Thy Strong Word From Kfuo Radio

Rev. David Boisclair, pastor of Faith and Bethesda Lutheran Churches in North St. Louis County, Missouri, joins host Rev. AJ Espinosa to study Isaiah 63. After what seemed like a good ending for the whole book in the previous chapter, chapter 63 unexpectedly picks up with an oracle of judgment against Bozrah. Why talk about the Edomites when the Babylonians are the big problem? The poetry weaves together imagery of red blood and red wine, trampling grapes and trampling enemies. Ultimately this chapter begins a desperate plea for mercy to be continued in the next chapter. God must rescue not because of any goodness in ourselves; our ancestors would disown us on account of our sin. Only by grace did Christ conquer the enemies of Judah, and only by grace will He judge our enemies at the end of the age.

Rev. Stewart Crown, pastor of Trinity Lutheran Church in Palo Alto, California, joins host Rev. AJ Espinosa to study Isaiah 62. In chapter 62 Isaiah says “I will not be quiet until her righteousness goes forth.” And he tells the watchmen, “You who put the LORD in remembrance, take no rest, and give him no rest.” Keep asking God again and again, keep praying, until He delivers on His promise. This is the boldness of faith. We hang on to God’s promises until we’re given a new name like Jacob. Judah is to hang on until the exiles return to them, when they will rebuild Jerusalem and receive the name “A City Not Forsaken.” The church is to hang on by celebrating the Eucharist until we receive our promised names spoken by the Bridegroom of the Church.

Rev. Steven Theiss, retired pastor in Frohna, Missouri, joins host Rev. AJ Espinosa to study Isaiah 61. What does it mean to say “the LORD has anointed me” as in Isaiah chapter 61? Typically only kings and priests were anointed by God in Israel. Yet after the Babylonian invasion of Judah, there was no king or high priest left remaining in the land. In even greater audacity, when our Lord Jesus read these words and said that He was fulfilling them, there were a king and a high priest—Herod and Caiaphas, appointed by the Romans! All authority comes from Jesus Christ, and all authority in the church comes from His Word. God’s people are a holy priesthood not because everyone makes up their own mind, but because we all listen to the authoritative voice of the Anointed One as He speaks through those He calls and ordains.

Rev. Jim Kress, pastor of Redeemer Lutheran Church in Englewood, Florida, joins host Rev. AJ Espinosa to study Isaiah 60. Often mothers greet their children who are still in bed with “Rise and shine!” It’s a phrase that signals the beginning of work and the promise of a new day. The phrase comes from Isaiah 60, where it signals the rebuilding of Jerusalem and the most amazing of reversals. The exiles will return with treasure, and their former Babylonian oppressors will help them carry the gold, frankincense, and myrrh! It foreshadows not only the magi, but the mission of the church and the heavenly Jerusalem still to come. All of this is accomplished by Christ’s light, His Word which shines into the darkness of sin.

Rev. David Boisclair, pastor of Faith and Bethesda Lutheran Churches in North St. Louis County, Missouri, joins host Rev. AJ Espinosa to study Isaiah 59. Don’t try to tell God what He should and shouldn’t care about. In chapter 59, Isaiah says that the Judeans who survived the Babylonian conquest are fooling themselves if they think they can impress God with their hypocritical prayers and piety. It’s not that He’s blind to our plight or to our religious behavior; it’s that He can see what we do with the rest of our time. Yet thank God He cares more about our salvation than He does waiting for us to get it right. We would have groped in the darkness for eternity. In Christ, He brings His light and His armor of vengeance to defeat sin and darkness of idolatry.

Rev. Nathan Meador, pastor of St. John Lutheran Church in Plymouth, Wisconsin joins host Rev. AJ Espinosa to study Isaiah 58. The Judean survivors think they’re doing well by God. They call on His name and they fast, yet God shows no regard for their piety. What’s going on? According to Isaiah 58, the people only think they’re sincere because they’ve deluded themselves. They lack the light of God’s Word, so their religious fasting is accompanied by mistreating their neighbors. Too often today, pastors hold back in their preaching of the law, lulling their people into the false security that they aren’t part of the problems “out there.” We need Christ to shine His light on us in the Divine Service so that we are empowered to work toward justice for our neighbors.

Rev. Ben Ball, pastor of St. Paul Lutheran Church in Hamel, Illinois, joins host Rev. AJ Espinosa to study Isaiah 57. Judah has become a mess in the wake of the Babylonian devastation. Their religion has devolved into sexual immorality and sacrificing children to idols. In chapter 57 Isaiah says that the people are sorceresses and adulterers by their very nature. Isaiah speaks this way to offer repentance and forgiveness. There is still a way out! Those who repent will find healing and rebuilding: God is about to reunite the survivors with the exiles. And the faithful who die are “taken away from calamity” and enter into peace. Although we have found new ways to be guilty of the same old sins of idolatry, God makes us the same offer of repentance in Christ Jesus.

