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Daily Devotions from Lutheran Hour Ministries by Pastor Ken Klaus, Speaker Emeritus of The Lutheran Hour
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"Return to Rescue"
Friday, June 30, 2017
Luke 4:17-21 - And the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because He has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor." And he rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. And he began to say to them, "Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing."
If you're not from Texas, odds are you have never heard of James Butler Bonham.
Please, let me tell you his story.
In 1836, for the first two weeks in February, James Bonham worked with the other men of the Alamo in building up the fortifications of the mission. His job description changed when word came that Santa Anna, the Mexican general, was approaching the mission with a great army.
Realizing the hopelessness of their present situation, one of the commanders of the Alamo sent Bonham out to find assistance. Bonham, under orders, left before the siege began. He looked for help; he looked far and wide, but he found no one to relieve the surrounded garrison.
There is no written record of what went through Bonham's mind when he realized the helplessness of his companions' situation.
Who could blame him if he decided not to go back? His presence at the mission was not going to change the outcome of the battle. All it would do is raise the total death count by one.
We have no written record of what James Bonham thought. We do know that James Butler Bonham got back on his horse and returned to the Alamo to inform his friends and fellow defenders that they were, to the best of his knowledge, on their own.
Bonham made a choice and refused to desert or betray his comrades.
He died with his friends fighting the enemy. His death was a noble thing, but it pales in comparison to that of the Christ. Unlike Bonham who carried bad news, lonely news, Jesus came to earth to give us the good news that we were not alone or on our own.
Unlike Bonham who died killing his enemies, Jesus died trying to save those who hated Him. And while history tells us that the body of James Butler Bonham was found in the chapel of the Alamo, alongside a cannon, it also tells us that Jesus' body has never been found.
Why? Because Christ is not a dead hero.
Jesus is a living Lord, a risen Lord, our Redeemer. As Luke recorded, Jesus has come to proclaim good news to the poor and liberty to those who are enslaved. The living Lord Jesus has come to offer sight to the blind and give freedom to the oppressed.
In short, Jesus was born, lived, and died as one of us so that we might be rescued from the forces of sin, Satan, and death. And, unlike James Bonham, the Savior's death has made all the difference.
THE PRAYER: Dear Lord Jesus, accept my gratitude and praise for becoming my earthly Brother, and dedicating Your life to saving this lost world. May I proclaim to all whom I meet, the transformation that was won through Your work among us. In Your Name I ask it. Amen.
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In Christ I remain His servant and yours,
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Ecclesiastes 7:1 A good name is better than perfumed oil,
and the day of death better than the day of birth.
2 Better to go to a house of mourning
than to go to a house of feasting,
for all are destined to be mourned;
the living should lay this to heart.
3 Grief is better than laughter,
for sadness can improve a person.
4 The thoughts of the wise are in the house of mourning,
but the thoughts of fools are in the house of pleasure.
5 It is better to hear the rebukes of the wise
than to listen to the songs of fools.
6 For the laughter of fools is like the crackling of thorns
burning under a pot; this too is pointless.
7 But oppression can make a wise man stupid;
also a gift can destroy understanding.
8 The end of something is better than its beginning,
so the patient are better than the proud.
9 Don’t be quick to get angry,
for [only] fools nurse anger.
10 Don’t ask why the old days were better than now,
because that is a foolish question.
11 Wisdom is good, along with possessions,
an advantage to all who see the sun.
12 For wisdom is a shelter,
and money is a shelter,
but the advantage of knowledge is
that wisdom keeps the one who has it alive.
13 Consider the work of God:
who can make straight what he has made crooked?
14 When things are going well, enjoy yourself;
but when things are going badly, consider
that God made the one alongside the other,
so that people would learn nothing of their futures.
15 In my pointless life, I’ve seen everything —
from the righteous person perishing in his uprightness
to the wicked one who lives a long life
and keeps on doing wrong.
16 So don’t be overly righteous or overly wise;
why should you disappoint yourself?
17 But don’t be overly wicked, and don’t be foolish;
why should you die before your time?
18 Don’t grasp just one of these rules;
take hold of the other as well;
for he who is in fear of God
will live by both of them.
