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Even the winds and the sea obey Him

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Sermon for Epiphany 4

Romans 13:8-10  +  Matthew 8:23-27

We spend much of the Epiphany season focusing on Jesus’ almighty power, whereby He revealed His divinity during His earthly ministry: power to transform earthly elements, like water, into something else, like fine wine; power to heal diseases with nothing more than a word. Today’s Gospel reveals a third kind of power: power over the forces of nature. As His disciples realized with awe, “Even the winds and the sea obey Him!” And if that’s true, then it has some very real-life implications, both for those who don’t believe in Him, and for those who do.

Let’s set the stage for our short Gospel reading, which is in the same chapter as last week’s reading about the healing of the leper and the centurion’s servant. It’s still early in Jesus’ ministry, and He’s just spent the entire day teaching the multitudes with a series of parables. After a long day of preaching, Jesus is tired, and, as Mark and Luke tell us, He was the one who instigated this boat trip across the lake, saying, “Let’s cross over to the other side.”

What follows is a very short and simple story. Let’s take a moment and review it. Jesus lay down on a pillow in the back of the boat and fell asleep. Meanwhile, a great storm suddenly arose, and the waves started crashing into the boat and filling it up with water. The disciples panic, even though they’re experienced fishermen, and they go to Jesus, who’s just lying there asleep, and they wake Him up with their urgent plea, “Lord, save us! We’re perishing!” That’s how Matthew relates it. Mark puts it another way: “Teacher, don’t You care that we’re perishing?”

So Jesus got up and said to them, Why are you so fearful, O you of little faith? “Fearful” can also be translated, “timid” or even “cowardly.” Why are you so timid? Why are you so cowardly, O you of little faith? And then He told the winds and the sea, “Quiet! Be still” And the winds and the sea immediately obeyed Him and became completely calm, as if someone had simply turned off a switch for the storm. And then all three Evangelists tell us how the disciples responded: What kind of man can this be? Even the winds and the sea obey Him!

On the one hand, we can understand their question. Every miracle Jesus did was amazing, but when the storm is raging loudly all around you, when it seems like your very life is about to be snuffed out by the billowing waves, it’s a whole new level of amazing to watch a man stand up, speak two words into the air (two words in Greek), and watch the waves disappear and see the clouds evaporate before your very eyes, and suddenly the boat that was rocking back and forth and crashing into the water is still, and calm, and quiet. Who can do such a thing? Only almighty God.

On the other hand, the disciples had already seen a lot of miracles by this time. They had even witnessed Jesus raising a man from the dead. One of them had already confessed Jesus to be the Christ, the Son of God, the King of Israel. But in the face of the storm, afraid they were about to die, everything they knew and believed about Jesus was banished from their thoughts. It’s as if they had “turned off” the switch to their faith.

Is it so different with us? Most of you have confessed Jesus as both Lord and Christ for your entire lives. Many of you have confessed Luther’s Small Catechism since your childhood years, “I believe that Jesus Christ, true God, begotten of the Father from eternity, and also true Man, born of the Virgin Mary, is my Lord.” You know this Bible story in which Jesus spoke to the winds and the sea and they obeyed Him. And yet, when trouble comes, it’s as if you say to yourself, “I’m going to set all that aside for now and put it out of my mind, because I have a crisis to deal with. I have a problem to solve. God can’t help me. I’m going to just turn off my faith for a while.” If Jesus’ own disciples did it, while He was with them in the boat, it’s no great surprise that you and I do it, too.

Their faith, in the moment of trouble, in the moment of crisis, shrank to the point of imperceptibility. “You of little faith,” Jesus said to them. And His question reaches across the millennia to us as well: “Why are you so fearful? Why are you so timid? Why are you so cowardly?” Don’t you know the One in whom you have believed? Don’t you know that Jesus commands, not only the winds and the sea, but the entire world, the entire universe? And the universe obeys Him! If that’s true, and you say you believe it to be true, why on earth would you be timid or cowardly in the face of trouble?

