Pious Lutheran

Parable of the Invitation to the Wedding,  Bernardo Strozzi, 1636 Who will be saved and how will they be saved? God calls all to be saved However, only those who are worthy are saved Worthiness isn’t just a matter of external appearances, but of faith in the heart With more war breaking out, and talk of this escalating to World War III, tensions rise. So remember these words from Proverbs: “ The fear of man brings a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord will be safe. ” Those words are a comfort not only in wartime, but throughout our entire pilgrimage on earth. This world isn’t safe. In peacetime we are lulled into a false sense of security about life. Paying no attention to God’s invitation, we go about our worldly business as if everything were ok. But in times of crisis we are awakened from our stupor and we see the seriousness of our eternal situation. We begin to ask the important questions, who will be saved and how will they be saved? To answer these questions, let’s begin b...

The Wedding Feast , Pieter Brueghel the Younger, 1620 “Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit.” Most of our resources in life are renewable. If you spend all your money you work for more. If you eat all your food you can grow some more. If your clothes wear out you can sew some more. Especially today in our consumerist culture where things are quite cheap and easy to obtain, it’s easy to treat many things with little care because you can just throw them away and buy new. This consumerist attitude tends to make us wasteful. There is one resource which is not renewable and yet very easy to waste and that’s time. We all have an undisclosed finite amount of time. Each day has just 24 hours. Life isn’t like a movie which you can rewind. We can’t hit the...

“ But when the king came in to look at the guests, he saw there a man who had no wedding garment. And he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding garment?’ And he was speechless. ” This almost sounds like a bad dream you might have, right? You receive an invitation to the party of the year by the wealthiest and most influential family in the state. So you show up at the big fancy wedding gala, and suddenly the king comes up to you, what an honor! But he gives you one sideways glance, and asks why you’re naked! How humiliating! But in this nightmare it gets even worse: “ Then the king said to the attendants, ‘Bind him hand and foot and cast him into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ ” So what you wear obviously matters. It leads us to ask ourselves the question: Are we clothed in the wedding garment? To which we gladly answer: God clothes us with the wedding garment so that we may enter into the great heavenly weddi...