WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.900 --> 00:00:03.800 Grace mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord and 2 00:00:03.800 --> 00:00:04.600 Savior Jesus Christ. 3 00:00:04.600 --> 00:00:06.100 Amen. 4 00:00:07.100 --> 00:00:11.900 Our text today is The Ten Commandments and I have the unenviable task 5 00:00:11.900 --> 00:00:16.300 of preaching a missions sermon out of the Ten Commandments. 6 00:00:16.300 --> 00:00:20.400 Well, this certainly requires distinguishing between law and gospel if 7 00:00:20.400 --> 00:00:23.000 I don't want my MDiv of rescinded anytime soon. 8 00:00:23.000 --> 00:00:27.400 I don't know how many of you are aware of Reverend Rossow's gospel 9 00:00:27.400 --> 00:00:33.400 handles, but he often talked about importing gospel into a sermon when 10 00:00:33.400 --> 00:00:35.700 you cannot see it in the assigned texts. 11 00:00:35.700 --> 00:00:40.000 So today calls for remembering the lessons of one of my favorite 12 00:00:40.000 --> 00:00:40.600 professors here. 13 00:00:41.600 --> 00:00:45.900 I'm sure you've also noticed that many Christians, unbelievers when 14 00:00:45.900 --> 00:00:49.800 they find out that you're a Seminary Student a pastor a servant of any 15 00:00:49.800 --> 00:00:54.900 kind in the church will often say, I try to live a good life. 16 00:00:54.900 --> 00:00:56.800 I try to be a good Christian. 17 00:00:58.000 --> 00:01:00.500 Well, now how's that going for you? 18 00:01:01.600 --> 00:01:05.400 I can't tell you how many times I was asked on the mission field by 19 00:01:05.400 --> 00:01:05.800 people. 20 00:01:05.800 --> 00:01:12.700 How many people I converted in Russia? As if there was follow "A" then go 21 00:01:12.700 --> 00:01:17.500 to "B" and conclude with point "C" and presto the new Christians comes 22 00:01:17.500 --> 00:01:22.600 forth just like that. Well if I was in a particularly snarky mood, I 23 00:01:22.600 --> 00:01:26.500 would kind of have this blank face and I would look at them and say 24 00:01:26.500 --> 00:01:27.600 none. 25 00:01:29.000 --> 00:01:33.600 An uncomfortable silence often followed after that until I could 26 00:01:33.600 --> 00:01:38.500 explain that the Holy Spirit Works through God's Word irrespective of 27 00:01:38.500 --> 00:01:42.300 our eloquence and I'm truly thankful for that to be honest with you. 28 00:01:42.300 --> 00:01:46.400 Because when I served in Russia, they became quite aware of my 29 00:01:46.400 --> 00:01:50.000 eloquence when I began to lead one of my first Bible studies. 30 00:01:50.000 --> 00:01:54.200 I wanted them to know how blessed they were to have a person of such 31 00:01:54.200 --> 00:01:58.300 educational background to unravel the Bible for them. 32 00:01:58.300 --> 00:02:04.200 And so I began by telling them that I had vyssheye obrazovaniye, higher 33 00:02:04.200 --> 00:02:04.900 education. 34 00:02:06.100 --> 00:02:09.000 But I left out a syllable and I said vyssheye obrezaniye. 35 00:02:10.199 --> 00:02:13.600 Word to the wise don't leave out syllables in Russian. 36 00:02:14.500 --> 00:02:19.500 Instead of informing them how honored they should be for some reason 37 00:02:19.500 --> 00:02:21.900 decided to share with them that I had a higher circumcision. 38 00:02:24.200 --> 00:02:29.100 So that's why they were stifling the laughter now I get. Well the Holy 39 00:02:29.100 --> 00:02:32.600 Spirit does work through the word and we are called to be faithful 40 00:02:32.600 --> 00:02:36.800 but thankfully he doesn't require our eloquence to do that. 41 00:02:36.800 --> 00:02:40.500 But let's go back to the text Horace Hummel had some interesting 42 00:02:40.500 --> 00:02:43.900 comments on this and that the decalogue was written in the indicative 43 00:02:43.900 --> 00:02:45.600 not the imperative form. 44 00:02:45.600 --> 00:02:49.400 These are statements of what the believer whose experienced God's grace 45 00:02:49.400 --> 00:02:50.900 will voluntarily do. 46 00:02:51.800 --> 00:02:56.000 So yes, we're not saved by doing the decalogue, but by grace through 47 00:02:56.000 --> 00:02:57.700 faith in Christ alone. 