Now, we should be clear about what it is we’re supposed to believe. Let’s take Jesus’ disciples first, on this voyage across the Sea of Galilee. What did they have to believe in? What special reason did they have not to be timid or fearful during that particular voyage? Well, they had Jesus’ own words, “Let’s cross over to the other side of the lake.” Clearly implied in Jesus’ words was the fact that they would actually reach the other side of the lake. What else did they have? They had Jesus’ word to them all that He would make them “fishers of men,” preachers of His Gospel. But they hadn’t begun their ministry yet. So those men actually had Jesus’ assurance ahead of time that they wouldn’t perish at sea. And for that reason, even in the midst of the storm, they should have had faith that they would not, in fact, perish, as they wrongly believed they would.

You and I have no word of God like that to cling to. We have God’s promise to deliver us in the day of trouble, to “deliver us from evil,” as we pray in the Lord’s Prayer, but we also have His word that teaches us, throughout the Scriptures, not to understand that “deliverance” as a guarantee of bodily safety in every situation. In that terrible plane crash on Wednesday night, and in the other terrible plane crash on Friday, no one was given any promise from God that He would bring those flights safely to their landing. And if God hasn’t promised something, we have no right and no reason to believe it. Whereas, if He has promised something, we have no right or reason to doubt it!

So why do we? People who don’t believe in the true God (the God of Bible) at all, who don’t accept His Word as true in the first place, don’t believe God’s promises because they can’t. They’re still dead in their trespasses and sins, still hostile to God with every fiber of their being, still under God’s sentence of eternal condemnation. They blasphemously blame God for every tragedy, for every bad thing that happens in the world. They don’t trust in their heavenly Father because He isn’t—yet—their Father. He hasn’t yet given them the right to become children of God, because they haven’t yet received the Son of God in faith. To them, God doesn’t say, “You should trust Me to take care of you in times of trouble.” To them, God says, “Repent of your idolatry and turn to Me, the true God, and to My Son Jesus Christ, that I may heal you of your wickedness and bring you to life!”

But for those who do believe in the true God, who have come to know that He is good, who have repented of their sinfulness, who have been baptized in His name, who have been made children of God and heirs of eternal life, like Jesus’ disciples in the boat with Him in our Gospel, like all of us here today, why is it so easy for us to “turn off” our faith in the midst of a storm, in a moment of crisis?

You know why. It’s part of the weakness, part of the frailty of our sinful nature. The Christian usually rules over his or her Old Self, usually keeps it in check as we walk according to the New Man, the new, spiritual person God created in us when He brought us to faith in the Lord Jesus. According to the New Man, we trust in God to care for us, to do what’s right, to deliver us in the way that He knows is best, whether it’s keeping us physically safe from danger, which He often does, or whether it’s allowing troubles to come into our life while preventing those same troubles from doing any real damage to our souls. But the devil takes advantage of troubles and crises. He uses them to get the attention of our sinful flesh, like a red cape being waved in front of a bull. And in those moments, the flesh sometimes gets the better of us. It shouldn’t, but it does.

And so the Holy Spirit holds this Gospel before our eyes today, to fortify your New Man, to build you up, to make you see again how foolish it is to forget that even the winds and the sea obey the One whom you call Lord, the one who calls you a beloved member of His own body. Even the winds and the sea obey Him. And so does everything else, down to the very molecules that make up the world around you. So you have no reason to be cowardly in the face of danger. You have no reason to be timid or fearful. The next time you find yourself in danger, in trouble, in crisis, your flesh may cause you to forget about the power of the Lord Jesus for a moment. But let today’s Gospel serve to shorten the amount of time between panic and a return to trust. “Call upon Me,” God says, “in the day of trouble. I will deliver you, and you will glorify Me.” Amen.

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The real danger of any danger

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Sermon for the Fourth Sunday after Epiphany

Romans 13:8-10  +  Matthew 8:23-27

The Holy Spirit puts special emphasis on the story you heard today in the Gospel, when Jesus calmed the storm on the Sea of Galilee. Matthew, Mark and Luke all record this event. It was important. It was another great Epiphany of the Lord Jesus: Jesus has authority over the wind and the waves.

