The Prophets Speak

Introductions

I dedicate this to and in honor of the Elect who are at this very moment deceived.  Some of them stand in the very house of truth, yet refuse to believe this house is fully grasped by fire.  They act as if the only fire in the house is the stove’s pilot light which is supposed to be there, instead of acting like an enemy has torched the four corners of the house.  If they believed the house was fully ablaze they would act FAR differently.  In the meantime they go from being “busy to busier” in the Lord’s work, while the Lord’s work burns around them.  If they believed how great the disaster was they would clearly sound the alarm so all would hear and take notice, and halt all other activity except that which saved the house.  Instead they go on as if the only fire in the house is the pilot light in the kitchen.

Luther:  Whenever some great upheaval threatens, whenever some great evil threatens, He sends His prophets or ministers of the Word to announce His Word, to foretell the ills which are coming and, after preaching the Word, to turn at least a few hearts and call them to repentance.  No doubt, since we have the Word of God so very clearly, we ought to be waiting for a great upheaval.  But only the Lord knows what will happen in the future and when it will happen.  (God has given us 500 years to “fill our iniquity”; this iniquity began with Melanchthon’s softness and is fully manifest by the thorough confusion of Word and sacrament.)

If we cannot be insulted, we cannot be Christ’s.

“O Lord, thou hast deceived me, and I was deceived: thou art stronger than I, and hast prevailed: I am in derision daily, everyone mocketh me.  For since I cried out, I cried violence and spoil; because the word of the Lord was made a reproach unto me, and a derision, daily.  Then I said, I will not make mention of him, nor speak any more in his name.  But his word was in mine heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I was weary with forbearing, and I could not stay.  For I heard the defaming of many, fear on every side.  But the Lord is with me as a mighty terrible one: therefore my persecutors shall stumble, and they shall not prevail: they shall be greatly ashamed; for they shall not prosper: their everlasting confusion shall not be forgotten.  But, O Lord of hosts, that triest the righteous, and seest the reins and the heart, let me see thy vengeance on them: for unto thee have I opened my cause.  Sing unto the Lord, praise ye the Lord: for he hath delivered the soul of the poor from the hand of evildoers.”

It was my intention to compile Joel, because it highlighted some of my concerns for this present generation.  But as I reviewed Luther’s comments on the other prophets, I realize that what I needed to do was to compile them all.  I trust the reader will view this work respectfully as a sort of annotated bibliography of some of the Minor Prophets.  In them we learn of what takes us to idolatry, what keeps us there, and what will happen if we stay there.

Errors of one sort or another abound in all churches today.  Everyone I talk to is most concerned about the state of the church and are trying to counteract this slide.  Yet, no one I know has my conviction that this spiritual deterioration can only be halted by a humble returning to Luther, who can teach us again what it truly means to be justified by faith in Christ alone.  The words are on our lips, but the meaning has been removed from our hearts. 

Anyone with true spiritual reasoning would be able to make the same judgments I make.  For one, if the Lords Meal is so important to our spiritual health, it stands to reason that if our spiritual health is weak then we should make this connection.  Yet we do not.  We go smugly along so assured that God is pleased with us.  We create more and more “spiritual” activity and exercise, yet the church grows weaker and colder.  No one I know today has any real understanding of “This is My Body, this is My Blood, given to you for the remission of sins.” 

Well, I am writing for the humble, the Elect.  This compilation is offered as a help to understand the spiritual climate of the day.  In this work I will arrange the Prophets’ messages in a way that serves my purpose, which I trust is the purpose of the Spirit.  I certainly mean no disrespect to Scripture and I most certainly do not want to take Scripture out of context.  I only ask the reader to consider that I am trying to give him a birdseye view of the Prophets Hosea through Malachi.  May God move my hands, heart, and mind.

Seeing as how the Protestants are hopelessly lost in their spiritual arrogance, I will write primarily with those with a Lutheran background in mind.  I remember many times when I was counseling Lutherans wondering in amazement at how little they understood the meaning of basic Christian/Lutheran concepts.  But they had at least been taught the vocabulary and phraseology, which made it much easier for them to comprehend the truth of what they had been taught, experientially, when I explained to them the true meaning of what they had been taught.  It is my sincere desire to influence all religious people to the truth, but it is most difficult to “convert” a person or a people who will not exert any effort to search for the Treasure. 

For about three years now my message has been unwavering: We are profaning the Lord’s Table and Christ is judging us for this; if we will submit our minds to Luther, it may be the Lord will have mercy on our hypocrisy.  For this reason, I will begin…

Text  (Scripture, my comments, Luther’s comments)

Compiled from Luther’s Works, Volume 18.

Hosea 1:2  For the land commits great harlotry. 

Idolatry is to do without faith what you imagine you are doing to worship God.

Idolatry is the genuine trust in works; harlotry is to sin with unfaithfulness against the First Commandment.  Properly, harlotry is to act against the First Commandment in the name of God, that is, to do without faith what you imagine you are doing to worship God.

Hosea 2:15  The Valley of Confusion (Achor).

Why do we have so little persecution today?  Could a genuine cross be coming?

The sense is: “I shall give her the Valley of Achor, that is, the cross and stirring up of evils, so that there through patience she may be prepared for Me as My wife.”  The Valley of Achor will be better for her than the riches of Baal.

Hosea 4:16  Israel departs. 

It is the history of God’s people to remove themselves from the Royal Way.

Israel bolts, like a stubborn cow, a young heifer.  She is untamed; she does not walk on the straight and royal way.  She does not stay on the path but goes off on her own ways.

Hosea 5:15  Until you fail.

The Lord desires to show you your sin: the beginning of your sin is an ignorance of Luther.

“You will be condemned and judged for a long time; that is, until you feel your sins and guilt.  Then your own sin will drive you to seek my face.”

Hosea 6:3  Like the timely showers.

An examination of Luther will reveal to you that you are not giving your people the “evening Gospel.”

The Word of the Gospel is the evening rain, because it is the Word of the cross.  It is the morning shower because it is the Word of comfort and re-creation.

Hosea 7:11  Ephraim is like a dove.

You have been, to a terrifying extent, blinded by the spirit of this age.

He is easily misled by false prophets and passes no judgment on their doctrines.  A well-meaning, silly people is Ephraim.

Hosea 7:16  A treacherous bow.

I am pious, yet I have no earthly place to commune in peace.

We are the bow of the Lord when we walk in His Word as if wearing weapons.  When He does battle through us against the faithless and wicked, then we are called His bow.  But these people are a deceitful bow.  You see, they have the appearance of being fighters for piety, but with that appearance they fight against piety.

Hosea 8:5  Your calf has been spurned, O Samaria.

Knowingly or unknowingly, you have allowed Calvin to fashion your God.  You have Baptist-like people in your church polluting the would-be godly with vain philosophy.

Free will creates nothing but an idol, because it wants control in divine matters.  God wants to fashion, not to be fashioned.

(Are you in God’s dressing room trying on His righteous clothing, or clutching at your filthy garments?)

Hosea 9:9  As in the days of Gibeah.

EVERY person I have talked with has defended their sin initially—even those who have come to agree with my assessment.  EVERYONE is defensive.  NO ONE will be insulted.

Note the account of the Levite’s woman who was ravished in Judges 19.  This is deep corruption, where there is not just weakness or mistake, but where there is pure evil.  The people of Gibeah defended their sin.

Hosea 10:11  Ephraim was a heifer trained. 

My troubles really grew when I suggested our pastors were greedy, even though many LCMS pastors agreed with me.

Every interest of theirs is toward seeking their own; their interest is in eating and drinking.  Ephraim is trained to seek its own gain.   The first sin is that they mislead the people with false doctrine; the second, that their belly is their concern.

Hosea 10: 12  That He may come. 

Having examined your innermost self, can you confess you are most content with the bare goodness of God, only?

He has related this to Christ.  Paul says it this way (I Thess. 5:23): “At the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ,” as we await the coming of the great day.  Also: “Be like men waiting for their master to come.”  (Luke 12:36)  No one taught righteousness except Christ in public.  Whoever does a good work in order to get something (and not freely) from God, he plows wickedness, he reaps iniquity and eats the bread of falsehood.

Hosea 11:9  I am God, and not a human being.

How can you know you are part of the Remnant when your “distress” is no greater than that of any person alive?

“I strike down and I heal.  Man wants to uproot everything, but not I.”  This is a wonderful promise of the mercy of God: “I want My reputation for mercy to remain safe.  I also want people to flee to Me for refuge.  “If I oppress you, you should flee for refuge to Me.  Stay there.”  By nature man wants to run away when God oppresses him.  “To Me!  To Me in distress!”

Hosea 12:1  Ephraim herds the wind and pursues Eurus.

Is your zeal blinding you to your spiritual bankruptcy?

By wind he means empty pursuits.  The apostle speaks about beating the air.  It is as if he were saying: “Ephraim attempts many things, but all things are vain.”  To work in vain is “to herd the wind,” so that the damage returns to the person working.  “He pursues” means he attends to it with excessive zeal.

Hosea 12:4  Jacob wrestled with the angel and prevailed.

Are you aware that Jacob was convinced God was trying to kill him, thereby nullifying His promise; and that this is the one true interpretation of Jacob’s fight with Christ?

Jacob fought that harsh and lofty battle against God.  The conscience feels the force of sin and at the same time the force of divine wrath, which is intolerable.  At that time Jacob was in agony because the Lord wanted to kill him, when neither Satan nor a creature seemed to fight, but God.  From the sword the conscience goes over to divine wrath, when He threatens with the spear.  Before Jacob was born, he was a conqueror, but the sort of conqueror who had beaten a man.  After he had been born and when he lived, he overcame God and the angel.

Are you sure you have experienced the wrath of God in your conscience?  Do you minimize the wrath of God, saying, “God is love, Tim, that’s all God is?”

Hosea 12:5  Memorial

Are you afraid of Luther because you fear begin supplanted in your theological opinions?  Even if your opinions are true, is there not a need for them to be “overcome” and recreated within you?  It is on this premise that I believe it would be healthy, for the godly, to recreate the Book of Concord from a humble study of Luther.

“Ephraim is now surrounding Me with his lies.  The Lord will render to him as he deserves.  Yet they ought  to look to Him and worship Him as the God whom their fathers, or his father, worshipped.  If you want to worship God correctly at Bethel, do what your father did.  What did he do?  ‘In the womb.’  This was divine election.  God worked in him.  There is no reason for you to glory in your self-chosen worship.  If you want to be genuine followers of Jacob, do what Jacob did.  You do not supplant, but you are supplanted.  Also, he wrestled with God.  This is an example of very great faith.  You, however, do not cling to the promises of God as Jacob did.”

Hosea 13:3  Therefore they will be  like the morning mist.

Does it not concern you, tell you something, that this feel-good worship has blown across the whole religious landscape?

They will pass over like the morning cloud which the sin dissipates.  This is how your worship, your security, and boasting will turn out.  He is describing the pleasant feeling they have from that worship, but that will quickly pass and be changed.

Hosea 13:4  I am the Lord your God.

Are you immune from the firstfruit of human nature—to rage against God?

This is a complete condemnation of every worship which God has not established.  “There is no salvation outside of Me.  I have saved you.  I can still save you.  But it helps not at all.  They have their fill.  As they have an abundance of all things, so also do they enjoy that abundance.  Thus they rage proudly against Me and the prophets whom I send.  In this way, they hold me in contempt the God who wants them to worship Him in faith and fear.”

Hosea 13:7  I will tear open their breast.

Lukewarmness keeps on attacking.  Unionism keeps on attacking.  Calvin keeps on attacking.  The pope has always attacked.  Greed has won the day.

“I will cut their hearts to pieces with My sword.”  They have done the same thing as we have done with the Turks.  First we prayed and made our supplications.  Then we looked for human assistance.  The Turk, however, keeps on attacking.

Hosea 13:12  The iniquity of Ephraim is bound up.

If you cannot deeply consider what I am saying, you have put your sin in the sack of stoutheartedness.

They cannot be set free from their iniquity.  They justify their sin.  They cannot bear the fact that their sin is considered sin.  This is what our own priests are doing.  “My Ephraim has put his sin into a sack and is hiding it.”

Hosea 14:2  Accept that which is good.

Thanksgiving only comes from a crushed heart; the Gospel is not the Gospel without the wrath of God.

That is, “Take the good thing, that You may give us something to distribute among ourselves.”  He is saying, as it were, “Put aside our wrath and iniquity from Your hand.  Take a good thing to give us.”  These are the proper bulls; that is, thanksgiving and the preaching of the Gospel.

Hosea 14:8  From Me.

Do you not feel just a bit indispensable?  Does your creed and confession of faith belong to you, or God?

Not from you!  This is a prophecy of mercy—a rejection of everything that belongs to us.  “I am the vine, you are the branches.”  (John 15:5)

Hosea 14:9  Whoever is wise, let him understand these things.  Whoever is discerning, let him know them.

Does it not cause you consternation that EVERYONE considers themselves to be the Few, the Humble, and the Godly?

That is, there are few of these people.  These are outstanding promises.  But who understands them?  People stick to their own parades; but who will succeed?  The church blushes with shame.  They will be terrified by the cross.

Hosea 14:9  Thy ways are right.

If what I am saying offends you, you are in the wrong parade.  I wish you knew how respectfully I say this.

However, they will appear heretical and will be condemned.  The liars are the transgressors.  Here you have a picture of how the Gospel should function: the poor will be improved by it; others who are in the parade will be offended because of it.

