It is amazing how discontent we have grown with the Word of God. And that is true on two levels. First, in our hyper-sensationalized, fast-paced, entertainment obsessed culture we find God’s Word boring. It doesn’t tantalize like our brightly-colored and constantly beeping phones. It doesn’t frantically bounce from one thing to the next. It takes time and discipline to hear, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest it. But “I don’t have time for that. I’m too busy. My kids find it boring.” Yet we wonder why there is a mental health crisis swallowing humanity, why depression and anxiety are increasing exponentially and people can’t listen to one another and have a civil disagreement. The Word of God doesn’t need to be jazzed up or made more exciting. We need to repent of our foolish obsession with what is easy and fun. Like many things, what is easy and fun isn’t necessarily evil. It is our idolatry of them. Second, because we have grown to think more of ourselves than we ought, puffing out our chests because we have made such “progress” in science and technology, we imagine that the Word of God is antiquated and has nothing for us. “I’ve already read the Bible. I learned the catechism when I was a kid. I don’t really feel anything when I go to church.” These are the words of someone who doesn’t take the Word of God seriously. They think little of their sin and even less of the death of God’s Son. But it is precisely the Word of God – carried on the voices of fallible preachers, joined to water, bread, and wine – that snatches us out of eternal damnation and bestows upon us the righteousness of God. It is the Word of God that arms and protects us against the enemies that surround us and would drag our souls back to hell. Without this Word daily in our ears, our hearts, our minds, and on our lips we WILL fall. God grant that His Word be our greatest treasure and joy that we take up and learn every day. I look forward to seeing you this coming Lord’s Day.
Pastor Ulmer