The Secret Wireless

  John W. Theilen  October 16, 2023  I Corinthians 6:20 (KJV) O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is Your name in all the earth. May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in Your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen. To Mom, Jessica & Jason, Rebekah, Cindy, Glenn, to all the grandchildren, family and friends gathered here today; grace, mercy, and peace be with you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. The text that is given for your comfort today is Dad’s confirmation verse. I Corinthians 6:20, “For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's.” “Ye are bought with a price.” John Theilen belongs to Jesus Christ. He was purchased 2000 years ago, not with gold or silver, but with the precious blood of God. The death of Jesus is the payment made for the redemption, the purchase, of the whole human race. The most precious substance in all the world, t...

Hebrews 3 12 "Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. 13 But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. 14 For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end. 15 As it is said,  'Today, if you hear his voice,  do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.'  16 For who were those who heard and yet rebelled? Was it not all those who left Egypt led by Moses? 17 And with whom was he provoked for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness? 18 And to whom did he swear that they would not enter his rest, but to those who were disobedient? 19 So we see that they were unable to enter because of unbelief."             Despite what some Christians believe, it is possible for Christians to fall away...

In the forgiving Word of God the incomprehensible greatness of God, the intolerable glory of His Godhead, the glory of His grace, has appeared, has appeared to eyes that cannot comprehend it even as they gaze upon it.  It has been manifested to hearts that stand in trembling awe of it even as they believe in it.  This grace of which the psalmist sings is no cheap, easy grace, no easy commodity which complacency can casually appropriate.  We can be sure of it, surer of it than of ourselves, than of our own righteousness or our sins or our life or our death.  But we cannot be complacent about it.  Our souls still wait for the Lord, more than watchmen that wait for the morning.  They know the morning will come; they are sure that it will come, and yet they wait for it, and they hail its first graying as a new and wondrous thing. So we wait for the Lord and know that He is Lord and will forgive.  But forgiveness remains the perpetual miracle still. ...

  Jesus teaches us to pray, finally, “Our Father…deliver us from evil.”                    What is the evil from which we are to pray to be delivered?   We have already prayed for deliverance from evils that plague and attack the body.   This happens when we pray for daily bread.   So that is included here.   We pray that God would take away all sickness, poverty, and hardship that harms our human flesh.                  Theft, war, bad leaders, angry neighbors, hurricanes, tornadoes, droughts, heat, and more.   There are so many bodily dangers in this world that it is impossible to name them all.   That is why Jesus summarizes them under the heading of daily bread.   These are evils from which we need to be delivered.        ...

The words of Martin Luther on our desperate need for prayer: "This part now relates to our poor miserable life, which, although we have and believe the Word of God, and do and submit to His will, and are supported by His gifts and blessings, is nevertheless not without sin. For we still stumble daily and transgress because we live in the world among men who do us much harm and give us cause for impatience, anger, revenge, etc. Besides, we have Satan at our back, who sets upon us on every side, and fights (as we have heard) against all the foregoing petitions, so that it is not possible always to stand firm in such a persistent conflict. "Therefore there is here again great need to call upon God and to pray: Dear Father, forgive us our trespasses. Not as though He did not forgive sin without and even before our prayer (for He has given us the Gospel, in which is pure forgiveness before we prayed or ever thought about it). But this is to the intent that we may...

Thus far in the Lord’s Prayer we have been praying for what God wants: His name hallowed, His kingdom growing and advancing, His will being accomplished.   Once we have prayed for all these things, Jesus leads us in a slightly different direction.   He teaches us to pray: “ give us this day our daily bread .”                 Daily bread?   Really?   Jesus wants us to pray for food and stuff?   We just got done asking for God to rule and transform the world.   Now we ask for bread?   Does God, who has the eternal salvation of the universe on His shoulders, really have time to care and see to our daily physical needs?                 Yes.   Yes He does.   Your physical needs are important to God because He created them and redeemed them, and He Himself will eternally fulfill t...