Daily Devotions from Lutheran Hour Ministries by Pastor Ken Klaus, Speaker Emeritus of The Lutheran Hour "No Compromise" Wednesday, 12 March 2014

Daily Devotions from Lutheran Hour Ministries by Pastor Ken Klaus, Speaker Emeritus of The Lutheran Hour "No Compromise" Wednesday, 12 March 2014
(The devil said) "If You, then, will worship me, it will all be Yours." And Jesus answered him, "It is written, 'You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only shall you serve.'"--Luke 4:7-8
Many thanks to friend and colleague, the Reverend Doctor Lane Seitz, for calling this story to my attention. Pastor Klaus 
Read through Scripture and you will find the Triune God has revealed many attributes or characteristics about Himself. For example, the Bible tells us the Lord is kind, caring, compassionate, just, forgiving, merciful and gracious. There are many others which space does not allow me to list here.
But, there is one adjective which the Lord has never claimed for Himself. He has never said He is compromising. Indeed, the First Commandment tells us there shouldn't be any other gods before or even alongside Him.
That being said, last November 10, at the Memorial Church of the Reformation in Speyer, Germany, an interfaith event was held with the express purpose of bringing Christianity and Islam "together."
Now if the planners of that event had suggested this "coming together" would be to eliminate persecution, bloodshed and hatred that would have been a good thing. But that's not what they did. They planned a worship service ... a worship service which began with a Muslim imam singing out the familiar call to prayer.
Translated, that prayer says, "I bear witness that there is no deity but Allah. I bear witness that Muhammad is the messenger of god. Hasten to worship. Hasten to success. Allah is greatest. There is no god but Allah."
It was at that point a woman in the church balcony called out, "Jesus Christ alone is Lord of Germany." Before she was done she also quoted Luther's uncompromising statement, "Here I stand. I can do no other." To make a long story short, the woman was escorted out of the church, and the imam was allowed to stay.
Now while I am certainly not in favor of people disrupting worship services, in this case I think the woman has a good grasp of the fact which says Christianity and Islam can't both be right. Either Jesus is the Savior as we believe or He is a mere prophet as Islam maintains. Any self-respecting student of the Bible or the Qur'an will tell you the Triune God and Allah are not interchangeable.
They think differently; they work differently; and they certainly have given different instructions to their people on how to be saved. We rightly believe we are washed of our sins only through the atoning blood of the Savior, and Islam believes in the fulfillment of the Five Pillars.
Both can't be right. Both aren't right.
Believing that, Lutheran Hour Ministries is doing its best to bring Christ to the nations, including those whose borders are shut to missionary activity and face-to-face evangelism. We believe only Jesus has won salvation and only His Name can offer eternal life.
In this we do not compromise.
THE PRAYER: Dear Lord, keep us away from compromise and help us remain steadfast in Your Word. May we lovingly and gently share with those of other faiths the wonders of Your love and the salvation which Jesus has won for us. In His Name. Amen. 
In Christ I remain His servant and yours, 
Pastor Ken Klaus 
Speaker Emeritus of The Lutheran Hour®
Lutheran Hour Ministries
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Through the Bible in a Year
Today Read:
Numbers 5:1 Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying, 2 “Command the children of Israel that they put out of the camp every leper, and everyone who has an issue, and whoever is unclean by the dead. 3 Both you shall put male and female outside of the camp; that they not defile their camp, in the middle of which I dwell.”
4 The children of Israel did so, and put them outside of the camp; as Yahweh spoke to Moses, so did the children of Israel.
5 Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying, 6 “Speak to the children of Israel: ‘When a man or woman commits any sin that men commit, so as to trespass against Yahweh, and that soul is guilty; 7 then he shall confess his sin which he has done, and he shall make restitution for his guilt in full, and add to it the fifth part of it, and give it to him in respect of whom he has been guilty. 8 But if the man has no kinsman to whom restitution may be made for the guilt, the restitution for guilt which is made to Yahweh shall be the priest’s; besides the ram of the atonement, by which atonement shall be made for him. 9 Every heave offering of all the holy things of the children of Israel, which they present to the priest, shall be his. 10 Every man’s holy things shall be his: whatever any man gives the priest, it shall be his.’”
