Wednesday, July 12, 2017
Acts 16:29-32 Then he called for a light, ran in, and fell down trembling before Paul and Silas. And he brought them out and said, "Sirs, what must I do to be saved?" So they said, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, you and your household." Then they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house.
IN DEFENSE OF FAITH'S OBJECT
She says it all the time, so perhaps you've heard her. You know if you frequently watch her program. Now I know you don't go to Oprah Winfrey for your theology, but she often voices what a large sector of our society apparently believes about faith. This is Oprah Winfrey's theology in a nutshell: "It doesn't matter what you believe or what the name of your god, it's all the same. We are all praying to the same god by different names. We are all going to the same place."
But that's not what Paul told the Jailer at Philippi. When asked the most important question, concerning salvation, Paul and Silas replied with one voice: "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved." We understand that faith is not a rational decision on the part of man, but a gift of God. The Gospel of Christ is an invitation to believe that carries with it the power to affect that trust. What so many people don't get is that it *does* matter what the OBJECT of your faith is.
Those who place their confidence in a false god have built their hopes on a nothing. It does matter what you believe, and it does matter in whom you trust. When people come to us, we will not offer an empty profession like others. We stand in defense of the object of true faith, Jesus Christ Himself. He is the one who has fulfilled the demands the Law of God made upon us. He is the one who paid the price to purchase our release from sin, death and the devil. He is faith's object, the one thing to which faith clings.
Moreover, when Christ is the object of faith, then the fruits of faith will follow, for true faith is living and active. God help us to stand in opposition to the "Oprah Winfrey doctrine" and in defense of Jesus Christ, true faith's object.
Faith looks to Jesus Christ alone,
Who did for all the world atone;
He is our one redeemer.
(The Lutheran Hymnal, 377:1)
