Issues, Etc. Blogs of the Week 2009

After Issues, Etc.™ returned to the broadcast airwaves, they started a new feature called “Blog of the Week.”  Every Friday, the host and producer each choose their favorite blog post from the past week, talk about it a little, and then post its link in the on demand section of their website.

In order to qualify, a blog must display the Issues, Etc. widget found in the promote section of their website.

Issues, Etc. can also be heard on Pirate Christian Radio.  Pirate Christian Radio is the best Christian radio station.  Listen to it.

Here are the Issues, Etc. blogs of the week from January to June 2009:

June 26:

• God Does Not Desire the Death of a Sinner — Drowning Myself Whenever I Can
• Why the Historic Liturgy (& Issues, Etc.) Means So Much to Me — Vocation in the Valley

June 19:

• A Protest — Weedon’s Blog
• Who Goes to Megachurches? — Cranach, the Blog of Veith

June 12:

• On Hymnody… — Southern Lutheran Kantor
• Brilliant Words from C.P. Krauth — From One We Can Judge the Rest

June 5:

• Big Thanks to LCMS, Inc. — Vocation in the Valley
• Only One Man Did This — Incarnatus Est

May 29:

• Grace Video — Rev. Mason Beecroft
• Coached to Break the Rules — Necessary Roughness

May 22:

• More On the Outside than I Thought — Vocation in the Valley
• Whack a Kitty — Drowning Myself Whenever I Can

May 15:

• Carts and Horses — Concordian Sisters of Perpetual Parturition
• Thoughts on Lutheran Unity — Weedon’s Blog

“Parturition:  the action or process of giving birth to offspring.”  (Merriam-Webster Dictionary).

May 8:

• Pieper on Apologetics — Utah Lutheran
• Old Tired Ideas — Babylon Falling

May 1:

• Irritated — Weedon’s Blog
• Under the Influence — Preachrblog

April 24:

• In Praise of Carrie Prejean — Men4God Weblog
• Closed Communion Cone-size Catch-22? — Father Hollywood

April 17:

• A Bright Future in Jesus – Easter 2009 — Lutheran Logomaniac
• A Theology OF the Cross vs. A Theology ABOUT the Cross — The Mockingbird Blog

April 3:

• The Key to the Future of the Lutheran Church — Cyberbrethren
• The Lamb of God who suffered scorn… — Baptismal Life

March 27:

• Some Thoughts for Leonidas on the Church Militant — Cyberstones
• Why Imitation Is No Strategy for Lutheranism — Cyberbrethren

March 20:

• Denials, denials, denials — Confessional Gadfly
• Absolution in the face of the Absolute — StarboCho

March 13:

• “If we would be Christians…” — Confessional’s Bytes
• So, let me get this straight… — Drowning Myself Whenever I Can

March 6:

• The Sacred is Still Sacred — Straight Schlueter
• On Lawyers and Pit Bulls — Blogosphere Underground

February 27:

• “Success” by WELS President Schroeder — Light from Light †
• Joel Osteen, Pork, & Shrimp — Pastor Strey’s Weblog

February 20:

• A Direct Question Deserves a Direct Answer — Stand Firm
• Latest ELCA Revisionist Opinion on Sexuality Rejected — Brothers of John the Steadfast

February 13:

• When Divisions Are Good — The Minnesota Lutheran
• “Against stupidity the gods themselves struggle to no avail.” — Standing at the Edge of Eternity

February 6:

• What Are You Afraid Of? — Weedon’s Blog
• Who is at Fault?  100-0 — Survival Living in a Post-Modern World

January 23:

• Hope and Virtue — Cyberstones
• Success Perspective — Ichabod, The Glory has Departed

January 16:

• The Excuse — Stand Firm
• Challenging Words from Krauth — Weedon’s Blog

January 9:

• The Humble God — God with Us
• Open Letter to LCMS Pastors — Four and Twenty+ Blackbirds

Happy Independence Day!

Happy Independence Day!

These fireworks represent the blood and treasure our fore-fathers spent to win our freedom.