19 To a wise man wisdom is better protection
than ten rulers in a city.
20 For there isn’t a righteous person on earth
who does [only] good and never sins.
21 Also, don’t take seriously every word spoken,
such as when you hear your servant speaking badly of you;
22 because often, as you yourself know,
you have spoken badly of others.
23 All this I have put to the test of wisdom;
I said, “I will acquire wisdom”;
but wisdom remained far away from me.
24 That which exists is far away
and deep, so deep, that it can’t be discovered.
25 So I turned myself and my thoughts to know, search out and seek wisdom and the reasons behind things, also to know how foolish it is to be wicked and how stupid to act like a fool.
26 I found more bitter than death
the woman who is a trap,
whose heart is a snare
and whose hands are like prison chains.
The man who pleases God will escape from her,
but the sinner will be caught by her.
27 I have found this — says Kohelet —
adding one thing to another to reach a conclusion,
28 I searched a long time without finding it:
one man in a thousand I have found,
but a woman among all those I have not found.
29 This is the only thing I have found,
that God made human beings upright,
but they have devised many schemes.
8:1 Who can be compared with a wise person?
Who else knows what a thing means?
Wisdom lights up the face
and softens a grim appearance.
2 Keep the king’s command
because of the oath before God.
3 Don’t be quick to leave his presence,
and don’t persist in doing what is wrong,
for he does whatever he pleases.
4 After all, his word is final;
who can challenge him, “Why are you doing that?”
5 Whoever obeys his command
will never come to harm,
and the wise person will know
the right time and judgment.
6 For to everything there is
a right time and a judgment,
since people are greatly troubled
7 by uncertainty over the future;
even when the event takes place,
who will tell them about it?
8 Just as no one has the power
to keep the wind from blowing,
so no one has power
over the day of death.
If one is drafted to fight a war,
one can’t send a substitute;
likewise the wicked won’t escape death
by their wickedness.
9 All this I have seen, as I applied my mind to everything done under the sun when one person tyrannizes another. 10 Thus I saw the wicked buried; they had even come from the Holy Place. But those who had acted uprightly were forgotten in the city. This too is a futile thing; 11 because the punishment decreed for an evil act is not promptly carried out; therefore people who plan to do evil are strengthened in their intentions. 12 For a sinner can do evil a hundred times and still live a long life; although I know that in the end things will go well with those who fear God, because they fear him. 13 But things will not go well with the wicked; and, like a shadow, he will not prolong his days; because he doesn’t fear God.
14 There is something frustrating that occurs on earth, namely, that there are righteous people to whom things happen as if they were doing wicked deeds; and, again, there are wicked people to whom things happen as if they were doing righteous deeds. I say that this too is pointless.
15 So I recommend enjoyment — a person can do nothing better under the sun than eat, drink and enjoy himself; this is what should accompany him as he does his work for as long as God gives him to live under the sun.
16 When I applied myself to gain wisdom and to observe how people occupy themselves on earth, that people’s eyes don’t see sleep either by day or by night, 17 then, on looking over all of God’s work, I realized that it is impossible to grasp all the activity taking place under the sun; because even if a person works hard at searching it out, he won’t grasp it; and even if a wise person thinks he knows it, he still won’t be able to grasp it.
9:1 I applied myself to all of this, sifted through it and concluded that the righteous and the wise, along with their deeds, are in God’s hands — a person cannot know whether these people and deeds will be rewarded with love or with hatred; all options are open. 2 Anything can happen to anyone; the same thing can happen to the righteous as to the wicked, to the good and clean and to the unclean, to someone who offers a sacrifice and to someone who doesn’t offer a sacrifice; it is the same for a good person as for a sinner, for someone who takes an oath rashly as for someone who fears to take an oath. 3 This is another evil among all those done under the sun, that the same events can occur to anyone. Truly, the human mind is full of evil; and as long as people live, folly is in their hearts; after which they go to be with the dead. 4 For as long as a person is linked with the living, there is hope — better to be a living dog than a dead lion! 5 For the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing; there is no longer any reward for them, because all memory of them is lost. 6 What they loved, what they hated and what they envied all disappeared long ago, and they no longer have a share in anything done under the sun.
