Introduction:

In short, our righteousness is called (in plain language) the forgiveness of sins. Or, as it says here: “sins not counted,” “sins covered,” “sins not to be seen.” Here stand the clear plain words: All the saints are sinners and remain sinners. But they are holy because God in His grace neither sees nor counts these sins, but forgets, forgives, and covers them. There is thus no distinction between saints and the non-saints. They are sinners alike and all sin daily, only the sins of the holy are not counted but covered; and the sins of the unholy are not covered but counted. One would have a healing dressing on and is bandaged; the other wound is open and undressed. Nevertheless, both of them are truly wounded, truly sinners, concerning which we in our books in other places have abundantly bore witness.

PSALM 32
A Psalm by David; a Maskil.
  1 How blessed is he whose rebellious acts are taken away and whose sin is covered.
  2 How blessed is the man whom the LORD never accuses of sin and in whose spirit there is no deceit.
  3 When I kept silent about my sin, my bones were worn out because of my cries of anguish all day long.
  4 Day and night Your hand laid heavily on me. You tried to destroy me in the dry summer heat.
Selah
  5 I made my sin known to You, and I did not cover up my guilt. I said, “I will confess my rebellious acts to the LORD,” and You, You took away all my sin.
Selah
  6 For this reason let all who are faithful pray to You at a time when You may be found. Then raging floodwater will not reach them.
  7 You are my hiding place. You protect me from trouble. You surround me with songs of deliverance.
Selah
  8 The LORD says, “I will instruct you and I will teach you the Way that you will go and I will counsel you with My eyes watching over you.
  9 Don’t be stubborn like a horse or mule who will not obey unless they are controlled by bridle and bit.”
10 Many are the sorrows of wicked people, but faithful, loving kindness surrounds him who trusts the LORD.
11 Be glad in the LORD and rejoice, you righteous people. Sing with joy, all who are upright in heart.

Meditation: This Psalm expresses the most marvelous assurance that any believer can have. That assurance is forgiveness of sin. Many an individual may feel that the wrath of a just God is appeased by trying to be good and follow His commandments and in that way is forgiven. But the Psalmist says, “You (LORD) took away all my sin.” Sin is forgiven and covered only because Jesus Christ laid down His life as the payment for it, and His blood cleanses us from all sin. In Christ and Him alone, God’s wrath is appeased, and heaven is opened to us.

Translation by DLR

Introduction:

This palm belongs to the First and Second Commandments because it commends the struggle of those who believe in God and pray against sin and death. It is in the First Petition of the Lord’s Prayer, as are all other psalms of prayer, because its prayer is that God’s name be called upon and blessed.

PSALM 6
For the choir director; with stringed instruments, on the Sheminith; a Psalm by David.
1 O LORD, do not punish me in Your anger and do not discipline me in Your wrath.
  2 Be kind to me, O LORD, because I am weak and sick.
Heal me, O LORD, because my bones shake with terror.
  3 And my soul is also terrified but you, O LORD – how long?
  4 Turn, O LORD, and rescue my life. Save me for the sake of Your unfailing kindness.
  5 Because in death no one remembers you. In hell who can praise you?
  6 I am worn out from my groaning. I flood my bed every night with my tears. I drench my couch with tears.
  7 My eye is weak because of sorrow. It grows weak because of all my oppressors.
  8 Get away from me all you workers of evil, because the LORD has heard the sound of my weeping.
  9 The LORD has heard my plea. The LORD accepts my prayer.
10 All of those people who hate me will be ashamed and they will be very terrified; they will turn back and they will be ashamed in a moment.