Does that strike you? I wonder. We’ve known Jesus through the Holy Scriptures for so long, we’ve come to expect it of Him, that He can speak a word to the roaring winds, and they listen. That He can talk to the waves of the sea, and they immediately obey. That’s awesome power—power His disciples had seen before, but still not quite on this scale. They had seen six jars of water changed into wine. They had seen people with illnesses made whole. They had seen demons forced to obey the authority of the Son of God (as we heard this morning in the Sunday School lesson). They had seen another kind of miracle at sea, the first miraculous catch of fish. Amazing, all of it. But there is something special about being able to stare up at the raging sky and tell it to shush, something about staring at the raw forces of nature and being able to tell them to behave. Not with magic or with a spell. But by the divine power that brought the earth into existence with a word, that set the sun and the moon and the planets in their places in the solar system, and that brought out the stars by name throughout all the galaxies of the universe. That’s power.

That’s who Jesus is. So, does it make any sense to be afraid of a storm, knowing that Jesus is the ruler of the wind and the waves, and knowing that Jesus is the one who initiated this voyage across the sea, as all three Gospels record? It was Jesus who got into the boat. It was Jesus who said, “Let’s cross over to the other side” of the lake.

Ah, but the disciples didn’t know yet, at the beginning of the voyage, that Jesus could actually calm the wind and the sea! Maybe not. But they should have. They had seen all those other miracles. They had heard all His preaching. He had already promised to give them everlasting life, and to make them His apostles to go out into the world and “catch men.” They had already confessed Him (privately) to be the Christ. They had left their livelihoods behind in order to follow Him. They had already put their faith in Him and were resting their eternal souls on Him as the Savior sent from God. Does it make any sense to think that a storm out at sea might just be able to undo all that Jesus had promised and all that He had already done? Could a storm stand in His way? Or could He simply allow them to perish at sea, after promising to make them workers in His kingdom?

No, their fear makes no sense. Fear never makes sense for the Christian.

Oh, it makes perfect sense for the non-Christian. If you don’t know who the true God is, if you’re living in rebellion against your Creator, if you’ve recreated a god in your own image who has no basis in reality, if you’re still wallowing in the filth of your sins, unclean, unclaimed, unwashed in the baptismal blood of Christ…then you must be afraid of literally everything. And if you’re not, you should be. Because our God is a consuming fire, as the writer to the Hebrews says. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

But the one who has heard and believed the Gospel that God loved the world so that He gave His only-begotten Son that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life, the one who has received Christ’s baptism, who confesses Him as Lord, who knows Him to be the great King who rules over the vast galaxies of the universe and also over the tiniest atoms that make up our bodies—why should a Christian ever panic? Why should we ever be afraid? If God is for us, as St. Paul writes, who can be against us? Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? No, he says, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.

But our Gospel today shows us the flaw that still plagues God’s children, the senseless fear of little children who normally trust their parents, but who, in a moment of crisis, in a moment of danger, suddenly stop trusting them. I would guess that all parents have seen it. We’ve seen it. In a moment of crisis, even Christians are sorely tempted to revert back to our default, spiritual fetal position, if you will—in which we believe that there is no God who can help, no God who can save. I’m on my own. I’m all by myself. Either I figure it all out myself, or all hope is lost. If God is there, He must not care. Or He must be sleeping.

And that’s just where we find Jesus during the storm at sea, while His disciples were panicking and terrified. He was asleep in the back of the boat.

How could He sleep through all that? Well, for one thing, He was actually tired! He had spent the day there by the sea, healing the people, teaching the people. It was exhausting. But more importantly, His own perfect trust in His Father’s providence allowed Him to sleep, because while He, the Son of God, had become a man and now needed sleep in this state of humiliation, God the Father is always awake. As the Psalm says, I will lift up my eyes to the hills—From whence comes my help? My help comes from the LORD, who made heaven and earth. He will not allow your foot to be moved; He who keeps you will not slumber. Behold, He who keeps Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep. Or again, I will lie down in peace, and sleep. For You alone, O LORD, make me dwell in safety. And again, The LORD is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The LORD is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid? Jesus was not only the divine Author, but also the perfect human pray-er of those Psalms. He shows us what perfect faith, perfect trust looks like.

And then the Holy Spirit shows us what imperfect faith looks like in the disciples. “Lord, save us! We are perishing!” It seems like they said it as a last resort, after all their efforts against the storm had failed to keep the boat safe. It should have been their first resort, and not with the fear of, “We are perishing!” But with the trust of the Psalmist, As for me, I will call upon God, and the LORD shall save me.

