The Church’s Voice – Pres Matt Harrison

Transcript (edited for readability).

The Lord be with you. If you get close to me and I smell like charcoal, it's because I've had a house fire recently, and so this is the first event I've emerged from my, uh, my literal black hole. But the Lord blesses in the midst of all these challenges, to be sure, and I'm never more confident than I am of that right now.

So I visited the Colosseum in Rome this past year, and I surveyed this amazing site as the guide told us the story. At the height of the games they would have a hundred and seventy games a year, free to the public. And there were three major events every one of those hundred and seventy days. The first event — there was no killing, it was feats of strength and competition. That was in the morning. Then things would heat up with man against beast. They would do things like import lions from parts of the empire, and have them crawling about the Colosseum floor, and the elevators would come and pop a man out onto the floor of the Colosseum. The average guy lasted about five seconds, because the lions would quickly realize where their food was coming from — like you popping open a can of Friskies — those lions would sit right at the edge of the trap door.

Then in the afternoon, the grandest part of the games: two teams of twenty-four gladiators were set up. These were captured soldiers, slaves, et cetera — two teams of twenty-four were set against each other, and they fought to the death. When one team was totally eliminated, then all the remaining gladiators were to fight to the death until one remained. And this went on for centuries. Unbelievable.

Herculaneum was buried by Mount Vesuvius. If you walk through Herculaneum — in 70 AD, you walk through Herculaneum and you see the mosaics, the mosaics in the men's club, the mosaics in the homes, et cetera — you see, far and away, more depictions of homosexual, homoerotic love than anything else. You see strange pictures of transvestite dressing, et cetera. Nothing new under the sun.

In the Vatican you can see, in its magnificent art collection, a stunning piece — it's Nero's bath. It's as large as probably, I would say, six or eight of these tables combined. It is a perfectly round, spun piece of red granite, polished beautifully. You can only imagine the debauchery which was occurring in the vicinity of, or in, that bath.

How does this compare to our world today? We know, as St. Paul says in Romans 1, things really haven't changed. However, those were last days, to be sure — these are even more last days. Forty-eight gladiators a day — and then if you throw in all the infanticides, probably in the entire Roman kingdom you would get nowhere near the four thousand abortions we have a day in this country alone. The debauchery, the lies, the butchery that we have become susceptible to in this country since Roe v. Wade — so that fifty-five million babies have been ground up in the womb, and now we see body parts being sold, and whole cadavers being sold, by Planned Parenthood. And we have politicians like Hillary Clinton, or, shamefully, the senator of this state, Claire McCaskill, holding their hands up saying, "Yes, we support this." This is worse than any debauchery in the ancient world, on a scale unheard of.

The challenge is that it's all in the name of sexual freedom. The Supreme Court decision itself — another tragedy. A libertarian Catholic appointed by Ronald Reagan decided that homosexual marriage ought to be the law of the land. There is no natural law. Two thousand years of Western civilization, and all of human civilization, be damned. And now we are out into never-never land — the ethic of sexual freedom dominates all.

This puts us in the church in a very significantly difficult position, because we in the church want nothing more than to bear witness to the mercy of Jesus to sinners. We are such sinners. The damning law of Jesus, where he says he who even looks at a woman lustfully commits adultery with her in his heart, damns us all — damns us as badly as anybody who actively exercises those things that ought not be done, which we all do.

At the same time, we find ourselves living in a society where we are Christian citizens, and we have a voice. We have a challenge on the issue of religious freedom — talk to Craig Miller, who's here, who's head of our chaplaincy department for the Synod. Now, our chaplains are being openly ridiculed in the Pentagon for not being willing to accept or perform gay weddings, or to support homosexuality in the military. We've had a long history of chaplaincy which has served in the U.S. military, many high-ranking officers, and we still do. That will now come to an end.