Meditation: When our conscience afflicts us because of sin and seems to continually accuse us, we feel that there is no one to whom we can turn. We toss and turn, back and forth, wrestling with our conscience: what we should do about our sin, how we should take care of our sins, when we should work on correcting them, and so on. All the affliction of conscience and wrestling with sin wakes us up to the wrath of a just and righteous God, who threatens punishment to all who trespass His commandments. On the other hand, the devil wants us to continue in our condition and agitation so that we may end up in hell with him. But the LORD, Jesus Christ took up our afflictions and sin when He cried out on the Cross, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken Me?” Our comfort and peace are then found in His words from the Cross because Jesus suffered the affliction of sin, death and hell so that we would never have to fear having to remain in our sin, living with the expectation of death, and thereby suffering in hell forever.

Translation DLR

Text:

…For my part, I am bringing the flood waters upon the earth, to destroy all flesh, everything under heaven which has within it the breath of life; everything that is in the earth will be destroyed. But I will establish My promise with you; and you will come into the ark, you, and your sons, and your wife, and your sons’ wives with you. And of every kind of living thing you will bring two of every kind into the ark, to keep them alive with you; they will be male and female. Of the birds according to their kind, and the animals according their kind, of every creeping thing of the ground according to their kind, two of every sort will come to you, to keep them alive. And take for yourself every kind of food that is eaten, and gather it, and it will be food for you, and for them. And Noah did this; according to all that God commanded him, he did it. [Genesis 6:5-22]

Thesis: “The light of God’s Word is shining on us now, which is unmistakable evidence of impending disaster. God wants to save a few of us before disaster strikes and destroys us if we don’t improve. We have only to look at the days of Noah, Lot, Abraham, Isaac & Jacob, Joseph & Moses, Jonah & Hosea and Jesus to see the truth of this. For whenever God is about to stir up His wrath He first sends His Word to save a few” — Martin Luther, Commentary on Jonah




Outline:



I. The Spirit of God stirs up the Godly to be a wall against God’s judgment & wrath.


a. The true Church suffers, is dishonored, and treated with contempt by those who condemn her faithfulness to God’s Word of promise.

b. The true Church prays for those who afflict her.

c. The closer the ungodly come to God’s judgment the more they indulge in amusements & pleasures.



II. The earth was corrupt.

d. Noah was treated as dumb (120 years of saying a flood of water is going to fall from the heavens)

e. Noah was treated with contempt when he exhorted the people to true worship of God.

f. Their false worship was hidden behind a mask of saintliness.

III. The Godly are afflicted by the ungodly and God is thereby roused by their affliction.


g. All flesh is corrupt except Noah.

h. The people persecuted Noah for false preaching.

i. God was sorry he had made man.

IV. Noah did what God commanded him.


j. Noah carried out God’s direction.

k. Noah listened to the One who issued the command, not the command itself.

l. The ungodly heard Noah’s preaching as preposterous, impossible, and inconvenient

m. The Noahic wall was torn down by God’s judgment and wrath in the flood.

Conclusion: ”Just as before the Flood a new church begins in Paradise through Adam and Eve, who believed the promise, so at this point also a new world and a new church take their beginning from Noah’s marriage; it is the seedbed as it were, of that world which is to endure until the end of the world.” – Martin Luther, Genesis Lectures

The First Article renounces every idolatry and false belief. Trust is located only in God. “I take the risk of placing my confidence only in the one, invisible, inscrutable, and only God, who created heaven and earth and who alone is superior to all creation. Again, I am not terrified by all the wickedness of the devil and his cohorts because God is superior to them all.” (AE 43:25) This trust is steadfast in spite of everything that contradicts it. “I trust in him steadfastly, no matter how long he may delay, prescribing neither a goal, nor a time, nor a measure, nor a way (for God to respond to me), but leaving all to his divine will in a free, honest, and genuine faith. If he is almighty, what could I lack that God could not give or do for me?” (AE 43:25) The Second Article unfolds around the confession that Jesus is the one true Son of God, begotten from all eternity and made man to suffer, die, and rise again for our salvation. Biblical texts are used to unpack each phrase of the Second Article. The Third Article sets forth the work of the Holy Spirit. Here Luther focuses on the forgiveness of sins for Christ’s sake in the context of the church as that community created and sustained by the word of forgiveness preached and bestowed in the sacraments.

from John Pless, Fidelity to the Catechism In Prayer and Teaching.