Joel 1:5  Awake, you drunkards.

You know we are greedy and spoiled, yet you do not allow this to make you terrified at the fruit of greed and fullness.  You do not much understand that our senses are like five mighty kingdoms seeking to take us away from Christ.

“Wake up, you people who are accustomed to luxurious and splendid living, you who are accustomed to having an abundance of all things so that you are drunk from that abundance, wake up now!  Weep, mourn, repent!  Look at God’s work and be terrified.  Consider what is going to happen to you!”

Joel 1:12  Gladness fails.

Can you not consider that Gospel-Gladness has been supplanted by a flesh-gladness?  This is the cyclical history of mankind and you think it cannot happen at the end of time?

The prophet is speaking about confusion.  Gladness, that is, that over which they ought to be glad, has totally perished and has been destroyed.

Joel 1:15  The day of the Lord.

The Lord will visit you with peace if you submit you heart, mind, and soul to “Tribulation Confession.”

Obviously another day will come on which the Lord will come to visit, just as Peter also calls it a “day of inspection,” or a “day of visitation” (I Peter 2:12).  The prophets do not call only the final Day of Judgment “the day of the Lord.”  They also give this name to any day of visitation.  You see, the Lord comes in His time.  He destroys those whom He wants to destroy, those at whom He used to close His eyes for a time.  This, then, he calls “the day of the Lord.”  This is a day when the Lord visits us either in grace or in anger.

Joel 1:19  Unto Thee, O Lord, I cry.

Unto Thee, O Lord, I cry.  Help! Dear Lord, for the godly cease from the face of the earth!  Help! O Lord, for the foundations are destroyed!

These are words of sympathy.  “O Lord, have mercy; O Lord God, what awful things are happening!”

Joel 2:5  As with the rumbling of chariots they leap on the tops of the mountains.

Do you believe anything you are doing, including your political activism and program building, is going to save or protect you from Satan’s fury, as is evidenced in the liberal antagonism of religion today?  God will shortly grant Satan his wish to unleash their hatred upon us.

“They will be far from fearing your power or resistance, because they are going to rejoice and be glad when they attack and destroy you.  They will kick up their heels for joy.”

Joel 2:11  And the Lord utters His voice.

God will fight against you, the Elect, as he did with Jacob, to prove you are part of the Remnant.

“All this,” he says, “is going to happen, not because those enemies can accomplish that much, not because they have so much strength, but because this is the will of the Lord, because the Lord will terrify us with His voice and we shall not be able to stand firm.  Such great evils will overrun us, not because they are powerful, but because we are sinners.”  This is especially horrifying and terrible in any adversity, when God terrifies us by making us aware of our sins.  For people so frightened, every courage and confidence fails, so that even a falling leaf terrifies us.   Otherwise, if every devil were to fall upon a righteous man, they would still accomplish nothing against him.  His conscience is safe before God if he knows that God still intends good for him, that God will not desert him.  But when the Lord utters His voice, when He takes away our courage, He has an easy time fighting against us.  Here no man will be able to stand firm.

Joel 2:12  Return to Me in all your heart.

It is my great fear, anxiety and sadness that I will accomplish nothing.

We also see the same thing in the case of Abraham who prayed so earnestly for the salvation of the Sodomites that he also postponed the judgment of God.  However, he accomplished nothing.  They refused to repent.  Finally, then, the wrath of God came upon them, and they all perished to a man.  When the people did not persevere, there followed the judgment of God of which he here had warned them.

Examine yourself to see whether your sorrow works life or death in you.  Pietistic sorrow will only take you to Hell with Judas.  Godly sorrow, a sorrow that condemns self and seeks only to rest upon God’s Promise, will take you to Heaven with David.

“With all your heart,” the prophet means without pretending but truly, without any hypocrisy.  He aptly touches hypocrisy and that servile worship of God of hypocrites about which we read in Ps. 78:34: “When He slew them, they sought for Him and returned.”  Their heart was not right with Him.  You see, in time of persecution, hypocrites pretend penitence but not with a right or whole heart.

Joel 2:12  With fasting and weeping.

Without Luther, it is unlikely that you know what a “right” heart looks like.

Do these externals also accomplish something for the matter, or is not true repentance of the heart alone enough?  Certainly the latter is true, but we judge  a tree by its fruit.  To be sure, this demands fasting, weeping, mourning, but he first sets down “with the whole heart,” as if to say: “Unless these come from a right heart, they are hypocrisy.  They accomplish nothing.”  A genuine conversion, however, is later indicated by those external signs.  The Holy Spirit has beautifully described conversion in such a way that the heart first repents truly,  not spuriously.  Finally, it also shows faith outwardly by those works.  If that faith should not be present, everything else becomes nothing.

Joel 2:13  Rend your hearts and not your garments.

You are afflicted over the state of the church.  Do your complaining and self-evident solutions reveal your air-beating?

He purposely makes this addition to condemn hypocrisy.  It was a custom of the Jews to tear their clothing when they were afflicted over something.  With it writers would show a great and violent disturbance of the heart.  But yet, from the long use of this practice, it had degenerated into hypocrisy, as genuflection, so called processions, and very many other things have become pure hypocrisy among us.  Thus he wants them to rend their hearts, not only their clothes.  He says, as it were: “At times you are accustomed to rend your clothes hypocritically and not your hearts.”

Joel 2:13  He easily repents of evil.

Be terrified now by what I am bringing to your attention, or be terrified later.  Either way, God wants your ultimate comfort and consolation.  But this must be a consolation of true faith, not of the flesh.

He quickly discontinues the misfortune He intended to inflict.  “He is easily moved to forgive.”  It is wonderful to  see here the plan of the Holy Spirit, who up to now has been heaping up and enlarging the threat in order to send them back to the goodness and mercy of God, indicating by this that the wrath and anger of God work toward salvation, so that sinners who have thus been terrified by the threats and judgment of God come to their senses and accept and recognize God as their merciful Father.  In this way, you see, He terrifies sinners in such a way that they lift up their hearts in hope and in the mercy of God.  This is the custom of all the prophets—they first terrify with very violent and bitter threats, but they immediately add very great, very sweet promises about the mercy and goodness of God.  The effect of each word (that is, of threats and promises), however, is different in the righteous from what it is among the wicked.  You see, the wicked use neither threats nor promises correctly.  When they hear threats, they do not think the threats apply to them.  This is the way they support their own hypocrisy.  Thus they remain obdurate in their wickedness, which they nevertheless think is the epitome of righteousness.  Therefore such broad promises, which require nothing but broken and contrite hearts, are also not effective  in them.  And because this does not happen in the wicked through threats, neither are promises effective in them.  The righteous, on the other hand, use them correctly, for they are bruised and cast down by the angry threats of God; they bear divine judgment; they recognize their sin and their damnation.  So, when they hear these promises, they turn to the mercy of God.  In this way their consciences again are lifted up and become peaceful.  The wicked are hard-hearted anvils; unmoved by all of this, they never act differently.  So we entertain only vain hopes today that they will act differently.  This, however, is the custom of God Almighty, that He takes His faithful to hell before He brings them back.  Finally, however, after condemning and terrifying them, He brings them back and comforts them.  Today we see the same thing clearly among our own wicked people.  So long as we have been receiving the holy Gospel of our great God through the grace of Christ, our princes have been doing nothing else than oppose themselves to God with their stiff necks.  When we preach that the judgment and vengeance of God are going to come, they laugh at us.  In fact, they want to be charged with absolutely no wickedness.  They pretend that they stand squarely on the Gospel.  Because they are so blind, no threats stir them.  In the meantime, God is postponing His judgment, which already for a long time He has intended for them.  I say, He is postponing it for the sake of some pious people, lest they also perish along with the wicked and this become the disgrace of the Gospel.  When these pious people have been removed, then those despisers will feel the vengeful wrath of God upon themselves.  This is what Isaiah says (Is. 57:1): “Devout men are taken away, while no one understands.”  You see, this is a hidden plan of the Lord-why He gradually gathers the devout to the fathers.  But at last we understand.  God cannot refrain from saving His devout people, whom He terrifies with His judgment.   He does not, however, allow them to lose hope.  You see, immediately consolation follows.  Also, it is because of the righteous alone that He adds the comfort.  When consciences have been terrified and shocked, the word of threat has performed its function.  Therefore the heart must be lifted up immediately, so that after it has been upset and terrified, it may embrace the mercy and goodness of God.  When this happens, that person’s bones again become strong.

(If you do not understand something I have said, remember that a genuine hearer of the Word will ask questions before he makes rash judgments.)

Joel 2:14  Who knows whether He will not turn and repent?

God “barely encourages.”  Who do you think is greatly encouraging you?

He is speaking in the fashion of a terrified conscience which finally, after being afflicted, is barely encouraged and begins to breathe again for hope and for the goodness of God.  God then ceases from the evil which He had intended.  He does not continue to want evil for us.

Joel 2:14  And leave a blessing behind Him.

A true Christian grasps for crumbs; what does it mean that you are certain you have the full loaf?

“He will not be so angry that He will show no remnants of His mercy.”  Certainly it happens in contrite consciences that they desire some shred of the merciful goodness of God.  This is what we see in the woman of Canaan, about whom the Gospel speaks.  This is how the contrite and humble conscience comforts itself.  Those people who have experienced this know and understand such things.  This is how it reads in the Hebrew:  “He will leave some remnants of His blessing later, so that clearly it is not pure wrathful indignation in Him, but He will also show a sample of His goodness and mercy.  Here we see what sort of thing the conscience is.  It tenaciously guards the hope it has about God so that even in the greatest desperation, in the greatest tribulation and anguish, it grasps for the goodness of God, it still hopes for good things from God.  Especially does it perceive the wrath of God upon all creatures.  Yet it does not despair.  It still believes that there is a bit of mercy and reconciliation left for it.  This we must particularly note.  You see, this passage is a very common word for service in every temptation.  Therefore this passage ought to be recommended to us so that we can use it in any sort of temptation at all. 

Joel 2:14  A cereal offering and a drink offering for the Lord your God. 

Again, a true Christian only sees “shreds” of God’s mercy.

God will not be so forgetful of His goodness that He will not leave some remnant thereof behind.  We shall still serve Him and declare His wondrous works.  This is the same thing which we read in Psalm 42:5: “Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you disquieted within me?  Hope in God, for I shall still praise Him.”  Also, Ps. 118:17:  “I shall not die, but I shall live and recount the deeds of the Lord.”  Again, we read in Ps. 6:2-5:  “Be gracious to me, O Lord, for I am languishing…deliver me for the sake of Thy steadfast love, for in death there is no remembrance of Thee; in Sheol who can give Thee praise?”  But these, nevertheless, all are fluctuations between hope and despair.  The sense, then, is this:  “He will have mercy on us.  He will take back His wrath.  The Lord will look on us with kindness.  Let us just repent.  He will not reject us.  Let us just lay hold on His goodness.  There will be some shred of His mercy left.  He will not be angry forever.”

Joel 2:15  Let the bridegroom leave his room. 

What pleases you?  Do you repent of it?

For the most part he is explaining what he meant with the fast—not so much an abstinence from foods, but that they should abstain and hold themselves back from all pleasures and delights.

Joel 2:17  Between the vestibule and the altar let the priests, the ministers of the Lord, weep and pray. 

This is how he teaches them to pray.   “Spare Thy people, O Lord.”

You can spare your people by warning them of the wrath to come; you spoil them by unconditionally blessing their pursuits.

Joel 2:17  Why should they say among the peoples: Where is their God?

Surely God has not rejected the True Church, the LCMS, for I am a live shoot out of the dry ground!

“What is finally going to happen, O Lord, if You will have destroyed all of us?  The matter will bring You into disgrace.  Your glory will be in peril, for this affair will provide the unbelieving nations with an opportunity to blaspheme against Your people and against Your holy Word.  If we should all perish, the shame would be Yours.”  Undoubtedly today for the sake of His own glory He also spares us who hold His Gospel in contempt.  Otherwise He would have punished us long ago already.  This is not a common question but a very difficult one.  It also gave so much trouble to the apostle Paul that four chapters were scarcely enough for him to treat it, as we see in Romans.  Yet he explained the matter quite coldly and not completely satisfactorily.  Finally he thinks he has resolved it and says, “Surely, God has not rejected His people altogether, for I myself am an Israelite.”  A remarkable solution!  Therefore we will not be able to match him in solving the problem.  God smites His people, and yet He does it in such a way that the heathen may not say, “Where is their God?”  Still He saves only the tiniest remnant of His people.

Joel 2:28  I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh.

I know how offensive it must be to listen to such a Fool who has been taught by God.  You must acknowledge that, at least in theory, I have the right to teach.

The Holy Spirit is poured out in two ways: by manifest vision or revelation and by secret inspiration.  Here, then, he is speaking about the Holy Spirit as He is manifestly poured out and revealed with obvious signs.  Here there will be no respect for persons, for to each will be given the authority to teach and preach, neither through man nor by man but divinely by God.  There will not be some order of those who alone had the power of priestly function.  Instead, the Holy Spirit will be poured out on all flesh.  All will be teachers and priests of God.  Jer. 31:33-34: “I will put My law within them, and I will write it upon their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people…for they shall all know Me from the least of them to the greatest.”  Also Is. 54:13: “All your sons shall be taught by the Lord.”  John 6:45:  “They shall all be taught by God.” 

God gave Luther the “new doctrine” in manifest Light.  The idea that “Luther broke the dam and Calvin made the water pure” is a doctrine of Satan’s dearest demon.

