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Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Good morning, St. Paul Lutheran Church. It's Pastor Wolfmuller. This is the Sunday Drive to Church podcast for the eighth Sunday after Trinity, July 26, year of our Lord 2026. Another. I guess I say this every Sunday because the Lord's word is so beautiful. It's just.
[00:00:17] I mean, all these precious things that the Lord wants us to know that we couldn't know unless he tells us, but he tells us page after page of goodness. But it's just great today. Jeremiah 23, really important text. Psalm 26, beautiful text. And then I think our. I mean, and we're in Romans 8 for the epistle, which is like the pinnacle mountaintop of the whole scripture. And then I think that our gospel lesson is actually going to sync up with our Sunday school lesson, Matthew, chapter seven, where Jesus is telling us to look out for false prophets.
[00:00:55] That's pretty.
[00:00:56] That's pretty cool. Let's start with a collect.
[00:00:59] Grant to us, Lord, the Spirit, to think and do always such things as are right, that we who cannot do anything that's good without you may be enabled by you to live according to your will through Jesus Christ, your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.
[00:01:20] Amen.
[00:01:22] That collect is the perfect introduction. I hadn't seen it till just now. The perfect introduction to the Psalm. Psalm 26 is the vindicate Me, O Lord psalm. And it's a tough one. A lot of the old commentators don't even like it.
[00:01:39] Some say this doesn't belong to the New Testament. Others say this is the prayer of the Pharisee when he goes up to the temple. Because the psalm says, vindicate me, O Lord, for I have walked in my integrity and I have trusted in the Lord without wavering.
[00:01:56] Prove me, O Lord, try me. Test my heart.
[00:02:00] And it goes on to talk about the righteousness, to claim righteousness on our own. But remember, it's not on his own. It looks like that at first, but it's never a righteousness on our own.
[00:02:12] It's important for us to remember that the Lord gives us a good conscience in two ways.
[00:02:19] The first is that we have a good conscience before the Lord by faith.
[00:02:25] In other words, we come to the Lord as sinners, desperate sinners in need of his mercy, praying for his mercy, pleading for his mercy and grace. And he gives it to us. And the blood of Jesus cleanses our heart from all sins.
[00:02:38] And then by that faith, we begin to love and serve God and one another. And that gives us a good conscience before the world through our vocation and our love.
[00:02:51] We don't talk about this probably as much as we should, but whenever Paul, St. Paul talks about having a good conscience, it's not the good conscience of faith.
[00:03:00] It's the secondary good conscience of love.
[00:03:04] Now this good conscience of love is never complete. It's never, I've done exactly what I should have done.
[00:03:11] I've served you and blessed my neighbor in every way that I should have. We can never pray that prayer, but we can have a good conscience in this way. For example, I know that it's right for there to be preachers. And I know that the Lord has put me into the office of preacher and pastor and that this is good in the eyes of God. It doesn't mean that I've. That I've fulfilled the office in a perfect way, but it means that the office is good and that I've strived to live in that office in an upright way.
[00:03:47] The same for the office of husband or wife or child or parent. We know that the office is good so that when we enter into that office, like Kalu and Odin did yesterday, you can have a good conscience. I'm supposed to be husband. I'm supposed to be wife. The Lord has put me into this calling, so I have confidence in my vocation.
[00:04:09] And then as we begin to serve one another, we can have confidence also that we've done that so that Paul doesn't have to shrink down before his accusers who say that he's not an apostle. He can stand there and say, no, I am an apostle and I've lived like an apostle. And no doubt I've sinned in the office of apostle, but the office itself is good and I've chased after it. And that's that good conscience of love.
[00:04:39] The way that kind of. To distinguish the pride from the prideful way of thinking about it versus the humble way of thinking about it is that we know that our love, according to our office, is always begun, never complete, so that love is always started, never finished. Service is always started, never finished. So I've started to be a pastor. I've started to be a husband, I've started to be a father, I've started to be a neighbor. I've started to love in those ways, never completely, always faltering, always needing the Lord's mercy. But I can have a good conscience because the calling is right and I'm chasing after that calling. And that's the background of the psalm which says, vindicate me, O God. I've walked in my integrity. It's a prayer of King David for vindication and protection against those who are falsely accusing him. I don't. Verse 4. Oh, wait, the chesed is in here. We have to see it. I have trusted. Oh, yeah. Verse three. Your chesed is before my eyes.