Rev. Thomas Eckstein, pastor of Concordia Lutheran Church in Jamestown, North Dakota, joins host Rev. AJ Espinosa to study Isaiah 56. God will make His barren people fruitful! That’s been the message of the last two chapters, but now in Isaiah 56, the foreigners and eunuchs are wondering about their place in the people of God, since bearing children with a good Hebrew name is a sensitive topic for them. God is not fooled by outward religious practices, but He sees the faith behind them. It is the spirit of the law, not the letter, that is the way of faith. We only fulfill the law in Christ, who fulfills it for us. Our pastors are meant to be watchmen who bark like dogs when the danger of idolatry comes near, that nothing would avert our eyes from Christ.

Rev. John Shank, pastor of Trinity Lutheran Church in Edwardsville, Illinois, joins host Rev. AJ Espinosa to study Isaiah 55. Yahweh’s word came down like rain. It gave the exiles water and bread in the wilderness of exile—it gave them what they had hungered and thirsted for. In Isaiah 55, the idea of being “fruitful” ties together powerful words about what God does for us. Only His Word gives us true identity, purpose, hope, and salvation. We’re not going to get these things from the peoples around us. The return from exile was a sign of the incarnation and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It seems strange that God should work through means as brutal as the Babylonians or the Cross, but God says, “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways.”

Rev. William Foy, pastor of Prince of Peace Lutheran Church in Valparaiso, Indiana, joins host Rev. AJ Espinosa to study Isaiah 53. “Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed.” These are the words from Isaiah 53 that we hear read at Good Friday every year. When the Ethiopian eunuch asked about this passage, Philip used these words to tell him “the good news about Jesus.” Jesus Christ was crucified to forgive the sins of the whole world, including yours and mine. We should not assume that we are without sin just because we aRev. John Lukomski, retired pastor in Southern Illinois, joins host Rev. AJ Espinosa to study Isaiah 54. Ruth and Orpah tragically lost their husbands so quickly that they had been left childless. Isaiah 54 describes Judah in similar terms, the exiles feeling abandoned and hopeless, like their story was left without purpose. God says to the exiles, “For a brief moment I deserted you, but with great compassion I will gather you.” He speaks to t

Rev. William Foy, pastor of Prince of Peace Lutheran Church in Valparaiso, Indiana, joins host Rev. AJ Espinosa to study Isaiah 53. “Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed.” These are the words from Isaiah 53 that we hear read at Good Friday every year. When the Ethiopian eunuch asked about this passage, Philip used these words to tell him “the good news about Jesus.” Jesus Christ was crucified to forgive the sins of the whole world, including yours and mine. We should not assume that we are without sin just because we are not severely punished by the government. The survivors of Judah wrongly assumed that the exiles were worse people than they were. No, the exile happened because of the sin of the whole nation, and now God was bringing the exiles home to resurrect His lost and wayward people, pointing ahead to Christ.

Rev. Chris Biernacki, pastor of Our Redeemer Lutheran Church in Florence, Alabama, joins host Rev. AJ Espinosa to study Psalm 32. This psalm is called a “maskil.” David wanted us to use it in worship, and he also wanted to teach us from his life experience: if you try to bury your sins and forget about them, they’ll eat you from the inside. We’re lying to ourselves if we think we can deal with them on our own. The only real solution is to confess and ask for God’s forgiveness. And at the end of the day, forgiveness is what makes life worth living. Psalm 32 was one of Luther’s favorites. He called it a “Pauline psalm”—not just because Paul quotes from it in Romans 4, but because it teaches grace through faith. Christians around the world are familiar with Psalm 32, particularly the second half of verse 5: “I said, ‘I will confess my transgressions to the LORD,’ and you forgave the iniquity of my sin.”

Rev. Curtis Deterding, pastor of Zion Lutheran Church in Fort Myers, Florida, joins host Rev. AJ Espinosa to study Isaiah 52. It’s Christmas and Good Friday at the same time—this remarkable chapter has both of the yearly readings, right next to each other: “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news” right before “his appearance was so marred, beyond human semblance.” The long winter’s night of exile finally was ending, and the exiles received the greatest Christmas present: their return home. The next time you see the magi, those “three kings of orient,” remember the Judean exiles who brought gifts back home to Jerusalem from Babylon. And remember the gifts flowing down to us from the Cross and from the right hand of God, where Christ has been lifted up.