That wasn’t the faith the disciples demonstrated. But Jesus got up, spoke one word to the wind and another to the waves. And all was still. And for as important and as impressive as it was for the disciples to learn the almighty power of Jesus, the more important lesson was about to follow as Jesus spoke to them: “Why are you fearful, O you of little faith?”

Why are you fearful? You shouldn’t be. But sometimes you are and all the time the devil wants to take advantage of the danger to drive you away from faith. You see, the real danger of any danger is not the danger itself. The real danger is that the danger will scare you out of trusting in the Lord Christ to help.

As today’s Gospel shows us, nothing is out of Christ’s control. Even now He rules over all things, though the time has not yet come for Him to make all things right. There are still lots of perils and dangers in this world, but there is no good reason for the Christian to fear. Christ has made you His friends and companions. He’ll help you face the danger. He’ll help you bear up under the burden. He may remove it entirely. Or, if not—because He has never promised in His Word to spare you from all grief in this sin-filled world—He’ll give you the wisdom and the courage and the strength you need in the hour of trial. He’ll forgive you your sins. He’ll be your loving God and Father, your truest Friend and Companion.

Remember what Jesus did that day on the Sea of Galilee with those fearful disciples of little faith. He saved them. He patiently taught them and slowly built up their faith, so that, eventually, they learned not to be so afraid.

Now, maybe next time you’re in danger, you won’t be quite as afraid. Now, maybe next time, you’ll remember not to panic, not to forget about God, not to turn to Him as a last resort, but to go to Him first, not in fear and terror, but in childlike trust. Amen.

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Luther Sermon for Epiphany 4

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Luther’s Sermon for the FOURTH SUNDAY AFTER EPIPHANY.
Text: Matthew 8:23-27 (KJV)

I. OF FAITH AND UNBELIEF.

1. This Gospel, as a narrative, gives us an example of faith and unbelief, in order that we may learn how mighty the power of faith is, and that it of necessity has to do with great and terrible things and that it accomplishes nothing but wonders; and that on the other hand unbelief is so fainthearted, shamefaced and trembling with fear that it can do nothing whatever. An illustration of this we see in this experience of the disciples, which shows the real state of their hearts. First, as they in company with Christ entered the ship, all was calm and they experienced nothing unusual, and had any one asked them then if they believed, they would have answered, Yes. But they were not conscious of how their hearts trusted in the calm sea and the signs for fair weather, and that thus their faith was founded upon what their natural eyes saw. But when the tempest comes and the waves fill the boat, their faith vanishes; because the calm and peace in which they trusted took wings and flew away, therefore they fly with the calm and peace, and nothing is left but unbelief.

2. But what is this unbelief able to do? It sees nothing but what it experiences. It does not experience life, salvation and safety; but instead the waves coming into the boat and the sea threatening them with death and every danger. And because they experience these things and give heed to them and turn not their fear from them, trembling and despair can not be suppressed. Yea, the more they see and experience it the harder death and despair torment them and every moment threatens to devour them. But unbelief cannot avoid such experiences and cannot think otherwise even for a second. For it has nothing besides to which it can hold and comfort itself, and therefore it has no peace or rest for a single minute. And thus will it also be in perdition, where there will be nothing but despair, trembling and fear, and that without end.

3. But had they had faith, it would have driven the wind and the waves of the sea out of their minds, and pictured before their eyes in place of the wind and tempest the power and grace of God, promised in his Word; and it would have relied upon that Word, as though anchored to an immovable rock and would not float on the water, and as though the sun shined brightly and all was calm and no storm was raging. For it is the great characteristic and power of faith to see what is not visible, and not to see what is visible, yea, that which at the time drives and oppresses us; just as unbelief can see only what is visible and can not in the least cleave to what is invisible.

4. Therefore God bestows faith to the end that it should deal not with ordinary things, but with things no human being can master as death, sin, the world and Satan. For the whole world united is unable to stand before death, but flees from and is terrified by it, and is also conquered by it; but faith stands firm, opposes death that devours everything, and triumphs over it and even swallows the unsatiable devourer of life. In like manner no one can control or subdue the flesh, but it reigns everywhere in the world, and what it wills must be done, so that the whole world thereby is carnal; but faith lays hold of the flesh and subdues and bridles it, so that it must become a servant. And in like manner no one can endure the rage, persecution, and blasphemy, infamy, hatred and envy of the world; every one retreats and falls back exhausted before it, it gets the upper hand over all and triumphs; and if they are without faith it mocks them besides and treads all under its feet, and takes pleasure and delight in doing so.

