woman shall not inherit with the son of the free woman.” 31 So, brothers, we are not children of the slave but of the free woman.«

Second, the Jews are children of the slave woman, of the earthly Jerusalem, and we, the Elect, are children of the free woman, of the heavenly Jerusalem. Third, the heavenly Jerusalem is the eternal city, the city spoken of in Revelation; ultimately and truly, the heavenly Jerusalem is Paradise itself, for that is the eternal home of the Elect. We should expand these a bit.

I want you to look at Psalm 125 in your Bibles. Unless you have acquired and are using a Septuagint (which you should do), then the second clause speaks of Mount Zion as being immovable, but that is not what God actually said, for the true referent, as we see in the Greek, is the same as that of the first clause: He who ‘inhabits Jerusalem’ is he who trusts in the Lord, is he who will never be shaken. This verse is comfort for the Elect; it has nothing to do with the earthly Jerusalem. In their great wickedness, the Jews altered this verse in their so-called ‘Masoretic Text’ and attempted to transfer a promise from the Elect to themselves. They truly are, as Christ called them, children of their father below, who is a murderer, a liar, and a thief. The earthly Jerusalem is just a city, like any other earthly city, and the earthly Mount Zion is like any other earthly mountain (really more a hill in this case) and both will pass away along with the rest of this Creation — they have no relevance to future prophecy or anything of that sort except for their use as symbols. All forms of Millenarianism are heresy.

The issue of the Jews is certainly a tired one, but a patient with cancer cannot reasonably expect to stop hearing about that disease just because he is tired of it, and so we must discuss wickedness and heresy. It was the Jews that led the so-called ‘civil rights movement’ that tore our country apart and destroyed our national fabric. It was the Jews that spied for the Communists (and gave them nuclear weapons) and led the Communist groups in the US. It was the Jews that overturned our blasphemy, anti-sodomy, and obscenity laws. It was the Jews that pushed to legalize abortion, and they are vastly overrepresented as ‘doctors’ in that field. It was the Jews that pushed for the legalization of all manner of drugs. It is the Jews that own and promote the pornography ‘industry’. Hear the Word of the Lord:

The Jews killed the Lord Jesus and their own prophets, and they have persecuted His disciples; the Jews please not God, and are contrary to all men.

And yet there are many who claim the name of Christ and rabidly support the Christ-killing Jews. And if you recoil in the slightest from calling the Jews Christ-killers, then I encourage you to examine yourself to know the state of your heart; hear the Word of the Lord:

The God of our fathers raised Jesus, Whom you (Jews) killed by hanging Him on a tree.

Was Peter speaking to the ‘Jewish leaders’ as modern eisegetes would tell you? No, he was speaking to a crowd of ordinary Jews. The Jews are Christ-killers and this enormous sin, this incomprehensible wickedness will follow their race unto eternity. We leave the eternal disposition of those who dedicate themselves to the Jews to the perfect justice of God, but we also surely know that He will not commend as faithful servant those who serve the very men who murdered Him. For our part, we might call that ‘aiding and abetting’.

At least in some ways worse are those who rabidly — and heretically — insist that the Jews are ‘chosen’. Well, we should examine that term: What does it mean to be chosen? There are two senses; we will categorize them with two Greek verbs: προαιρεω and καλεω. The first verb appears in our first reading as ‘chosen’ and the second (in adjectival form) appears in our Epistle reading as ‘called’. Pharaoh was chosen, or, in the words of Romans 9:17:

For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, “For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I might show my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.

in the waters of Holy Baptism, you were called — more, you were called by name, for the Good Shepherd Who numbered and named all the stars in the sky knows also all His sheep by their names (and so καλεω truly means). Would you rather be προαιρεω pharaoh or a καλεοω child of God (please forgive me the bad grammar for the sake of the point)? Perhaps I am somewhat partial because Romans 8:28 is my Confirmation verse, but I would strongly prefer, if asked to choose, to be chosen in the sense of καλεω (called) instead of merely chosen in the sense of προαιρεω (‘chosen’ for a specific purpose). This is, of course, not to even imply that these categories are mutually exclusive; pharaoh was chosen, but not called, but, to pick just a few, Moses, David, and Mary were all both chosen and called. The error that we must avoid here is the conflation of the Zionist and the heresy of the Dispensationalist: The Jews are not, by virtue of their descent from Abraham, chosen in the sense of called:

For I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham.

If anything, the unbelieving Jews are all the more damned for rejecting the Scriptures that God entrusted to them and the Christ Who came from their line; it is far worse to know God and explicitly reject Him than simply to be an ignorant heathen. The nation of Ancient Israel was chosen for the specific purpose of being the line from which the Christ would descend, but this affords them no advantage before God’s tribunal. We are bound to ask how any Christian would miss the clear heresy of any system that would even hint at another path to the Father. ‘I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.’ The Jews do not have some ‘second way’. Adam was the first Christian, and he entered Paradise long before Moses, to whom God entrusted the Law to be protected and spread by Ancient Israel, was even born. It has only ever been by faith in the Christ that one may be called. May the Lord God erase both Zionism and Dispensationalism from the Earth and thereby defend His great Name. Amen.

We do not look forward to the earthly restoration of any particular nation to any particular chunk of territory. We do not pin our hope on an earthly mountain, city, or hill. The only hill to which we (symbolically) assign any abiding hope is Golgotha, but our hope in Christ crucified exists because we believe in Christ raised. The existence of modern ‘Israel’ is a matter of geopolitics and corruption, not a matter of prophecy, for we know that it is only the Israel of God (i.e., the Church) and the heavenly Jerusalem (i.e., Paradise) that have any promises or ultimate meaning. The earthly Jerusalem will pass away in fire; the heavenly Jerusalem will endure for eternity with her lord and Savior as a light to all the Elect from every nation and language.

