Sadly, falling away from the faith is quite easy. Many of you probably know someone who has. And every one of us has been tempted ourselves. Our flesh wants to, and the devil and the world are working relentlessly to make it happen. There are countless directions from which we are attacked and tempted to sin and unbelief. That is why the gift of the Holy Spirit is so needed. We cannot withstand these attacks alone. We are all too weak. Our hearts and our minds are filled with evil desires and wrong thinking. Only the Holy Spirit, who speaks to us through the Holy Scriptures, can illuminate the right paths and reveal the dangers. Our sinful flesh is constantly mixing up the two, imagining that what is good is evil and what is evil is good. None of us can stand without the Holy Spirit and therefore none of us can stand without being in the Word daily. This is why God gave the Third Commandment. He knows our absolute need for His life-giving, truth-revealing Word and so He commanded us all to gather around it, to read it, to hear it, to meditate upon it. None of us can claim that we don’t need to. None of us can claim that we are sufficiently well-versed in the Word of God that we no longer need to hear it. Such a person is already falling to the devil but is unable to recognize it because of his pride. So come, let us rejoice to gather together as the body of Christ to be strengthened and taught by the Holy Spirit and to encourage one another in the truth faith. I look forward to seeing all of you this coming Lord’s Day.
Pastor Ulmer