Pastor’s Thoughts – 10-26-2025
October 24, 2025Pastor’s Thoughts – 11-09-2025
November 6, 2025
“The rule is: listen and allow the Word to make the beginning, then the knowing [God] will nicely follow. If, however, you do not listen, you will never know anything. For it is decreed, God will not be seen, known, or comprehended except through his Word alone. Whatever therefore one undertakes for salvation apart from the Word is in vain. God will not respond to that. He will not have it. He will not tolerate any other way. Therefore, let his Book in which He speaks to you be commended to you. For he did not cause it to be written to no purpose…We are to read it, to think and speak about it, and to study it, certain that He Himself, not an angel or a creature, is speaking with us in it.”
Martin Luther
In John chapter 7 there is an account of Christ that reveals something timeless and relevant to us today. The Lord Jesus is speaking to crowds at the Temple during the Feast of Booths in Jerusalem. It says that many were believing in Him because of His signs. This is reiterated again later in John 8:30. Then in John 8:31-32 it says, “So Jesus was saying to those Jews who had believed Him, ‘If you continue in My Word, then you are truly disciples of Mine; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.’” Christ is stating that they are not free but enslaved, and as the dialogue continues, they show they are offended and do not understand what Christ is saying. It says, “They answered Him, ‘We are Abraham’s descendants and have never yet been enslaved to anyone, how is it that You say, You will become free?’” (John 8:33). Our Lord then responds with clarity of the enslavement He is referring to; “Everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin” (John 8:34). The word translated, “commits” is poieo (ποιέω) in Greek, and is elsewhere translated practices. The idea is that they show their enslavement to their sinful nature by their perpetual sinning. They do not understand that He is addressing spiritual matters of the heart. This is further seen by their reference to Abraham and continued dialogue. The problem with mankind is a problem with sin of which only Christ can remedy.
From their answers to the Lord their reasoning is something like this; “Heathens serve idols, but not us, we have all of God’s promises, and we serve the true God, so we are not in bondage.” They equated their lineage in Abraham and their religious privileges and rituals as their righteousness. They failed to recognize the truth of the fall of mankind into sin written in their Torah (the Hebrew books of law), or how mankind is in a perpetual state of sinful discontent and misery requiring constant corrective attention. The same is true today. We require police, lawyers, locks, jails, armies, debates over forms of justice at every level, even ratings for movies and a thousand other things because we are under sin. Sin is before us, all around us, and even in us. Everyone is born a sinner and thereby a slave of sin! These Jews for whom Christ was addressing do not understand themselves. They not only have self-deception but are also looking for and seeking the wrong thing. They were not looking for a Messiah to restore them to God from their condition in sin, but a Messiah to meet their needs within the fallen world. They wanted a deliverer from Rome, not a deliverer from their sinful condition. The important doctrine of man’s sinfulness continues to be absent today in many churches. Many, who should know, talk about people as though all we need is a little information, some policing up, or self-improvement. The Bible says we are dead in sins and love darkness rather than light. Any person should see even from a practical standpoint that man is prone to evil and corruption. He needs something outside of himself that is infinitely superior to himself to overcome this condition. He needs His Creator to intervene and recreate him. It must be God’s intervention, God’s work, or as the Bible calls it, God’s new birth!
The evidence against fallen man is massive. All are born as slaves to sin. Attempting to look the other way or covering our sin in religion will not remove our problem. It should be well noted that those in Christ’s day had a form of belief mentioned three separate times in the same context, and yet their belief was not a saving belief. It did not set them free. As they continued to foolishly argue with our Lord this became even more evident. The Lord then stated, “Why do you not understand what I am saying? It is because you cannot hear My Word. You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father” (John 8:43-44). They did not realize their terrible condition and were therefore not listening when the solution was proclaimed. This is the same today. Too many, even in churches, do not realize their condition. They are consumed with an improved fallen life not a born anew life. The Lord gave them the answer which is the same answer needed today; “If you continue in My Word, you will know the truth and the truth will make you free” (John 8:32). Just as Christ spoke to them, we have God’s Word living and active today. There is nothing as beneficial and as necessary as the Word of God. To be in God’s Word is to be sitting at the feet of the Lord Jesus. To listen to Him is to listen to the source of life. This Word is so remarkable that Christ states, “If you continue in My Word, you will know the truth and the truth will make you free” (John 8:32). To belong to Christ is to be set free. God grants new life and faith by the Holy Spirit through the Word of God. I pray that all reading this have been set free in Christ and thereby have a saving faith brought forth by a new birth through the Word. If so, that Word continues as the top priority of our attention as we have the privilege in our freedom to grow continually in our love for God as we grow in the knowledge of His great salvation.
