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Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ! Amen! Dear brothers and sisters in Christ:
“He said to me, ‘These words are trustworthy and true’” (Revelation 22:6a).
The inspired Psalmist David writes, “Behold, how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity” (Psalm 133:1). God desires unity with us, but we have such disunity.
Instead of being united with God, we are more like those outside the holy city: those “dogs and sorcerers and the sexually immoral and murderers and idolaters, and everyone who loves and practices falsehood” (Revelation 22:15).
So, why is there such disunity? Well, obviously, we are not living in the Garden of Eden. So, that is a clue.
We have disunity, tension, strife, and conflict because we have always had disunity, tension, strife, and conflict since Adam and Eve declared war against God. And we – you and me – are sinful descendants of Adam and Eve. We were all conceived with their sinful nature. So, it is our natural state to be at war with God. And if we are at war with God, then naturally, we are at disunity with each other.
We all deserve God’s eternal wrath because of our sin, which separates us from God and separates us from our neighbor. So, left to us, there could only be disunity.
But God intended for us to be united with Him. God intended for us to gather with Him in unity: around the tree of life.
We have such disunity because we have fallen for a lie. Adam and Eve fell for the devil’s lie. They went their own way. And what did it get them? They gave up on the image of God, to be “like” God. They gave up the true worship of God.
Adam rejected God’s command for him and his wife to not eat of the tree. They turned away from God’s face. They feared God’s presence because they feared His wrath.
You see, our first parents thought they could be independent of God. They believed they didn’t need Him or His Word. They embraced the devil’s lie and the death that came with it.
“Did God really say?” The fallen world is captive to that lie. The fallen world says you can handle life on your own without God. The fallen world says we need to be independent from God.
We have fallen for that same lie. We have become slaves and victims of the devil’s wicked schemes.
May I ask: How often do you actually examine the Scriptures? How often do you take the word of a preacher as gospel truth no matter what he says? Yes, we should respect pastors. They are called and ordained servants of Christ. Pastors are to take the Scriptures reverently and seriously.
But both God-fearing pastors and wolves in sheep’s clothing have something in common. For they both say, “Thus says the Lord.” But in the case of the sham pastors the claim is a lie. Those who claim to have received a revelation apart from Scripture utter only a falsehood, a lie, for with the completion of the New Testament Jesus has the last word, a word that redeems us from sin and death.
For God’s Word says, “I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them God will add to him the plagues described in this book, and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book” (Revelation 22:18-19).
So, God doesn’t take monkeying around with His Holy Word lightly. So, the warning here not to add to what He has said and the equal warning not to take away. Add to God’s Word and God will add to you the plagues described in this Book. Take away by cutting from God’s Word and God will take away your share in the tree of life.
Now, these false pastors and false theologians will not come to you and say, “We are frauds, and we aim to lead people away from the Savior and His Word.” By doing so, they would defeat their purpose in misleading Christ’s disciples.
And what about just a minor error? For Jesus, any false teaching – no matter how big or how small – can undermine and finally destroy saving faith. Every error is dangerous! This is why Jesus gives us this warning, so that we would repent and trust in Christ!
For if we keep adding to God’s Word or subtracting from God’s Word, eventually we could lose all of God’s saving Word. We could eventually lose the point of God’s Word as St. John writes in John 20: “These are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in His name” (John 20:31).
Remember, God desires unity. In this Holy Bible, He speaks of His love for unity from Genesis to Revelation. He speaks of our need to forgive each other. He speaks of our need of repentance and faith. He speaks of our redemption in Jesus Christ alone. Every word in His Word, the Bible, is “trustworthy and true” (Revelation 22:6) because He “never lies” (Titus 1:2).
And because God never lies by keeping all His promises, He unites us with the truth of His Word. He unites us in faith in the Divine Service and He serves us His grace, mercy and peace.
Through the power of the Holy Spirit, He calls, gathers, enlightens, and sanctifies the whole Christian Church on earth, and keeps it with Jesus Christ in the one true faith. It’s the Holy Spirit who brings us to Jesus, who is our “bright morning star” (Revelation 22:16). It’s the Holy Spirit who brings us to Jesus, who is “the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end” (Revelation 22:13).
The Holy Spirit calls, gathers and “teaches us all things” (John 14:26) through the Scriptures. And through the Bible, His Word is a lamp of truth (Psalm 119:105), which banishes the darkness of sin and unbelief and lies.
God unites us to Him as we are united in the flesh of Christ. Jesus is fully God. Jesus is fully man. God became man through the incarnation. So, Jesus understands all that we go through each day of our lives. He knows our pains and our struggles. And that is why God became man, so that through His atoning death, we would be reconciled and united to God the Father.
Today, God sustains us with the river of the water of life. In this water of life, He gave us faith when united with His Word in Holy Baptism.
Today, God sustains us with the tree of life. Instead of a tree with branches and roots, God sustains us through a tree cut into a wooden cross, with nails pounded into Jesus’ flesh and bone. And we receive this fruit from this tree in the Lord’s Supper under simple bread and wine, which begets forgiveness of sins, eternal life, and salvation!
Each Lord’s Day, we are gathered in the unity of true worship of Almighty God. Here, Jesus gives us unity in His promises. By grace through faith in Christ alone, we receive His promises from the fruits of His cross, the new tree of life: forgiveness, life, and salvation.
And He says, “Surely I am coming soon” (Revelation 22:20). His promise, which was given nearly 2,000 years ago, is still as true today. The risen and ascended Lord is coming soon! And yet, He is here with us now through His Word and Sacraments. He is never far away. Soon is not a matter of chronological time, but of “nearness” of time.
It seemed so long in human time from the promise of Adam and Eve of one to crush the head of the serpent until Jesus was born. But it was a blink of an eye in God’s time until Jesus came in “the fullness of time” (Galatians 4:4). He is coming! His words are trustworthy and true! And when He comes, all the faithful will see Him face to face in the holy city and will possess the image of God as they worship Him day and night in His temple. Until that day, let us proclaim God’s Word faithfully and join St. John in saying, “Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!” (Revelation 22:20).
The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding,
keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, our Lord. Amen.
+ SOLI DEO GLORIA +
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