The Joshua Victor Theory

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Amen. Welcome to our service on this Children’s Sunday! As parents, a special concern that we no doubt share, is the safety and well-being of our children, and setting appropriate boundaries for them. This echoes God’s parental concern for us, which shows up in all of our readings today. All three readings echo a common theme—that sin is a serious danger, and that it’s predictable final outcome is death. The Old Testament reading from Ezekiel warns people to turn from their wicked ways, and names a couple of specific sins—robbery, injustice—but mainly says in general that if we continue in sin, we will die. The reading from Corinthians speaks of the bad example of the Israelites, from the beginning of the Bible, and how their worship of false gods, their sexual sins, and their grumbling and complaining against God, led to many of them dying. Then to round out the theme, Jesus answers qu...

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. Our text is from Ezekiel, where God lays on him the solemn responsibility of being accountable for the people. Of particular concern is that he warn the wicked of their sin so that they can turn and live, and to warn the righteous who presume they are saved, to not build false confidence in their righteousness. Likewise pastors have the solemn charge to preach God’s Word of Law, to bring the wicked to repentance and to unsettle the complacent, and to speak God’s Word of Gospel to the repentant to give them comfort. God’s Word from Ezekiel strikes a severe blow at our pride, and the pride of any who would cling to their own righteousness to deliver them from their sin. It disables the “balancing scale model of salvation”—that if we do enough good deeds to outweigh the bad, then we’ll live by that righteousness. This is so common, as to nearly be universal in our human thought. But God warns the “righteous” that...