“On all flesh,” does not mean those who give no evidence of the Spirit.  It is not enough to have the Spirit poured in.  Indeed, this benefits you alone.  But you must show and openly give evidence of that manifestation and outpouring of the Spirit in order that all flesh may see it.  Because so many cannot do this, let them with us remain students of Holy Scripture.  They must not establish some new kind of doctrine which they pretend to establish by the authority of the Holy Spirit.  After all, if Christ is going to establish a new kind of preaching, He will not do this in darkness nor in the heart of one or another person.  Rather, He will declare it with an open sign, lest anyone be able to have doubts about it. 

Joel 2:30  The moon to blood.

Whoever wants to relate these signs to the final Day of Judgment will do this without any resistance from me. 

Joel 2:32  And it shall come to pass that all who call on the name of the Lord shall be delivered.

Luther said: Belief is more important than faith, conscience or works.

He shall be redeemed from sin, death, and hell.  He will pass from the misery of this life to eternal life.  This deliverance is derived from no other source except from the Holy Spirit poured out on all flesh, and He sees to it that people call on the name of the Lord.  In short, what he is saying here is the same as what Paul emphasizes everywhere—that man is justified by faith, without the works of the Law.  You see, “To call upon the name” is to believe, as Paul interpreted it with very beautiful steps in Romans 10:14: “How are men to call upon Him in whom they have not believed?  And how are they to believe…”  With these steps he has very beautifully included the entire progression of our salvation.  You see, first people must be sent to announce the Gospel.  Hearing follows this sending, faith follows hearing, calling on the name of the Lord follows faith, and salvation follows this invocation.  Thus the Christian kingdom is nothing else than the kingdom of faith in the Word of God—namely, that salvation comes to us not by our own strength, not by our own merits or righteous, but out of the gracious mercy of God.

Joel 3:10  Beat your plowshares into swords.

Are you willing to sacrifice EVERYTHING to the Gospel battle?  You say “yes” too easily.  What if your opinions coincided with mine; would you be able to risk the ridicule, abandonment, and shame from family and friends?

“Take the Word and fight bravely.”  The plowshare and pruning hook are instruments of peace; spears and swords instruments of war.  The meaning, then, is this: “Those very  instruments which you used for peace before you now must accommodate to war and battle.”  This is exactly what Christ says:  “Let him who has two mantles sell the one and buy himself a sword.”  Yet both are speaking correctly.  One is speaking about the physical and spiritual peace which began under Christ, but the other is speaking about the spiritual battle of the Word of the Gospel.

Joel 3:10  Let the weak say: I am a warrior.

I am an offscouring to you, while you possess all things.

Paul says: “We rejoice in our sufferings.”  Although Christians may be weak, helpless, and cast down, they nevertheless are very powerful.  This is something Paul teaches everywhere: “Having nothing, yet possessing all things,” and “We have become as the refuse of the world, the offscouring of all things.”

Joel 3:13  For their wickedness is great.

If you cannot consider my opinions, how do you know you are willing? How do you know you have “come to your senses?”  Have you considered that the greatest aspect of our Old Adam is our opinions?  Have you considered what a death it is to die to your opinions?  Is it really that offensive to you that your opinions are mostly wrong and Luther’s opinions are mostly right?  Will you really beg off this question by saying, “Sola Scripture or Sola Luther?”  You are my “winepress”: what will my stomping yield?

The “winepress” is the whole world, in which the grapes are pressed and wine abounds.  This is the way Isaiah has used this (Is. 63:3): “I have trodden the winepress alone, and from the peoples no one was with me.”  Thus through the Word He crushed all nations under His power, whether they were unwilling or willing.  The unwilling  ones are judged and condemned.  After the willing ones have been judged, they come to their senses.  They acknowledge His grace, and, once they have acknowledge His grace, they are saved.  Indeed, faith is nothing else than the genuine recognition of the goodness and mercy of God or of the face of God, as the prophets say.  In these passages, then, we have the pure preaching of the virtue and power of the Word of God.

Joel 3:16  And the Lord will roar from Zion.

The Lord did roar through Luther’s voice and pen; we have turned the roar down to a faint whisper.

The Lord will bring this battle to pass solely by His Word.

Joel 3:16  The Lord will be the Hope of His people.

Potentially, do not all our causes, ministries, activism, program building, and worship wars indicate our trust in our own weapons?

Here again the prophet is explaining clearly what sort of a war that is going to be, namely, a spiritual one: that Christ is going to rule among His people, that is, among the faithful who are going to believe in Him.  Thus He will be the Surety of His people.  In His kingdom, then, all human powers, all weaponry, will cease, All things will be done in faith. 

Do you believe that it is EASY to lose the Word?

Luther:  We need extensive instruction and a wealth of the Word of God, lest, misled by the flesh and surrounded by Satan, we extinguish the Spirit—which can happen very easily.

Amos 1:1  Who was among the shepherds of Tekoa.

I am a lowly house painter, taken from the ranks of Baptist and Protestant heresy: Does this offend you?

Amos did not belong to the order of prophets.  The people were ruled by what the prophets, priests and wise men decided.  Confident of their own authority, they became puffed up.  To resist them was looked upon as blasphemy.  For, as we read in Jer. 18:18, they said, “The Law shall not perish from the priest, nor counsel from the wise, nor the Word from the prophet.”  In contempt of those who became so proud, the Lord, however, often aroused humble, common men who belonged to neither the prophetic nor priestly order.  These lowly people thus would resist all those others; they would rebuke them for their wickedness, as we can see here and there in the prophets.  This, however, is the “folly” of God, by which He makes foolish the world and the wisdom of the flesh.  This is what the prophet intends when he calls himself a shepherd of Tekoa.  He indicates that both the place and the person are insignificant.  This, however, is what the apostle Paul says in I Cor. 1:27, that God selected the foolish and weak things of the world to shame the wise and powerful people of the world.

Amos 2:6  Their idols have deceived them.

Is it not possible that you subscribe to Augsberg in like manner as the Pharisees subscribed to the Law?  1,500 years of “odedience” wasn’t justification enough for the Pharisees; is 500 years proof enough for you?  Walther was a pebble compared to Luther, and Walther is a mountain compared to you; yet you have cast mountain and pebble into the sea of human opinion.

“Their lies have caused them to sin.”  He is giving the reason why they are going to be rejected: because they have followed the wicked ways of their wicked fathers.  So does God in a very simple way want us to have respect only for His Word that we may not follow or approve those things which our fathers followed and approved; that those may become ashamed who today are setting up against the clear Word of God a host of ancestors and a length of time.

Amos 2:7  So that My holy name is profaned.

It is our very nature to profane God’s name, yet you will not consider the depth of your potential guilt.

The sum of all their wickedness reaches this point, and all things fall back to this point: they are blaspheming and profaning the holy name of God. 

Amos 2:14  Flight shall perish from the swift.

If you do not repent, someday, you will be hiding in a hole while the rocks of your vain thinking crash down upon you.

He removes every protection.  He threatens that He will take away everything in which they promise themselves safety and flight, every boldness and eagerness to escape.

Amos 1:1  Hear this word that the Lord has spoken against you.

Our true father was Luther; but what does that do for me?  For you?

“Let it be that the Lord has chosen you to be His people.  Let it be that you are famous on His behalf.  Let it be that He has not done the same for every nation.  But you are not righteous just for that reason, because you are transgressors of the divine Law.  Yet you go on pleasing yourself with your own innocence.  But I take it away and condemn it.”

Amos 2:2  Therefore, I will punish you.

Judgment has begun, the fires are raging, yet everyone throws the fuel of their own reason on the fire, instead of the pure extinguishing water which bubbled forth from Luther’s inkwell.

“You think that I ought to spare you because you are My people.  I will, however, punish you the more, that you may learn to know Me and to have faith in Me.  This is what Ezek. 9:6 says: “Begin at My sanctuary”; and I Peter 4:17: “For the time has come for judgment to begin with the household of God; and if it begins with us, what will be the end of those who do not believe the Gospel of God?”  This is the way the puppy gets flogged so the wolfhound may live in fear.  God chastises His own children so that He may afflict even more severely the wicked who do not come to their senses, so that He may rage against them even more harshly.

Amos 2:3  Will two walk together?

You cannot imagine that you are at adversarial odds with God, can you?

The Lord is saying, as it were: “You know from this that I am your adversary, that I am not standing at your side.  In fact, we are not walking on the same road as we ought.  I am not in agreement with you.  Nevertheless, you want to escape unpunished.  You are wicked and have transgressed the Law; yet you argue over your innocence.  Therefore, because I am just, I will not spare your unrighteousness.  I will not stop striking you until you agree with Me, which you now do not, for you are following a road that goes away from Me.”

Amos 3:7  Surely the Lord God does nothing

Does it not make sense to you that any “prophet” God sent to you would be spurned by you?

That is, if something is going to happen, if harm threatens you, the Lord always makes this known through His prophets, whom He sends to predict a coming harm. 

Amos 3:8  The lion will roar; who will not fear?

God is roaring through me: Will you not tremble?

He goes on to strengthen his earlier sermon against the wicked, self-righteous hypocrites, who have convinced themselves of their own holiness.

Amos 3:10  They do not know how to do right.

Surely you know the world laughs at us, and not just because we love God.

That is, “They are so far from being good and devout that they even lack common sense.  They became as stupid as unthinking cattle.”

Amos 3:12  As the shepherd rescues.

Can you consider that God is striking out at you through me; and that I do not hate you from my heart—I do not want you to be destroyed in any way?  I only righteously hate and desire the destruction of your vain opinions.

God does not become angry the way people become angry.  Indeed, people hold such bitterness against those whom they hate that they would prefer them to be destroyed completely rather than have them survive for one hour.  This anger is worse in those who persecute the Word.  But no matter how much God may rage, He is angry and strikes out in such a way that a remnant remains safe nevertheless.

Amos 4:4  Come to Bethel and transgress; to Gilgal.

Calvinism is as impressive as Catholicism; and you have allowed both to take hold, to varying degrees, in your churches.  (And let us not forget about the “Turk” whom Luther predicted would humiliate us.)

Gilgal and Bethel are famous for trying to emulate the priesthood of Judah.  They established a most elaborate worship of God there, although it was contrary to the Word of God.  He is saying, as it were: “I condemn that wicked worship.  I always forbid you to depart from the worship established through My Word.  But you hold Me in utter contempt and go on behaving wickedly.  But go ahead!  Continue!—as if you were not already wicked enough before.  Yes, yes, just continue.”

Amos 4:5  Every three days.

Calvin’s Institutes are not God’s; but are the very transformation of Satan himself into light.  God instituted Luther.  God built a church and Satan came along and built a Calvin next to the true Church.

“You have established a worship of God, you strive to rival Judah which has the law of God to appear before the Lord three times each year, as the Law says.  You also follow the same rule.  You come together and preach and thus multiply your wickedness, for you are doing this without the Word of God and without faith.  These things are your own inventions.  Therefore you are laughing at God, and God is laughing at you.  Nothing has any value before God except what He Himself institutes.”

Amos 4:6  Consequently I gave you cleanness of teeth.

The fact that there is an across-the-board dearth of leadership, which no one can deny, proves we are in a spiritual famine.

“You had eaten nothing for a long time.  I had sent you a famine, but you continue to sin.”   

(Ezra sat stymied.  Are you willing to follow his example?)

Amos 4:13  To meet Me.

Ezek. 22:30: “And I sought for a man among them who should stand in the breach before Me for the land that I should not destroy it; but I found none.”  Isaiah 64:7: “There is no one who bestirs himself to take hold of Thee, there is no one that calls upon Thy name.”   He is saying, as it were: “With those blows with which I struck you I wanted you to return to Me, to meet Me, to come ahead of My wrath and set yourselves before Me, lest I continue to wreak vengeance.  But you are clearly doing the opposite.”

Amos 5:1  Hear this word, O house of Israel, for I take up over you a lamentation: Fallen, no more to rise, is the virgin Israel.

I do not come in my own name or with my own message, yet I am a burden to you.  Does this not give you reason to consider?

When they call the Word of the Lord “the burden,” the prophets are announcing an evil which is going to come to oppress the people.  So they give the Word the title “burden.”  After all, the prophets were troublesome, hateful, burdensome people, announcing as they did nothing but a burden—destruction of regions, the threatening wrath of God.  Paul (along with all preachers of the Word) says, “The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness.”  The flesh is unwilling to bear this preaching which is harsh and oppressive in appearance, for it relies on its own righteousness and thinks that it does not deserve punishment.  But the prophets threaten temporal ill, lest we be forced to endure an eternal one if we do not repent.

Amos 5:4  Seek Me.

I urge you to step off the treadmill of modern religion and allow Luther to take you to the Lord’s healing.

Now the Lord begins a very gentle admonition and warning.  He is saying, as it were:  “Seek Me!  Me!  I am the One who is striking out at you.  I, too, will be able to heal.  Why do you run to your wicked worship at Bethel?  Run back to Me!”

Amos 5:13  It is an evil time.

I am a minority of one, standing against the majority.  The fact that no one has the same solution to our spiritual demise as I do, gives me confidence that “my message” is from the Lord. 

He calls it an evil time because evil people are in the majority.

Amos 5:18  Woe to you who desire the day of the Lord!

Luther repeatedly taught that God used his ministry to restore brilliance and perfect clarity to Scripture.

