SEXAGESIMA

Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of .God, and. of Jesus our Lord. Amen.

In our dear Savior, Christian friends.

Reason itself must perceive and admit that. God could not create mankind for this life and for this world. The vast majority of men go through life amid groans; by experience most must say with Sirach, "Every man's life is a wretched thing from his birth until he is buried in the earth, which is the mother of us all. There is always anxiety, fear, hope, and finally-death."

Consequently, who dares to suppose that man was created by a wise, righteous, and gracious God for this fleeting and vain life? Who dares to suppose that God placed men upon this world to let some rejoice, the rest weep, and finally all be again destroyed? No, no, my dear sir, this fleeting life cannot satisfy your immortal soul; not for this; wretched world but for heaven were you created; this is only to be your preparatory school; here you are tosow your seed in the sweat of your face but there first are you to reap; here you are to be tested and if it will be found that you stand the test, then you will see God face to face; here you are to struggle for the crown and pursue the treasure, but on the other side of the grave you will be crowned and receive the price of victory; your destination is the enjoyment of an eternal blessedness, Ch, that we would only perceive this and above all seek to be saved!

Merely his reason is enough to lead man to this important truth, if he would only examine his heart a bit; but how man can be saved, how he can come to God, how he can receive eternal life, the answer to this question man seeks in vain in his heart or in his reason. The true way to salvation is a secret of divine grace, of which flesh and blood, that is, the natural man, knows nothing; God alone can reveal it to us. God is the Lord of heaven, he alone therefore also has the key of heaven, and he alone can also determine the way we are to find him.

How do most people hope to be saved? They think that if they guard themselves against sin as much as they can, if they injure no person, if they are friendly and obliging toward everyone, if they trust God and were pious, then they would dare to hope that God certainly would not reject them. Clearly, that is the way most people of the world have from the beginning of time till this very day considered the true, sure way to salvation. Why, they think, that is self-understood that he must be saved who has lived piously and uprightly! God cannot hold the godless more dear than the pious and righteous!

Yet my friends, though man may. speculate about the way to salvation as intelligently as he is able, this much is certain: as little as a blind man can point out a road on this world, so little can reason show us the way to heaven. As little as we could have told God how he is to create us for this life, so little can we say how we can come to eternal life. God alone can say that. And what does he say? "Blessed are they that hear the Word of God, and keep it." Lk 11:28. There in a few words you have the only true way to salvation; it consists in hearing and keeping God's Word. The Word is the bridge which God has erected for us into eternal life, otherwise there is none; that is the ladder to heaven, outside of that there is none; those are the cords of love and the hand which God extends to us to draw us up to him, outside of that; there is no other. It all depends upon hearing God's Word; yet not that we hear it but how we hear it.

Yes, indeed, all of you hear God's Word, for I know that I preach nothing to you but the pure Gospel of Jesus Christ; but alas, if only it would not be revealed so. frequently that many of us still are not upon the way to salvation! Who can deny it? Many hear, indeed even hear with joy, but when the hour of testing comes when they are to show their fruits, then we see that they have heard the Word in vain. Oh that God would take pity upon such, that by the enlightenment of the Holy Spirit they would recognize what belongs to their peace! For whoever hears God's Word and yet does not produce fruit, he invites a much greater responsibility upon himself than he who never heard it. In order to awaken such from their dangerous sleep and to admonish us all let us therefore now consider how one must hear God's Word in order to be saved.

The text. Luke 8:4-15,

We hear that Christ told the parable of the sower at a time when "much people were gathered together, and were come to him out of every city," to hear him. This parable therefore contains an admonition to those who hear .God' s Word and it shows them that merely hearing the Word does not dispose of the matter. Let its therefore answer the question:

HOW IS ONE TO HEAR GOD'S WORD TO BE SAVED?

Gracious and merciful God, in Jesus' name we humbly and earnestly beseech you to let this instruction be a rich blessing to us all, so that whenever we hear your holy Word it may accomplish in us unworthy sinners that to which you sent it, that though we are sinners in ourselves we may in Christ be your righteous people and be saved. Amen.

I.

Christ begins his parable with the words, "A sower went out to sow his seed; and as he sowed, some fell by the wav side; and it was trodden down, and the fowls of the air devoured it," V. 5; Christ himself explains it thus,

"The seed is the Word of God, Those by the wav side are they that hear; then cometh the devil, and taketh away the Word out of their hearts. lest they should believe and be saved." Vv. 11,12. This describes the first class, those who hear God's Word and yet are not saved; they are those who not even once pay close attention to it.

There are a great number who would also gladly be saved, and as one might say, not to spoil their standing with God they therefore diligently go to church, do not readily miss a service, in short, they zealously carry out all the duties of an honest Christian. But they suppose that thus they do God a service and are Christians merely because they appear in the house of the Lord, sit there, thoughtlessly join in singing the hymns, and let the words of the sermon sound in their ears like the babbling of a brook. It seems that only now and then they pay attention to something which is preached; most of the time their soul is sunk in sleep so that the sermon is often like a lullaby which gradually lulls them to sleep.