11 Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying, 12 “Speak to the children of Israel, and tell them: ‘If any man’s wife goes astray, and is unfaithful to him, 13 and a man lies with her carnally, and it is hidden from the eyes of her husband, and is kept close, and she is defiled, and there is no witness against her, and she isn’t taken in the act; 14 and the spirit of jealousy comes on him, and he is jealous of his wife, and she is defiled: or if the spirit of jealousy comes on him, and he is jealous of his wife, and she isn’t defiled: 15 then the man shall bring his wife to the priest, and shall bring her offering for her: one tenth of an ephah[a] of barley meal. He shall pour no oil on it, nor put frankincense on it, for it is a meal offering of jealousy, a meal offering of memorial, bringing iniquity to memory. 16 The priest shall bring her near, and set her before Yahweh; 17 and the priest shall take holy water in an earthen vessel; and of the dust that is on the floor of the tabernacle the priest shall take, and put it into the water. 18 The priest shall set the woman before Yahweh, and let the hair of the woman’s head go loose, and put the meal offering of memorial in her hands, which is the meal offering of jealousy. The priest shall have in his hand the water of bitterness that brings a curse. 19 The priest shall cause her to swear, and shall tell the woman, “If no man has lain with you, and if you haven’t gone aside to uncleanness, being under your husband, be free from this water of bitterness that brings a curse. 20 But if you have gone astray, being under your husband, and if you are defiled, and some man has lain with you besides your husband:” 21 then the priest shall cause the woman to swear with the oath of cursing, and the priest shall tell the woman, “Yahweh make you a curse and an oath among your people, when Yahweh allows your thigh to fall away, and your body to swell; 22 and this water that brings a curse will go into your bowels, and make your body swell, and your thigh fall away.” The woman shall say, “Amen, Amen.”
23 “‘The priest shall write these curses in a book, and he shall blot them out into the water of bitterness. 24 He shall make the woman drink the water of bitterness that causes the curse; and the water that causes the curse shall enter into her and become bitter. 25 The priest shall take the meal offering of jealousy out of the woman’s hand, and shall wave the meal offering before Yahweh, and bring it to the altar. 26 The priest shall take a handful of the meal offering, as its memorial, and burn it on the altar, and afterward shall make the woman drink the water. 27 When he has made her drink the water, then it shall happen, if she is defiled, and has committed a trespass against her husband, that the water that causes the curse will enter into her and become bitter, and her body will swell, and her thigh will fall away: and the woman will be a curse among her people. 28 If the woman isn’t defiled, but is clean; then she shall be free, and shall conceive offspring.[b]
29 “‘This is the law of jealousy, when a wife, being under her husband, goes astray, and is defiled; 30 or when the spirit of jealousy comes on a man, and he is jealous of his wife; then he shall set the woman before Yahweh, and the priest shall execute on her all this law. 31 The man shall be free from iniquity, and that woman shall bear her iniquity.’”
6:1 Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying, 2 “Speak to the children of Israel, and tell them: ‘When either man or woman shall make a special vow, the vow of a Nazirite, to separate himself to Yahweh, 3 he shall separate himself from wine and strong drink. He shall drink no vinegar of wine, or vinegar of fermented drink, neither shall he drink any juice of grapes, nor eat fresh grapes or dried. 4 All the days of his separation he shall eat nothing that is made of the grapevine, from the seeds even to the skins.
5 “‘All the days of his vow of separation no razor shall come on his head, until the days are fulfilled, in which he separates himself to Yahweh. He shall be holy. He shall let the locks of the hair of his head grow long.
6 “‘All the days that he separates himself to Yahweh he shall not go near a dead body. 7 He shall not make himself unclean for his father, or for his mother, for his brother, or for his sister, when they die; because his separation to God [c] is on his head. 8 All the days of his separation he is holy to Yahweh.
9 “‘If any man dies very suddenly beside him, and he defiles the head of his separation; then he shall shave his head in the day of his cleansing. On the seventh day he shall shave it. 10 On the eighth day he shall bring two turtledoves or two young pigeons to the priest, to the door of the Tent of Meeting. 11 The priest shall offer one for a sin offering, and the other for a burnt offering, and make atonement for him, because he sinned by reason of the dead, and shall make his head holy that same day. 12 He shall separate to Yahweh the days of his separation, and shall bring a male lamb a year old for a trespass offering; but the former days shall be void, because his separation was defiled.