He is speaking this against the stubborn who despise his preaching, who kept accusing the prophet of lies and foolishness, who kept scorning him and saying that all such things which he was preaching would not come to pass.  Our wicked priests do exactly the same thing today, too. In their complete smugness they blithely despise the Word of God now again revealed to the world in His great goodness.  They laugh at those who threaten them with evil and destruction.

Amos 5:19  As if a man fled from the face of a lion.

You can run from me, but a far worse fate will greet you.

“Go ahead!  Completely despise the Word of the Lord!  You are secure.  You think that it will not come to pass that you will fall into the coming evil.  But that is why it will be impossible for you not to be destroyed, as it is impossible for a man to escape who flees from a lion and meets a bear.  Therefore you will be unable to escape.  When you become confident that you are going to get away, you run into the midst of evil.  I will remove all of your protection.”

Amos 5:21  I hate, I despise your feasts.

How can you so easily presuppose your worship is genuine without a thorough investigation.  It seems to me that many think that when Scripture tells us to work out our salvation with fear and trembling, that the true exposition of this admonition is, “It should be a very pleasant experience taking only a few moments.”

Here again, as if by anticipation, He responds to them because they undoubtedly thought that worship of God Almighty which they had established and considered of the highest value was very pleasing to God, inasmuch as they sang many hymns, did much sacrificing, and built great temples.    The prophet responds: “I hate and despise all these things.  Even your most hallowed activities displease Me, because you are wicked and do everything with a wicked heart.”  So Scripture and the Spirit in Scripture totally condemn everything the wicked do, everything they establish, with which they believe they are pleasing God and with which they think they have followed the works of the Law.  But their heart is wicked and faithless.  This is what is said in Proverbs 21:27: “The sacrifice of the wicked is abomination.”

Amos 5:23  Take away from Me the noise of your songs.

God has taken me across the whole spectrum of Protestantism and I condemn your worship outright.

This is surely great boldness on the part of the prophet, who dared to condemn works that appeared to be so very holy.

Amos 6:5  And, like David, have invented.

Does it not concern you that the feel-good praise songs have united the whole Christian church?

David used the psaltery to praise God, to encourage his love toward God, and to stir up the spirit through the Word of God.  They, on the other hand, use it for their own luxury, to satisfy their own ears.

Amos 7:5  O Lord God, forgive, I beseech Thee.

This is my prayer and has been for two years.  My desire for unity and peace (especially and primarily in true doctrine) is my greatest sadness and my effectual prayer.

Here the prophet is setting himself up as a wall in front of the people to turn away the wrath of God that they may not perish.

Amos 7:10  Then Amaziah…sent.

Scripture is clear: Deceivers will go from bad to worse.  Yet, we respond as if the only deceivers in the world were the ones hitting people over the head on TV.

Here we have an example of that struggle and mockery about which I spoke a little earlier.  This account is well worth noting.  In it one can see what that ungodliness is and what it thinks of the Word of God, how it despises everything that is of God in order to keep its own things safe.  Here the wicked priest Amaziah mocks and despises the pious prophet Amos, a contemptible, lowly shepherd.  This is how the wicked blind and mislead each other with their wickedness, as the apostle says in 2 Tim. 3:13: “Evil men and impostors will go on from bad to worse, deceivers and deceived.”

Amos 7:15  I am a herdsman.

“I do not prophesy for the purpose of getting my food from it.  I am not in pursuit of my own profit or wealth.  Rather, I seek food with my own hands.  I am content to dress the sycamore figs.”

Amos 7: 16  You shall drop your words against the house of Israel.

I empathize that you feel I am “dropping” (dumping) on you.  How would you go about warning of the wrath to come so as to not to become a burden to people who did not want to hear the message?

The prophets frequently use this word “drop words” for the verb “to preach.”  Indeed, whoever preaches drops his words, namely, when he declares the wrath of God and the coming punishment, that is, when he warns and admonishes before the calamity comes; for when it comes, there is a heavy shower of it.

 Amos 8:1  A basket of summer fruit.

The church is a cage of animals fattened with its greed, pleasure, and peaceful interpretation of the Word.

The Hebrew word means a basket, a kind of cage, in which birds are kept and fattened.  The prophet seems to be saying:  “Because I say everything to this people in vain, destruction and death threaten it.  Nothing else remains for it but a wretched death, because I see a cage filled with animals for slaughter.  Whatever belongs to this people will be totally finished and devoured.”

Amos 8:2  I will never again pass by them.

We are here.  The generation Luther speaks of in the early chapters of Hebrews is upon us.  We are it.  (This is entitles, “A Loathed Generation,” at www.askluther.com.

“I will no longer shut My eyes to their wickedness.  I will no longer spare them.”

Amos 8:11  I shall send a famine on the land. 

Do you downplay conscience?  Does not the fact that your people look to pleasures, divorce, medications, religion itself, and causes as much as their counterparts in the world do for satisfaction not cause you alarm?

This is the last blow.  It is the worst, the most wretched, of all.  All the rest of the blows would be bearable, but this is absolutely horrible.  He is threatening to take away the genuine prophets and the true Word of God, so that there is no one to preach, even if men were most eager to wish to hear the Word and would run here and there to hear it.  For when the Word has been taken away, what else remains but the most terrible darkness of human reason which wants to be our mistress and which can teach nothing else than the doctrines of the demons?  After all, what else would darkness teach except darkness and errors?  But there is no peace of conscience.  One does this and another does that.  So we ought to be thankful now to almighty God and we should use that invaluable gift correctly lest it again be taken away from an ungrateful people and we fall into greater errors than ever before; lest we who are now fed with dainties again lie in the gutters, as Jeremiah says in Lam. 4:5.  After all, before the Gospel again was spread, what else did we eat but the filth of the pope{and now Calvin}—and this at the expense of both money and soul?  Hence we ought to be using our resources that the Word and correct studies thereof be widely taught.  Before we spent large amounts of money for the ministry of Satan, but no one listens.  We are telling a tale of a deaf man.  But if we go on to be such people, the same judgment will come upon us which the prophet is threatening here.  This is at the point of starting now through the wicked prophets.

Obadiah 1:4  Though you soar aloft like the eagle and though your nest is set among the stars.

You are so enmeshed in taking confidence in your self that you do not notice it.  You are like “Luther’s dog” who snapped at meat in the water’s reflection, only to lose the real thing that had been in the secure grasp of his teeth.

So little can God Almighty endure our self-confidence, so much does He hate the trust of the flesh and the prideful insolence of impious hearts, that we see scattered throughout all Scripture that He calls us back from the arm of the flesh, from confidence in ourselves, to place our hope in Him.  Only then, He says, will we be safe.

Obadiah 1:7  There is no understanding.

“Obadiah, don’t you know why no one listened to your message?  You called them ‘fools.’”

I will even make fools of your wise men so that the very men you are confident will stand by you will change their minds and oppose you.  “You fool, you do not understand.”

Micah 1:2  And let the Lord God be a witness against you. 

“Micah, don’t you know your confidence in your message only turns people off?  You should not have been so direct and sure—more people would have listened to you.”

That is, “What I am saying certainly comes from the Lord.  When you hear me speaking to you, imagine that it is in fact the Lord speaking to you.  Listen!  Listen!  All of you, pay attention to me.  Come together and have no doubt that you are listening to me.  Come together and have no doubt that you are listening to the Lord when you hear me.  Therefore, believe me!”

Obadiah 1:3  For behold, the Lord will come forth out of His place.

Smugness is the gravity of human nature; yet in the midst of spiritual and physical plenty, we are little concerned about smugness.

“Don’t please yourselves!  You deceive yourselves when you imagine that you have a God who is kindly disposed to you.  Don’t be so smug!  By no means can He endure the smug and presumptuous.  He who you think is hiding and silent will come forth.  He will surely come.”

Micah 2:7  Do not my words do good to him who walks uprightly?

“Tim, do you really believe you are the only one?  You are certainly Satan’s most splendid son.”

It is as if He were saying:  “I do not acknowledge the wicked as My own.  I do not want you unless you are devout.”  This is a very clear and manifest passage against our papists, who still do not believe the Gospel and who bring up an argument drawn from the many: So many holy men could not have been wrong in the church for so long a time.

Micah 2:11  Would that I were a man walking in the wind.

I truly, with a broken heart, wish I was wrong about what I see!  Our “Assyrians” will be Antichrist himself.”

“Would that I were a windy man, would that I were a futile, false liar, so that those terrible things with which I threaten you may not take place.   Because you are not listening to me, a prophet sent by God, you will be compelled to listen to the king of the Assyrians.”

Micah 2:13  For he who opens the way will go up before them.

Today, only Luther resounds with the clear message and meaning of Christ, His cross, and His comfort.  One understands Christ as personal “BREACHMAKER” to the extent that one understands Luther.  Be upset with me if you will, it is not my fault the message and meaning of virtually all Scripture has again become muddled. 

In the Hebrew the meaning is this:  “He who breaks through will go up before them.  Therefore, they will break through and pass through the gate.”  In a marvelous way this is an elegant passage, filled with comfort.  There is the sign of the cross in it.  It is as if He were saying:  “I am leading them to the pasture and to the fold, just as Christ says, ‘I give them eternal life.’  But one important thing is sure: it is not a well-beaten path.  There are many things that keep the elect from breaking out—Satan, sin, the Law, death, and the entire old Adam.  However, I will see to it that absolutely nothing holds them back.  I will promise them Him who opens a breach, who will break through and take away every hindrance, who will prepare the way for them.  Thus they will have an easy passage.”  But, as I have said, this is not the sweet way of the flesh, for the entire flesh must be mortified.  The world, sin, Satan, and our entire old Adam set themselves up against us, lest we break through, lest we follow this “Breachmaker” of ours.  Christ, however says: “Be of good cheer. I have overcome the world.”  “I have broken through.  Nothing will now bar the way, and you, too, will break through.

Micah 3:5  But declare war against him who puts nothing into their mouths.

My website proves the venomous nature of those who claim to be pious, dedicated to faith, the glory of God, and Scripture—alone.  Yet, when God sends someone to again define—“dust off”—these words, they squeal like a two-year old brat who will not receive limits of any kind.

“Mouth” in Scripture is almost always related to the ministry of the Word.  On the other hand, gluttony and devouring are related to the throat, as we have it in Ps. 5:9: “Their throat is an empty sepulcher.”  The sense is: “So great is their wicked bitterness against the prophets of the Lord that they prepare for war against him and persecute and kill him whose preaching does not agree with them and who does not approve of their wickedness.”

Micah 3:6  Therefore it shall be night to you without vision.

I believe pastors are blind now; I cannot imagine how the coming calamity will darken truth to an even greater extent!

That is, “Your preaching of peace will cause you to become blind, so that when the calamity comes there will be a great need for you to prophesy.  But you are going to see nothing, you are going to foresee nothing.  The disaster will be so great that you will desert your people.  You will find no remedy for the ill and will perish along with the people.”  This is the way God ultimately confounds the wicked preachers.

Micah 3:8  But as for me, I am filled with power.

Luther is my Spirit of justice.  Modern religion so blinded my mind and my heart, I am afraid to have my own opinions of the Word.

He is boasting of his own power and boldness in the ministry of the Word which God has entrusted to him.  It is as if he were saying: “Although all the princes and priests resist me, yet I go on preaching because I must.  I do not forsake the established office of teaching, no matter how much their frenzy rages against me.  I pay no attention to any outward appearance on their part.  I shall finish what I have started with God’s help, even if I am going to be killed, because by the efficacy of the Spirit of the Lord I am filled with both power and a sense of justice.  This ‘sense of justice’ is that I am sure that I am teaching correct things.  Therefore, even if the enemies of the Word of God threaten me with death, I pay no attention to it.  The Spirit of the Lord is with me.  He enlivens and comforts me.”

Micah 3:11  Yet they were leaning upon the Lord.

My paraphrase: To hell with your christ; I will follow Luther.

This is an outstanding passage, well worth noting.  It helps us understand many of the prophets.  It causes us to see what sort of listeners the prophets had: very wicked people who nevertheless wanted to support this wickedness of theirs with a kind of sanctity. 

Micah 4:6  In that day I will assemble the lame.

This is my problem, or rather your problem with me: If the gates of Hell will not prevail against the church, how can it be that the church has been reduced to one person who worships Christ in spirit and in truth, and is followed in this Way by his Noah-like family?  This is absolutely preposterous. 

With wonderful words and promises He comforts the people, but they are completely incapable of laying hold on such broad promises.  You see, diametrically opposed to each other were the prophecies about the destruction and annihilation of the kingdom and about a most magnificent restoration and a future kingdom more glorious and a future people more handsome than had ever existed before.  Obviously this seemed impossible to them.  They were unable to understand those prophecies.

Micah 4:7  And the lame I will make the remnant, and the weak a strong nation.

The truly humble are “weak and lame.”   The strong—those girded by Calvin’s logic, Bob Jones legalism, and Lutheran cheap grace—know nothing of humility.  Cross them and their humility is exposed for what it is—murder.  Why?  Because the end of all heresy is murder: “Satan is a liar and a murderer from the beginning.”

Here the flesh is greatly offended.  It cannot understand the counsel of God about

miraculously fulfilling these promises.  (Calvin’s logic and Lutheran’s cheap grace)

Micah 4:9  Is there no king in you?

With all due respect, I have met no one with a “barely” attitude.  Everyone is masterfully full of knowledge today.  We are ever-learning and not able to come to the knowledge of the truth.