Rev. Doug Nicely, pastor of Jerusalem Lutheran Church in Collinsville, Illinois, joins host Rev. AJ Espinosa to study Isaiah 51. “The heavens vanish like smoke, the earth will wear out like a garment.” What is this scary-sounding end-of-the-world prediction doing in Isaiah 51? Reading in context, the Babylonian empire must have felt like it was never going to end. They had re-shaped a vast region; it was their world. Isaiah’s message is that their world was coming to an end: the Persians were going to wipe it out. God uses disaster to rescue His people. Like the way He multiplied Abraham and rescued us from the Red Sea, so He rescues us today through His Son. And Jesus isn’t merely the next phase of the plan; He is the one who drains the cup of wrath, who ends the cycle of judgement to bring us real righteousness.

Rev. David Andrus, pastor of Abiding Savior Lutheran Church in St. Louis and Not-Alone.net Ministries, joins host Rev. AJ Espinosa to study Isaiah 50. “Morning by morning he awakens; he awakens my ear to hear as those who are taught.” Isaiah 50 proclaims that God has not divorced His people Israel. He is faithful even when we are faithless, and the remnant of Judah will not be forgotten. Judah has been disciplined through Assyria and Babylon, and he now willingly accepts the blows and the shame. Yet even restored Judah could not overcome the idolatry of the heart. Only Christ in the flesh can awaken us to true obedience, morning by morning through baptism. Because Christ set His face like flint toward Jerusalem, we have the true torchlight of salvation to rescue us from torment.

Rev. Kevin Parviz, pastor of Congregation Chai v’Shalom in St. Louis, Missouri, joins host Rev. AJ Espinosa to study Isaiah 49. You haven’t been forgotten; can a mother forget her children? Isaiah 49 uses tender and compassionate language to describe God’s love for us. Even though the exiles felt like they had been cast aside, it turns out they were only hidden like an arrow in God’s quiver or a sword “in the shadow of his hand.” Now the time had come to depart from exile and strike with God’s words of purpose. Paradoxically, Israel gathers Israel. The remnant gathers the survivors who had forgotten their God. Ultimately Jesus Christ is the true remnant who gathers us all together, whose hands are engraved with our names in His blood.

Rev. Lane Burgland, pastor of Faith Lutheran Church in Churubusco, Indiana, joins host Rev. AJ Espinosa to study Psalm 106. “Gather us from among the nations, that we may give thanks to your holy name.” Christians are not thankful in an abstract sense; rather they concretely say “thank you” to God for His acts of mercy and faithfulness, even in dark times. Even in the midst of exile, God’s people give Him thanks. We are consoled that God has always been faithful in the past, even in our worst moments. When we forget God, we imperil ourselves. When we make remembrance of Him, His power can save us from the impossible, as He showed on Easter.

Rev. Chris Biernacki, pastor of Our Redeemer Lutheran Church in Florence, Alabama, joins host Rev. AJ Espinosa to study Psalm 105. The story of the Old Testament is our own story. When God looked at His people Israel, He saw you and me, so He acted to protect us even before we were born. Psalm 105 says that, even in the days of Abraham, God saw all His “anointed ones” and “prophets”—He saw the whole line of kings leading up to His own Son, Jesus of Nazareth. So when we praise God, we give thanks for everything He’s done for Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Joshua, and all the rest. Even when He sent the famine or hardened the hearts of the Egyptians, God was directing history to bless us today. Praise God and give thanks for His steadfast love.

Rev. Matt Tooman, pastor of Immanuel Lutheran Church in Wahpeton, North Dakota, joins host Rev. AJ Espinosa to study Isaiah 48. Israel stands to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. God has opened the way home to Judah through Cyrus of Persia, but the exiles have become comfortable in Babylon! In Isaiah 48, God criticizes His people for being Israelites in name only and for becoming as dense as the idols they’ve made for themselves. This is tough love: there is no rest for the wicked, and there is no peace to be had living in Babylon. If we have God’s Word, we will have a never-ending supply of peace, flowing down to us like a river even in the midst of the wilderness. From His riven side, Christ’s peace flows to us in the midst of the darkness of death.

Rev. John Lukomski, retired pastor in Darmstadt, Illinois, joins host Rev. AJ Espinosa to study Isaiah 47. Babylon thought she was invincible. True, she was God’s weapon of justice against His own people, but she went too far. She forgot her place, she became merciless and oppressive, and she relied on her own charms and enchantments instead of giving glory to God. Like Cinderella, she went from a princess in a coach to a servant girl in a pumpkin just like that. God defeats even His people’s most impressive enemies—but we must be humble. We too fall into the trap of Babylon, unlovingly berating people and thinking our own cleverness will solve every problem. Only Jesus Christ is the savior; our wisdom always comes second to Him.