Word: “For God
can condone all our stumbling if only we remain loyal to the pure,
unadulterated Word of God, which says:
This is right; this is wrong.”
[SL 3, 74] Gen. 3:1-6
Work: “But it
is appropriate here also to point out that man was created not for leisure but
for work, even in the state of innocence.”
[SL 1, 125f.] Gen. 2:15
Work: “A lazy thief does less harm than a lazy servant (minister).” [W-T 5, No. 5953]
Works: “First,
we ought to know that only those things are good works which God has commanded,
just as only that is a sin which God has forbidden.” [SL 10, 1300]
Works: “Let us
thank God that we are liberated from strange gods, that is, from false
confidence. For he on whom I rely apart
from the Word is a ‘strange god.’ [SL 6,
268] Isaiah 16:12
Works: “It is not right to judge man merely by the
kind of works he does; one should judge him on the basis of why he does
them. It does not depend on the acts as
such, whether they be great or small, many or few, but on the spring and
fountain whence they flow… This is why we should learn not to look at works the
way a cow looks at a door, but to look at the heart and the person whence they
proceed.” [SL 8, 529] John 15:5
Works: “What
is a multitude of ‘good’ works without faith but (as Christ says) a whited
sepulcher full of all manner of filth and iniquity? (Matt. 23:27).” [SL 4, 874]
Psalm 14:1
Works: “A merit is a work because of which Christ gives a reward, but Christ gives us the reward because He has promised it. It is as if a prince said: Come to me in my castle. I shall give you a hundred pieces of gold. Here I perform a work by going to the castle; still the reward is given to me not because of my work but because of the promise of the prince.” [SL 22, 345, No. 152]
World, Material: “But
if you cannot understand how [creation] could have been done in six days, then
grant the Holy Spirit the honor of being more learned than you are.” [SL 3, 21]
Genesis 1-2
World, Material: “So
both peasants and nobles now fancy; they even have the audacity to boast that
they need no preaching. They would much
rather be rid of God’s Word altogether and would not give a farthing for all
the sermons in the world. They act this
way because they have a god of their own…
Therefore, because these folk think nothing of yonder life, they are not
to be blamed for esteeming neither Baptism nor sermon, neither pastor nor
preacher. For as they believe, so they
live; they are and remain hogs; they believe like hogs and die like hogs.” [SL 8, 1193f.] 1 Cor. 15:29-30
World of Men: “Whatever
the world has and possesses it enjoys as a loan from the beggars of whom
Meanwhile
Christians are the legs which carry the entire world; and the world rewards
them for their services by making them walk in the mud and mire, despised,
oppressed, dishonored, slandered, and condemned…” [SL 8, 355]
John 14:12
World of Men: “For the present I pass by the gross sins against the Second Table of the Law, such as disobedience to parents, public authorities, etc. adultery, fornication, greed, theft, murder, envy, bitter enmity. With these sins the world is completely saturated. Yet they are only slight sins in comparison with that wisdom and righteousness of the ungodly with which men contend against the First Table of the Law. The white devil, who urges men on to spiritual sins, which they publicly proclaim as righteousness, is far deadlier than the black devil, who impels men only to sins of the flesh, which even the world acknowledges to be sins…
The wiser, the
more just, and the holier men are outside Christ, the more harmful they are to
the Gospel.” [SL 9, 65f.] Galatians 1:4
World of Men: “If
you want to live in the world, learn the proverb: Barabbas shall be freed; Christ, the Savior,
is condemned… If violence and injustice
is inflicted on you, then say: This is
the order of the world; if you live in the world, you must expect this; you
will never succeed in changing it so that you fare differently from the way
Christ fared. If you want to live among
wolves, you must howl with them.” [SL 8,
918] John 18:38-40
World of Men: “The
punishment of the present world will be different, as the coloring of the
rainbow indicates. The lowest color, the
extent of which is limited, is that of water.
For so great was the fury of the water in the Deluge that a limit had to
be set to the punishment it meted out, and after the destruction of the sinners
the earth was restored as a habitation to the remnant of the godly. But the other, the outer, arch of the
rainbow, which has no clearly bounds, has the color of fire, of that element
which will burn up the entire world.
After this destruction a better world will come; it will endure forever
and will serve the godly. God seems to
have written these truths into the coloring of the rainbow.” [SL 1, 512]
Genesis 6:13
Worry: “This
is a very fine division of responsibility:
the trifle, that is, the work and the suffering (it cannot be otherwise)
remain yours; the greatest task, that is, the care, God assumes.” [SL 9, 1286]
1 Peter 5:7
Worship: “The
worship supreme and the one supremely necessary is to cling to the promise and
the providence of God, who has pledged Himself to be our Father, and to look
for and expect help from Him.” [SL 2,
130] Genesis 26:1
Wrath of God: “Is
it not an amazing and wretched thing?
Our body bears the traces of God’s wrath, which our sin has
deserved. God’s wrath also appears on
the earth and in all the creatures. And
yet we look at all these things with a smug and unconcerned attitude! And what of thorns, thistles, water, fire,
caterpillars, flies, fleas, and bedbugs?
Collectively and individually, are not all of them messengers who preach
to us concerning sin and God’s wrath, since they did not exist before sin or at
least were not harmful or troublesome?”