Here is an excerpt from George Washington’s Farewell Address:

Of all the dispositions and habits, which lead to political prosperity, Religion and morality are indispensable supports.  In vain would that man claim the tribute of Patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great Pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of Men and citizens.  The mere Politician, equally with the pious man ought to respect and to cherish them…  reason and experience both forbid us to expect, that National morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.

‘Tis substantially true, that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government.  The rule indeed extends with more or less force to every species of free Government.  Who, that is a sincere friend to it, can look with indifference upon attempts to shake the foundation of the fabric.

Promote then as an object of primary importance, Institutions for the general diffusion of knowledge.  In proportion as the structure of a government gives force to public opinion, it is essential that public opinion should be enlightened.

As a very important source of strength and security, cherish public credit.  One method of preserving it is to use it as sparingly as possible, avoiding occasions of expense by cultivating peace, but remembering also that timely disbursements to prepare for danger frequently prevent much greater disbursements to repel it; avoiding likewise the accumulation of debt, not only by shunning occasions of expense, but by vigorous exertions in time of peace to discharge the debts which unavoidable wars may have occasioned, not ungenerously throwing upon posterity the burthen which we ourselves ought to bear.

— George Washington, 1796.

Our Founding Fathers worked hard to birth this nation in freedom.  They promoted virtue and morality, and they paid their debts with their own blood and treasure knowing that debtors are servants to creditors.  Today as we celebrate our own freedom and independence, consider whether we are giving the same gift of freedom to future generations.  Do we promote virtue and morality?  Are we paying our debts?  Or are we expecting future generations to pay our bills?  Are we using our trillion dollar debts to enslave future Americans?  Will we be the generation that inherits freedom and bequeaths slavery?

Rev. Deutschlander on Issues, Etc.

On Tuesday, June 23, 2009 A.D., the Rev. Daniel Deutschlander, one of the most preeminent teachers & theologians in the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod (WELS), appeared on the popular Lutheran radio program Issues, Etc.™

Rev. Deutschlander is the author of The Theology of the Cross.  Topics of the conversation included:

• Contrasting the ‘theology of glory’ with the ‘theology of the cross,’
• The definition of a cross,
• The purpose of a cross,
• The pivotal nature of the Scriptures,
• The importance of taking God seriously,
• The hidden God, and
• The Sacraments’ hidden glory.

Click here to download the Issues, Etc. sound clip.  This entire interview is well worth at least one careful listen:

Excerpts from the Interview:

How do we deal with the question, “Does God hate me?”  (8:15).

That’s where the Scriptures are pivotal…  I abandon myself to the word of God…  I cling to the promise of God, and hang on that; not how I feel, not what seems reasonable, not what the devil is blowing in my ear and I can’t tell whether he is an angel of light or not.  What does God say?

The importance of taking God seriously:  (15:25).

Luther took God seriously in all that He said in both the law and the gospel.  And that if you don’t take Him seriously in the law, you will dismiss Him in the gospel.

That’s so much in evidence.  And so much of what passes for the Church Growth Movement: is you want to make Christianity easy and popular, and so you leave out confession, you leave out original sin, you leave out man’s always and desperate need for the gospel.

Once you leave that out, people lose their taste for the gospel (”Ho hum, I know all that already, who cares?”), and they become relativists.  They can do whatever they want, because “Jesus died, not to save me from my sins, but to save me for them.”  That’s a highway to hell …

Man’s need for grace is always desperate and absolute.  It is never trivial.

“What is this notion of the ‘hidden God’?”  (17:45).

God hides himself in the cross …  God hides himself in lowliness.  He hides himself in weakness.  People want to see God in glory:  Well go back and see the appearances of God in glory: see him at Mount Sinai: terror, dread, death.  But he wraps himself in holiness in the whisper to Elijah on the mountain, in the manger: there is the almighty God, suffering and dying on the cross: there is the almighty God.

