Rev. Charles Lehmann + Ezekiel 33:7-9 + Pentecost 16 In the Name of + Jesus. Amen.
The Lord hates sin. He hates sin because of what it does to you. Sin hurts you. It cuts you deeply. Eventually, it kills you. It separates you from the One who loves you so much that He made you the crown of His creation. Because of the grave peril of sin, God has warned His people about its dangers from the very beginning. When the Lord told Adam not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, He said, “In the day that you eat of it, you will surely die.” He couldn't have said it more clearly than that. You will surely die. Not “you might die.” Not “eating from this tree would be a pretty bad idea.” No, none of these. You will surely die. These must have been strange words for Adam to hear, even in those days when the dew of creation was still wet upon the ground. In a world that knew no death, God told Adam what could actually kill him. Adam and Eve had been created in perfect communion with God, the Lord and giver of life. But even in those days, the potential of death existed. Unlike any of their descendants, Adam and Eve had a choice. They could obey the Lord's command and remain in perfect communion with Him or they could eat of the fruit that the Lord had not given to them. In that act of disobedence they would separate themselves from the Lord of life and condemn all their children to lives ruled by sin and death. God was not being a fickle dictator when He gave this first command. He was showing humanity two paths. Adam and Eve could continue to live in the perfect knowledge of Him in whose image they had been created, or they could disobey Him and learn about life apart from God. They decided to give life apart from God a try, and in this decision they chose death. When Adam and Eve disobeyed, they did not just choose death for themselves. They also chose it for you. Every son of Adam and every daughter of Eve has been born to die. All of us are headed for the grave. That is why the Lord makes Ezekiel a watchman for the house of Israel. As the Lord's watchman, Ezekiel listens to the words that come from the Lord's mouth and he speaks them to Israel. The words that the Lord has given are very specific and very much to the point. “O wicked man, you will surely die!” These are the very same words that the Lord had given to Adam in the Garden. The reason the Lord always speaks the same Word is simple. His children are always in the same sort of danger. The wages of sin were death in Eden, they are death now, and they will continue to be death until our Lord's return. This all sounds pretty fatalistic. We are conceived and born in sin. From the very moment we begin to grow in our mothers' wombs, we are heading for the grave. We ask, “If all this is true, then do we really need a watchman to tell us what we already know is inevitable?” The answer to that is obviously “No.” We don't really need a watchman for that. Our eyes, our ears, and our physical bodies all tell us that death is coming. Sin has kept morticians and gravediggers in business for thousands of years. Physical death isn't the reason for the watchman's cry. He's not advising Israel to talk to their Thrivent agent or make an appointment at Newman's to pick out a casket. God is making Ezekiel a watchman for another reason. In Ezekiel's day, watchmen would stand on the city towers and warn the people when the enemy was coming. It is because of that enemy that the Lord sent Ezekiel to the house of Israel and me to you. Satan, sin, death, and hell are encamped around those whom the Lord loves. These enemies desire to drag all of the Lord's beloved children down into the misery of unbelief and despair. They wanted to do it in Ezekiel's day, and they still want to do it now. But eternal death is invisible to our mortal eyes. We can't look to the ground see the fires of hell that are reaching out for the unbelieving world. We can't smell the brimstone. We can't feel the burning sulfur. But the enemy is there. When sickness, war, famine, and disease try to drag unbelievers into the grave, Satan tries to use these trials to sow seeds of despair and unbelief. Satan's greatest desire is for all people to die outside of God's love for them on the cross. And Satan isn't content just with those who don't believe. If he can use the trails of this world to make you stumble and fall... if he can make you despair of God's love for you, he will do it. In fact, he is working tirelessly even now to draw you away from your Savior. But the Lord does love you. He has sent His only begotten Son to suffer all His wrath against sin. He has redeemed you with a mighty hand and with arms outstretched on a cross. Because of the Lord's eternal love for you, He has sent watchmen. First of all, he has sent pastors to preach the Law in all its sternness. God has given the Law so that you can recognize your sin and know how it has destroyed both your relationship with Him and with your neighbor. He wants to work repentance in you. Unless the wicked man in you, your Old Adam, is cut to the heart by God's holy law, physical death will lead to eternal death. Luther wrote of what God wants to accomplish by the Law when