We however take the middle course and say: There is to be neither commanding nor forbidding, neither to the right nor to the left. We are neither papistic nor Karlstadtian, but free and Christian, in that we elevate or do not elevate the sacrament, how, where, when, as long as it pleases us, as God has given us the liberty to do. Just as we are free to remain outside of marriage or to enter into marriage, to eat meat or not, to wear the chasuble or not, to have the cowl and tonsure or not. In this respect we are lords and will put up with no commandment, teaching, or prohibition. We have also done both here in Wittenberg. For in the cloister we observed mass without chasuble, without elevation, in the most plain and simple way which Karlstadt extols [as following] Christ’s example. On the other hand, in the parish church we still have the chasuble, alb, altar, and elevate [the host] as long as it pleases us.

Therefore my factious spirit ought not fight against us Wittenbergers in this manner: “They elevate the sacrament. Therefore they sin against God.” But this might be said, “They teach and command that one must elevate the sacrament lest there be mortal sin. Therefore they sin against God.” For so the papists do and teach. We however do not so teach, and yet permit freedom to do this as long as it pleases us. The doing does no harm, the teaching, however, is the very devil. On the other hand, in the cloister we refrain from it, but we do not so teach as Dr. Karlstadt does The refraining does no harm, the teaching, however, is the very devil. From this you may gather, who are “the cousins of the Antichrist,” we or Dr. Karlstadt. We do as the papists, but we do not tolerate their teaching, commandment, and constraint. We refrain from doing like the Karlstadtians, but we do not tolerate the prohibition. Thus the pope and Dr. Karlstadt are true cousins in teaching, for they both teach, one the doing, the other the refraining. We, however, teach neither, and do both.

Martin Luther, “Against the Heavenly Prophets” (AE 40)

You may be surprised to learn that ashes are kind of a late comer on the liturgical scene. It used to be a private practice, something you did on your own, like fasting and other fine outward training. It seems to have been the custom in Rhine region of Germany. The Council of Benevento in 1091 decreed “on Ash Wednesday everyone, clergy and laity, men and women, will receive ashes.” It took another two hundred years for the pope to catch on to the practice. At the time of the Reformation, it was still kind of a novelty.

The Lutheran reformer Martin Chemnitz wrote that these practices were the symbolic shell of what was once the system of public penance. “Of these spectacles of public penitence, nothing now remains in the papal church save a certain shadow or, that I may speak more truly, a game and a joke. At the beginning of Lent they scatter ashes on their heads, and afterward they sing the things that formerly were chanted in public penitence, although they have none who repent publicly. At Rome a show is sometimes given of persons hired, who scourge themselves. In the church at Halberstadt there is annually performed a play or farce as follows: They bring a certain Raubaucus, whom they give the name of Adam, in dirty clothing, whom tat the beginning of Lent they solemnly cast out of the church, and although they feed him liberally, they command him as though starved by fasting and sad, to walk back and forth silently looking at the church from outside all during Lent, until on the day of the Lord’s Supper he is again brought into the church. Thus the ancient penitence finally ended in plays or farces in the papal church.” (Examination, IV.209, for those of you who insist on footnotes)

I guess you could say one reason we don’t do ashes on Ash Wednesday is that we’re not into contemporary worship around here. But there are better reasons.

Hear the prophet Joel: “Yet even now,” declare the Lord, return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; and rend your hearts, not your garments. Return to the Lord, your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love; and he relents over disaster.”

Why no ashes on Ash Wednesday? Ashes were an OT sign of mourning. Ashes went along with scratchy, burlap clothing. Sackcloth and ashes. You piled ashes on your head and dressed in sackcloth to show everyone around you that you were laid low in the dust. Ashes were not something someone else put on you, they were something you put on yourself as a sign of your own grief and death. “Dust you are and to dust you will return.” Adam was the man of dust, and by his fault, his own fault, his own most grievous fault, he was headed back to the dust in death.

