The Gospel lesson for this Sunday presents how Jesus expelled a demon from a man in the Capernaum synagogue. I have been studying demon possession for this Sunday’s sermon. Here are some of the things that I found about Luther dealing with demon possession: "Once, during the life of Dr. Martin Luther, a young woman was brought to Wittenberg who was born in the land of Meissen , who was often vexed and tormented by the devil. And a letter was written to blessed Dr. Martin that he should save and rescue this young woman, who was 18 years old, from the evil spirit. When this virgin was brought to Dr. Martin, he asked her at that time whether she could say her faith [the creed]. She answered, 'Yes.' Then the blessed Dr. Martin commanded her to say it. As she now began and came to the article [of the creed] and these words, 'And I believe in Jesus Christ, His only-begotten Son, our Lord,' she could no longer speak, but the evil spirit began to convulse and to...
I love the way author Max Lucado writes. He is a great storyteller and a fantastic wordsmith. I have a number of Lucado's books on my shelves and receive his daily paragraph devotions. However, as popular as he is, as many books as he has sold, as many lives as he has touched with the Gospel, he still proclaims false doctrine. I still remember being told at the Seminary that you can generally tell a pastor's theology based on the kind of books he has on his shelves. Though our WELS pastors may have a few books by Lucado, Covey or even some fiction by Peretti, they had better have the majority of their books be sound, Lutheran, biblical doctrine. Martin Luther, The People's Bible commentaries, The Book of Concord, People's Bible Teachings, C.F.W. Walther, Francis Pieper, Werner Franzmann, etc. I mention this because of the devotion I received via email from Max Lucado on Friday, June 12 entitled "Saved by Faith." In the devotion he calls communion and bapti...
“To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his own blood and made us a kingdom and priests to God his Father—to him be the glory and the power forever.” (Revelation 1:5–7, EHV) Psalm 119:46 Then I will speak of your testimonies before kings, and I will not be put to shame. It was Christmas morning many, many years ago. One of my relatives was attending a University of Wisconsin school and had been taken in by the liberal philosophies of the professors and the evolution evangelized in the biology and science classes she took. She decided that Christmas morning was an appropriate time to challenge me on the truth of the Bible. She argued that there was no way possible for Noah to get all the various species of animals onto the ark. The ark just couldn’t have been big enough. If that story was make-believe, then, she wondered, what other stories in the Bible were possibly made up. I explained that Noah took pairs of every “kind” of animal. I demonstrated that “k...
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