And that’s replicated in the Christian.  What is the Christian by virtue of the fact that he is forgiven?  He is a saint, he is a child of God, he is a part of the Bride of Christ.  Christ rules all of history for him and for his benefit, but he doesn’t see that now.  It’s an article of faith.  What he sees now is weakness and lowliness, and so God keeps coming to him in meekness and weakness and lowliness.  In what? in the Word, in the simple Sacraments.  That’s where God is to be found.

We don’t want to see God this side of the grave in his glory.  We want to embrace him and love him in his lowliness in the manger, on the cross, at the empty tomb, in the Word, in the water of Baptism, in the Bread and the Wine of the sacred Supper.  That’s where he encounters us, and that’s what we love.

Talk about the Sacraments.  (19:15).

The Sacraments are the visible gospel…

The despairing heart sighs a sigh of relief at the promise of the gospel.  My flesh says, “No.”  My conscience says, “No.”  But God in the Sacraments … says “Yes,” and he says “Yes” to me personally.

“What is the comfort of the theology of the cross … versus the theology of glory?”  (23:45).

Theology of the cross: the certainty that Christ won everything for me.

Theology of glory: it all depends on what I do and how I feel: all of which are fickle, imperfect, uncertain.

Christ said, “It is finished.”

Soundbite of the Week:

On Friday, June 26, 2009 A.D., the listeners of Issues, Etc. chose the soundbite from Rev. Deutschlander’s interview as the “soundbite of the week.”  Click here to download the soundbite of the week segment:

Issues, Etc. Return Anniversary

June 30, 2009 A.D. is the one year return anniversary of Issues, Etc.™  In celebration of this anniversary, here are some soundbites from the show:

Terry Mattingly on “Lutheran Churches That May As Well Not Be”

A Listener Checks in from the Road

Dr. Mike Horton on “The Church Needs the Gospel Too”

Greg Koukl on “Real Christian Disagreement”

Pastor Bryan Wolfmueller on “Church Consultants”

Fear Versus Freedom

Fear.  Why are many Lutheran leaders so afraid?

Issues, Etc. is a strong Gospel outreach radio program.  Nonetheless, the liberal leaders of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod (LCMS) unexpectedly terminated the show during Holy Week of last year.  Even the program archives on the internet were erased, and then eventually replaced with inferior files.  The LCMS leadership later claimed the sudden termination was mainly for financial reasons, but nonetheless had failed to ask for any donations to save the popular show.

Freedom.  Since that time, and because of strong public outcry, the show has returned better than before.  They are better because they are free.  This show is better because it is now free to tell the whole truth, and free from fear of retribution from their corporate superiors.

Christ came to set us free.  Pastors are not CEOs or Public Relations Officers, and Christians are not employees.  We are brothers, and we are free in the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Issues, Etc. is a strong Gospel outreach radio program because it stands firmly on the power and authority of the word of God.  Those who have faith in the word of God do not fear because they stand on the rock that does not move.

However, there are those who fear freedom.  There are those who do not believe in the power of truth.  There are those who fear that someone will say something bad about them.  They don’t stand on the Rock, but rather they live under rocks in the darkness of slavery and fear.

They are afraid the Church will die without amusing entertainments.  They are afraid the Church will die without “relevant” gospel-less sermons.  They lack faith.  They do not trust the word of God.  They do not trust the power of the word of God.  They do not trust God.

They should not call themselves “Lutheran.”  The great Reformer stood on the power of the word of God alone.  He could turn a phrase, but the Reformation proceeded by the power and authority of the Word and by no other power.  To be Lutheran is to trust the Word of God.

Lutheranism in America is currently facing grave challenges.  May our Lord help and guide us, may the Lord have mercy, may God’s will be done.

Sometimes, We Feel Like This

Sometimes, we feel like this.  The world is upside down and spinning around.

But we know that we have God’s forgiveness here and now in Word and Sacrament.  How we feel is not as important as what God says and does for us.

We also know that someday Christ will return, and make everything right.  “At that time men will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory.”  (Mark 13:26).

Comments on Markcares

Mark Cares is a WELS pastor who also runs a blog outreach to Mormons called Markcares.  Mark was recently chided that he would face eternal consequences for preaching that salvation is by grace alone through faith alone.