[00:05:40] So I've chased after your righteousness, your mercy, your love. I walk in your faithfulness. I don't sit with men of falsehood. I don't consort with hypocrites. I hate the assembly of the evildoers. I won't sit with the wicked. I wash my hands in innocence and go around your altar, O Lord. Here's the picture of King David walking around the tabernacle.
[00:06:01] Yeah, walking around the tabernacle. Walking around the altar and praising the Lord and preaching to all the people who are there.
[00:06:09] Thanksgiving aloud. And telling about your wondrous deeds.
[00:06:13] The verse 8 we have as a response. O Lord, I love the habitation of your house and the place where your glory dwells. So don't sweep my soul away with sinners or my life with bloodthirsty men. Redeem me. Be gracious to me. That's the final prayer for the Lord's grace and mercy.
[00:06:33] My foot stands on level ground in the assemblies. I will bless the Lord.
[00:06:38] What a psalm. It's really. Now that word vindication is really interesting, too. I think we've underlined it in a few of these Sunday Drive to Church podcast.
[00:06:48] I could use your help with it, because it's the flip side of justification.
[00:06:54] Vindication is the.
[00:06:57] Well, it's the Lord demonstrating his wrath on his enemies.
[00:07:04] So justification is the Lord's mercy on his friends.
[00:07:08] Vindication is wrath on his enemies.
[00:07:11] And it's especially.
[00:07:13] It's a key prayer in the Scriptures for those who are assaulted, for those who are afflicted, for those who are under the oppression of the enemy. That's when that's happening. We're crying out for vindication.
[00:07:32] Okay, Isaiah 23:16, 29, if you want to. This is a really sort of important underline to put in your Bible. Jeremiah 23:23 is the way I remember it.
[00:07:46] That's where we want to lock it in. But it's the verses before and the verses after where the Lord is describing the difference between the true prophets and the false prophets. And here is the surprising.
[00:08:00] The false prophets have not stood in. In the counsel of the Lord.
[00:08:07] Look at verse. Well, you can't look, you're driving. But I'll read you verse 18. Who among them has stood in the counsel of the Lord to see and to hear His Word, who has paid attention to his word and listened.
[00:08:21] If they had stood in my counsel, then they would have proclaimed my words to my people, and they would have turned them from their evil way and from the evil of their deeds.
[00:08:32] Now, this is so the counsel of the Lord. This is the idea that in heaven there's the throne room of God. You have to think of it like an ancient kingdom and there's a castle, and in it is a throne room. And on the throne sits the Lord, and then around him are all his advisors, his counselors.
[00:08:51] And there's a conversation that's happening there about the governance of the kingdom.
[00:08:55] This is the Lord's counsel. And that conversation is between Father, Son and Holy Spirit. And it's about. We get little glimpses of it in the prophetic revelation, but it's about the redemption of the world. It's about how the Lord will rule. It's about.
[00:09:12] Well, it's about Jesus and the incarnation and his death and his resurrection.
[00:09:17] And the prophets are those who are brought into that council. So, for example, think of Isaiah, who's in the temple ministering, and the curtain is pulled back and there's the throne of God, and he sees the.
[00:09:30] The four living creatures crying out, holy, holy, holy. He's in the council of the Lord or Ezekiel, when the throne of God is revealed to him with these wheels and the angels. Or Moses, when he goes up into the cloud on top of Mount Sinai and he's there. He's in that council room of the Lord. All the other prophets are brought there by vision or dream or revelation. That's the amazing thing about the transfiguration, is that counsel of God is brought down to the top of the mountain of transfiguration.