Those are truly poor, unfortunate, pitiable hearers; God's Word is lost, for them; not a single Word enters their heart but Satan takes it away from every one of them, so that they will not believe and be saved. They sit at God's banquet table and merely look at the bread of life; they do not partake of it, they remain in their spiritual death, and finally they die the eternally wretched death.

Notice, therefore, my friends, that to hear God's Word to his salvation one must first of all pay close attention to it. Solomon says, "Keep thy foot when thou goest to the house of God, and be ready to hear." Eccl 5:1. Consequently, whenever a Christian wants to go to services, he must first pray silently, Oh, that I today may hear what I should do that I may be saved! Oh, that I today may learn where I still do wrong; oh, that today my sins would be more clear and my faith be awakened and strengthened; oh, that by God's Word my sleepiness would be turned into zeal, or my sorrow and grief into joy and

I. One Must Pay Close Attention to it.

II. One Must Take it Earnestly to Heart,

III. One Must not let the Heart be Fascinated by Other Things, and

IV. One Must also Carefully Guard it.

peace! Oh, that today I may find what my poor soul needs! That is the way the Christian must come armed and prepared with holy prayers. Then if he hears the Word, he must think nothing else than that God himself is talking with him. When a reprimand is voiced, he dare not think of others, but he must enter his own heart; when comfort is given, he must implore God, Oh, that. I may receive this comfort and be able to truly refresh myself with it! He must select for himself that which is necessary for his condition; if his sins are touched upon, he dare not become angry but must think, God has directed matters this way to bring me to repentance; if at times it seems as if he can take absolutely nothing for himself out of a sermon, he must the more earnestly beseech God in silence that he would not let him depart empty-handed but bless him with at least a few crumbs of the true bread of life. That is what it means to hear God's Word attentively, to hear it in such a way that one greedily seeks in this Word how to be saved.

My friends, it is indeed true that God's Word often presses with divine power even into the heart of such a hearer who at first had thoughtlessly entered into the house of the Lord; often it becomes very clear to him from a single word that in his present condition he cannot be saved but that he must be changed; his heart is full of grief, his eyes are full of tears, his entire soul is full of prayers for mercy, and he is awakened, changed, and converted so quickly; but those are unusual visitations of grace which God has promised to no one. Therefore, whoever wants to hear God's Word inattentively and wait until God's Spirit comes upon him with almighty power, he can in so doing call upon himself the sentence of obduracy so that he, as Christ says of many hearers in our Gospel, "does not know the mysteries of the kingdom of God, that seeing they might not see, and hearing they might not understand." V. 10 Yes, it is true that without God no person can understand God's Word; it remains foolishness to him even if he wants to hear, read, and study it most attentively; and yet Christ cries to us all, "He that hath ears to hear, let him hear!" v. 8c.

II.

Christ now continues, "And some fell upon a rock; and as soon as it was sprung up. it withered away, because it lacked moisture;" v.6; again he himself explains it with the words, "They on the rock are they, which, when they hear, receive the word with joy; and these have no root, which for a while believe. and in time of temptation fall away." V. 13. Here Christ tells us that it is not enough to pay attention to the Word; one must also in the second place take it earnestly to heart, if he wants to hear it to his salvation.

Now there are many who rejoice greatly in God's Word and hear it with great attention and for all that they cannot be saved. Thousands often rejoiced to listen to Christ himself; in order to hear him they followed him for several days' journey and in their great desire to hear him even forgot to eat and drink, and yet the majority did not receive the treasure. Why? Their joy was only a passing emotion; their heart, as it were, was merely shone upon by .the light of the Word but its rays did not penetrate deeply; as the Lord says, their heart remained as hard as a rock so that the water of life could not soak down to and enter their heart; the seed of the Gospel sprouted up quickly in the little good land of sudden emotion, but the plant soon withered away again when only a little of the heat of temptation came.

They are a living proof of the fact that taking God's Word earnestly to Heart is also a part of hearing it for one's salvation. For God's Word should produce an entirely different effect in us than the words of human skill and wisdom. God's Word should not merely convince our reason of the truths it

contains, but - oh, may all of you pay attention - we are to become another person, a new creature, a partaker of the divine nature, that is, we should become heavenly-minded people. Our heart, mind, and soul should be completely turned about or born again. But in order that this may happen, we must first of all become poor sinners; our sinful corruption in which we all by nature lie and our great unworthiness before God must be uncovered to our eyes and be truly perceived by us. Our naturally rock-hard heart must be crushed and softened and filled with an inner concern for the salvation of our soul so that we seek first of all the kingdom of God and his righteousness and seek every hour of the day God's grace in Christ Jesus.