It is true, the things we say do have eternal consequences.  When all the authoritative Lutheran Confessions were assembled into the Book of Concord, the Lutheran Reformers declared:

By God’s grace, with intrepid hearts, we are willing to appear before the judgment seat of Christ with this Confession and give an account of it.  We will not speak or write anything contrary to this Confession, either publicly or privately.  [Solid Declaration XII, 40).

If only every nominal Lutheran would so speak.  What we say is important.  I submitted a number of comments for the Markcares post entitled “Stimulating Discussion or Eternal Consequences,” and they are re-posted below for a different readership.  (The green numbers indicate the comment order, and clicking on the number will take one directly to the original comment on Markcares).

14:

The righteousness of God “is by faith from first to last.”  (Romans 1:17).  If by faith from first to last, then by faith alone.  Only after receiving the gift of faith, do we then produce the fruits of faith.

• The Mormon response to this was comment #23.

21:

Who goes into court and says, “Yes, your honor I am guilty, but I shouldn’t be punished because I once helped an orphan”?  I once saw someone do something like that in court, and the judge lost his temper.  The fact is we don’t pay for our crimes by doing something good.  (We are supposed to do good as a matter of living (Luke 17:9-10)).  We pay for our crimes by being punished.  When we go in front of the Judge, we need to ask for mercy.  But if we act like we deserve mercy because of some alleged good that we did, then we will get all that we rightly deserve, because mercy is by definition undeserved.

• There was no response to this comment.

28:

In order for works to be good, they have to be done out of a good motivation.  In order for works to be done out of a good motivation, they have to be done freely, that is not compelled.  If a person is compelled to do a good deed out of threat of punishment, then the motivation is corrupt and the work is not truly good.

Apart from faith, we live under the threat of hell, therefore, apart from faith we can do nothing good because we are not free.  Do you commend people for doing good because they had to?  Or do you commend people for doing good because even though they did not have to, they did good anyway because they wanted to do good?

Why do you think God will commend people for doing good while they were still under the curse of the law?  Do we give awards to prisoners on chain gangs for picking up trash along the highway?  God judges the heart, not the outward action.

That is why salvation cannot be by any good work whatsoever.  The person doing the work must already be saved; they must already have heaven as a free gift.  Only then are we free to do a true good work without thought of reward or punishment.  Therefore, even though we are judged by what we do in the body (2 Corinthians 5:10), we can do no good unless we are already saved (unless we are already free).

It is true that “God ‘will give to each person according to what he has done,’” (Romans 2:6) therefore, it behooves us to live by faith.  For the righteousness of God is by faith from first to last.

The moment that our salvation becomes conditional or dependent in any way upon our works, then the motivation for those works is corrupted, and the works are filth.  As the prophet says: “all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away.” (Isaiah 64:6).

Salvation “by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone” is not a contradiction because faith is the only way we receive the one promise.

• The Mormon response to this was comment #32.

31:

True Christianity is more like this:  Teenager has no desire for a car because teenager is in fact dead.  Teenager has no money and can’t get a job because Teenager is dead.  Teenager can do nothing to change his situation or even ask for help because Teenager is dead.  The Father goes out and purchases a car, comes home, raises his son from the dead, gives his son the desire for a car and also the desire to use the car correctly, and then tosses the keys to his son saying, “It’s all yours.  Enjoy.”  That’s not just grace, that’s grace alone.

When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ.  He forgave us all our sins (Colossians 2:13).

• The Mormon response to this was comment #33.

42:

“Grace alone” means works are excluded when God graciously gives us gifts.  “Faith alone” means that works are excluded when believing we receive His gifts.  Both phrases mean exactly the same thing: works are excluded.  Therefore, they cannot contradict.

• The Mormon response to this was comment #44.

What strikes me most about all the Mormon responses on Markcares is the seeming inability to believe that Christians will do right simply because they want to and not because they have to.  The Mormon chain gang is proud of how much trash they pick up along the highway, and how useful the chains are in getting people to pick up trash, and how they have grown to love their trash picking duties, but in the end they are still in chains.  Actual real freedom is beyond their theology.  Unfortunately, because they are dead and blind unbelievers, real freedom is beyond their comprehension.  (1 Corinthians 1:17-31).