[00:10:00] I think we should understand this as literally as possible, that in fact, it's probably more real than where we are, that there's a throne room where God is, and there's a conversation where his mind is being unfolded. And the true prophets are the ones that stand there and listen, and then they're sent out to make known that counsel, to make known the mind of God in that conversation of the Holy Trinity that's happening at the throne of God.
[00:10:30] So Isaiah stands in the council and hears about the virgin birth and comes down and proclaims the virgin will conceive and bear a son.
[00:10:38] Or Micah is standing in that council and hears that it's going to be Bethlehem, Epaphratha, where the Messiah will be born.
[00:10:48] Or Isaiah is back in that council. And he says, by your stripes, you will be healed. Or Moses is in that council, and he says, I'll raise up a prophet like you from among your brothers, or whatever, that. That council is where the mind of God is revealed. And so we see it in the Scriptures, in the prophetic and apostolic Scriptures, that counsel of God is being made known. The false prophets don't go to the council.
[00:11:13] They get a vision of their own, a dream of their own. They make it up. It says, well, let's see.
[00:11:21] Verse 21. I didn't send the prophets. They ran. I didn't speak to them. They prophesied.
[00:11:26] If they would have stood in my counsel, then they would have proclaimed my words to my people and turned them from their evil way.
[00:11:33] But they don't. They speak visions of their own minds. This is back up in verse 16.
[00:11:38] Not from the mouth of the Lord, they say continually to those who despise the word of the Lord. It'll be well with you, everyone who stubbornly follows his own heart. They say, no disaster will come upon you. There's no law and there's no gospel in the false prophets.
[00:11:55] Let the prophet who has a dream tell the dream, but let him who has my word speak my word faithfully. In other words, don't listen to the dreamers.
[00:12:04] What does straw have in common with wheat is not my word. And here's the two. Two of the most beautiful pictures of The Lord's word is not my word. Like fire, declares the Lord. And like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces.
[00:12:21] So the Lord's word is a.
[00:12:23] It crushes and then it builds up. It kills and makes alive. It wounds and it heals. It's law and it's gospel. It's threatened. Promise, wisdom, and comfort.
[00:12:36] That's. That's from the Lord's counsel. Thus, key text. Okay, Romans 8. Moving on.
[00:12:43] Good thing we do this right. It's not. We just. You know, it comes at you so fast when you're in church.
[00:12:50] Just get you ready for it.
[00:12:53] This is like, you know, the baseball's happening now. And these professional baseball players, they sit there and take so many pitches that they can see the laces on the ball coming at them at 100 miles an hour. It's crazy. That's what Sunday drive to churches do. So you can see the laces of the scripture when it comes at you so fast. All right, Just thought of that. Pretty good analogy, huh? You guys are driving a lot. Wow. How does pastor think of such Great brother. Okay. Romans 8.
[00:13:22] Oh, this is the battle, the Christian battle between flesh and spirit. Remember, we are in some ways made of these two things.
[00:13:35] We're born flesh, we're born by nature, children of wrath. But when we're baptized, the Lord throws out the evil spirits. The Holy Spirit comes to dwell in us as God's temple. And so we are these two things. We are flesh and spirit. We are sin and righteousness. We are old Adam and new man.
[00:13:57] And those things are battling it out.
[00:13:59] And so for us, it's this battle always to live in the spirit and not in the flesh. Now, what's the flesh? That's the corrupt desires of this life. It's the. It's the sinful life of chasing after our own wants or whatever.
[00:14:18] It's that bent that we have concupiscence, the corruption to. Rather than desiring the things of God, we desire the things of this earth.
[00:14:29] Paul says, brothers, if we are debtors not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh.
[00:14:36] For if you live according to the flesh, you will die.
[00:14:39] But if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.
[00:14:46] For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.
[00:14:51] For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the spirit of adoption as sons by whom we cry abba, father.
[00:15:01] And the Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.
[00:15:07] And if children, then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with Him. Oh my, what absolutely beautiful text. Now I want you to notice, sometimes it says sons of God and sometimes it says children of God. It's actually two Greek words underneath there, the huias, the son and the technos. That's the children.
[00:15:37] And these are technical terms that are being used on purpose because the son, remember, receives the inheritance. So whenever Paul's talking about the inheritance, he talks about how we're sons.