48 00:02:58.700 --> 00:03:01.500 We love because he first loved us. 49 00:03:03.200 --> 00:03:04.200 For the past seven years 50 00:03:04.200 --> 00:03:10.100 I've had the honor to lead the Lutheran Heritage Foundation and our 51 00:03:10.100 --> 00:03:14.100 organization was founded about 29 years ago by Reverend Robert Rahn who 52 00:03:14.100 --> 00:03:19.400 is actually celebrating his 50th anniversary of ordination from 53 00:03:19.400 --> 00:03:21.500 Concordia Seminary this year. 54 00:03:22.600 --> 00:03:27.200 Bob saw what was happening 29 years ago in the former Soviet Union. 55 00:03:27.200 --> 00:03:32.100 And now that there was freedom he wanted to bring that gospel message 56 00:03:32.100 --> 00:03:37.400 back to the land of my ancestors because many of you may be aware it 57 00:03:37.400 --> 00:03:43.700 underwent a horrific experiment in 1917. Vladimir Lenin declared an 58 00:03:43.700 --> 00:03:48.100 officially atheist Nation where God did not exist and would not exist 59 00:03:48.100 --> 00:03:52.400 anymore for Russian people, even though that Lutheran Church had 60 00:03:52.400 --> 00:03:56.800 existed 20 years after Martin Luther's death in the mid 16th 61 00:03:56.800 --> 00:03:57.400 centuries. 62 00:03:58.300 --> 00:04:04.600 And so my paternal grandparents native Church, native Lutheran Church, 63 00:04:04.600 --> 00:04:07.100 underwent a persecution. 64 00:04:08.200 --> 00:04:15.300 So that by 1939 pastors were all executed or exiled and the churches 65 00:04:15.300 --> 00:04:19.500 were turned into warehouses, theaters even a swimming pool. 66 00:04:20.399 --> 00:04:24.100 Vladimir Putin grew up in a working district of Leningrad and right 67 00:04:24.100 --> 00:04:27.600 around the corner from where he grew up is Saint Michaels Lutheran 68 00:04:27.600 --> 00:04:30.900 Church, which thankfully has a functioning church again today, but 69 00:04:30.900 --> 00:04:33.900 that was turned into a volleyball making factory. 70 00:04:34.900 --> 00:04:35.500 And so 71 00:04:36.800 --> 00:04:41.200 times have changed. In 1991 the walls came crumbling down just like the 72 00:04:41.200 --> 00:04:46.200 walls of Jericho came crumbling down and we were free to evangelize. 73 00:04:46.200 --> 00:04:50.600 But how do you evangelize a people who been reading Karl Marx for so 74 00:04:50.600 --> 00:04:50.900 many years? 75 00:04:50.900 --> 00:04:55.900 How do you explain the truths of scripture without good solid Biblical 76 00:04:55.900 --> 00:05:00.800 materials in the language of the people themselves. Because believe me 77 00:05:00.800 --> 00:05:04.000 others were there. Mormons. 78 00:05:04.900 --> 00:05:10.600 Jehovah's Witnesses, Aum Shinrikyo a Japanese sect lead by Shoko 79 00:05:10.600 --> 00:05:15.800 Asahara. Biblical teaching is always essential good Biblical teaching 80 00:05:15.800 --> 00:05:16.800 is always necessary. 81 00:05:18.300 --> 00:05:23.000 And so of course the Ten Commandments are very useful for showing us 82 00:05:23.000 --> 00:05:25.700 how often we fall short of the glory of God. 83 00:05:25.700 --> 00:05:28.600 We cannot please him and yet 84 00:05:29.500 --> 00:05:32.200 they do teach us Luther knew that. 85 00:05:33.000 --> 00:05:38.300 That's why Luther crafted a large catechism a small catechism. And one of the really 86 00:05:38.300 --> 00:05:39.000 interesting things 87 00:05:39.000 --> 00:05:42.600 I would often have conversations with Russians as they came into the 88 00:05:42.600 --> 00:05:46.900 church and we would talk and they would tell me that they really the 89 00:05:46.900 --> 00:05:51.300 teaching of the small catechism just resonated with them because as 90 00:05:51.300 --> 00:05:53.700 they read it, they found out what they shouldn't do 91 00:05:53.700 --> 00:05:56.000 but also what they should do. 92 00:05:57.600 --> 00:06:00.400 You should not despise preaching and his word 93 00:06:00.400 --> 00:06:07.100 but so that we'd also hold his word sacred and gladly hear and learn 94 00:06:07.100 --> 00:06:07.300 it. 95 00:06:09.200 --> 00:06:11.400 For those of you are just beginning your studies