Sin is dirty business. It is not simply skin deep, like a topical application of greasy palm ashes. It goes to the core of our soul as an inherited, systemic disease. A topical treatment won’t cure it, any more than a dab of ointment and a bandaid can cure cancer.

“Rend your hearts, not your garments,” God says. Symbolic gestures just won’t cut it when it comes to repentance. Symbols are whatever we say they are, they run under our control, which is the way our sinful self likes it. The Lord’s sacraments are under His control, His mandate and institution, and they actually are what they say they are, even if they don’t look like it or we don’t feel like it. Baptism isn’t a symbol of rebirth, it actually is your rebirth. The Lord’s Supper isn’t a symbol of Christ’s Body and Blood as food and drink, it actually is that. Holy Absolution isn’t a symbolic gesture of forgiveness, it actually is forgiveness. You actually are forgiven as those absolving words enter your ears and perfuse your mind and heart.

Words cut straight to the heart. God’s Word, that two-edged sword of the Law and the Gospel cut through to the heart, accusing and acquitting, afflicting and comforting, killing and making alive. It isn’t my office to put soot on your foreheads, but to wash you clean of sin and death with the bloodied words of Jesus. It isn’t my office as a representative of Jesus Christ to put the mark of death on you. I’m an “evangelist,” a proclaimer of “good news,” Gospel, and a smudge of death is not good news.

Now don’t get me wrong here. Our new hymnal makes provision of ashes under a “may” rubric, which means we’re free not to do it. (Thank God for “may” rubrics!) And I’m not going to condemn anyone for a symbolic gesture, but I reserve the right to examine a bit deeper what I show the world about our faith in Christ.

I suppose if we wanted to get the symbolism right, we would be smudging our own faces, and not just with a little stylish dab. And then you’d come and stand before me and I would stick my hand in the baptismal font and wipe away all that grime and dirt “in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” And if you stop and think about it, we did precisely that earlier in the evening. You confessed your sin and death, having stared into the mirror of the Law. And then you stood before me as Christ’s called and ordained representative, and I absolved you, which means that Christ Himself wiped away the stain of your sin and death.

We deal in what is real. You have a real death. You are dust, and you are going to dust, and there is nothing you can do about it. Deal with it. Medicine can’t save you, good works can’t save you, you can’t save you. “Dust you are and to dust you will return.” You don’t need a soiled forehead to remind you of that. Just take a look in a mirror, a plain ordinary mirror, and see the creases, the lines, the grey hair, the death at work in you. Look in the mirror of the Law, and see the idolatry, rebellion, murder, immorality, greed, lies, hatred, slander reflected back at you. Rend your hearts, not your garments.

It is heart-rending, what sin does to us. It destroys our homes, our marriages, our lives. It divides us from God and from each other. It turns us inward on ourselves, isolating us in our own narcissism, binding us in a self-styled prison of lust and anger and lies. It grinds us down to death and the grave. And if that doesn’t break your heart, that’s even more heartbreaking, to consider how callous and hardened our hearts become under the constant abrasion of sin.

Why don’t we do ashes on Ash Wednesday? Because the church is supposed to be an embassy of good news, a place where sinners can die a blessed death and live forever, a refuge for the weary beaten down by the law, a place where the soil and soot of Adam’s sin and our own can be washed away and we can live our lives by faith in the Son of God who loved us and gave Himself up for us. We face death all day long. We know that. We feel it. You almost don’t need to be told it. And the last thing you need is something more to do.

That’s not to say that the Christian life doesn’t have a bit of discipline to it. We are at the beginning of Lent, and Lent is a time of self-discipline, like returning to the gym after a flabby winter. Jesus had a few things to say about public displays of piety – prayer, alms-giving, fasting. And you heard Him say, “Do not do these things to be seen by men; rather do them in secret before your Father in heaven.”