7 So go, eat your bread with joy,
and drink your wine with a happy heart,
for God has already accepted your deeds.
8 Let your clothing always be white,
and never fail to perfume your head.
9 Enjoy life with the wife you have loved throughout your meaningless life that he has given you under the sun, all the days of your futility; for that is your allotted portion in life and in your labor that you work at under the sun. 10 Whatever task comes your way to do, do it with all your strength; because in Sh’ol, where you will go, there is neither working nor planning, neither knowledge nor wisdom.
11 Yet another thing I observed under the sun is that races aren’t won by the swift or battles by the strong, and that food doesn’t go to the wise or wealth to the intelligent or favor to the experts; rather, time and chance rule them all. 12 For people don’t know when their time will come any more than fish taken in the fatal net or birds caught in a snare; similarly, people are snared at an unfortunate time, when suddenly it falls on them.
13 Here is something else I have seen as wisdom under the sun, and it seemed important to me: 14 there was a small town with few people in it; and a great king came to attack it; he surrounded it and built massive siege-works against it. 15 Now there was found in it a man who was poor but wise, and by his wisdom he saved the city; yet afterwards, nobody remembered that poor man. 16 So, although I say that wisdom is better than strength, nevertheless the poor man’s wisdom is despised; nobody pays attention to what he says.
17 A wise man speaking quietly is more worth heeding
than the shouts of a ruler commanding fools.
18 Wisdom is better than weapons of war,
but a person who makes a mistake can destroy much good.
Acts 10:1 There was a man in Caesarea named Cornelius, a Roman army officer in what was called the Italian Regiment. 2 He was a devout man, a “God-fearer,” as was his whole household; he gave generously to help the Jewish poor and prayed regularly to God. 3 One afternoon around three o’clock he saw clearly in a vision an angel of God coming in and saying to him, “Cornelius!” 4 Cornelius stared at the angel, terrified. “What is it, sir?” he asked. “Your prayers,” replied the angel, “and your acts of charity have gone up into God’s presence, so that he has you on his mind. 5 Now send some men to Yafo to bring back a man named Shim‘on, also called Kefa. 6 He’s staying with Shim‘on the leather-tanner, who has a house by the sea.” 7 As the angel that had spoken to him went away, Cornelius called two of his household slaves and one of his military aides, who was a godly man; 8 he explained everything to them and sent them to Yafo.
9 The next day about noon, while they were still on their way and approaching the city, Kefa went up onto the roof of the house to pray. 10 He began to feel hungry and wanted something to eat; but while they were preparing the meal, he fell into a trance 11 in which he saw heaven opened, and something that looked like a large sheet being lowered to the ground by its four corners. 12 In it were all kinds of four-footed animals, crawling creatures and wild birds. 13 Then a voice came to him, “Get up, Kefa, slaughter and eat!” 14 But Kefa said, “No, sir! Absolutely not! I have never eaten food that was unclean or treif.” 15 The voice spoke to him a second time: “Stop treating as unclean what God has made clean.” 16 This happened three times, and then the sheet was immediately taken back up into heaven.
17 Kefa was still puzzling over the meaning of the vision he had seen, when the men Cornelius had sent, having inquired for Shim‘on’s house, stood at the gate 18 and called out to ask if the Shim‘on known as Kefa was staying there. 19 While Kefa’s mind was still on the vision, the Spirit said, “Three men are looking for you. 20 Get up, go downstairs, and have no misgivings about going with them, because I myself have sent them.”
21 So Kefa went down and said to the men, “You were looking for me? Here I am. What brings you here?” 22 They answered, “Cornelius. He’s a Roman army officer, an upright man and a God-fearer, a man highly regarded by the whole Jewish nation; and he was told by a holy angel to have you come to his house and listen to what you have to say.” 23 So Kefa invited them to be his guests.
The next day, he got up and went with them, accompanied by some of the brothers from Yafo; |
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Use these devotions in your newsletter and bulletin! Used by permission; all rights reserved by the Int'l LLL (LHM).
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