We have numerous challenges where the government is pushing, forcing, leftist religion. We have, in fact, a case where the Obama administration recently determined that its Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives will no longer provide any grant dollars to any religious organization that does not accept its LGBTQ viewpoint. That, my friends, is the solemn establishment of liberal religion. We will find that even though justices said, or there were certain mild provisions saying that any kind of forcing of religious colleges to accept the new LGBT approach and the Supreme Court rulings would not happen immediately — that, of course, is the force and the goal of the left, to drive Christians completely out of the education system, and completely out of any system that partners with the government.

That, my friends, means the end of Christian colleges who are, in fact, Christian. Unfortunately, Valparaiso University has opted for paganism. That means the end of all ten of the Concordia universities who participate in federal student loan programs. This means the end of any institutions that operate with any state or federal dollars. And that, you might say, could be good — however, the church has done, in partnership with government, millions upon millions, even billions of dollars of good for people, done faithfully by good leaders over the decades in the name of Christ.

We face many more challenging and draconian issues. We're going to have to decide whether our churches and our pastors can continue to participate as officers of the state in solemnizing weddings. Those are questions that are before us. As we move forward we have to be careful — we are not Calvinists, we do not intend to Christianize the state. We shall not go before Congress, or before the public, with an open Bible, and argue that law ought to be regulated by the Bible. We must argue on the basis of natural law, which is the authority for the state — like the abortion decision that happened in 1973, where the Supreme Court stupidly and terribly took upon itself a decision that should have been very clear, and would have been better left to the states to regulate.

So also, we will have a situation here where we'll have decades of case law, decades of lawsuits, decades of legal involvement, and cases one by one defining the nature and the specific limits of sexual freedom and homosexual marriage, and its ramifications for all aspects of life.

There's a very interesting quote by Hermann Sasse, which I have referred to, which I thought was particularly poignant. He wrote in 1932, just at the emergence of National Socialism, which he understood more than anybody else. And mind you, we see on television endless, endless hours about the horrific murder of six million Jews, which was horrific, and we should see it. We see virtually nothing on our own murder of fifty-five million unborn babies. The Nazis denied natural law. They denied the transcendence of God. They denied that natural law by which all people are equally valuable to God and equally accountable to God. That's why we have a different message regarding sexual preference, et cetera, and issues of homosexuality, than anybody else. We believe that all people are valuable, no matter what their challenges in life may be, and no matter what their choices in life may be. Life is inherently valuable.

Sasse said: "The Caesar cult, in its manifold forms — the deification of the state — is one great form of defection from the idea of the state. There are also other possibilities of such defection. The government can forget and neglect its tasks, when it no longer distinguishes between right and wrong, when its courts are no longer governed by the strict desire for justice but by special interests, when government no longer has the courage to exercise its law, fails to exercise its duties, undermines its own legal order, when it weakens, through its family law, parental authority and the estate of marriage. Then it ceases to be governing authority. Raising such a question can lead to heavy conflicts of conscience, but it is fundamentally conceivable, and it has time and again become reality in history, that a governing authority has ceased to be governing authority. In such a case there may indeed exist submission to a superior power, but the duty of obedience against this power no longer exists. A church which recognizes such a power as governing authority, and shows it the honor to which genuine governing authority has claim, would render itself guilty of terrible sin. A rebellion against such a power would not be revolution, but rather on par with a defensive war, as a necessary act of self-defense."

Those are very, very radical words for a Lutheran. I frankly believe we are facing a very similar circumstance. In my own case, I have tried to figure out whether I can any more say the Pledge of Allegiance — as much as I love this fantastic country.

But all this is not really why you're here. It is one voice. Certainly the other voice is the voice of mercy and the gospel. The result of this human engineering will be what it always is — the result of rebellion against God's created image in man and woman. The result will be sin and failure and fracture and pain. And that's exactly the prescription for our work: the voice of the church in the gospel.