When you pray, Jesus said, don’t babble like pagans or parade your piety like the religious who love to be seen being religous, but go to your room and pray in secret to your Father in heaven. And when you gives alms to the poor, don’t make a big show out of it and trumpet your generosity all over the neighborhood. Don’t even let your left hand keep book on what your right hand is doing.

And when you fast, Jesus says, wash you face and comb your hair and don’t let anyone know what you’re doing. This is between you and your Father in heaven. These are supposed to be things done in freedom, not under compulsion or law, the way children play at the feet of their Father.

If you want to show something of substance to others, let them see your good works, your faithfulness in your vocation, how you deal with the guilt and shame of your sin by being forgiven. Don’t show them symbolic gestures; show them the real thing. “Let your light so shine before others that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.”

“If anyone is in Christ, He is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.”

You are in an embassy of reconciliation. You have come to the ministry of reconciliation, where enemies are declared friends, where weapons are checked at the door, where the flag of the King of kings flies high declaring the mercy of the cross.

You have been rescued from the dust of death by the second Adam, Jesus the Christ, who in His own perfect, human flesh went down into the dust of your sin, your death, your grave, to pull you up from the dust. Dust you are, and to dust you will return. Yes. This is most certainly true. But there is a yet greater truth: From the dust you shall rise to eternal life in Christ Jesus, who though sinless became your sin, so that in Him you might become the righteousness of God.

He has washed away the dirt of your death in your Baptism. He has cleansed your lips and your life with His own Body and Blood. He has forgiven your sins. He has given you a new heart, beating the rhythm of His own heart that was broken to save you. He has given you a life you could not have on your own, a life overflowing with the undeserved mercy of God. He has taken away those rough garments of sackcloth, the itchy abrasiveness of sin, and swapped them with a seamless white robe of righteousness.

So if anyone asks you tomorrow why we don’t do ashes on Ash Wednesday, you can simply say this, “I’ve been washed by the blood and water of Jesus’ own death for me. I am a baptized child of God. Dust I may be and to dust I will go, but dust never had it so good as to be embraced in the death and life of Jesus.”

In the name of Jesus,
Amen

http://blog.higherthings.org/wcwirla/Articles/ashwednesday.html?month=6&year=2011

And you will say to them, “Thus says the LORD: Do men fall and not rise up again? Does a man turn away and not turn back again?

Beloved fathers and mothers, and beloved brothers and sisters in the LORD!
I bring you glad tidings of great joy from God the Father & our LORD, Jesus Christ! Amen.

Jeremiah stands at the gate of the LORD’S house. He preaches the Word God’s given him to his people as they go in and out for worship at the temple. The center of his sermon is this: “There is no man who turns back from his wickedness…” This is God’s prophet. God’s “mouth,” as He sometimes calls the prophet, is standing there intruding on Judah’s time of worship announcing to them that if they go in they are going in to worship “Nothing” because they are going in to participate in godless worship, false worship which always asks: “What do I need to do to serve God faithfully?” What do I need to do to show Him how sincere I am, how religious I am, how devoted I am, how devoted to living a godly life I am, how sincere my sacrifice shows Him I am, how spiritual I am, and so on. But for every “I am…” the old sinner is simply moving further away from the only “I AM,” the LORD God, “who spoke by the prophets,” to look to himself for the answers to all his — and other peoples’ — questions about God, faith, worship, and life. True, he uses God’s words to do it but that is why Jeremiah is standing in the door of God’s house. That is why he stands at the gates and not in the house of the LORD, a house now brimming with the most excited, sincerest kind of false worship: self-chosen and self-assured worship which praises God with the lips, but whose heart is far from Him. That is why the prophet here speaks bluntly about the unrepentance and unbelief of Judah. Specifically, Judah’s continual false worship and refusal to turn back from their wicked ways.