You see, the flesh absolutely cannot endure the hand of the Lord.  It must despair when the Lord afflicts it.  In fact, even the devout barely understand that work of the Lord.

Micah 4:9  That pangs have seized you like a woman in travail.

If you are one of the Elect, the Remnant to be revealed, this is a most important paragraph for you.

They thought that it was all over for them, just as a pregnant woman in peril of her life thinks as she goes into labor to deliver her child.  Such was the anxious concern of the church which was being born, as they say in Luke 24:21: “We kept hoping that He was the One who was going to redeem Israel, and now, beside all this, today is the third day that these things happened.”  Divine goodness always acts thus with all the devout in every temptation.  It first torments us in strange ways.  It first tortures us and throws us into hell to kill the lusts of the flesh so that it may afterwards bring us back and save us.  Meanwhile the flesh is unaware that these are labor pains, that a wonderful birth is going to follow.

Micah 5:7  Which tarry not for men.

Does not the endless, abounding activity of religion give you reason to consider that you are running ahead of the “effective power of the believed Gospel?”  Do you not see the connection between this handwashing fetish-like activity and a guilty conscience?  Do you not see the connection between Prozac and a guilty conscience?

That is, the grass does not await the hands of men.  The works and labors of men do not cause it.  It comes spontaneously without any cultivation.  The prophet means the effective power of the believed gospel against the preachers of the Law, who know nothing else than to force and compel with their preaching.  Such men can give neither the power to fulfill the Law nor a willing heart; in fact, they add to anger and sin because of that demanding.  You see, the conscience is still uncertain about the will of God, and teachers of human traditions cannot strengthen and uplift consciences that have been confused and terrified.  In Ps. 14:3 we read: “They do not know the way of peace”; also in Ps. 14:5: “They were in great terror where there was no terror.”  The Gospel makes a conscience certain and causes it to have peace.  (Satan makes certain with his gospel, via the attitude of smugness—not a sureness of conscience.)

Micah 5:14  And in anger and wrath I will execute vengeance.

Pastor, if you, proportionally, have as many of your children, and today even adults, on Prozac as the surrounding “world,” are you sure you are dispensing the true Gospel?  Or is your gospel no Gospel at all?

He adds a warning and threatens the contemptuous with evil lest the magnitude of this great blessing be despised.  It is as if he were saying: “Although this is the highest grace and eternal life, yet it is going to come to pass that few will believe and it will not be accepted.  Although the Gospel is the power of God, yet it is a ‘stumbling block to Jews, and folly to Gentiles’ (I Cor. 1:23).  But I do not allow Myself to be despised in vain, for I will avenge Myself on those who despise Me.”  He has spoken these things, then, to terrify the wicked and say that those who despise and persecute the Word of the Gospel are going to be punished by Him.

Our wickedness is that we have lost the true, essential, experiential meaning of justification by faith alone.  This is easily proven by our desecration of the Lord’s Table.  The Calvinists deny the truth regarding it; and the Lutherans deny it by cheapening it by allowing their people to partake of it without intimately examining the confession of their people.

(Luther:  This is the custom of all the prophets, first to attack wickedness as the source and wellspring of evil works, and then to prescribe righteousness.  Once they have learned and absorbed this, good works properly follow.  This is the true order of the prophets and apostles, as we very clearly see in the Pauline letters.  But this is something the false prophets do not do.  They simply prescribe morals, rebuke sins, set out rewards, and omit the teaching of piety as regards the justification of the heart.)

Micah 6:1  Contend in judgment before the mountains.

I am.

“Set yourself against the mountains, that is, against the rulers.  Charge them with wickedness.  Show them their wickedness and sin.”

Micah 6:3  O My people, what have I done to you?

“A church on every corner.”  Those going to hell see more clearly and have more sense than we do.

This is a complaint and a reminder of past blessings in which the Lord sets forth and presses His case, as if to say: “Why are you causing My name to have a bad sound among the nations?  Given over as you are to wickedness, you provide nations with an opportunity to blaspheme My name?

Micah 6:8  I shall show you, O man, what is good.

Luther has already shown, explained, reformed, taught, and confessed—and that under a death penalty.

This is a wonderful Teacher, that He not only reproves what is wicked and false but also shows what is right and good.  The duty of prophets is to censure not merely external bad behavior but especially hypocrisy in order to humble and confound the proud hypocrites, who sorely offend God with their hypocrisy and in the meantime think that they are the only people who please God. 

“To do justice” means to harm no one, to render to each person what is his own, to bother no one; on the other hand, to help others, to promote their welfare.  “To love mercy” means that God requires no good works from us for Himself; He wants everything to yield to the use and welfare of our neighbor.  Being justified by faith, we neither can nor should offer anything to God other than the sacrifice of praise.  “To walk humbly with your God” means that after we have been justified we are in danger of becoming lukewarm, that we become proud, that our gifts of the Spirit tickle us because in them we surpass others, that we please ourselves.  It is as if he were saying:  “When you have done what I say, when you have developed a concern for your neighbor, see to it that you do not become smug, that you do not have an eye for mischief, that you do not please yourself and go around looking for praise and glory that is owed to God alone.”   Even the most spiritual-minded cannot be without that very wicked “self-love.”  Thus this wicked state of mind always creeps into the hearts of the saints.  They cannot be without it.  Thus they should be terrified and humbled by a rather serious fall, should always live in fear of becoming too proud, and should recognize the weakness that is still theirs.  So David cries out in Ps. 51:3: “My sin is ever before me.”  In this way the saints should be humbled by looking at and recognizing their own weakness and sin and should cease from their pride in their own good works or gifts of the Spirit which they have received from God. 

Micah 7:2  The godly man has perished from the earth.

Does it not concern you that at the end of every period of apostasy, the self-righteous swear they are the most righteous?  This is wickedness far beyond homosexuality, abortion, and violence.  This is even FAR beyond the improper use of cigars in the Oval Office.

“Although many people feign the name and appearance of godliness, yet they are wicked, they are not godly, just as Hosea said earlier” (Hos. 4:1).

Micah 7:2  There is none upright among men.

Even our businessmen have a “don’t leave a single dollar on the table” attitude; and this goes unrebuked.

“Love is so dead, so does no one have any consideration for his neighbor, such mutual savagery rules, that they all are lying in wait for each other.  They are all filled with hatred and envy, they are all inhuman, as Paul says in Rom. 1:31 and 2 Tim. 3:3.”

Micah 7:3  The evil of their hands they call good.

God is marvelous in His ways: the very person who turned me on to “Lutheran” truth would really show his wolf hide when questioned about his own motivation for teaching this truth.  His apparent intention for teaching truth was to bring the church under his domination, like he ruled his family.  I know, you accuse me of the same thing.

Hypocrites do have certain pursuits, certain external good works, which are indeed evil before God as coming from an evil and wicked heart.  Nevertheless, to them these works seem to be good.  They flatter one another with them and boast about them, and yet they had to be censured because of them.  So in the same sense Christ also said, “They will come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves.”

Micah 7:4  The best of them is like a brier.

At first, the LCMS pastors were the “prettiest” I had ever seen, until I saw their fear of practicing the proper division of the Word of Truth—that is the Law and the Gospel.  And any “division” that did take place, took place behind the safety of their bully pulpit.

“Even their holiest men, who feign an outstanding show of saintliness, are nothing else but thorns and thistles.  They look pretty but they produce no fruit.  They offer nothing else but pricks of conscience, with which they harm the people.”

Micah 7:5  Put no trust in a friend; have no confidence in a ruler.

Does not the wholesale despising of pastors, and leaders generally, today not prove our “empty promises?”

“The people trust neither their princes nor their priests nor their prophets, because they teach false doctrines.”  He is saying this, then, to humble the people, to take away their vain smugness, and to draw them away from the empty promises of the false prophets with which they were promising peace and tranquility.”

Micah 7:7  But as for me, I will look to the Lord.

I will (and am) most gladly and proudly suffer with you if this leads to your restoration.

Now he is going over to giving comfort, and he leaves out the threats.  The prophet is speaking in the person of all the rest of the devout, who nevertheless also were going to suffer wretched affliction for a time and were going to be led into captivity but afterwards were going to be glorified again because of the promises made to David.  “Even if we shall be punished thus along with the wicked, yet let us hope for better things.  The Lord will redeem us.”

Micah 7:16  In the midst of Carmel.

Pastor, you have failed to teach your people about the true nature of the fearsome forest surrounding us.

“Feed Thy people in the forest; that is, in the danger of the world, where they are exposed to the attacks of beasts, where Satan, like a roaring lion, always lies in wait for them, eager to devour them, as Peter says.”  In the midst of Carmel, then, means the abundance of the promises of the Gospel, with which they are to be quickened and fattened.

Micah 7:17  They shall lick the dust, like the crawling things of the earth; they shall come trembling out of their strongholds; they shall turn in dread to the Lord our God.

When you are submitted to “my Tribulation Confession,” this verse will define you, too.

These are metaphors which indicate the humiliation of the Gentiles and their self-

abasement when they have heard the Gospel.  A humble confession has great significance, for when we have heard the Gospel, we condemn all our own activities and say that there is no righteousness no wisdom, no strength—that the flesh has nothing—when this is compared with the great and beautiful righteousness of Christ.  This is what he is saying here: “Like the crawling things of the earth, they will come trembling out of their strongholds.”  That is, they will feel very humble about themselves in the presence of the great magnificence of Christ.  Therefore with great hustling and bustling they will come out of their hiding places (as grubs generally hurry very swiftly away from the presence of men), that is, from their own righteousness and traditions on which they used to depend before and in which they used to live.  They will rejoice in and tremble at the righteousness of Christ.  They will make all their own acts as nothing and will wonder at and take up all the acts of Christ alone.

Greed is the worst enemy of the church—worse than tyrants and heretics.  It is silently lethal.

Luther:  After all, in prosperity men cannot but conduct themselves more immoderately than is reasonable, for they are unable to use prosperity moderately, and this, a famous man has said, will undermine the good intentions even of the wise.

Nahum 1:3  The Lord is slow to anger.

Lutheran pastor, you already, if you had the courage to investigate, have more Calvinists in your church than “Lutherans.”  The foe is already raging against you.  What do you think the end of this state will be?

God delays and postpones  His punishment.  He allows the power of the foe to increase.  He permits it to increase to such an extent that they become violently enraged.  But then, when it appears that nothing else can happen but that you will be overcome, when you become absolutely desperate about everything, when it is impossible for any human might to resist them, then the Lord is at hand.

Nahum 1:7  The Lord is good, a Comforter in the day of trouble.

He is truly our Rose of Sharon.  What great sadness to have to enjoy Him among so many thorns; but this is a sadness of warning.

“As far as your wicked foes are concerned, the Lord is a strong and terrible Avenger, but He is gentle and sweet to bring comfort in the day of trouble.”

Nahum 1:9  What do you plot against the Lord?

It is a fearsome and confusing spectacle to see so many “devout” persons rage against the Lord.  The best of my Baptist friends will not give me a single moment’s hearing.  The best of my Lutheran friends will not ACT on what they know is correct, decent, and godly about my concerns.

“Why is it that you wretched people decide to fight against the Lord?  Why do you still rage with your might and power?  You are resisting the Lord, against whom you will fight without success.  The battle which you are plotting against the Lord will bring you no success.”  The wicked, however, believe that nothing is farther from the truth than that they oppose the Lord.  They think they are offering service to God.

Nahum 1:12  Thus says the Lord, “Though they be strong.”

I know you are armed with Calvin, the Book of Concord, and even a few quotes from Luther: What is that to me when I am armed with the Armor of Truth?

The sense here, then, is:  “Don’t be afraid, O kingdom of Judah.  Imagine that your foes are very strong.  Imagine that they are very well armed, that they are most resourceful and wise, so that they lack nothing that belongs to a well-equipped army.  Then imagine this also, that they have many armies, all of which threaten you with destruction.  Let none of these bother you at all.  Let them cause you no fear, no matter how well-equipped and numerous they may be.”  I John 4:4: “He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.”

Nahum 3:2  The crack of whip and rumble of wheel. 

When a fool like myself can see your hypocrisy, then truly your sin is “in the street.”  The street sweepers are coming.  Your own people are grieved and angry over your “everyone come to the Meal” attitude.

God’s patience is great, as all Scripture repeatedly indicates.  He bears our sins with great tolerance so long as they are hidden.  When, however, we have become so blind that even the people in the street are aware of them so that our sins seem to become part of us and we make a habit of them, then clearly He can no longer bear them.

Nahum 1:5  I will lift up your skirts over your face.

Can we be honest?  How deeply have you sold your ministry to the vanity of this present age?  Are you afraid to have the Word discern the thoughts and intentions of your heart?  Can you not fast and pray with me for one hour so we can resolve this matter?

He is alluding to the mind’s inclination to lust when it is inclined toward fornication.  So he means a spiritual harlotry.  It is as if he were saying: “Just as a fornicating harlot is prepared and set out for the lust of everyone, so also you have prostituted yourself to everyone with your idolatry.  Therefore I will uncover your abominable evils; I will make your sins visible to you.  I will confound you so that you become a spectacle to all nations.”  This is God’s practice, that when He intends to destroy the wicked, He first reveals their wickedness to them.  (God has lifted up the shameless skirts of Bob Jones University in the midst of our own government.  Lutheran churches lie in shame in that they cannot fill their pulpits)  We have seen this today in the pope.  His prostitution has been revealed through the Gospel.  Thus all those things which used to be very pleasing and well thought of are now clearly sordid and abominable.  After all, what is more abominable now than the wickedness of Masses!  Yet, before the Gospel was revealed, all this seemed to be very holy and in conformity with the Word of God.