he said, “But the chief office or force of the Law is to reveal original sin with all its fruit. It shows us how very low our nature has fallen, how we have become utterly corrupted. The Law must tell us that we have no God, that we do not care for God, and that we worship other gods—something we would not have believed before and without the Law. In this way, we become terrified, humbled, depressed. We despair and anxiously want help, but see no escape.” But Luther does not stop here. That is because where the Law ends, the Gospel begins! Luther continues, “But to this office of the Law, the New Testament immediately adds the consoling promise of grace through the Gospel... Whenever the Law alone exercises its office, without the Gospel being added, there is nothing but death and hell, and one must despair, as Saul and Judas did... On the other hand, the Gospel brings consolation and forgiveness... As Psalm 130:7 says against the dreadful captivity of sin, 'with the Lord is … plentiful redemption.'” After God commands Ezekiel to say to us, “O wicked man, you will surely die,” He is not done speaking yet. The Lord Himself is the author of the Law. He knows better than you, I, Ezekiel, or Dr. Luther that the Law by itself will lead us to despair. The Lord has heard Israel's cry of anguish. They say, “Surely our transgressions and our sins are upon us, and we rot away because of them. How then can we live?” When the Lord hears this He gives Ezekiel another word to speak. The Lord says to Ezekiel “Say to my people, 'As I live, declares the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live; turn back, turn back from your evil ways, for why will you die, O house of Israel.'” If the Lord did not desire you, His beloved children, to live, He wouldn't send a watchman. He wouldn't warn you of your sin with the words, “You will surely die.” He would sit back and let you live a life of death and misery that would last for eternity. The same goes for you. When you see your brother fall into sin, it is not loving to sit back and watch. There is no compassion in allowing your friend to hurt themselves and others by transgressing God's Law. The loving thing is to warn them. You may not say, as Ezekiel did, “O wicked one, you will surely die.” You will probably say something more like, “I'm concerned about you. I know how my sin hurts me when I do it, and I don't want you to do anything that would harm you.” And so, today, the Lord has sent you a watchman. The Lord comes to you in the Divine Service with His loving Word of Law. He does not want you, the sinner, to die. He does not want you to walk in the way of death. People loved by God, it is our sins, yours and mine, that put Jesus on the road to His death. When your Savior was nailed to the cross the Father laid all our iniquity on Him and said, “O wicked one, you will surely die.” When Jesus died, He paid the penalty. He forgave you. He won life and salvation for you for all eternity. The Lord takes no pleasure in the death of a sinner. He desires for you to turn from your evil way and live. And so He has cut you with the Law. He has spoken tenderly to you in His Word of Gospel. He has told you your warfare is ended. He has pardoned you. He has offered His own Son to Himself as a blood offering. Because Jesus has died, you will live. Jesus is the fulfillment of the sacrifice whose death covered Adam and Eve's sin in the garden. He is the very Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Perfect communion between God and man has been restored. But not just that. You have been restored to communion with your Savior. You probably first experienced it when water was poured on your forehead and the Lord sealed you with His own name by the waters of Holy Baptism. You also experience this perfect communion every time the Lord comes to you and gives you His body to eat and His blood to drink. You experience it again every time that you hear the Words, “I forgive you all your sins I the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.” The Lord hates sin, dear Christians, because He loves you. Your God went to the cross. When he saw death and hell marching in war against you, He faced them personally. When Satan shrieked in glee that He had overcome the Son of God, Jesus rose victorious from the grave and gave life and salvation to all the Lord's children. Rejoice, people loved by God. Your sins are forgiven and you are free. In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. And the peace of God which surpasses all understanding keep your heart and your mind in faith in Christ Jesus. Amen. Rev. Charles R. Lehmann Pastor, Saint John's Lutheran Church, Accident, MD http://chaz-lehmann.livejournal.com ___________________________________________________________________________ 'CAT 41 Sermons & Devotions' consists of works that are, unless otherwise noted, the copyrighted property of the various authors; posting of such gives members of this list implied consent for redistribution _with_ _attribution_ unless otherwise specified by the author, as well as for quoting or use in a congregational setting _with_or_without_attribution_. 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