None of this should be taken to diminish or demean and certainly not to denigrate the importance of the here and now. What you do in this life not only echoes in eternity, but decides your eternity. Certainly, we are saved — alone — by the free gift of faith in the forgiveness of sins won for us by the perfect work of the Christ Who lived and died for us, fulfilling the righteous demands of the Law that we could never fulfill, but there are two judgements: There is the Judgement, which asks if you are or are not in Christ, and there is the judgement of works.

For the Son of Man is going to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay each person according to what he has done.
— Matthew 16:27
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For God will bring every work in judgment, in everything overlooked, whether good or evil.
— Ecclesiastes 12:14
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He will render to each one according to his works: to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life; but for those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury.
— Romans 2:6–8

Your works cannot save you (and for that we cannot thank God enough), but just as certainly God will judge every deed you did or failed to do and every word you spoke or failed to speak. Anyone who think this life does not matter because the ultimate battle is already won would do well to examine himself and take heed lest he fall; God will not be mocked, and He sees, hears, and knows all. Again, you must not — and should not — fear for your eternity, for that was already won for you, your name inscribed in the Lamb’s Book of Life, and your status as a child of the Father signed and sealed in the waters of Holy Baptism; in fact, you were foreknown by God in eternity past before ever there was an Earth or a Jerusalem or a Golgotha, and your name was written in the Book of Life before your parents named you, before Adam named the animals, before God made and named the stars. You were called by the very name God inscribed in His Book of Life before time itself had even begun to run. You were called — καλεω — in eternity past when God foreknew you and here in time when you were pulled from the waters of Baptism as a child or an adult or sprinkled with the water of Baptism as an infant. And the infant truly is the better picture, for he can neither ‘consent’ (for whatever that means) nor truly object (save, perhaps, some crying if the water is cold); the infant must rely — entirely — on those around him and receives Baptism, and the forgiveness of sins and the salvation therein offered, as we are all commanded to receive the Kingdom of God: as little children, free from guile, objection, squabbling, or doubt. If you were an adult when you were baptized, then you still added nothing to the process, for the Sacrament relies upon God and not upon you. Truly blessed are those who receive so great a gift from God in the most worthy manner fallen man may muster: that of the trusting infant.

As Christians, as called sons and daughters of God, we must not look upon this life as misery or suffering or any such thing (although it certainly will contain those in this fallen world), and we must certainly not look upon this life as meaningless or irrelevant: Our heavenly Father has prepared beforehand good works that we should walk in them. The Cross conquered sin, death, and the devil, but there is much work left to be done here in time. We have duties to family, to nation, which is to say to race, and to neighbor. This world is perishing, and so are all who do not know the Lord. Noah was saved from a drowning world, and instructed not to draw any more into the Ark; we have a better promise than he, for we are instructed to bring as many into the new and better Ark — the Church — as possible; in the words of the parable:

And the master said to the servant, ‘Go out to the highways and hedges and compel people to come in, that my house may be filled. For I tell you, none of those men who were invited shall taste my banquet.’ ”

We must fill our Father’s House, the Jerusalem above, Paradise.

But this is not done simply by sharing, spreading, or teaching or preaching the Gospel. The Christian life is much more than the Proclamation. The Christian life is a life of deeds and not mere words; it is lived out both in accordance with God’s law and in service to neighbor. In fact, you cannot serve God directly — He needs nothing from you or from anyone else; your neighbor, however, needs food, clothing, shelter, and all manner of such things; you serve God by serving your neighbor — those are the very good works that God prepared beforehand that you should walk in them. And your neighbor is not some abstraction, and nor does he represent every man on Earth. Your neighbor is a concrete; he is flesh and blood; in fact, he is your flesh and blood, for you owe your loyalty, your duty, and your time, resources, and efforts first and foremost and even to the exclusion of all others to those God has placed closest to you. Family, tribe, race, and nation are not incidental, accidental, or human constructs or fictions. You are who and what you are by essence, and God created that essence. Your people need you; you serve God by serving your people of whom God has made you part; you serve Satan by denying your own people, of whom God has made you part, to preference the alien, whom God has not made part of your people. Or do you believe God was wrong to include the Table of Nations and the genealogies in Scripture and to create man as a social animal enmeshed in concentric circles of relatedness and duty? Or do you believe the Marxists — almost exclusively Christ-denying and Christ-murdering Jews — knew better than God? For they are the very men (to abuse the term via over-inclusion) you are following when you deny the reality of sex, of race, of nation, of family. And make no mistake: To deny the reality of race is actually more evil, more wicked than to deny the reality of biological sex. Satan knows full well that all of these things are real and are good creations of God — that is why he wants you to deny them. The ‘Christian’ who claims Christ and yet denies Him in his acts is an unprofitable servant who may one day — in the not-too-distant future — find himself calling “Lord, Lord…”. Do not be an unprofitable servant. We live in a dying world among the dying, and yet live in it we must. Do your duty as a Christian man or woman. Serve your family; serve your tribe; serve your neighbor; serve your race. These are the realities by which God has created you and in which He has enmeshed you. Do not risk denying the Creator by denying His Creation.

As a called, elected, sealed, and confirmed son or daughter of the Father, you have absolute certainty of your eternity, for you are in Christ and He will lose none from His hands. So comport yourself with the behavior befitting a son or a daughter of the King. He has given you work to do; do not rest on Christ’s laurels. Your people are perishing, pull them into the Greater Ark before they slip beneath the waves and are forever out of reach.

Amen.

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