As the Passion season is about to open this coming week with Ash Wednesday this call to repentance, this cry to turn back from our wickedness, is no less important today than it was for Jeremiah’s generation. Our whole nation wallows in its irreligion, false and fake religions like Scientology, Mormonism, and the Jehovah’s Witnesses. We disregard the commandments of God as well as those invented by men; our crime, our wickedness and unrepentant worldliness, and our love of everything that hurts your soul needs to hear nothing more than the call to true repentance. And you, God’s people, His Church are the first ones He calls to repent. The first called to turn back and to speak to others, calling them back in the same way. Even if no one outside turns back you are still called by our Savior to be the godly remnant, the little flock of Jesus that hears the voice of her Shepherd, and follows His voice into the safety of His sheep-pen. But who has heard His voice? Who has turned back from his many ways to God’s only Way?
Is there no one in our generation who will turn back from his wickedness? Will we continue in every generation, like Judah, to turn away from God our Savior?

Are all the LORD’S warnings, and teachings, and even His judgments falling on deaf ears, on stiff necks, on hardened hearts?

All you have to do is look around and listen to what the church at present preaches and teaches to get your fill of what Jeremiah is pointing at.

Folk-religion, or civil religion as it’s often called, masquerading as Christianity is everywhere and it does not discriminate according to denomination. For example, the folk-preacher prepares his sermon asking, “What does this text mean to the congregation when they hear it?” He then preaches in such a way that his congregation understands it. That is, finds it acceptable. 
 He preaches about God’s love, that Jesus is a reflection of God’s love. He preaches a theology of love (and morals & laws).
He preaches about forgiveness too. But not forgiveness of sins for Jesus’ sake that freely cancels all your debt to God once & for all.
He preaches about the Spirit. But not the Spirit of God who creates through His Word faith in Christ’s reconciling work on the Cross.
This folk-preacher fools the congregation about Christianity. He preaches a folk-religion accessorized with Christian words and supposedly Christian “values.” He preaches a message about God, virtue & immortality, often invoking the name of Jesus but not daring to preach the full offensiveness of the Gospel, not plumbing the depths of the offense of the Cross, that it was God, not you, that was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, no longer counting your sins against you.

All this begins in Sunday School, continues on throughout life right on into burial, so that we see many — too many — in our church who are deeply, devoutly religious, who think of themselves as “spiritual,” but don’t ever savor a crumb of the true Christian faith.
They have suffered from folk-preachers and civil-religion their whole life and don’t even know it, having been brought up in bible studies, sitting quietly nodding under the pulpit, caught up in conversations across the kitchen table that feed them the fruit of civil religion: “As long as you try to be a good person, and as long as you can be happy with what you’ve been given, and as long as you love God the best you can you’ll go to heaven when you die.” This folk-religion, this civil religion, as the prophet warns, is a lie opposed to the Truth the LORD has revealed to you through the One who went all the way to the wood for you.

Jesus Himself points to this in His generation too when He says: “They loved darkness rather than light.” [John 3:19] And, “because I tell you the truth you don’t believe me.” [John 8:45]

As was true in the days of Jeremiah and during the days of Jesus so it is still true today: You cling firmly to your false worship and you refuse to turn back.
I listen and hear that you are always talking about nothing that is right. There is no man among you who turns back from his wickedness, saying, “What have I done?” All of you turn, running your own way like a horse plunging into battle. But, who are you fighting against?
Therefore, little flock, pray to your LORD that His Spirit makes you turn back from your wickedness, and encourage each other to pray the same.

The LORD Jesus called you out of this evil generation through baptism, so that you may daily repent and die to self, so you may be turned back from your ways to the one true Way, believing the Good News about your Savior — He did it all for you and there’s nothing you can do about it except breathe a relieved and thankful, “Amen.”