Nahum 3:13  Behold, your troops are women in your midst. 

Again, “everyone” knows pastors today are people-pleasers.  This is a “divine judgment.”

“Indeed, the soldiers, whose nature it was to be courageous, whose service and power you should be using to hold off the foe, are now as timid as women.  Divine judgment has taken the heart out of them.”

Nahum 3:14  Draw water for the siege.

I include this to show the sarcasm I sometimes use is not unwarranted and without precedent.

The ideas which now follow all the way to the end of the chapter are full of the bitterest derision and sarcasm, which foes generally use to taunt the vanquished.  It is as if he were saying:  “Draw water, mix the mud with which to patch up the walls we are going to break down.  Yes, yes, just plaster and patch it up again!”

Zephaniah 1:3  I will overthrow the wicked.

How long, O Lord!

“In this way will I at some time make an end of the stumbling blocks, that is, of idolatry and of evil worship with which they alienated from Me the people who ought to be serving Me.”

Zephaniah 1:4  And the names of the idolatrous priests with the priests.

After a four-year study of Luther, I have concluded that the religion Luther taught has but little similarity to what I have experienced—even in the church which sprang from Luther.  I therefore condemn, decry and spit on your “ardent, burning devotion” to Christ.

You see, they had a name which was derived from ardent, burning devotion.  So the prophet here clearly says “the names of the idolatrous priests,” as if to say: “They enjoyed greater respect among the people than all the rest of the priests.  They had greater esteem.  They used to suggest to the people that they were more deeply interested in religion and the worship of God than all the rest.”  So there was even that wicked remnant under the very pious King Josiah.  Clearly it is impossible for us to wipe out every wickedness and ferment.  We should, however, see to this, that the kingdom of sin has no home in us, lest we yield our members as instruments of sin, as the apostle says.  In this zealous use of the Word, we always need to stand firm, reprove, correct, censure, lest the kingdom of sin overpower.

Zephaniah 1:6  Those who have turned back from following the Lord, who do not seek the Lord nor care for Him.

Luther is the very foundation for the last epic in Church History.  How do you know you have not turned back from what the Lord created?  Does it not make sense to you that God sent Luther, who with many words and fervor of heart, set down a most sure foundation for these times when even the Elect would be deceived?

“I shall also gather and destroy all the rest of the wicked who do not follow the Lord, who do not keep the law of the Lord and who do not seek the Lord, who are not interested in hearing the Word of the Lord, and who, after hearing it, do not recognize their ungodliness and do not come to their senses.”

Zephaniah 1:7  Be silent before the Lord God. 

If you would be still within yourself, you would hear the Spirit testify to “my” words.  How long must you be still?  Does it matter if you find the Treasure?  I suppose it depends on how deeply you have sold yourself and your ministry to wicked deception.

“Since the Lord will cut you off in this way, be silent.  Give place to preaching and correction.  Hear the Word.  Don’t cry out against it.”

Zephaniah 1:7  For the Lord has prepared a sacrifice; He has consecrated those whom He has invited.

If you do not “hear” what I am saying, you are the sacrifice and the Antichrist will be the altar you are slain on.

“The time for the slaying of the sacrifice is here.  The Lord will slay a sacrifice for Himself, namely, you wicked people.  He will get the Chaldeans ready to be prepared to devour that sacrifice, to destroy and ruin you.”

Zephaniah 1:8  On the day of the Lord’s sacrifice I will punish.

Like a pail containing oil and water, zeal and obstinacy is all we have in common.

We shall follow the plan and sense of the prophet more easily when we look with one eye at the zealous ardor of the prophet and with the other at the inflexible obstinacy of the princes, priests, false prophets, and wicked people.  Against these the prophet burns with threats of evil and of the wrath of the Lord to come.  In fact, this is the nature of the Word, that it battles against the powerful, the wise, and the holy.  That is an eternal battle, as all Scripture indicates.  We see the same thing here.  The prophet had stubborn hearers, who were infected with false beliefs and who kept laughing at the prophet.  There were false teachers who kept calling the people away from the true Word of God, who kept teaching the opposite, who kept persuading the princes in another direction.  They were saying that it would not come to pass that God would destroy His people, His city, and His temple.  After all, God had promised that He would be near them there and that the king, who had been divinely established, would not perish, as the prophet here threatens when he says, “I will punish the king’s sons.”  Furthermore, they had the very clear promises of David that there would never fail to be a Son from his loins who would sit upon his throne.

Zephaniah 1:8  In foreign attire.

Are you saying our great state of flux is no indication of our “inconsistent minds?”  Our faith could have survived the flux created by the Reason and Industrial Revolutions; but it has not survived the Revolution of Belief.  What does it say that we now consider religious toleration as a virtue, as a symbol of God’s magnanimous mind, as Philip Schaff believed?

I think the prophet is speaking here also about the aristocrats or nobles of the king, who imitated foreign customs and attire as well as the rituals of these foreign nations who lived all around them.  They abandoned the rituals, attire, and customs of their own country.  So also today, the Germans are the “monkey see, monkey do” of almost all other nations.  This is an indication of great levity and of inconsistent minds.  The poet Ennius says very accurately, “The Roman state stands by virtue of its ancient morals and men.”

Zephaniah 1:12  Those who say in their hearts: The Lord will not do good.

I am threatening you with the wrath of God.  Can you find your response in this paragraph?

It is as if he were saying:  “Among them I am considered nothing but an insane fool.  After all, they do not believe that I am speaking about the true God when I threaten them with the wrath of God.  Therefore they ridicule me.  They mock me.  You see, they are boasting of the promises God made to their fathers about preserving them, about an eternal kingdom, about possessing the land forever.  But because I am making a prophecy against their ideas, they laugh at me and at my God whom I thus boast of and whose wrath I preach.  They say: ‘Our God has promised us salvation and a kingdom, but you threaten us with a destruction and captivity at His hands.  Away with you and with your God!  That evil with which you threaten us will not come to pass.  Your god will do well to leave us in peace, for our God will protect and save us as He has promised.’”

Zephaniah 1:13  For though they build houses.

Okay!  Keep building buildings, programs, mission statements, lecture series, sermon series, books and video series.  What do I care?  But I do.

“They are sitting secure and thinking that nothing like this will happen, no matter how much I cry out that their destruction is coming.”

Zephaniah 1:17  And I will bring distress on men.

Do you really want to wait to prepare yourself for this day of terror until the Day takes you by surprise?

“I will set up a hue and cry among you.  That is, I will strike terror in you that you may realize that I am waging war, that I am fighting against you.”

Zephaniah 1:17  So that they will walk like the blind.

Confusion is hell.

“With that terror of their hearts, I will cause them to be deprived of all their strategies.  They will be unable to recover their senses.  They will be awestruck, and they will have no idea whether to flee, resist the enemy, or offer conditions of peace.  They will be so confused, so devoid of plans, that they will walk like blind men.”

Zephaniah 2:1  O shameless nation.

O shameless pastors!

That is, “You hostile people, who are worthy of hatred, not of love.”

Zephaniah 2:3  Seek the Lord, all you gentle of the land.

I, a true Lutheran, was cast out by Lutherans.  No hearing.  No face-to-face meeting.  No Matthew 18.  Even when I was admired by the people, they fought against the truth I presented to them.  I suppose my pastor tired of having to make special trips here and there to substantiate “my” teaching. 

“See to it that you do not come together in vain.  See to it that this assembly of yours is not useless.  Rather, by prayer and preaching summon each other back to come to your senses, all you gentle of the land.”  I translate “gentle” as humble, oppressed, those cast down before the world, whom few respect.

Zephaniah 2:3  Who do His commands.

I am giving you a way, the Lord’s Way, in this Last Day, to seek the Lord.  Are you humble?

“If there are still some among you whose heart holds on to righteousness and the Word of God; if there are still some of you who seek the Lord, who are humble; let them seek the Lord to see if they can somehow be reconciled, so that a very few may be saved, even though almost all the rest of the people perish.”

Zephaniah 2:3  Perhaps you may be hidden on the day of the wrath of the Lord.

“Perhaps you may be protected from perishing when the wrath of the Lord comes.”

Zephaniah 2:12  You, too, O Ethiopians, shall be killed by My sword.

Judgment must first begin at the house of the Lord.  Of what benefit is your concern for the neighborhoods surrounding your church, when you prevent judgment from purging your own home?

It is as if Jeremiah (25:15) were saying: “If the Lord does not spare the people of Israel, whom He has chosen as His own, much less will He spare the other neighboring nations, which do not belong to the people of God.”  Zephaniah says exactly the same thing here.  You see, he is subjecting all nations to the wrath of God and to the captivity lest they think that only the people of God have merited captivity.  You see, God first crucifies His own martyrs and preachers of the Word.  He makes His own people suffer many trials.  Then, after He has afflicted the righteous for some time, the terrible wrath and punishment of God soon comes against the enemies of the Word and of the people of God.  This is what we, too, are experiencing today.

Zephaniah 3:1  Woe to her that is rebellious and a redeemed city.

Job said, “I am afraid of all my good works.”  I don’t sense this attitude at all, anywhere.

“You have been led back out of captivity.  The Lord has restored you to your original position of dignity.  Yet you do not cease irritating God with your wickedness and faithlessness.”  You see, he is starting with those worst vices which are the roots and wellsprings of all external acts.  These are the things God hates the most.  They are the faults with which we make God angry: namely, when we ascribe righteousness to our own powers and works; when we argue with God; when we want to be righteous; and when do  not allow Him to condemn those abominable works of ours but protect them by snapping against the Word of God.

Zephaniah 3:2  She accepts no correction.

A true Christian would receive my admonition and rebuke, at least for consideration.  As it is, I am summarily dismissed in seconds and minutes.  My experience indicates that no one will receive condemnation unless it comes from their own lips concerning an issue their own heart is comfortable condemning.

She will not accept rebuke, she will not accept condemnation.  You see, she is so far from giving up on her own ability that she thinks that piety and the true worship of God belong to her alone.  Therefore she lets no one tell her anything.

Zephaniah 3:3  She does not draw near to her God.

I am offering to you Luther, a wealth of mature knowledge.  Why do you fight against it so?

One draws near to God by acquiring knowledge of Him.  This happens by faith, not by works, not by hands or feet but by zealous practice and daily exercise.  This is what Paul calls “from faith to faith”, from virtue to virtue, “from one degree of glory of the Lord to another.”

Zephaniah 3:4  Her prophets are wanton.

Can you imagine a minister explaining to a woman who had a coarse, abusive husband, “You deserve this treatment for your sins; if you confess you deserve hell for your sins, then surely this is a most acceptable exchange for you, is it not?”  Yet, this is just ONE truly Christian concept lost amidst our Esteem Revolution.

They are irresponsible people, windbags.  We have the same expression in Gen. 49:4: “As unstable as water.”  Paul has rendered it properly when he said “that you not be carried about by every wind of doctrine.”  They are turned by every whim of the mind, as water flows in no order when one spills it.  They have no deep insights and take nothing seriously.  In the assembly they blabber out everything that comes to mind.  They do not determine the intrinsic value and weight which lies in God’s words.  Whatever they think is human.

Zephaniah 3:4  Faithless men.

If you will read Luther, you will find out how much of the “Word rationale” you have lost.

“Men who despise.”  They consider the Word worthless.  They do not have the rationale of the Word.

Zephaniah 3:4  Her priests profane what is sacred.

The Table!  The Table!!  The Table!!!

They were treating sacred matters without dignity. 

Zephaniah 3:7  For I said: Surely you will fear Me, you will accept correction.

If one fears the Lord properly, he welcomes correction.  Yet you are repulsed by my correction of you.  I will say here what Luther said: Be careful lest you throw out the truth as you throw out Luther.

“I have sent you My prophets.  They have preached to you.  They have taught you to fear Me and to accept correction.  Unless you learn fear and discipline, I will not spare your dwelling.”  In these few words the prophet has included whatever the life of a true Christian involves.  The fear of God brings with it faith and humility of heart, so that we have reverence for the majesty of the Lord.  “Correction” involves external behavior, that we behave among ourselves honorably without offending our brothers, that we live temperately, that we serve one another in love.  This is the sum and scope of all the prophets and of all Scripture.

Zephaniah 3:7  But they rose up early and made all their deeds corrupt.

Calvin rose “early”, and the Pope will rise “early” again.

“Early” indicates quickly.  Not only did they not listen to the warnings of the prophets, who taught the fear of God and discipline, they also were eager and energetic to increase their wickedness, to corrupt their faith and external behavior.

Zephaniah 3:9  Yea, at that time I will change the speech of the peoples to a pure speech.

500 years ago, God reaffirmed His resurrection covenant with Luther.  God restored the “pure speech” of Paul, which has again become impure, and is being restored through my ministry at this very moment.

Thus he here is describing the invocation of the name of the Lord and the single-hearted worship of God as “pure speech.”  Therefore the meaning is:  “I will remove those who corrupt their own deeds, who adulterate the Word of God, who use impure speech.  I will establish a holy people for Myself.  I will give them pure speech.  They will teach My Word in purity and will call upon My name.”  So He says, “I will change (or transform),” as if to say: “Your lips are unclean,” as we read in Is. 6:5.  “Therefore, I will change the speech for the peoples into pure speech.  They will teach the sound and blameless Word of faith.  Because of this, they are going to receive very much fruit.  For they will call upon My name, which they could not do otherwise, unless they taught pure speech, that is, the pure Gospel.”  You see, when they mix works and confidence in works with the doctrine of faith, they cannot invoke the name of the Lord.  For how will they call upon Him in whom they have not believed? (Rom. 10:14)

Zephaniah 3:9  And serve Him with one accord.