5. Further, who could conquer Satan with his innumerable, subtle suggestions and temptations, by which he hinders the truth and God’s Word, faith and hope, and starts so many false doctrines, sects, seductions, heresies, doubts, superstitions and innumerable abominations? The whole world compared with him is like a spark of fire compared with a fountain of water. All must be here subject to him; as we also see, hear and understand. But it is faith that keeps him busy, and it not only stands before him invulnerable, but also reveals his roguery and puts him to shame, so that his deception fails and he faints and falls; as now takes place with his indulgences and his papacy. Just so no one can allay and quiet the least sin, but it bites and devours the conscience, so that nothing avails even if the whole world were to comfort and support such a person, he must be cast down into perdition. Here faith is a hero, it appeases all sins, even if they were as many as the whole world had committed.

6. Is there now not something almighty and inexpressible about faith that it can withstand all our powerful enemies and gain the victory, so that St. John says in his first Epistle 1 John 5:4: “This is the victory that hath overcome the world, even our faith?” Not that this is done in peace and by quietly resting; for it is a battle that is carried on not with out wounds and shedding of blood. Yea, the heart so severely experiences in this battle sin and death, the flesh, Satan and the world, that it has no other thought than that it is lost, that sin and death have triumphed, and that Satan holds the field of battle. The power of faith however experiences but little of that. This is set forth in our narrative, when the waves not only dashed into the boat, but even covered it, so that it was about to go under and sink, and Christ was lying asleep. Just then there was no hope of life, death had the upper hand and had triumphed; life was lying prostrate and was lost.

7. As it went here, so it goes and must go in all other temptations of sin, Satan, etc. We must experience how sin has taken captive the conscience and nothing but wrath and perdition wish to reign, and how we must be eternally lost. Satan must start so many things by his error and false teaching that it appears God’s Word must fall to the ground and the world must glory in falsehood. Likewise the world must rage and persecute to such an extent that it appears no one can stand or be saved, or even confess his faith; but Cain will rule alone and will not rest until his brother is dead, so that he may never be in his way. But we must not judge and act according to appearance and our experience, but according to our faith.

8. Therefore this Gospel is a comforting example and doctrine, how we should conduct ourselves, so that we may not despair in the agony of sin, in the peril of death, and in the tumult of the world; but be assured that we are not lost, although the waves at once overwhelm our little boat; that we will not perish, although we experience in our evil conscience sin, wrath, and the lack of grace; that we will not die, although the whole world hates and persecutes us, although it opens its jaws as wide as the rosy dawn of the morning. These are all waves that fall over your little bark, cause to despair, and force you to cry out: “Save, Lord; we perish”. Thus you have here the first part of this Gospel, faith, how it should thrive and succeed, and besides, how incapable and fainthearted unbelief is.

II. OF LOVE.

9. The second part of our text, treating of love, shows forth Christ in that he rises, breaks his sleep for their sake, takes to heart their need as though it were his own, and ministers to them help out of free love without any merit on their part. He neither receives nor seeks any reward for his help, but permits them to enjoy and use his power and resources. For as we have often heard it is characteristic of Christian love to do all freely and gratuitously, to the praise and honor of God, that a Christian lives upon the earth for the sake of such love, just as Christ lived solely for the purpose of doing good; as he himself says: “The Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister.” Matthew 20:28.

III. THE SPIRITUAL MEANING OF THIS NARRATIVE.

10. Christ pictured to us in this narrative the Christian life, especially the office of the ministry. The ship signifies Christendom; the sea, the world; the wind, Satan; his disciples are the preachers and pious Christians; Christ is the truth, the Gospel, and faith.

11. Now, before Christ entered the ship with his disciples the sea and the wind were calm; but when Christ with his disciples entered, then the storm began, as he himself says, Matthew 10:34: “Think not that I came to send peace on the earth: I came not to send peace but a sword.” So, if Christ had left the world in peace and never punished its works, then it would indeed have been quiet. But since he preaches that the wise are fools, the saints are sinners and the rich are lost, they become wild and raging; just as at present some critics think it would be fine if we merely preached the Gospel and allowed the office of the ministry to continue in its old way. This they would indeed tolerate; but that all their doings should be rebuked and avail nothing, that they call preaching discontent and revolution, and is not Christian teaching.

