THY KINGDOM COME, a devotional by Ludvig Hope (1939)

 

JANUARY 3
Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today, yea and forever.
Hebrews 13:8


As a great rock stands in the middle of a waterfall, so Jesus stands in the midst of humanity, mighty to save. As the sun rises over the earth every day, with no demand except to be permitted to give light, warmth, and life, so the grace of Jesus Christ is new upon us each day. Outside of Him everything is night and death; in Him is light and life; in Him we find the meaning and goal of life—and only in Him! No one can understand the divine miracle that we were chosen in Him before the foundation of the world. Nevertheless it is this fact that makes salvation so unshakable, and so entirely of grace.


That which was ruined by Adam is created again in Christ. He is the Spirit that gives life, the eternal life, and He gives it to all those of the race of Adam who can be gathered out and who believe on His name. Where Adam planted the seed of death, there Christ plants the seed of life; and he who with full confidence surrenders to Him shall never die.


Let everything else fail and be destroyed. This is a solid Rock to stand on, this is light in darkness, this is life in the land of death. This is the only safe point of departure for the journey to the kingdom where life never ceases and where the sun never sets. By Him the Lord makes us entirely capable of doing that which is good, and by Him the Lord accomplishes in us what is well pleasing to Him.


“Fear not; I am the first and the last, and the Living one; and I was dead, and behold, I am alive for evermore, and I have the keys of death and of Hades” (Rev. 1:17-18).


In Jesus’ name
We praise our God on high,
He blesses them who spread abroad His fame,
And we do His will thereby.
E’er hath the Lord done great things by His Word,
And still doth bare His arm His wonders to perform;
Hence we should in every clime
Magnify His name sublime,
Who doth shield us from all harm.

 

THY KINGDOM COME, a devotional by Ludvig Hope (1939)

 

JANUARY 2


And when eight days were fulfilled for circumcising Him, His name was called JESUS, which was so called by the angel before He was conceived in the womb. Luke 2:21


NO one of us knows what the year we have just entered will bring us. We know only that the inheritance we received was sin and sorrow and sickness and death, and we know also that to this inheritance much cleaves that is against us. It is therefore easy to predict that this year too we will often be helpless and discouraged both in temporal and in spiritual matters. We surely do the right thing in taking these facts into consideration. Nevertheless the greatest and best thing of all is that God considers these facts both in your case and in mine.


God has given us the right to count on something else also: We may use the name of Jesus. God has bound all His promises to this Name: there He has put our entire future filled with light and hope. In this Name there is forgiveness for all our sin, and the right to go to God boldly to get all that we need. It was this Name that Jesus left here below. He gave us the right to use this Name when we appear before God, needy and helpless, so that we may receive everything that we ask of the Father in this Name. Yea, in His Name we may go out into all the world and proclaim repentance and forgiveness of sins for all people.


Considering this, can we not look into the future with confidence and hope?
“Go!” says Jesus. “Go! Go through this year too at my expense and on my responsibility!” Go through everything that meets you! Go through life and death! Jesus will go with you.


Blessed Name of Jesus!

Jesus, only name that’s given
Under all the mighty heaven,
Whereby man, to sin enslaved,
Bursts his fetters, and is saved.

Jesus, name of wondrous love,
Human name of God above:
Pleading only this we flee,
Helpless, 0 our God, to Thee.

Starting on January 1, I am going to post a daily devotional from "Thy Kingdom Come" by Ludvig Hope.


"No Lutheran Lay preacher gained as much national attention as Ludvig Hope (1871-1954), a former construction worker who received his formal training in Bergen at a school which that city's domestic missionary society conducted for training evangelists.
The fact that Hope, almost certainly unlike most other lay-preachers, carefully drafted and read his sermons did not seem to... reduce his effectiveness. Like many other unordained evangelists in the Church of Norway , his attitude toward the church was at best lukewarm. Some of his opponents considered his distinguishing the state church from the genuine communion of the saints a departure from Article VII of the Augsburg Confession, which defined the church as “the assembly of all believers among whom the Gospel is preached in its purity and the holy sacraments are administered according to the Gospel. Hope was frequently alleged to regard the state church as "a scaffold on which we stand while building the Church of Christ ," a folk-pedagogical institution whose task was to prepare people for revivals. This position, of course, hardly ingratiated Hope and like minded evangelists with the clergy, but his attitude was nevertheless popular. Like many other Norwegian and Scandinavian Lutheran revivalists, Hope cared little for what he regarded as confessional minutiae, preferring instead to find his theological guidelines in the Scriptures."
 