Is the virtual absence of one-minded unity of no concern to you?  Is the Spirit really psychologically  schizophrenic?  Do His thoughts flit about hither and yon leaving nothing but doubt, confusion, and uncertainty in His wake?

They will not limp on both sides, as Elijah says in I Kings 18:21: “How long will you go limping with two different opinions?”  All will be of one mind.

Haggai 1:2  This people say the time has not yet come.

God initiated/revitalized His work through Luther: Will you carry it to completion?

He begins with a reproach, as is the custom of all the prophets.  You see, first of all they set forth a rebuke, threaten the wrath of God, and then they add sweet and gentle promises.  This is something Satan does not do.  He first attracts with his enticements souls which he lures into error with those enticements, wounds mortally, and destroys.   These people did not believe that they should rebuild the temple.  To this idea the prophet—or rather, the Lord through the prophet—stands in opposition.  He wants us to pursue the work initiated; He wants us to overcome every foe, every power; He wants us to consider His will, lest we be overcome by evils and succumb to weariness, and that we thus persevere and be saved.  And indeed, we must carry the work to completion, no matter how the world rages against you.

Haggai 1:5  Place your hearts above your ways.

Pastor, you know the discomfort, emptiness and indifference of your people is growing worse despite your hard work to the contrary!  This proves everything I am saying.

That is: “Consider your ways and your inclinations, or works.  Place the success of your affairs before your eyes.  Consider how things are going for you.”  It is as if he were saying: “From the punishment itself you can determine that you have sinned; when everything turns out so badly for you, when no success is connected with any effort, when the land gives back without interest only the seed it has taken, when the vines produce poor grapes.  You have eaten, and you were left unfilled.  You had few things with which to nourish yourselves.  You had nothing else to put your wages into except a torn bay, full of holes.”  Here it kept appearing that nothing was farther from the truth than that God would be faithful and that what He had promised would come to pass.  But no, clearly the opposite was happening, for the people were hard pressed by great poverty and massive ills.  Divine goodness does this, however, in accordance with its own custom to make us foolish and to bring our plans to naught.  In this way we learn that by our own planning or enthusiasm we can accomplish nothing, that all things are nothing, and that nothing succeeds.  We learn rather that the Lord alone does everything, so that we leave all things to Him.  Then the storms which break upon us are changed to a pleasant calm.

Haggai 1:14  And the Lord stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel.

How do you spell “Zerubbabel,” today?  Timothy.vance@askluther.com

The prophet also adds the fruit of this discourse.  It was not enough to have heard the Word, if the Lord had not also added His power to the Word so that it would be effective in their hearts.  You see, the Spirit, who stirs up the heart, must go along as Companion to the Word, as here the spirit of Zerubbabel and of the rest is said to have been stirred up.  He is endowed with a certain strength of mind to endure adverse situations bravely.  This God the Spirit stirs up in us when God breathes upon us with His Spirit, when He causes in us through the Spirit the courage or confidence to finish something we have begun and to which we otherwise would scarcely aspire in our timidity.  To be sure, the Holy Spirit is like that because we tremble in God’s business.  The flesh cannot by itself believe in God.  It cannot but fear the world and its enemies.  We have, therefore, a need for the Spirit as our Strengthener and Encourager.

Haggai 2:15  Pray now, consider what will come to pass from this day onward.

I include this for the benefit of all the fools who squeal when I call them by their proper name.

This passage is completely proverbial, as we commonly say, “Fools must be deloused with a club.”  You see, it is so ignoble a crowd that it does its work by force and blows.  So also Christ says (Luke 7:32): “We piped to you, and you did not dance.”  The prophet is here saying, as it were: “If you don’t want to learn from promises, you will learn from blows.  We must treat fools as they deserve.”

Malachi 1:1  The burden of the word of the Lord to Israel by Malachi.

I say sincerely: You all seem so pure.  It is as if you have never heard of a stomach.  Without a stomach, you certainly have no need of intestines.  This explains, and I say this without malice, why you act as if your shit does not stink—you don’t have any.

The words here echo a sort of disgust.  The Lord has had enough and is, as it were, nauseated by their ceremonies.  These ceremonies were preserved by them for their own gain and profit, not with a sincere heart but with a greedy one, giving no glory to God.  This, then, is his entire case—that the people as well as the priests have defiled the ceremonies of God.  The stomach is the greatest idol in every religion.  Unbelief is the cause for greed.

Malachi 1:2  I have loved you.

God has wonderfully hidden my virtue.  I wonder why He would do that?

He begins with a reproach as if to bid farewell to a people that complains and does not recognize the grace of God.  That’s the kind of hearers the prophets had.  To be sure, among His own people God always appears weak, caring little for them.  Thus He wants our virtue to be hidden in Himself.  The weaker we are, so much the more powerful does He want to be in us.  So Paul says in 2 Cor. 12:10: “When I am weak, then I am strong.”

Malachi 1:6  How have we despised Thy name?

You Lutherans could make Billy Graham a real prophet when he said, “The Lutherans are a sleeping giant,” by doing serious battle with the Calvinists.  But that, of course, will come only after you see Luther’s wisdom expressed in “Against the Jews.”

Certainly it is a terribly dangerous situation that, when someone is holding a wrong idea, he not only blasphemes the name of the Lord, but he does not want to cease his blasphemy and even defends his sect.  The instigator of a sect is converted to the truth either with the greatest difficulty or not at all.

Malachi 1:7  You offer polluted bread upon My altar.

We are all partaking unworthily in one way or another; therefore we are all polluted.

The priests were teaching that whatever was offered was clean, no matter what its quality was.  He says, “You are saying that the table of the Lord is despised.”  Now this is not what the priests were actually saying, but they did give that impression.  After all, to teach and believe that whatever is sacrificed is clean is certainly as if they were saying: “The table of the Lord is worthless and despicable.”

Malachi 1:10  Who is there among you who would shut.

Here I am, send me.  For this reason I abstain from the hypocritical false worship in a church, and give my family the true worship of God in our home.  Many of you Lutherans conveniently leave out of your definition of the church the word “properly.”  You say, “The church is where the Word and sacrament are administered.”  Not so.  They both must be administered PROPERLY.

That is, “Would that there were one among you who would shut the doors of the temple, and would that you did not offer such vain sacrifices.”  Thus Is. 1:12, “When you come to appear before Me, who requires this of you.”  It would be preferable to abstain from prayer than to pray in an evil manner.  It is a bad thing merely to take on the appearance of worshipping.  In the presence of divine majesty everything should be done seriously.

Malachi 1:13  What a weariness this is.

The concept that life is insignificantly subservient to doctrine and belief; that love is subservient to faith, yea, grows out of faith, is deeply embedded in faith; and that tolerance for sin should be expressed to one who confesses truth, has been lost on us.

“Even with great effort we barely got these loaves.  If we had better ones, we certainly would offer them.” Indeed, God is patient and merciful, but He cannot endure a tempting or, in fact, a contempt of Himself.  Greed always has its own little effort and disguise.  Likewise, God has patience in life and conversation, but He has none in the case of corruption of doctrine.

Malachi 1:13  You bring in what has been taken by violence or is lame or sick.

I remind you, again and again, of your improper views and approach to the Lord’s Feast, and yet, you will not make a thorough investigation to see whether you are truly in the faith in this matter.  You will not even investigate passages where Luther is at variance with your exposition—that is, if you even know that Luther puts forth a different interpretation.

The prophet here is speaking about other offerings in which they have sinned in similar fashion.  Nowhere did they keep the teaching of God, and yet they never recognized that they had sinned.  Whenever a false idea slips in, false works follow in the same area.  They pretended that they were poor, and yet they were robbers.  To be sure, this may not have been a public thing, but they were deceivers.  Behold, this is a double sin: to make a spurious sacrifice and to say that it is not false.

Malachi 2:1  And now, O priests, this command is for you.

See what kind of responses I have to contend with.  When I talked to one LCMS pastor friend on examining participants, his reply was, “Well, I can’t be the Holy Spirit, can I?”  What a pious answer.  One elder said, “Well, we only have two pastors and so many people.  They can only do so much!”  With this demonic logic, no one would have to be accountable in any station of life.  Oh, that’s right—we are there!  (This is my first and only sarcastic response in this compilation.)

He addresses this discourse especially to the priests.  After all, if the leaders err, how much will those who are to be led err?

Malachi 2:2  To give glory.

It is idolatry not to believe what Luther taught about communion, baptism, and the office of the keys.  It is equally blasphemous to allow people to participate in these sacraments (the Word connected with a physical sign) without a continual, zealous, ever deepening teaching of these unfathomable blessings.  Luther said the sooner one dies after baptism, the better, for his baptism is complete.  This is especially true of your people who only have false doctrine confirmed or their smugness reinforced.

To teach false doctrine in the name of the Lord is to blaspheme God.  Paul says in I Cor. 15:15: “We are found to be false witnesses.”  Every teaching of conscience comes in the name of the Lord, therefore, teach what is true, what pleases God, and what is the true will of God.

Malachi 2:6  The Law of God was in his (Levi) mouth.

Levi’s descendants grew into Pharisees; Luther’s descendants have grown into…you.

That righteous priest, then, taught the Law with purity and truth.  He did not create hypocrites.  He took away the showy works of outward holiness and vain faith, because the Law teaches one to recognize sins.  “You priests now have the law of falsity in your mouth.”

Malachi 2:7  For the lips of a priest guard knowledge.

Most of Luther’s knowledge has slipped away; does this mean it was not worth guarding?  I had one LCMS pastor tell me, “I only go to Luther to make sure other commentators aren’t off base.  From my perspective, that would be like a librarian saying, “I only use the card catalogue when I’m not sure of a book’s call number.”

Certainly God could with His Spirit instruct and justify those whom He would, but it has pleased His wisdom more to instruct and save those who believe through the foolishness of preaching.  The Word is the channel through which the Holy Spirit is given.  This is a passage against those who hold the spoken Word in contempt.  The lips are the public reservoirs of the church.  In them alone is kept the Word of God.  You see, unless the Word is preached publicly, it slips away.  The more it is preached, the more firmly it is retained.  Reading it is not as profitable as hearing it, for the live voice teaches, exhorts, defends, and resists the spirit of error.  Satan does not care a hoot for the written Word of God, but He flees at the speaking of the Word.  You see, this penetrates hearts and leads back those who stray.

The priest is to guard knowledge, not in his own heart, but in the hearts of those whom he teaches and who are perfected.  “But you have turned away.”  “You degenerate sons of such great and important fathers ought to be ashamed.  You do all things contrary to them.”

Malachi 2:8  You have caused many to stumble.

You do not convey the true sense, but your own, an alien one, even though you go over the words clearly.

“You set up stumbling blocks for your hearers so that they stray and fall away from the way.  You also err and cause others to err with you.  You do not convey the true sense, but your own, an alien one, even though you go over the words clearly.  Thus under the pretense of the Word of God you pour out poison for your people, and that is a very serious sin.  You void and corrupt the covenant of Levi to whom God promised, ahead of the other priests, the priesthood forever.”

Malachi 2:11 For Judah has profaned the sanctuary of the Lord.

How can your teaching remain pure when you are not feverishly studying Luther to understand this “so great salvation” more deeply?  Do you miss what God has done with Luther.  Do you not see that most Bible Students quote him (when he agrees with them) and the truly great Lutheran leaders did little more than “warm Luther up” in their theological kitchens.  What do you think Chemnitz and Walther were all about?  When I suggested to one pastor we needed to study Walther, he said, “Oh, our people {you silly boy} would not even know who Walther was.”  Again, I was in a meeting when a pastor asked one of his elders to read Law and Gospel and the man outright refused his pastor’s kind request.  But what a wonderfully pious Promise Keeper he was.  (Okay, second sarcastic remark.)

With a careful eye, then, the prophet takes a look at those who corrupt the Law.  You see, as long as the teaching remains pure, there is hope for easily correcting one’s life.  The rays of the sun remain pure even when they fall and shine on manure.  And God keeps something holy in our midst through which we may be sanctified, even if we have fallen.

Malachi 2:12  The Lord will destroy the man.

“The Lord will cut off the man,” so great a sin is it to corrupt the Word.  Against such we must show no moderation.  But in an evil deed, we must deal with brothers in patience and must instruct them gently.

Following is one example (possibly) of how your exegesis is contrary to Luther’s.  Am I the only one who sees that theological teaching boils down to, “My word against yours”?

Luther:  For Abraham did not follow the lust of the flesh and riches, as you want to do, but he was forced to act to look for the seed that God had promised him.  After all, he saw that Sarah was barren.  At Sarah’s bidding he took another, not a wealthy woman, not because of her relationship, not for lust’s sake, not a foreigner but a servant from his household.  He thought that perhaps through her would come to pass what God had promised.

Malachi 3:1  Behold, I will send My messenger.

But…how do we know what the “pure Gospel” is, seeing as we hear so many voices?

“Have confidence.  Behold, your salvation is now at the door and that kingdom will be changed.  Your murmurings and the complaints of the prophets will cease, who believe that they are preaching in vain.  The righteous will be separated from the wicked, and the wicked will no longer be more powerful and fortunate.”  But He is saying all this in a spiritual sense and especially in regard to His teaching and accomplishment.  Where the pure Gospel is, there Christ rules.

