Matins Devotions: April 28-May 2, 2025
- Pastor Hans Fiene
- May 21
- 6 min read
MONDAY
Our reading from Exodus this morning begins with a severe threat of condemnation, a severe law. Anyone who sacrifices to any other gods should be put to death. That’s the punishment for idolatry. And yet, you have to wonder, throughout their history, what was Israel’s batting average carrying out that punishment? What percentage of idolaters are put to death?
It’s impossible to say, of course, because we don’t have a book of the Bible that’s just an execution ledger from the chief priests throughout history. But in the Scriptures we do have, the examples of the Israelites giving themselves over to idolatry are many and the instances of anyone being put to death for idolatry are few. So it’s safe to say the batter average was miniscule, less than one percent, I would guess.
But even if the punishment wasn’t poured out very often, that doesn’t mean the punishment wasn’t just. It simply means that men were weak and God was slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. But the truth still remains true. Those who sacrifice to false gods are vile sinners deserving of death. So it is for those who sacrifice to Baal or Molech, and so it is for those who sacrifice to the false gods of pride and money and lust and greed and bitterness and violence. Death is, in fact, what we all deserve.
But, out of His mercy, God didn’t give us what we deserved. And out of His grace, God actively gave us what we didn’t deserve. He gave us the blood of His Son Jesus Christ. He gave us the righteousness of His Son, the one who never sacrificed to a false god or bowed to an idol, even when the first false god offered him the very kingdoms of this world. There at the cross, the only one who didn’t deserve the sentence of death received that sentence in our place so that no letter of the law could condemn us anymore. Then He rose from the grave and placed us into the arms of His Father. The King of Kings did exactly what He intended to do. No strikeouts. No failure. No missing. Only victory, forgiveness, life, and salvation.
TUESDAY
When the demon in Capernaum speaks the name of Jesus, he does so to mock our lord. He’s viciously spitting our Lord’s name out of this man’s mouth in order to make the name seem small and worthless, like there’s no treasure in the name given to the Son of God. That’s what the demon wants because that’s what his father the devil wants. Satan loves abusing and cursing the name of Christ in an effort to make us think there is no purpose in calling on that name for salvation.
And Satan tries the same thing today. He’s fast at work in a world, in public at least, we hear the name of Jesus uttered far more often as a casual curse word than as a prayer. In the same way, Satan tries to rob that name of its power by a pious-sounding exercise in vanity and self-worship. That’s what’s happening when people utter the name of Jesus to tell you how much he would agree with them if he were alive and real. “The Jesus I believe in would love LGBTQ people just as they are.” “The Jesus I believe in would never send people to hell.” “The Jesus I believe doesn’t care if you go to church, as long as you’re trying to be a good person.”
But try as he might, the devil can’t corrupt the name of God’s own Son because that name doesn’t belong to him. It belongs to the God who has filled it with the power to put forgiveness, life, and salvation into your heart. No matter how many demons may mock and curse that name, “Jesus Christ” is the name you can always run to, the name you can always dig your fingers into, knowing that He first dug His fingers into you when He freed you from your grave of sin and lifted you up into life eternal. And on the day when paradise is set before your eyes, those who cursed the name of Jesus in this life will bow before His name in humiliation and defeat. And those who bowed before the name of Jesus through faith in this life will be lifted up into imperishable glory, the glory no devil or demon could ever diminish.
THURSDAY
Very early on in my ministry, when I was a pastor in Denver, I was having a rather rough day, so I decided to drive up into the mountains and comfort myself by gazing upon the awesome beauty of the Rockies. I sought comfort by gazing upon my Father’s creation. But it didn’t work. I got up past the foothills, gazed upon the snow-capped peaks and lush green and brown valleys and a deep and profound sorrow settled upon me. And it settled upon me because, no matter how much I wanted to be settled in Colorado, no matter how much I wanted that staggering beauty to be my home, it wasn’t. It wasn’t the flat suburbs, the humble terrain of the midwest. It wasn’t where I was from and where I would end up.
There’s a sense in which this is similar to the unrest we often feel in the world. In our reading from Ephesians this morning, Paul tells us that we, as Christians, are no longer strangers and aliens, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God. In other words, he has taken us out of this world of being orphans, this world of sorrows and placed us into his kingdom, which is not of this world.
But sometimes that world that is not our home seems so beautiful and we desperately want it to be where we belong. We want to be at home with those who lead impressive, comfortable lives but live them far away from the heart of Jesus. We want to live in a world where we have no poor to help, no naked to clothe, no strange and unrewarding people to befriend, no sacrifices to make. That’s the drive through the mountains we want to take.
But the mountains of comfort aren’t your home. And that is why you feel a sense of restlessness there. That’s why no amount of earthly pleasure can really make you happy. So come down from the mountains back into the sometimes boring plain of Christ’s kingdom. Come to the land where the mercy and sacrifice of Jesus calls us to show mercy to our neighbors and to sacrifice for them. Come to the land of forgiveness that calls us to forgive our neighbors. Come to the land where Jesus gave His life for frustrating, unrewarding people like us, the land where He covered us in the reward of His salvation.
One day, the glorious mountain of God will be set before our eyes. And we will find our eternal comfort at its peak. But until then, enjoy the less glorious Christian life down in the plains.
FRIDAY
There’s a common trope among unbelievers in general and rather loud internet atheists specifically that the God of the Bible is a cruel and petty tyrant, that He’s like a psychotic spouse who demands all sorts of ridiculous proofs of loyalty from you. You hear them talk this way about the sacrifice of Isaac, for example, where they see God as some insecure monster who demands that you kill your kid to show that you think He’s prettier. The test of Abraham, they think, is just an insane end to itself. God asks you to do ridiculous things just to show that you love Him.
The Pharisees were, in a sense, the forefathers of this thinking, which we can see in how they respond to the disciples plucking grain from the field and eating in on the Sabbath. “God commanded us to rest on the sabbath!” They’re saying, “and yet, there you are, doing labor. You’re pulling grain off the plants and rubbing them in your hands to eat the heads. If you’re hungry, God wants you to starve to show how committed you are to not working on the sabbath!”
Well, no, God didn’t command the sacrifice of Isaac because He wanted Abraham to tell Him He was prettier. He did it to show Abraham how He would rescue all men from the death sentence through the substitute ram wearing a crown of thorns. And in the same way, God didn’t institute the Sabbath as a weekly way for His people to show that they’d rather starve than find food more attractive than their God. God gave them the sabbath to rest from their labor so they could restore their bodies and so they could hear the word of salvation, the word of peace from the Creator who had sworn to give them all the thorn-crowned Lamb.
God’s commandments aren’t empty tests of loyalty to an insane romantic partner. They’re paving stones on the path of salvation, part of the story pointing us to the God who gave up everything to make us His own through the death and resurrection of His only begotten Son. You don’t belong to a petty tyrant. You belong to a loving Father.
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