[00:15:49] And this is true for you ladies also. You also are sons of God, you are inheritors of his kingdom.
[00:15:56] But then when it talks about children, that's talking about being part of the family. And that's also a technical term. We are children of God. And if we're children, heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, that we are part of the family.
[00:16:09] And so this beautiful picture is that we were born as part of the kingdom of darkness, the family of sin, but now we're part of the family of God. Behold what manner of love the Father's given to us that we should be called the children of God so that we don't have the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but the spirit of adoption as sons.
[00:16:37] So we cry out, abba, Father, this is this gentle word for the children. Abba, this is Daddy.
[00:16:43] This tenderness with which we address God without any fear at all. Because perfect love casts out fear. The Lord says, don't be afraid.
[00:16:52] Wow.
[00:16:54] So there's these two ways that are always pulling on our heart. The way the. The flesh and the way of the spirit. And here we. We live in the Spirit.
[00:17:03] We're led by the Spirit.
[00:17:06] If we.
[00:17:07] We put to death the deeds of the body, we live. We'll live forever.
[00:17:11] We suffer with him, but we'll be glorified with him one day soon.
[00:17:18] Sometimes I think we should read passages twice. That's one of them.
[00:17:22] We are debtors not to the flesh, to live according to. So I'll do it. Okay? All right. Since you guys thought so. We are debtors not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. For if you live according to the flesh, you will die. But if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.
[00:17:37] For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you who did not receive the spirit of slavery fall back into fear. But you have received the spirit of adoption as sons by whom we cry, abba, Father, The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God. And if children, then heirs. Heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with Him. Can you. One day we're going to be glorified with Jesus, his glory reflecting on us, his face smiling on us. The new heaven and the new earth where the righteous dwell. That's on the way. That is really on the way for us.
[00:18:18] Come, Lord Jesus.
[00:18:21] Okay, Matthew 7. We'll preach on this.
[00:18:25] Jesus says, beware of false prophets. Now that's a command. It's not an option. Jesus has not said, if you want to beware of false prophets, you can, you know, if you've got some free time. Nothing else to do, sitting around.
[00:18:40] No, it's a command.
[00:18:43] And this is important because a lot of people have a.
[00:18:48] It's distasteful for them to exercise theological discernment.
[00:18:54] They just say, look, why do we care so much about this? Aren't we all just Christians? Isn't it enough to believe in Jesus? Why do we have to worry about doctrine? Why do we have to worry about teaching? Why do we have to worry about these things? Well, you got to worry about them. Well, don't worry. But you have to look out for false doctrine because Jesus said to do it.
[00:19:15] In fact, I think every time the word beware comes up in the New Testament, it's bewaring us of false teaching. And the reason is not just because we want to be right and show how everybody else is wrong, Lord forbid.
[00:19:30] The reason is because false teaching damages souls. False teaching corrupts consciences. False teaching is the way to death, not the way to life. Every heresy is strikes Christ and it strikes at our faith in Christ.
[00:19:48] Now, that doesn't mean that if someone has a false doctrine, they're immediately condemned and damned. But here's the best picture I've got that false teaching is like cancer.
[00:19:57] It's eating away at your life. It doesn't mean like if you get cancer, you're dead.
[00:20:03] It's different cancer. It's not like a exploded aorta or some other sort of heart attack or something like that that just. That gets you right away. It gets you slowly.
[00:20:16] And the longer that you have it, the more and more it eats away at your life. And eventually it'll get you if something else doesn't, or if you don't heal it. So you can have saving faith in Christ and believe in false doctrine. It's possible.
[00:20:32] Just like you can have cancer and be alive. It's possible, but it's not good.
[00:20:37] And.
[00:20:38] And so we should be watching out according to the word of Jesus for false prophets. And how do you do it? Well, he first gives warning. You're not going to recognize them easy. They come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they're ravenous wolves. You can recognize them by their fruits.
[00:20:55] So you can't recognize a false prophet just by looking at him like, ooh, that guy looks false prophety or that lady's a false prophetish or whatever.