Malachi 3:1  To prepare My way.

The simple fact that self-love and absorption and the fact that your people demand more and more from the church to keep them happy, content, fulfilled, relevant, and a feeling of being ministered to, should be enough to send you into despair—which is the first Beatitude.

There are many things which hinder the “way,” that is, the work of the Lord.  Those things must be removed, especially human reason, self-love, one’s own wisdom, one’s own righteousness, etc.  That preparing, then, is to make humble and to arrange things so as to allow God to work in one.  You see, the way of the Lord is where He Himself walks.  The prophet mentions nothing about our ways except that we should abstain from them.  After all, our works lie in His way, so that Christ cannot work or enter.  John told all the Jews and those doing very fine works “Repent!”  as if he were speaking to sinners.  He is saying: “Let the Lord enter.  He Himself will justify you and will do the will of the Lord.  Neither you nor your works will do this.”  This is what it means to convince the world of sin, of righteousness, etc.  Those who believe, then, are those who are prepared to meet the Lord and to receive Him.  In them He is able to work, that is, in those who have been brought back to a knowledge of their sins.

Malachi 3:2  But who can endure the day of His coming?

No one seems to understand that I love Luther because he is Christ.  He is my babe in the manger, while you all worship and seek an exalted, glorified Christ.  You think you have one foot in Heaven, but I am trying to pull you back because I clearly see your Heaven is Satan’s hell.

“Remain in your fear, then.  Stay humble.  Let that Messenger prepare you.  You see, He will not come in royal garb, as the kings of the world do.  He will come before any man will be able to foresee when and how He will come.  He will fulfill all things, and no one will know that He is the Christ.”

Malachi 3:2  And who will stand when He appears?

I subordinate my reason to Luther’s; he is my Elijah.  “Where is the Lord God of Elijah!”

“He will appear to be of such lowly character that, unless you will have listened to the voice of that previous messenger and will have followed his pointing finger, none of you is going to receive Him.  None of you will believe in Him.  Rather you are going to say, ‘Ah, here is a king who has no place to lay his head, who is crucified and dies.”  Because of this, Christ Himself says: “Blessed is he who takes no offense at Me,” that is, “Blessed is the man who does not measure Me according to his reason.”

Malachi 3:2  For He is like a blazing fire.

Even Job had to be purified; but he was more righteous (a more sound belief system) than his friends.

That is, “He will condemn all your works and enthusiasms.  All your attitudes will have to be mortified, just as fire melts and purifies silver and separates it from all impurities.  The Hebrew word means a sharp cleaning agent or soap that washes great stains out of garments.  This is how Christ will condemn all things and demand only spiritual qualities.

Malachi 3:3  And purified silver.

At one point in time, representation from the whole church hailed Luther as a very bright light.  Why has he become so dark?  I testify that Luther showed me the light of Christ and my life began to change and continues to change for the better because of it.  All I received from the Baptists was a guilty conscience.  All I saw the Lutherans dispensing was a false sense of security.

In Psalm 12:6 we have this: “The promises of the Lord are promises that are pure, silver refined in a furnace on the ground, purified seven times.”  To be sure, the Word of God is completely pure in itself, but it is purified in us daily because it purifies us.  Scripture is a very bright light, but to a wicked man it is pure darkness.  The matter lies not in the sound of the words but in the inmost depths of the heart.  The sun is darkness to the blind.  That is not the fault of the sun but of blind or closed eyes.

Malachi 3:3  And He will refine them.

Luther’s writings are the furnace.  Luther will purge and stir your zeal until all that is left is the silver of Pauline theology.

“He will purify, elevate, cleanse them.  He will remove the dross of false doctrine to reveal the light of divine truth through the Word by which they themselves will be led. 

Malachi 3:5  Then I will draw near to you for judgment.

Purity of doctrine remains with me because Luther remains with me.  If one jot or tittle will not fall till all be fulfilled, how do you justify the divergence of exegesis among us?

After the prophet has described how it will be with the saints in the kingdom of Christ, he now reveals what will become of the wicked who will be separated from the righteous.  Purity of doctrine will remain with the righteous.  Those who are befouled with manifest wickedness will not be tolerated in that new kingdom.  He says:  “I will come through the Word for judgment.  I will excommunicate, condemn, cut off.”

Malachi 3:8  If a man will rob God.

I fearfully urge you to be very careful about condemning my rebuke—that is, be terror-stricken and careful not to too quickly justify your own opinions over against “mine,” lest you be found guilty of the unpardonable sin.

Here God is challenging the behavior of the entire human race.  Everywhere they worship their gods with great care and never steal anything from an idol.  He reproaches their behavior no more than their doctrine, because they have been defending their sins, and that is the unforgivable sin against the Holy Spirit.  That is when one cultivates a lie for the sake of piety.  Reason, which controls the heathen, teaches that something sacrilegious is wicked, but the Jews even defended this as right.  So also the papists worship their idols more diligently than the true God.

Malachi 3:9  In your poverty you are cursed.

I know, about half of you take pride in your sprawling churches, great crowds, book reprints, and full seminar halls; while the other half takes pride they haven’t been reduced to such a shallow ministry.  Enjoy your pride and poverty now, for God will bring you to abject shame.

“You have been cursed with a curse, a wasting away.  Because you have committed sacrilege against Me, I will see to it that all your possessions waste away.  You will not rejoice in your possessions.”

Malachi 3:10  Bring in the full tithe.

One of the first things I urged my LCMS pastor to do was to set about to convince the gainsayers, who had infiltrated his church, because if he did then God would show Himself strong on his behalf and raise up some truly pious people.  He cleansed house by discarding me.

“Seek first the kingdom of God.”  “First satisfy Me and see whether or not I am going to satisfy you also.”  God is the kind of Physician who tears away to repair, who becomes angry to show mercy, who cuts to heal.  Against Satan He only wounds and does not heal again.

Malachi 3:16  Then those who feared the Lord spoke with one another.

God keeps the tears of His Remnant in His bottle.

He is saying that they have not been forgotten in the presence of God.  He Himself is writing in a book of remembrance what they are saying to each other, those who comfort each other, who fear, who do not murmur, who do not become upset because of the good fortune of the wicked.

Malachi 3:16  Who thought on the name of God.

You are pious to the extent that you understand and harmonize your confession with that of Luther.  If God works this grace in you, you will soon experience what true persecution is.  Until now our “persecution” has been no different than what the worst religious rogues experience—that is, a “persecution” because of our own foolishness, sin, and our zeal without knowledge.

They persevered in their worship and piety, even though they were suffering persecution.

Malachi 3:17  On the day when I make them My possession.

I am already his; are you?  If you do not essentially agree with my premise, one of us is a liar and a scoundrel, or deeply deceived.

That is, they will be revealed as people who belong to Me and already are Mine.

Malachi 3:17  And I will spare them as a man spares his son who serves him.

Praise God who spares us poor sinful creatures even when we blaspheme Him, and that out of His bare goodness.

Here He promises that He is going to be a Father who is kindly disposed to those who fear and serve Him, that is, to the believers.  When He says “I will spare,” He indicates that that kingdom would come not without sin.  Therefore, it would be a kingdom of grace and forgiveness of sins, a kingdom of sparing.

Malachi 4:2  With healing in His wings.

What is the Gospel?  What are we to believe—just what makes sense to us?  Who are the Hawks.

Such, then, is the rule of Christ that He Himself is the Mediator and Protector, the way a hen protects her chicks from the hawk.  Therefore, let everyone who wants to be safe from the wrath and judgment of God seek refuge under the wings of Christ.  This is what the Law urges.  Under the Law there is a weakness and condemnation; under the wings of Christ, under the Gospel, there is strength and salvation.  The Sun rises when the Gospel is preached.  One hides under the wings when he believes.  Therefore, although you may be a sinner, yet you will be safe when you flee for refuge under His wings.  You will not fear death.  The lust of the flesh will not overpower you.

Malachi 4:2 Leaping

I shall not die! but live, that I may recount the deeds of the Lord.

“You shall be poured out, you shall be increased.”  This is a property of joy.  Sadness, on the other hand, confines.  The Christian believes that the world is his.  He goes out into the open.  He does not head for the corners.

Malachi 4:3  You shall tread down the wicked.

To be sure, Calvin and the Pope tread down God’s people, but their end is at hand.

There are always enemies of the church, tyrants or heretics or false brothers.  Heretics keep the righteous busy, and they finally are reduced to nothing, to ashes, to dust.  “The faithfulness of the Lord endures forever.”  The fire of Christ will reduce them to ashes.  Therefore, you will tread them down easily.  Yet, they first tread us down.  But finally the wheel turns, and nothing grows from ashes.

Malachi 4:6  Lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.

“I will spew thee out of my mouth,” that is, after He purifies the Remnant.

“Lest I reduce it to absolutely nothing.”  This is the way Scripture uses the word anathema, that which may not be redeemed but must be consumed.  “Lest this happen among My people and that at least a remnant be saved, I will send John.”

Our Father, Who art in Heaven, Hallowed be Thy name:  Did Luther hinder the coming of your Kingdom in any way?  Are we opposing Your will when we do not zealously study and submit ourselves to his Wisdom?  Has Luther not been to me my very daily bread for many years given at Your hand?  Forgive us, O Father, for the sake of Your Son, our disregard of Your blessed Spokesman.  I thank You that You have led us into this temptation for no other purpose than to try and test Your Elect.  I ask now that You would deliver us from this evil state of spiritual adultery that Your Kingdom, Your true kingdom, might be made manifest, that Your honorable name would be exalted, and that Your true glory might be clearly revealed.  Amen.

Conclusion

I know many rebuke me for exalting Luther, especially since he was so unwilling to exalt himself.  I am not exalting Luther, only the true meaning of Scripture which Christ gave to Luther.  Herein is the rub; that is, what God does in a crisis never makes sense to God’s people—not at first.  God always acts in a way that seems to contradict His clear Word.  One only has to study the lives of Adam, Abraham, Moses, David, Paul, Christ, and Luther.  One example should suffice: Abraham was told to destroy his son contrary to the eternal prohibition of shedding blood.

In like manner, I come, no, Christ comes to a generation of Christians who are drunk with the wine of the priesthood of the believer.  When I, no, when Christ says, “Hear Luther,” this sounds like heresy to those who {think they} love Scripture and detest any private interpretation.  They are deeply offended and are found to be fighting against the very God they so deeply believe they are honoring.  This is exactly like the Jews who were offended at a crucified Christ.

In short, I come to you humbly and respectfully, urging you to consider this exhortation compiled from some of the Minor Prophets.  I am begging you to consider that each word, each sin, each heresy may apply to you.  If this message rings true in your heart, I especially invite you to receive the wonderful comfort contained within and between the wrath and the threats!

But you say, “We already have the Word quite at our disposal.”  With all due respect, no you do not.  You have been blinded by the spirit of this age; you are a part of the great falling away; members of the church that Christ will spew out of His moth; a people who will not come to the light because your deeds are evil; and a people who have fallen from the true meaning of justification by faith alone—which makes you an idolater and blasphemer, a vile offender of the First Commandment.

I acknowledge you know the vocabulary of faith which God restored through the prophet Luther, but you have lost the essential meaning of these words.  I come humbly but spiritually confidently before you to show you this.  I do not know that I come to you as a prophet, but I most certainly come to you in the name of a prophet, Luther, and the Giver of prophets, Christ.

I am very concerned for all of us lest even the Elect be ultimately deceived.  This cannot happen, for we know that Christ will always preserve a Remnant.  But we must be humble and consider it is a regular cycle for God’s people to fall to the point of virtual annihilation and then be rescued at the last minute.

We have fallen away and become a people with unclean lips and lying hearts.  I have confessed the duplicity of my heart and my vile lips with heartfelt sorrow and a stricken conscience more times than I can remember the last few years since I have been learning the true, eternal meaning of the Word from my pastor, Luther.

I beseech you to assume, try on, these sins and concepts: work your salvation out with fear and trembling.  What hope is there if a husband says to his wife, “Tell me what I am doing to drive you away from me and I will listen,” and yet immediately rejects what his wife says?  Even a third party helper is ineffective if the husband (or wife) will not LISTEN.  A person listens when he is willing to consider that which absolutely cuts across his philosophical grain.  This husband may think he is a truly wonderful husband—and may be in many ways—but if he is not wonderful in the way his wife needs him to be wonderful, what does it profit?

I come to you as a third party mediator; that is, I come imploring you to be reconciled to Truth.  You say, “I already am well acquainted with Truth.”  Yes, I am sure you are, but not with the one faith-aspect of Truth that would make you a wonderful bride of Christ.  I come to you in the name of the Lord Christ Who continues to build His glorious church.  I am telling you of my firm conviction that I am here so that you might be fully reconciled to God through Christ.

This should give you cause for consideration.  Yes, you could write me off as an egotistical quack, except that my message is not my own, but a very old message that was fully restored through our brother, Luther.  I am not saying anything he didn’t say, only that God has raised me up, unholy worm that I am, to direct your attention to Luther.

Is there anything here we can agree on?  Can we dialogue and reason together over this?

In Christ’s name,

Timothy Vance

www.askluther.com

“Where two or three are gathered in My name, there am I in the midst.”

“Let the prophets judge the prophets.”

“In the mouth of two or three witnesses let every word be established.”

Janet L. Vance

Timothy R. Vance