Saturday, October 21, 2017
Psalm 40:2-3 He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God.
A NEW SONG
Martin Luther had tried hard to dance to the church's sorry old tune of salvation by works, going so far as to beat and starve himself in an effort to merit God's favor. But it was all to no avail. He would later write: "Life had become a living hell, so firmly sin possessed me."
But one day while reading his Bible, Luther came across a passage in Romans which read: " ... the just shall live by his faith." The Spirit caused him to discover that salvation is a free gift through faith in Jesus Christ. Luther, like David before him, could now say: "He put a new song in my mouth!"
Luther was whistling a different melody, praising God for a free and unconditional grace in Christ.
It's true that the new song of the Gospel had been playing from the earliest moments of history, when God first promised the world a Savior to crush the power of Satan. Yet its amazing message was new to the ears of most people in the Middle Ages. Satan, through the antichrist Church of Rome, had managed to muffle its glad tidings, so that the pure Gospel was barely audible in the days prior to the Reformation.
But, as a pop hit from the sixties says, "The beat goes on!" Satan's handiwork is seen today in the "look inside yourself" doctrine of the self-esteem movement. We see it in churches which have abandoned Gospel truth for work-righteous based human psychology. It is shown in the TV evangelist who teaches his audience that they must cooperate with God in bringing about their salvation. "Have you made your decision for Christ?" In each case "the arrangement" might be slightly different, but it’s the same old, faith-destroying song of self-salvation.
Today, as in every age, the sinner must be pointed entirely away from himself to Jesus' cross, where full satisfaction for all sin has been accomplished! What music to the soul -- a new song to give us God’s peace now and forever!
-- From the "Lutheran Spokesman"
