IS GOD’S PREACHED WORD his full prescription to cure and heal the deadly power of sin within you?

Answer: Take this up with your divine Physician, Jesus Christ! Jesus knows your condition. “He Himself knows what was in man” (John 2:25). He knows and has clearly diagnosed the deadly and incurable power of Sin works that daily deep within you (Mark 7:20-23). Jesus also prescribes, not a partial, but a full prescription to save you. Jesus’ full prescription for you includes Baptism, Absolution, and Communion!  As the Son of God, this is His decision. Would you second guess the Divine Physician?

SPEAKING PERSONALLY!

Now, let me make this even more personal: After examining my eyes one year ago, a highly-trained ophthalmologist gave me this diagnosis: she said was reasonably certain that I was beginning to develop glaucoma. This means I could eventually go blind. That was the bad news. Then, the good news: Although you cannot totally eradicate glaucoma, you can control it. At the moment, I have well–above- average eyesight and do all my work with no glasses whatsoever. Therefore, my physician says, if I make faithful use of a prescription, a clear, water-like medicine every night, placing a little bit in my eyes, the glaucoma will be controlled and I will have excellent eyesight to my very last days! Why raise this issue? To point out, once again, that if Karl had been catechized clearly regarding the Original Sin and its horrific power to undermine a person’s life and destroy his faith and, if he was clearly told that the only way to control this is through Jesus’ full prescription of the living Word of preaching, Absolution, and the Sacraments (the comprehensive treatment only available in the Lutheran church), HE WOULD HAVE MADE A “BEE LINE” BACK TO THE LUTHERAN CHURCH—to Christ’s Absolution and His Communion rail—just as I made a bee line to the drug store after being diagnosed with glaucoma. Furthermore, Karl would have been much less tempted to leave the Lutheran church.

A SUMMARY TO THIS POINT

·        After hearing my diagnosis of potential glaucoma, did I use my eye drops? YOU BET!

·        After hearing their diagnosis of deadly cancer or diabetes—followed by their physician’s presumption of what they need to do to prevent sin and death from having dominion over them, do most patients go regularly for treatment? YOU BET!

·        If Kathy’s classmate Karl would have clearly instructed in God’s diagnosis that he had/has an incurable deadly disease called Original Sin, would Karl regularly have sought out the medication which Christ Himself prescribed: His Word and Sacrament. This is why Luther also explains that when people understand communion, they don’t argue how often to attend. Each time it is offered, they receive it.

·        Wallace Schulz’s conclusion: God’s promise, “Train up a child [Karl] in the way he should go [in his early catechetical training, especially in the Scripture-revealed power of Sin and its antidote medicine] and when he is old he will not depart from [the one unique church that teaches it, the Lutheran church]” (Proverbs 22:6).

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