[SL 1, 254f.] Genesis 3:17
Wrath of God: “The
rest, the mad mob, will not believe anything of it anyway. For they are not worthy (because they despise
God’s Word) of appreciating it; and God is punishing them in such a way that
they go on in their folly and blindness and do not accept it, and His wrath has
already begun its work on them.” [SL 8,
1190] 1 Cor. 15:27-28
Youth: “Youth is the seed and the fount of the church. Where would other doctors and masters come from after we are dead if there were no schools? We are compelled to have schools in the church. God preserves the church through schools.” [W-T 5, No. 5557]
Youth: “A young person is like the juice of fruits. You cannot keep it; it must ferment.” [W-T 1, No. 398]
Zeal: “You
should think: Well, if a farmer, a
townsman, a merchant, a miser, this woman, and that maid are able to serve the
devil with such diligence and allow no drudgery to weary them, why should I,
too, not be willing to serve my Lord, whom I am to enjoy forever, in like
manner?” [SL 13a, 810] Luke 16:1-9
Absolution: “If
the entire congregation wanted to rush up to baptize, they might perchance
drown the child; for about a thousand hands would grab for it. That would be not good at all. Therefore one must have a servant, who tends
to this matter in place of the congregation.”
[SL 11, 2304] Matt. 16:19
Affliction: “To
be sure, public calamities hit saints and prophets, too, but not as happens in
the case of the godless and ungrateful—out of wrath and to punish them, but for
their salvation, to test and to try their faith, love, and patience, that the
godly may learn to bear patiently the hand of God in His government.” [SL 2, 135]
Genesis 26:1
Affliction: “This (the atoning suffering of Christ) is the tree which Moses was commanded to cast into the waters of Marah… There is nothing that this Passion does not sweeten, not even death itself.” [SL 10, 1860]
Affliction: “One
man has this trouble, another man has a different trouble from which he would
gladly be relieved. But if he
thinks: See here! If you did not have this affliction, you
would fall into this or that mischief; God is acting in your interests, to keep
you in His fear and drive you to the Word and prayer, then it will clearly
appear that God does not discipline us because He is hostile to us, but to show
us His love and to protect us against eternal misery.” [SL 13a, 566ff.] John 16:16-23
Angels: “We
Christians should have the sure knowledge that the princes of heaven are with
us, not only one or two, but a large number of them, as Luke records (Luke
2:13) that a multitude of the heavenly host was with the shepherds. And if we were without this custody, and God
did not in this way check the fury of Satan, we could not live for one
moment. For what the ability, the power,
and the greatest desire of Satan are, we may learn form the story of Job. He stirs up storms, sends lightning, or, as
Scripture says (Job 1:13ff.), casts fire from heaven, arouses enemies, also
attacks the body itself and covers it with ulcers.” [SL 1, 1246]
Genesis 19:14
Anger: “You
should seek protection form the government and accuse him who has offended
against you. This you should do not only
to be protected against him but also to have the offense checked and wantonness
prevented and to have the temporal government administer its office aright… If
now you wanted to be silent about your injury—another man, too—offenses would
only increase, and you yourself would give cause for injury. But both ways are wrong… But if the government did not want to do
anything about your request and did not want to help you to get your right,
then your only recourse is to suffer the injustice patiently and beware of
private revenge; otherwise you would turn your right into wrong before God and
man.” [SL 13a, 374f.] Matt. 26:51-56
Antichrist: “In this way [the antichrist] will be a master of all sin and perdition; and yet at the same time he will cloak himself in the name and semblance of Christ, call himself Sanctissimus [“Most Holy One”} and Vicarius Dei [“Vicar of Christ”} and Caput Ecclesiae [“Head of the Church”] and persecute all who do not obey him by accepting his claims…
What is the
greatest concern of all the prophets but to oppose the teachings of men and to
preserve God’s Word alone among the people?
All idolatry is nothing but the teaching of men… However, one thing God
will not let him cover up, and there the ears of the ass stick out: he pays no attention to God’s Word, he does
not preach it, being satisfied that people preach his teaching. By this song one recognizes what sort of bird
he is. As the beast that John saw in the
Revelation (13:11), which had two horns like a lamb but a voice like a dragon,
so the papal hosts look like Christians but preach like the devil.” [SL 18, 1324f.] 2 Thess. 2:8
Apostasy: “In the spring all the branches of the trees are full of blossoms… But when a rain or wind comes into the blossoms, they fall off in heaps. Nine tenths probably drop away, hardly one tenth becomes ripe, and some of these no doubt become worm-eaten to boot.
This is what
happens in the case of the Gospel, too.
At first everybody listens to it, and it is a precious thing. It has many pupils… I dare say I, too, would gladly be a Christian
and have the Gospel if no danger were connected with it but one might expect
only good days upon its acceptance… There are many who stay with it, who shed
their blood and boldly stake and risk everything. These are the true disciples, and they remain
constant. But ten times greater was the
number of those who began to believe with us and whom our doctrine at first
pleased; but not ten per cent have remained faithful till now. That, however, does not matter. Let those who stand, stand; let those who
will not stand, fall away if they please.
There still will be some who will stay.”
[SL 8, 226f.] John 7:34-38
Apostles: “No
preachers on earth except the apostles alone have a testimony like this; for
all others are herewith commanded to follow in the footsteps of the apostles,
to remain loyal to their doctrine, and to teaching nothing additional or different.” [SL 11, 1004]
John 15:26-16:4