I marveled on Malta, seeing the place where Paul was locked up. I marveled in Syracuse, seeing the church which was two thousand five hundred years old, and was a temple, but is now a church — it has been a temple, and a mosque, and a Catholic church, over the span of two thousand five hundred years. I marveled — Paul walked up there in chains, no doubt, chained to his guard. I marveled at the place where Paul's head was cut off, at Three Fountains, outside of Rome. I marveled to think this little man, this little, insignificant-looking little man, brought a message so powerful that it rocked and changed all of history.

The gospel is the power of God unto salvation. It is the healing salve for lives that are broken and hurt. It is the message whose door is always open, no matter who you are, no matter where you come from, no matter how you're tattooed, no matter what relationships you're in. There's an invitation. And it's our challenge not just to become angry white people — we must be people of the gospel, and even of joy, in these last times.

Our times are different than St. Paul's times, to be sure. I believe — Rome had its nadir and its decline. Luther famously calls this the vorübergehender Platzregen, the passing rain shower. He said it happened in Jerusalem — they had Jesus, and then they got the Turk. The gospel came, and then it rained, like a passing rain shower, in Rome — they had the gospel for hundreds of years, and then they got the pope. He said, "In Germany we've got the gospel — it'll be around, maybe, for a generation or two, a hundred fifty years, perhaps, at most — and you'll have the Turk again."

We are living in the end times. We are experiencing the passing rain shower in America. Yes — just this week, two people showed up from the cleaning company to help with the house. Two of three people who showed up that morning — two of them, former Missouri Synod Lutherans, unchurched. A generation, several generations, that have turned away from the church. Disappointingly, the statistics are now showing that millennials are the least religious generation in America in sixty or seventy years. What's happening is eschatological. Minds are closing themselves off to the gospel. And finally God is shutting off his mercy, hardening hearts — hard to believe, America, the source of so much Christian mission.

In the early nineties the Commission on Theology wrote its document on homosexuality, and it stated, "We thank God that we live in a country where the views of the state and the church are simpatico on this issue." I remember 1990. However, this challenge brings us enormous opportunities like never before. We have our work cut out for us here, because one by one, people need to hear the gospel. That is our challenge here, and we will speak it to everybody. We will welcome everybody, though we cannot affirm everybody's lifestyle. We will welcome, but we will not affirm.

The advantage is unbelievable, worldwide, for the Missouri Synod right now. We have churches all over the world who are rebelling against the Northern churches' decisions on sexuality in Europe and America, and they are seeking us out like never before — huge churches, like the Mekane Yesus of eight million, like Madagascar of four million, and others emerging literally day by day.

So what do we do, finally? Here it is. First, follow Romans. Romans 1 — there's nothing new under the sun, folks, it's been here before. Just read what Paul has to say about what's going on in Romans 1. Romans 2 and 3 — all have fallen short of the glory of God. We're all sinners, by nature and by action. We are not holier than anybody else, God help us. People say, "I'm not going to go join those Christians, they're a bunch of hypocrites." You should say, "Yes, that's true, but we can always use one more."

Romans 4 — we have a message of justification. Romans 3 and 4, the law speaks to all, that every mouth be stopped and the whole world held accountable to God. And it's a law we speak to ourselves and to others. And I tell you, the limp preaching in the Missouri Synod — although I've heard some good ones lately, I must say — the limp preaching of the law in the Missouri Synod, which also means limp preaching of the gospel, has got to be something we must address together, brothers, and improve. Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.

The sixth chapter of Romans — you're baptized, folks, you're baptized for this moment. You and Christ are in this together. You're put here at this moment for a purpose.

Romans 7 — we're going to disagree from time to time on how to act and react regarding the government and all the pressures around us. Our consciences are going to bother us from time to time — the good that I would, I do not; that which I don't want, I keep on doing. Who shall rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God, through our Lord Jesus Christ. Don't let your troubled conscience get you down, from time to time. The last word is Christ.

And chapter 8 — neither height nor depth, nothing can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord, and all things — all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. That's the final word.

So be of good cheer. You've got some great speakers lined up. Well, I'm sure we'll boost your apologetic ability, and also strengthen your fervor to love those who are around you, no matter who they are. In the name of Christ, thank you.