(From Modern Christian Revivals, by Edith Waldvogel, Randall Balmer, Univ. of Illinois Press, 1993) Go to

 

 

THY KINGDOM COME, a devotional by Ludvig Hope (1939)

 JANUARY 1

8 But he answered and said to him, 'Sir, let it alone this year also, until I dig around it and fertilize it.  9 And if it bears fruit, well. But if not, after that you can cut it down.'" Luke 13:8-9

 

TODAY we are at the sunrise of another year. We ask ourselves, What will this year bring us? When a humble Christian looks back over years that are past he sees God’s love and grace woven into his life; and from the depths of his soul comes the confession: “Lord, Thou hast done all things well!” But even as you thus give thanks you heave an anxious sigh. Through the corridors of time cold winds blow that seem to warn us of storms, punishment, and hard days. It is as though we heard the flapping
of the wings of the angel with the vials of wrath that are to be poured out on us.

And yet—in the midst of all that causes us to fear difficult times, there stands a Man who until this day has always prevented the worst from happening. When the righteous hand lifted the axe for a stroke, and when the vials were to be poured out on us, then He interposed and prayed for a time of respite: “Lord, let it alone this year also. True, I have offered the same prayer before; but oh, grant this year too, Lord! Let me dig about it and dung it one year more!” In this way the Vinedresser has not only prevented the worst from happening, but He has also given years of grace in which many have been saved.

This year too He prays the same prayer for people and country, and because of this Savior-love, God will again give us a year of grace for grace. If this shall prove to be the last year here in time for some of us, then He will take such believing sinner and carry him through death into eternal day.

A few more years shall roll,
A few more seasons come,
And we shall be with those that rest,
Asleep within the tomb.
A few more suns shall set
O’er these dark hills of time,
And we shall be where suns are not,
A far serener clime.

The Old Paths (Jer 6:16)

Jer 6:16
16 Thus says the LORD:
"Stand in the ways and see, And ask for the old paths, where the good way is, And walk in it; Then you will find rest for your souls. NKJV

On this blog you will find my sermons and some other writings and information.
If you click on profile you will find a second blog page. I'm also working on some writings of Pastor Maynard Force and others that I plan to post on a web page http://www.Haugean.com. This is still under construction. On my second Blog http://www.haugean2.blogspot.com/ I will post these writings section by section, then when I have the work completed I will post it on Haugean.com.

I've searched for good Lutheran sources, Lutheran Pastors and laymen that preached and wrote life changing messages for our Lutheran churches and have found pretty much nothing written later than 1955. No wonder our churches are asleep, it's been 50 years since anyone's shook them awake.

Some of my favorite web pages are:
http://www.haugeinnermission/ Web page of the Hauge Lutheran Innermission Federation that I have posted for them. Upcoming conferences, and newsletters for download. Also some MP3 downloads from latest conference.
http://pietist.blogspot.com/?view=classic A Lutheran blog

http://www.aflc.org/ Association of Free Lutheran Congregations web page

http://lutheranblogs.blogspot.com/ A site that lists Lutheran Blogs of all kinds.

Rev 3:2 2 Be watchful, and strengthen the things which remain, that are ready to die, for I have not found your works perfect before God.NKJV

What the Lutheran Church Needs Today

In his book "A New Sprintime", Robert Lee, president of the AFLC said that there were Six principles that summarize the Spirit of awakening sparked by Hans Nielsen Hauge:
1. The demand for true conversion, with emphasis on the working of God’s law in bringing the sinner to repentance.
2. A living faith, a vital and personal commitment to Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, manifested in holy living.
3. An ethical emphasis on sactification.
4. An emphasis on personal Salvation.
5. Vigilance, or the continual need for Christians to watch and pray lest they fall and to examine themselves spiritually on a regular basis.
6.Evangelism, a burning compulsion to spread the Good News by means of simple and direct personal outreach.

We believe that these same principles that brought revival to The Lutheran Church in Norway in the 1800's can do the same for the Lutheran Church today.

Lets take a look at each one of these principles.

1. The demand for true conversion, with emphasis on the working of God's Law in bringing the sinner to repentance. Over the last 150 years the Holy Spirit has slowly been stripped of the only tool at His disposal to bring the knowledge of sin. Paul said in Romans 3:20; "By the Law comes the knowledge of sin.” He says in Romans 3:19; ”Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God.” And in Romans 5:20 ”Moreover the law entered that the offense might abound.” Jesus said when the Holy Spirit comes He would "convict the world of sin , and of righteousness, and of judgment."(John 16:8) One of the primary works of the Holy Spirit is to convict of sin, and this comes through the Law and Gospel preaching.