12. But what does this Gospel say? There was a violent tempest on the lake when Christ and his disciples were in the ship. The sea and the wind allowed the other ships to sail in calm weather; but this ship had to suffer distress because of Christ being in it. The world can indeed tolerate all kinds of preaching except the preaching of Christ. Hence whenever he comes and wherever he is, there he preaches that he only is right and reproves all others; as he says in Matthew 12:30: “He that is not with me is against me”, and again, John 16:8: “The spirit will convict the world in respect of sin, and of righteousness and of judgment;” he says that he will not only preach, but that he will convict the whole world and what is in the world. But it is this convicting that causes such tempests and dangers to this ship. Should he preach that he would allow the world to go unpunished and to continue in its old ways, he would have kept quiet before and never have entered the world; for if the world is good and is not to be convicted then there would never have been any need of him coming into the world.

13. Now it is the consolation of Christians, and especially of preachers, to be sure and ponder well that when they present and preach Christ, that they must suffer persecution, and nothing can prevent it; and that it is a very good sign of the preaching being truly Christian, when they are thus persecuted, especially by the great, the saintly, the learned and the wise.

And on the other hand that their preaching is not right, when it is praised and honored, as Christ says in Luke 6:22-26: “Woe unto you, when all men shall speak well of you; for in the same manner did their fathers to the false prophets. Blessed are ye, when men shall hate you, and when they shall separate you from their company, and reproach you, and cast out your name as evil, for the Son of man’s sake; in the same manner did their fathers to the prophets.” Behold our preachers, how their teachings are esteemed; the wealth, honor and power of the world have them fully under their control, and still they wish to be Christian teachers, and whosoever praises and preaches their ideas, lives in honor and luxury.

14. Hence, people have here an example where they are to seek their comfort and help, not in the world; they are not to guard the wisdom and power of men, but Christ himself and him alone; they are to cleave to him and depend on him in every need with all faithfulness and confidence as the disciples, do in our text. For had they not believed that he would help them, they would not have awakened him and called upon him. True their faith was weak and was mingled with much unbelief, so that they did not perfectly and freely surrender themselves to Christ and risk their life with him, nor did they believe he could rescue them in the midst of the sea and save them from death. Thus it is ordained that the Word of God has no master nor judge, no protector or patron can be given it besides God himself. It is his Word. Therefore, as he left it go forth without any merit or counsel of men, so will he himself without any human help and strength administer and defend it. And whoever seeks protection and comfort in these things among men, will both fall and fail, and be forsaken by both God and man.

15. That Jesus slept indicates the condition of their hearts, namely, that they had a weak, sleepy faith, but especially that at the time of persecution Christ withdraws and acts as though he were asleep, and gives neither strength nor power, neither peace nor rest, but lets us worry and labor in our weakness, and permits us to experience that we are nothing at all and that all depends upon his grace and power, as Paul confesses in Corinthians 1:9, that he had to suffer great affliction, so as to learn to trust not in himself but in God, who raised the dead. Such a sleeping on the part of God David often experienced and refers to it in many places, as when he says in Psalm 44:23: “Awake, why sleepest thou, O Lord? Arise, cast us not off forever.”

16. The summary of this Gospel is this, it gives us two comforting, defying proverbs, that when persecution for the sake of God’s Word arises, we may say: I indeed thought Christ was in the ship, therefore the sea and wind rage, and the waves dash over us and threaten to sink us; but let them rage, it is ordained that the wind and sea obey his will. The persecutions will not continue longer than is his pleasure; and although they overwhelm us, yet they must be subject to him; he is Lord over all, therefore nothing will harm us. May he only give us his help that we may not despair in unbelief. Amen.

17. That the people marveled and praised the Lord that the wind and sea were subject to him, signifies that the Gospel, God’s Word, spreads farther through persecution, it thus becomes stronger and faith increases; and this is also a paradoxical characteristic of the Gospel compared with all worldly things which decrease through every misfortune and opposition, and increase through prosperity and peace. Christ’s kingdom grows through tribulations and declines in times of peace, ease and luxury, as St. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 12:9: “My power is made perfect in weakness, etc.” To this end help us God! Amen.

Source: Sermons