As Peter preached: “Repent and be baptized, each one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and for your children, and for all those who are far away, as many as the Lord our God calls to himself.” And, in this way you will: “Be saved from this crooked generation!” [Acts 2:38-40]

If we look at our past, at the fruit which was produced through our fathers in the faith, we will look at the present and lament that we have not been more serious, more sober-minded, more faithful to the Word of God at present. We will look and see how weak faith and discouragement have gripped our hearts in recent years leading you to become more devout in your religiousity but less faithful to your Savior’s warnings and commands He has passed down to you through the words of the holy Scripture. You have held firmly to earthly things, letting them preoccupy you and draw your attention away from eternal things.

How you have so often failed in having the necessary steadfastness and the right courage to confess your faith in Christ’s ever present help [to one another and to our neighbors who’ve never heard this Good News]. How you at times have been weary to advance the work of the LORD beginning with the true worship of God. This ought to be the root of your shame not, as often happens, the source of your rejoicing. This is why you want to confess to your LORD and pray He would give you strength, that in the future, you may bear more fruit worthy of repentance.

The fruit of repentance which the LORD nurtures on the branch of our congregation now is that His Word be preached and taught among us purely and clearly, firmly believed and that we also live holy lives according to His commandments. May these words ring forever in your hearts, “You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit.” The LORD added a few more words to this when He said, “And that your fruit should abide.”

Many trees produce unfruitful branches that rob the good branches of sap and strength, so that the fruit does not ripen. It is good for the tree when the gardener comes and prunes such unfruitful branches. You, too, must guard yourselves so that you do not go fallow and bear stunted fruit. It is often thought that a great amount of self-chosen activity and self-assured participation in every possible undertaking are fruits on the branch of our church. However, these are fallow branches which are good for nothing but the fire. Jesus has established for you your God-given task, that you are to go and bear fruit and that your fruit should last. And that fruit, all the fruit that lasts, is the fruit that is produced by the Gospel and that serves the Gospel.

The LORD grant that in this evil generation you produce no stunted fruit but bring forth fruit that lasts, to the joy of the children of God and to the holy angels, for the increase of the kingdom of our dear Savior, and for the honor of our great God who satisfies you at dawn with His faithful, loving kindness, that you may rejoice and be glad all the days of your life praying, praising and thanking Christ Jesus because you have been chosen out of the world to live under Him and serve Him in righteousness, innocence and blessedness both now and forever. Amen.

Introduction:

Likewise, when the psalm commands that vows be fulfilled, this does not mean absurd self-chosen vows, but those that are commanded in the Ten Commandments, especially in the First and Second — that we praise God, that we trust in Him, call on Him, praise and thank Him as our only God, and the like. About this, the raving saints and the hypocrites know nothing.

Mark well the clear words with which the psalm closes. The last verse teaches us that to call upon God in distress and thank Him is the true worship, the most pleasing offering, and the right way to salvation.

PSALM 50:1-15

1 A psalm of Asaph. God, the LORD, the Almighty speaks and summons the earth from the rising of the sun to its going down.
2 Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God shines.
3 Our God comes and He does not stay silent; devouring fire goes before Him, and around Him is a raging storm.
4 He calls to the heavens above and to the earth, that He may judge His people.
5 “Gather My saints to Me, who have made a covenant with Me by sacrifice.”
6 And the heavens proclaim His Righteousness, because God is judge. Selah.
7 Listen My people, and I will speak; Israel, I will testify against you that I am God, your God.
8 I do not judge you because of your sacrifices, and your burnt offerings are always before Me.
9 I will not take a bull from your house or rams from your pens,
10 because all the animals of the forest are mine, and all the cattle on a thousand hills.
11 I know every bird of the mountains, and all the wild animals of the fields are Mine.
12 If I were hungry I would not tell you about it, because the earth is mine, and everything that is on it.
13 Do you think I eat the meat of bulls or drink the blood of rams?
14 Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving and pay the Most High your vows,
15 and call Me in the day of trouble — I will deliver you, and you will glorify Me.