here 96 00:06:11.400 --> 00:06:15.000 I remember one of my great aha moments and then you will have so many 97 00:06:15.000 --> 00:06:18.400 of them at Concordia Seminary, especially with the staff that you have 98 00:06:18.400 --> 00:06:19.000 assembled here. 99 00:06:19.000 --> 00:06:23.600 I even see Professor Rossow is here so he'll clarify anything 100 00:06:23.600 --> 00:06:27.400 I've said wrong about gospel handles. But we were reading Piepers' 101 00:06:27.400 --> 00:06:33.000 Dogmatics and the distinction made by a scholar Sir Monier Monier- 102 00:06:33.000 --> 00:06:33.100 Williams, 103 00:06:33.100 --> 00:06:38.000 what a name. A noted 19th century scholar of Sanskrit and Hindi. 104 00:06:39.100 --> 00:06:44.100 And Monier-Williams ascended to the chair, the Bowden chair of Oxford, 105 00:06:44.100 --> 00:06:48.300 as a professor of Sanskrit. Uniquely for his time 106 00:06:48.300 --> 00:06:50.100 this was an era of higher criticism. 107 00:06:50.100 --> 00:06:57.800 He wanted to understand Hinduism because he said the aim of 108 00:06:57.800 --> 00:07:03.300 learning the languages here are so that we can proclaim Christ to the 109 00:07:03.300 --> 00:07:04.100 people of India. 110 00:07:05.300 --> 00:07:06.200 Amazing 111 00:07:07.000 --> 00:07:11.600 evangelization in the mid-nineteenth century from a great scholar of 112 00:07:11.600 --> 00:07:17.000 Sanskrit at the University of Oxford. How times have changed today when 113 00:07:17.000 --> 00:07:20.200 we think of the Anglican church and what they might teach in England. 114 00:07:21.700 --> 00:07:27.000 But he wrote this which I found still very striking to me today in the 115 00:07:27.000 --> 00:07:31.400 discharge of my duties for 40 years as professor of Sanskrit in the 116 00:07:31.400 --> 00:07:32.500 University of Oxford. 117 00:07:32.500 --> 00:07:37.200 I have devoted as much time as any man living to the sacred books of 118 00:07:37.200 --> 00:07:42.600 the East and I found the one keynote of all these sacred books whether 119 00:07:42.600 --> 00:07:46.700 it be the Veda of the Brahmins. the Piranhas of Siva and Vishnu, the 120 00:07:46.700 --> 00:07:51.600 Quran of the Mohomedians, the Zen of Vesta of the Parsees, the Tripitaka of the 121 00:07:51.600 --> 00:07:54.200 Buddhist the one refrain through all 122 00:07:55.300 --> 00:07:57.300 salvation by works. 123 00:07:58.800 --> 00:08:01.900 Monier-Williams had actually lived for a period 124 00:08:01.900 --> 00:08:03.000 of time in India. 125 00:08:03.000 --> 00:08:07.300 He knew that this wasn't just an interesting exotic religion. 126 00:08:07.300 --> 00:08:12.100 He understood how it kept people captive. Those carved and graven images 127 00:08:12.100 --> 00:08:15.800 which Professor Sanchez wrote about forbidden in the decalogue can be 128 00:08:15.800 --> 00:08:21.800 seen in many of the demons throughout Asia. My colleague Ted Nathalang 129 00:08:21.800 --> 00:08:25.600 at Lutheran Heritage Foundation grew up as a Buddhist in 130 00:08:25.600 --> 00:08:26.200 Thailand. 131 00:08:26.200 --> 00:08:28.300 He knows better about that than I do itself. 132 00:08:29.300 --> 00:08:34.600 But there was also a person in the 19th century who had a similar 133 00:08:34.600 --> 00:08:37.400 perspective to Monier-Williams and his name was Theodore Naether. 134 00:08:37.400 --> 00:08:39.000 You may be aware 135 00:08:39.000 --> 00:08:44.100 If you've started learning some LCMS history that he was the first 136 00:08:44.100 --> 00:08:48.100 missionary from the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, but that he also 137 00:08:48.100 --> 00:08:51.800 originally was working for the Leipzig Mission Society. 138 00:08:52.900 --> 00:08:57.400 And he had to leave because of the power of higher criticism there. 139 00:08:57.400 --> 00:09:03.200 He said the Bible is divinely inspired and inerrant and he could not 140 00:09:03.200 --> 00:09:05.800 in good conscience remain in that Mission Society. 