[00:21:05] You can't see them by just looking at them. They look like, well, maybe they even look gentle, friendly or whatever. You got to look at the fruits. And the fruit is chiefly what they say and then what they do. Teaching and life, doctrine and love.
[00:21:21] You'll recognize them by their fruits. Can you get grapes from thorn bushes? Do you get figs from thistles? Healthy tree bears good fruit. Diseased tree bears bad fruit. Healthy tree can't bear bad fruit. Wait. Yeah. Healthy tree can't bear bad fruit. Nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit. Every tree that doesn't bear Good fruits cut down and thrown into the fire. You'll recognize them by their fruits.
[00:21:43] Not everyone who says to me, lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.
[00:21:50] On that day, many will say to me, lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, cast out demons in your name, do many mighty works in your name? And I will declare to them, I never knew you depart from me, you workers of lawlessness. So it's not even enough that they say, lord, Lord, it's not even enough that they prophesy in the Lord's name. Remember the false prophets from Jeremiah who didn't stand in the Lord's counsel did that. It's not enough even that they cast out demons or did mighty works.
[00:22:19] The question is, do they? Well, I suppose it's back to Jeremiah 23. Do they stand in the Lord's counsel? Do they make known his word of law and gospel? Do they condemn sin and forgive sinners?
[00:22:34] Do they speak according to the pattern of sound words delivered by the prophets and the apostles?
[00:22:42] So we're called to test every spirit.
[00:22:45] You are called as the Lord's people to judge what's being spoken by the preacher that the Lord sends to you. So you can listen to me and Pastor Davis and Pastor Smith and say, is that the pattern of sound words delivered to me in the Holy Scriptures?
[00:23:06] CFW Walter preaches a beautiful sermon about this. The sheep judge the shepherd.
[00:23:11] And it's important for us to know that this discernment is not simply the business of the pastor. There are no professional theologians. Every single Christian is a theologian. So we're all called to this discernment, beingware of false prophets. Because the Lord wants us to know.
[00:23:30] Well, he wants us to know his commands and he wants us to know his promises. He wants us to know his love. He wants us to hear the voice of our good shepherd, Jesus Christ, who calls us to himself to give us life and joy and peace and forgiveness, who binds up our wounds and carries our sorrows and forgives all of our sins and vindicates us as we're being accused falsely, the one who's with us in trouble and who carries us through all the difficulties of this life to the life to come, who hears us when we pray. Abba Father, this is why this matters.
[00:24:06] We gotta look at, look out for false doctrine because the Lord Jesus wants us to cling to his promises.
[00:24:15] So good.
[00:24:16] All right, I bet we've gone a little bit over. We have the Hymn of the day. But can I. I'll just read you the hymn of the day. Like a poem.
[00:24:25] Pim.
[00:24:26] See if I can do it right. In God, my faithful God. Because this is a. This is a marvelous text to meditate on. Especially in the midst of suffering.
[00:24:35] Especially when we're about to die.
[00:24:39] Whenever I'm about to die, you guys can come and sing me this hymn.
[00:24:42] In God, my faithful God I trust when dark my road Great woes may o' ertake me yet he'll not forsake me My troubles He can alter his hand lets nothing falter. My sins fill me with care, Yet I will not despair. I build on Christ who loves me from this rock Nothing moves me to Him I will surrender to him my soul's defender.
[00:25:09] If death my portion be, it brings great gain to me. It speeds my life. Endeavor to live with Christ forever.
[00:25:18] He gives me joy and sorrow Come death, now or tomorrow.
[00:25:24] O Jesus Christ, my Lord, so meek in deed and word. You suffered death to save us. Because your love would have us be heirs of heavenly gladness.
[00:25:35] When ends this life of sadness, so be it. Then I say with all my heart each day, Dear Lord, we all adore you. We sing for joy before you guide us. While here we wander until we praise you yonder.
[00:25:53] Amen.
[00:25:54] Oh, may God grant it. For Christ's sake. Drive safe. See you soon. That's Sunday. Drive to church.