I'm out driving around in Des Moines and I get on interstate 235 and pretty soon I'm cruising with the flow of traffic. I look down at my speedometer and I see it’s at 70 MPH. Well the speed limit is 55 MPH, but everyone else is doing it, and it does feel good. Besides, it's only 15 over and everyone would stare at me and think I was strange if I was doing the speed limit when everyone else wasn't.

Then all of a sudden I see a cop car with its lights flashing and its siren blasting entering the freeway. I look at my speedometer and see that it’s at 70 mph and I think, "Oh no, 15 miles over". I know that for every mile per hour over it adds up to more money. It no longer matters that everyone is doing it. I know that if I'm standing in front of a judge, and I give him that excuse he will throw the book at me. So I hit my brakes and slow down to 55 and hope that he's after someone else, instead of me. The Law entered and the offense abounded. I saw my actions for what they were, lawlessness. The law is used to bring the knowledge of sin, which leads to confession and repentance, and that leads to eternal life.

2. Living faith, a vital and personal commitment to Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord, manifested in holy living. Hans Hauge faced the same dilemma that John Wesley faced in England. With the state church everyone was baptized and everyone's names were written on the churches rolls, so everyone presumed they were also written in the lambs book of life. But John Wesley preached that no one could claim they were a Christian unless they were born of God and had the witness of the spirit with in them.

3. An ethical emphasis on sanctification.
From Nelsons Bible Dictionary we read:
SANCTIFICATION is:
The process of God's grace by which the believer is separated from sin and becomes dedicated to God's righteousness. Accomplished by the Word of God and the Holy Spirit, sanctification results in holiness, or purification from the guilt and power of sin.
As Christians we are set aside, we are separated from the world; we are God's own people. Eph 5:7-8 Therefore do not be partakers with them. 8 Walk in Light, For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light.

4. An emphasis on personal Salvation.
It’s a personal salvation. God doesn’t have any grandchildren. He only has children. And how do you be come a child? You have to be born? How do you become a child of God? You have to be born of God. John 1:12 But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: 13 who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

5. Vigilance, or the continual need for Christians to watch and pray lest they fall and to examine themselves spiritually on a regular basis.
Oh I think this is so important. "Prone to wander Lord to feel it. Prone to leave the God I love." We're like Adam and Eve, like Samson, David, Judas, like Peter, it's easy to loose our first love, it's easy to become lukewarm. In Hebrews 2:1 we read , Therefore we must give the more earnest heed to the things we have heard, lest we drift away. What have we heard, what have we read? We need to stay in His word; we need to hear the preaching of the word, lest we drift away. We need to: (2 Cor 13: 5) Examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Do you not know yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you? — unless indeed you fail the test.
It's easy to be deceived, to think we are saved and to not be. Scripture tells us that this is a big category, Jesus said many will come to Him on that day, and Jesus will tell them, “ Depart from Me, I never knew you”. We often time ask people "Do you know the Lord?" Maybe the correct way to ask is this; "Does the Lord know you?" Paul says examine yourself. This is a pass, fail test as Paul says, If Christ is in you, you pass, if not you fail, your disqualified.

6. Evangelism, a burning compulsion to spread the Good News by means of simple and direct personal outreach. Jesus Christ came to seek and to save that which is lost. If we are His, that will be our desire too.

George Whitefield, the famous English Evangelist, said, O Lord give me souls, or take my soul.
Henry Martyn, missionary, kneeling on India's coral strands, cried out, "Here let me burn out for God."
Praying Hyde, a missionary in India said, "Give me these souls, or I die."
Charles Spurgeon said, "If sinners be dammed, at least let them leap to Hell over our bodies. If they will perish let them perish with our arms about their knees. Let no one go there unwarned and unprayed for."

These are the principles we strive to live up to in Worship and Ministry. If you are searching for a church home I hope you will come and visit us.

If you’ve read this and it has raised some questions in your mind as to the validity of your own Salvation and would like to talk, feel free to call or E-mail me, Wayne Almlie at: almlie@juno.com
or 515-277-5706 (Des Moines)


If you want to know more about being “Born Again” go to
http://www.wayofthemaster.com/