But is not this the very thing lacking in many of us? Are not many of us still like a rock covered with little soil in which the seed of the Word sprouts quickly but withers away again just as quickly? I can say nothing else than that you also listen with greater joy the more God gives me his grace to recommend to you his grace as found in the Gospel. But do not many make this joy and delight in the Gospel teaching the comfort of their souls, their soft pillow, their Savior through which they plan on being saved?

Oh, that they would only bear in mind that every sermon which they hear with joy but without becoming changed in heart is lost as far as they are concerned and will only be accounted before God as guilt!

III.

But let us continue. Christ says, "And some fell among thorns; and the thorns sprang up with it, and choked it;" v.7; Christ's explanation is, "And that which fell among thorns are they, which, when they have heard, go forth, and are choked with cares and riches and pleasures of this life, and bring no fruit to perfection." V. 14. This tells us: if we want to hear God's Word to be saved, we dare not in the third place let our heart be fascinated by other things.

Most who still have some concern for eternal life and therefore hear God's Word make the fatal mistake of thinking they can serve the world also. Most, therefore, want to take a middle course; they want to serve God and also Mammon; they want to seek eternal things and also become rich in worldly things; they want to be concerned for heavenly things and also earthly; they wish to pass for Christians and stand in well with the godless; they want to live according to the Spirit and also the flesh; they wish to do God's will and also their own; they want to be saved in eternity but also not lose the lusts of this life; briefly put, they want to unite Christ and Belial, light and darkness, friendship with God and friendship with the world. That is the union toward which all men are inclined by nature.

Oh, unhappy people! Such pains are entirely in vain. Though they may diligently hear God's Word, it bears no fruit, for God's Word wants to persuade man to do just one thing: surrender completely to God and Christ. Christ says, "Whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple." Lk 14:33. God does not want to take only ä half a man but the whole man into heaven; man is therefore to go completely, not part way, on the way to heaven. Elijah already had this to say to the idolatrous nation, "How long halt ye between two opinions? if the Lord be God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him." 1 Kings 18:21. If we divide our heart with God, he does not share salvation with us. We can do ever so much, slave ever so much, be ever so zealous, do ever so difficult works, God does not ask about them; if we do not want to belong completely to God, we do not belong to him at all, and

all out labor is lost. A complete change about toward Christ is required.

They, therefore, hear God's Word in vain whose heart is burdened with the cares, riches, or lust of this life; the heavenly plant of true faith cannot grow there, and even though it would take root, it will very soon be stifled by the thorns of the worldly mind.

So remember this, you who. would gladly travel both ways, the narrow and the broad way, Christ's way and the world's; remember that this way you will not reach your goal; you are merely making this life sour and bitter and also gambling away eternal life; therefore, there is no other advice: surrender completely to God who also has given himself completely to you; then you will be satisfied here in God, full of comfort, peace, and hope, and at some future time you will be saved.

IV.

And now we come to the last thing which Christ says belongs to the proper hearing of God's Word. In conclusion he says, "And other fell on good ground, and sprang up, and bare fruit an hundred fold." v.8a; the explanation is, "But that on the good ground are they, which in an honest and good heart, having heard the Word, keep it, and bring forth fruit with patience." V. 15. Therefore, the last thing which belongs to proper hearing is that we also carefully guard God's Word.

Whenever a person hears God's Word devoutly, he receives a treasure of eternal life into his heart. He receives either enlightenment about his condition, his sins, God's grace, a doctrine of salvation, and the like, or he receives a new awakening and encouragement through the power of the Holy Ghost, or sweet comfort, new courage and zeal, a powerful tug to God and heaven, and the like. As precious as this blessing of God's Word is, just so easily and quickly can we lose it again; then God has worked in vain in us.

Therefore, if we want to be saved, it is not enough that we try to hold firmly in our mind only those teachings which are presented to us; indeed, if anyone has a poor memory, he will in spite of all his attentiveness retain only a little bit; but salvation does not at all depend upon that; the main thing is that we keep the divine effects which the Word has produced in our souls. With, a prayer on our lips we should enter God's house, with a prayer we should leave it again. We should immediately carry out in our lives what we have heard; if we receive new light, we should also walk in it; if a sin has been revealed, we are to battle against it; if we are encouraged, we are to show new zeal also; if we are comforted, we should the more confidently wait for God's grace; in short, if we have recognized the Lord's will, then we should not for one instant consult with flesh and blood but do the Lord's will.

Ah, my friends, had we heard God's Word that way at all times, how good, how blessed the state of our soul would be! How rich in knowledge of ourselves and our Savior, how rich in experience, how strong in faith, how filled with all good works we would be!

The Lord is gracious and merciful, patient and of great goodness. Therefore, if anyone has heard his saving Word in vain in the past, let him cry to God and beg him for grace through Christ his Savior and God will pardon his sins and be gracious. But from now on hear God's Word aright and keep it in honest and good hearts. May he help us all through Jesus Christ our only Savior and Mediator. Amen, Amen.