If you'd like to watch on Rumble click here or on YouTube click here!

Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times, saying things which have not been done, “My counsel will be established, And I will accomplish all My good pleasure.”

Isaiah 46:10, LSB

God has known the end from the beginning. This reality can be hard to fathom, yet we know it to be true as we study His Word. One of the great disputes of the Reformation was the idea of free will. Some argue that we have the will to choose to follow God, while others say that all things are foretold, and there are those who are born in our Lord and those born outside with no hope of ever knowing redemption. As Lutherans, we are in the middle ground as we realize our inability to choose God because He is the One who chooses, and this is why He sent His Son to enter Creation and give us a path to know Christ’s salvation. Sin is the disease and Jesus is the cure; this was God’s plan all along. God knows our struggles and the things that tempt us, but He has offered us a way out and this He offers to all who will hear. Like Pharaoh to Moses preaching, some hearts will remain hardened. Yet, many will come to know the love of Christ and He has given us the power to be proclaimers of that hope. He calls us to be open to listening and speaking. When the opportunities arise for Christ to be proclaimed, we are given a voice that is guided by our Lord in which He will place His words upon our lips so that others may also come to know His peace.

Let us pray. I thank you, my heavenly Father, through Jesus Christ, your dear Son, that you have kept me this night from all harm and danger, and I ask you to protect me this day also from sin and every evil, that in all I do today, I may please you. For into your hands, I commend myself, my body and soul, and all that is mine. Let your holy angel watch over me, that the wicked foe have no power over me. Amen.