Those who do not believe in freedom, cannot understand freedom.  May God bless the Markcares outreach.  I pray that God will use His word to set at least a few free and save them from the Final Judgment; so that instead of chiding the heralds of grace, they may one day truly understand the meaning of this passage:

Make a tree good and its fruit will be good, or make a tree bad and its fruit will be bad, for a tree is recognized by its fruit.  You brood of vipers, how can you who are evil say anything good?  For out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks.  The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in him, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in him.  But I tell you that men will have to give account on the day of judgment for every careless word they have spoken.  For by your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned.

—  Matthew 12:33-37.

The Boys of Summer

This swing probably won’t get Josh Womack to the majors, but it is an interesting trick.

Prentice Redman is in the second video.

Scripture of the Day

Romans 3:22-24 (NIV)

This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe.  There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.

Ephesians 2:8-10 (NIV)

For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast.  For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

Romans 6:1-4 (ESV)

What shall we say then?  Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound?  By no means!  How can we who died to sin still live in it?  Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?  We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.

Hebrews 10:26-31 (ESV)

For if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a fearful expectation of judgment, and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries.  Anyone who has set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on the evidence of two or three witnesses.  How much worse punishment, do you think, will be deserved by the one who has spurned the Son of God, and has profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has outraged the Spirit of grace?  For we know him who said, “Vengeance is mine; I will repay.”  And again, “The Lord will judge his people.”  It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

Romans 8:12-14 (NIV)

Therefore, brothers, we have an obligation—but it is not to the sinful nature, to live according to it.  For if you live according to the sinful nature, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live, because those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.

1 Corinthians 6:9-10 (ESV)

Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God?  Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.

1 John 1:8 (NIV)

If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.

1 John 3:4-10 (ESV)

Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness; sin is lawlessness.  You know that he appeared to take away sins, and in him there is no sin.  No one who abides in him keeps on sinning; no one who keeps on sinning has either seen him or known him.  Little children, let no one deceive you.  Whoever practices righteousness is righteous, as he is righteous.  Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning.  The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil.  No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God’s seed abides in him, and he cannot keep on sinning because he has been born of God.  By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother.

Matthew 12:31 (NIV)

And so I tell you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven.

In the Beginning …

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  He was with God in the beginning.

Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.  In him was life, and that life was the light of men.  The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it…

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.  We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth…  Grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.  No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father’s side, has made him known.

- John 1.

How to Add an Issues, Etc. Widget to a WordPress.com Weblog

WordPress.com is an excellent blogging platform, however for security reasons, it does not allow JavaScript.  This helps keep WordPress.com secure, however, we cannot use JavaScript.  The Issues, Etc.™ widget uses JavaScript, therefore, it will not work here.

Here is a workaround:

1.  Copy the following code, and paste & save it in a text widget:

<p>
<a href="http://issuesetc.org/">
<img title="Issues, Etc.™" src="****">
</a>
<p>

2.  Save the above red Issues, Etc. graphic to your desktop.

3.  Next, load the Issues, Etc. graphic into your media library.  (In the drop down media menu, click “Add New” and then select files).

4.  Once the file has uploaded, WordPress.com will display a summary page.  At the bottom of this summary page will be a gray box containing the new file’s URL.  Your file’s URL will look similar to this:

http://yourblog.files.wordpress.com/2009/07/issueswidget.jpg

5.  Now, copy your file’s URL (from step 4), and paste it into the code in your text widget over the top of the part that reads:

****

Your new code in the text widget should look similar to this:

<p>
<a href=”http://issuesetc.org/”> <img title=”Issues, Etc.™” src=”http://yourblog.files.wordpress.com/2009/07/issueswidget.jpg“> </a>
<p>

6.  Click “Save,” and voilà!

This post is not about WordPress.org blogs or self hosted blogs using WordPress software.  This post pertains to only WordPress.com blogs.