141 00:09:06.600 --> 00:09:11.800 And so he actually came to America and became a pastor for the LCMS. 142 00:09:13.100 --> 00:09:16.400 I hope one day you get the chance to travel to the Lutheran compound 143 00:09:16.400 --> 00:09:20.300 in Krishnagiri where he is buried because as you travel through that 144 00:09:20.300 --> 00:09:25.600 town you you will see images of Hindu idols everywhere you go. 145 00:09:25.600 --> 00:09:31.700 The place is teeming with them salvation by works and yet this man who 146 00:09:31.700 --> 00:09:34.800 might have said something similar that I said. 147 00:09:34.800 --> 00:09:38.400 How many did you convert? None maybe. 148 00:09:39.800 --> 00:09:44.200 Began a mission a mission that God would bless long after he passed 149 00:09:44.200 --> 00:09:47.900 away and Evangelical Lutheran Church of India that today in numbers 150 00:09:47.900 --> 00:09:49.900 more than 100.000 people. 151 00:09:50.900 --> 00:09:54.200 God works through his word not through our eloquence. 152 00:09:55.300 --> 00:09:59.900 But before we get to pompous and think that idols are for those other 153 00:09:59.900 --> 00:10:01.100 people not for us. 154 00:10:01.100 --> 00:10:05.100 Well who has a program named American Idol? 155 00:10:06.300 --> 00:10:12.000 Who uses the verb idolized as often as we do in America and a golden 156 00:10:12.000 --> 00:10:13.100 calf of Donald Trump? 157 00:10:13.100 --> 00:10:17.600 Well, we all fall short of the glory of God. 158 00:10:17.600 --> 00:10:20.000 We all tend to worship humans. 159 00:10:20.000 --> 00:10:22.900 We all understand deep down 160 00:10:22.900 --> 00:10:26.400 we need a savior one who can do what we cannot do. 161 00:10:28.000 --> 00:10:29.300 So today we are here 162 00:10:30.300 --> 00:10:34.800 to bless and dedicate the Spanish Bible catechism. 163 00:10:34.800 --> 00:10:40.000 It is one of the works of which we are most proud at Lutheran Heritage 164 00:10:40.000 --> 00:10:45.100 Foundation because especially in the Americas but also in the United 165 00:10:45.100 --> 00:10:49.400 States, there are so many opportunities to share that Bible with the 166 00:10:49.400 --> 00:10:53.600 catechism in the front with the unique idea of our Director of Office 167 00:10:53.600 --> 00:10:57.500 of International Mission, Pastor Dan McMiller, who thought that we 168 00:10:57.500 --> 00:11:00.700 should put that in front of the Bible so that people would have an 169 00:11:00.700 --> 00:11:05.300 idea of what to read in the Bible and understand it. 170 00:11:06.500 --> 00:11:07.700 Provost Doug Rutt, 171 00:11:07.700 --> 00:11:11.300 I'm not sure where he is here if he's here, but Doug Rutt has done 172 00:11:11.300 --> 00:11:15.100 countless spent countless hours working and helping us with 173 00:11:15.100 --> 00:11:17.700 translation improvements. 174 00:11:17.700 --> 00:11:18.800 Dr. 175 00:11:18.800 --> 00:11:23.200 Sanchez has given us so much support and encouragement has lead us to 176 00:11:23.200 --> 00:11:24.100 translators, 177 00:11:25.400 --> 00:11:27.000 who have done great work for us. 178 00:11:27.000 --> 00:11:31.400 And I recall the words one of those translators as I conclude. 179 00:11:31.400 --> 00:11:36.700 She told me after she had used this Bible and catechism and taught the 180 00:11:36.700 --> 00:11:36.900 class. 181 00:11:36.900 --> 00:11:41.300 One of the ladies came up to her complimented her on the teaching and 182 00:11:41.300 --> 00:11:45.400 said now tell me tell me a little bit more about this little Lutero guy. 183 00:11:45.400 --> 00:11:47.400 Who is this Lutero 184 00:11:48.600 --> 00:11:50.500 because I'm interested in his teaching. 185 00:11:52.300 --> 00:11:56.300 We're thankful today that Martin Luther speaks in Spanish and that 186 00:11:56.300 --> 00:11:59.800 those great insights of the Reformation that we are saved by grace 187 00:11:59.800 --> 00:12:04.200 alone through faith alone and Christ alone can be shared to our 188 00:12:04.200 --> 00:12:08.500 Spanish-speaking brothers and sisters here and around the world. 189 00:12:08.500 --> 00:12:12.600 May that scriptural message and the power of the Holy Spirit touch 190 00:12:12.600 --> 00:12:15.800 the hearts of all who will read these Bibles. Amen.