LESSON: PSALM 25:1-10

Your king is coming to you. Matthew 21:5

Learn from this Gospel what happens when God begins to make us godly, and what is the beginning of becoming godly. There is no other beginning but the fact that your King comes to you and begins to work in you.

This comes to pass as follows. The Gospel must be the very first thing in this context; it must be preached and heard. In this you hear and learn how your work is nothing before God and that all you do or attempt is sin. But your King must be in you beforehand and rule you. That is the beginning of your salvation. You then give up your own work, and despair of self, because you hear and see that your own work is nothing, as the Gospel tells you. You begin to receive your King through faith, you cling to Him, invoke His grace, and entrust yourself solely to His goodness.

That you hear and accept this is also not of your own strength but of God’s grace, which has made the Gospel fruitful in you, so that you believe Him when He declares that your own work is nothing.

You see how few there are who accept His grace. Jesus also wept over Jerusalem. The papists not only reject this doctrine but actually condemn it. They do not want their own work to be sin and nothing. They want to lay the first stone and they rage and storm against the Gospel.

SL.XI.8,23
AE 75,35

PRAYER: O Lord, take from our hearts all self-pride and trust in our own works and efforts, and grant us grace to trust solely and wholly in your mercy and grace, granted us through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen

THE FIRST WEEK IN ADVENT - WEDNESDAY

LESSON: PSALM 24

Your king. Matthew 21:5

Here this King is separated from all other kings. He is “your king,” the one promised to you and whose own you are. He is the one who rules you and no one else. But His rule is a spiritual, not a secular, rule.

This is a comforting word for the believing heart, for apart from Christ, man is subjected to many raging tyrants who are not kings but murderers. Under these he endures great misery and terror.

Such tyrants include the devil, the flesh, the world, and sin, as well as the law, death, and hell. At the hands of all these the wretched conscience is oppressed, suffers heavy imprisonment, and lives a bitter, uneasy life. For where sins are, there is no conscience; where there is no good conscience, everything is quite uncertain and there is unending fear of death and hell before which there can be no firm joy or delight in the heart. As Moses declares, such a heart is terrified at the rustling of a leaf (Leviticus 26:36).

Wherever a heart receives this King in firm faith, it becomes established and does not fear sin, death, hell, or any misfortune. It knows and does not doubt that this King is the Lord over life and death, sin and grace, hell and heaven, and that all things are in His hands.

PRAYER: Lord Jesus Christ, my King, establish your rule in my heart in such a way that my heart becomes your throne, and peace and joy may reign therein for evermore. Amen.

LESSON: HEBREWS 10:19-25

Behold! Matthew 21:5

“Behold!” Mark this word well. With this word the Holy Spirit wakens us from sleep and unbelief as one who wants to set forth something important, strange, and noteworthy which one has long desired and should receive with joy. And we really need such an awakening, because our reason and nature despises all that concerns faith and finds it most unsuitable.

How can it possibly be that this man who rides along in such poverty and humility should be the King of Jerusalem and that He is riding only a strange, hired ass? How can nature and reason possibly grasp this? How can such an entrance be squared with that of a great King?

Faith is of such a kind that it does not judge and follow according to what it sees and feels but according to what it hears. It clings to the Word alone. Appearance and outward looks count for nothing at all. Therefore the only ones here who really accepted Christ as a King were those who followed the word of the prophet. They believed in Christ and His kingdom not with their eyes, but accept Him with the spirit.

These are also the true “daughter of Zion.” For the man who wants to follow Christ according to outward appearance and feeling cannot avoid becoming offended at Him. One must cling firmly to the pure Word alone.

SL.XI.4,14
AE 75,29

PRAYER: Enable us at all times, O Lord, to cling with all our faith to your pure Word alone, so that we behold you as you really are and thus ever cling to you in love and obedience, for your truth’s sake. Amen.