the certainty is not in our possession, but in God's gracious giving. Faith doesn't cling to what has been; it clings to Him who promises and delivers exactly as He promises.
Kind of sums up my sermon this Sunday on the first verses of the Gospel, "Increase our faith".
I was also reading the Babylonian Captivity and came across this wonderful passage...
"Here you may see what great things our theologians of the Sentences have produced. That which is the principal and chief thing, namely, the testament and word of promise, is not treated by one of them. Thus they have obliterated faith and the whole power of the mass. But the second part of the mass – the sign, or sacrament – this alone do they discuss, yet in such a manner that here too they teach not faith but their preparations and opera operata, participations and fruits, as though these were the mass, until they have fallen to babbling of transubstantiation and endless other metaphysical quibbles, and have destroyed the proper understanding and use of both sacrament and testament, altogether abolished faith, and caused Christ's people to forget their God, as the prophet says, days without number. Let the others count the manifold fruits of hearing mass. Focus your attention on this: say and believe with the prophet, that God prepares a table before you in the presence of your enemies, at which your soul may eat and grow fat. But your faith is fed only with the word of divine promise, for " not by bread alone does man live, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God." Hence, in the mass you must above all things pay closest heed to the word of promise, as to your rich banquet, green pasture, and sacred refreshment. You must esteem this word higher than all else, trust in it above all things, and cling firmly to it even through the midst of death and all sins. By thus doing you will attain not merely to those tiny drops and crumbs of "fruits of the mass," which some have superstitiously imagined, but to the very fountainhead of life, which is faith in the word, from which every blessing flows. As it is said in John 4: "He who believes in me, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water" and again: " He who will drink of the water that I will give him, it shall become in him a fountain of living water, springing up to life everlasting."
Brings to mind, "Our faith is built on nothing less than Jesus Blood and Righteousness"!!!
ReplyDeleteAmen... Faith is not our certainty but God who keeps His promises... faith is the means to this joyous knowledge and confidence...
ReplyDeleteKind of sums up my sermon this Sunday on the first verses of the Gospel, "Increase our faith".
ReplyDeleteI was also reading the Babylonian Captivity and came across this wonderful passage...
"Here you may see what great things our theologians of the Sentences have produced. That which is the principal and chief thing, namely, the testament and word of promise, is not treated by one of them. Thus they have obliterated faith and the whole power of the mass. But the second part of the mass – the sign, or sacrament – this alone do they discuss, yet in such a manner that here too they teach not faith but their preparations and opera operata, participations and fruits, as though these were the mass, until they have fallen to babbling of transubstantiation and endless other metaphysical quibbles, and have destroyed the proper understanding and use of both sacrament and testament, altogether abolished faith, and caused Christ's people to forget their God, as the prophet says, days without number. Let the others count the manifold fruits of hearing mass. Focus your attention on this: say and believe with the prophet, that God prepares a table before you in the presence of your enemies, at which your soul may eat and grow fat. But your faith is fed only with the word of divine promise, for " not by bread alone does man live, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God." Hence, in the mass you must above all things pay closest heed to the word of promise, as to your rich banquet, green pasture, and sacred refreshment. You must esteem this word higher than all else, trust in it above all things, and cling firmly to it even through the midst of death and all sins. By thus doing you will attain not merely to those tiny drops and crumbs of "fruits of the mass," which some have superstitiously imagined, but to the very fountainhead of life, which is faith in the word, from which every blessing flows. As it is said in John 4: "He who believes in me, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water" and again: " He who will drink of the water that I will give him, it shall become in him a fountain of living water, springing up to life everlasting."