13 “‘This is the law of the Nazirite: when the days of his separation are fulfilled, he shall be brought to the door of the Tent of Meeting, 14 and he shall offer his offering to Yahweh, one male lamb a year old without defect for a burnt offering, and one ewe lamb a year old without defect for a sin offering, and one ram without defect for peace offerings, 15 and a basket of unleavened bread, cakes of fine flour mixed with oil, and unleavened wafers anointed with oil, and their meal offering, and their drink offerings. 16 The priest shall present them before Yahweh, and shall offer his sin offering, and his burnt offering. 17 He shall offer the ram for a sacrifice of peace offerings to Yahweh, with the basket of unleavened bread. The priest shall offer also its meal offering, and its drink offering. 18 The Nazirite shall shave the head of his separation at the door of the Tent of Meeting, and shall take the hair of the head of his separation, and put it on the fire which is under the sacrifice of peace offerings. 19 The priest shall take the boiled shoulder of the ram, and one unleavened cake out of the basket, and one unleavened wafer, and shall put them on the hands of the Nazirite, after he has shaved the head of his separation; 20 and the priest shall wave them for a wave offering before Yahweh. This is holy for the priest, together with the breast that is waved and the thigh that is offered. After that the Nazirite may drink wine.
21 “‘This is the law of the Nazirite who vows, and of his offering to Yahweh for his separation, besides that which he is able to get. According to his vow which he vows, so he must do after the law of his separation.’”
22 Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying, 23 “Speak to Aaron and to his sons, saying, ‘This is how you shall bless the children of Israel.’ You shall tell them,
24 ‘Yahweh bless you, and keep you.
25     Yahweh make his face to shine on you,
    and be gracious to you.
26 Yahweh lift up his face toward you,
    and give you peace.’
27 “So they shall put my name on the children of Israel; and I will bless them.”
Footnotes:
a. Numbers 5:15 1 ephah is about 22 liters or about 2/3 of a bushel
b. Numbers 5:28 or, seed
c. Numbers 6:7 The Hebrew word rendered “God” is “אֱלֹהִ֑ים” (Elohim).
Mark 13:1 As he went out of the temple, one of his disciples said to him, “Teacher, see what kind of stones and what kind of buildings!”
2 Jesus said to him, “Do you see these great buildings? There will not be left here one stone on another, which will not be thrown down.”
3 As he sat on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple, Peter, James, John, and Andrew asked him privately, 4 “Tell us, when will these things be? What is the sign that these things are all about to be fulfilled?”
5 Jesus, answering, began to tell them, “Be careful that no one leads you astray. 6 For many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am he![a] ’ and will lead many astray.
7 “When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, don’t be troubled. For those must happen, but the end is not yet. 8 For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be earthquakes in various places. There will be famines and troubles. These things are the beginning of birth pains. 9 But watch yourselves, for they will deliver you up to councils. You will be beaten in synagogues. You will stand before rulers and kings for my sake, for a testimony to them. 10 The Good News must first be preached to all the nations. 11 When they lead you away and deliver you up, don’t be anxious beforehand, or premeditate what you will say, but say whatever will be given you in that hour. For it is not you who speak, but the Holy Spirit.
12 “Brother will deliver up brother to death, and the father his child. Children will rise up against parents, and cause them to be put to death. 13 You will be hated by all men for my name’s sake, but he who endures to the end, the same will be saved. 14 But when you see the abomination of desolation,[b] spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing where it ought not (let the reader understand), then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains, 15 and let him who is on the housetop not go down, nor enter in, to take anything out of his house. 16 Let him who is in the field not return back to take his cloak. 17 But woe to those who are with child and to those who nurse babies in those days! 18 Pray that your flight won’t be in the winter. 19 For in those days there will be oppression, such as there has not been the like from the beginning of the creation which God created until now, and never will be. 20 Unless the Lord had shortened the days, no flesh would have been saved; but for the sake of the chosen ones, whom he picked out, he shortened the days.
Footnotes:
a. Mark 13:6 or, “I AM!”
b. Mark 13:14 Daniel 9:17; 11:31; 12:11
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