Meditation: In the midst of our daily distress we may sometimes have the feeling that the LORD has been unfair and that He doesn’t understand our circumstances. But to Him, Who owns every wild animal, and knows every bird of the mountains and Whose heavens proclaim His Righteousness, thanksgiving is to be offered. He speaks to us and says: “Call me in the day of trouble — I will deliver you, and you will glorify Me.” He knows our greatest need, the forgiveness of sin, and sent Jesus Christ to take care of that. He will make no mistake in our daily circumstances. God, our LORD, the Almighty, Who is our Righteousness and Truth, never makes a mistake.

Translation by DLR

[Martin Luther's] Personal Prayer Book provides an overview of the Ten Commandments. The first table of the Law (the right hand tablet) instructs us in our duty to God inwardly (faith) and outwardly (God’s name and worship).The second table of the Law (the left hand tablet) teaches us our obligation to the neighbor. Then Luther provides examples of how each commandment is broken in the way of a beichtspiegel or “mirror for confession”:

First Commandment: Use of superstition, failure to trust and rely upon God’s mercy at all times, “every kind of doubt, despair, and false belief” (AE 43:17).
Second Commandment: Cursing, swearing, false use of God’s name, false teaching about God, spiritual pride, failure to call upon God’s name in prayer and praise.
Third Commandment: Failure to listen to and understand God’s Word, failure to pray, failure to allow God to do His work in you, failure to regard all that you do as God’s work.
Fourth Commandment: Lack of regard for parents, failure to provide for needy parents, disobedience and arrogance toward parents.
Fifth Commandment: Anger, lack of forgiveness, murder and other acts of violence, creation of offense.
Sixth Commandment: Sexual sins of all kinds, inciting others to sexual sin in thought, word or action.
Seventh Commandment: Every kind of theft, greed and envy.
Eighth Commandment: Every form of lying, gossip and deceit, failure to defend the truth.
Ninth and Tenth Commandments: Evil desire, self-love.

Luther also offers examples of how each commandment is fulfilled:

First Commandment: True fear, faith and love of God are comprehended in this commandment. This commandment requires “Fear and love God in true faith, at all times, firmly trusting him in all that he does, accepting in simple, quiet confidence everything whether good or bad.” (AE 43:22)
Second Commandment: Praise, honor, glorify, and call upon God’s name. “…rather sink into utter nothingness so that God alone be exalted.” (AE 43:22)
Third Commandment: Listening to God’s Word so that “all we accomplish is God’s and nothing our own.” (AE 43: 22)
Fourth Commandment: Humility and submissiveness.
Fifth Commandment: Patience, kindness, mercy, “a tender and friendly heart devoid of all hatred.” (AE 43: 22)
Sixth Commandment: Sexual purity in thought, word and life.
Seventh Commandment: Poverty of spirit and generosity.
Eighth Commandment: Truthful and sincere speech.
Ninth and Tenth Commandments: “Perfect chastity and thorough disregard for all temporal pleasures and possessions.” ( AE 43:23) “In all such actions we see nothing but a strange, all-comprehending love toward God and our neighbor which never seeks its own advantage but only serves God and our neighbor…It means to devote oneself freely to belonging to one’s neighbor and serving him and his concerns.” (AE 43:23)

After that he has to know where to get the medicine which will help him do or leave undone what is right for a healthy person. Then he has to desire or search for this medicine and to obtain it or have it brought to him. Thus the commandments teach man to recognize his sickness, enabling him to perceive what he must do or refrain from doing, consent to or refuse, and so he will recognize himself to be a sinful and wicked person. The Creed will teach and show him where to find medicine — grace — which will help him to become devout and keep the commandments. The Creed points him to God and his mercy, given and made plain to him in Christ. Finally, the Lord’s Prayer teaches all this, namely, through the fulfillment of God’s commandments everything will be given to him. In these three are the essentials of the entire Bible.” — Martin Luther (AE 43:13-14)