Daily Readings & Prayers - Monday, July 20, 2026 - Elijah

[00:00:04]Blessed morning. Welcome in the name of our Lord and our Savior Jesus Christ.

[00:00:08]Pastor John Ellenworth here from St. John Evangelical Lutheran Church in Waverly, Iowa, bringing you today's readings and prayers. Today is Monday, July 20th. It is the commemoration of Elijah. And you'll find today's readings on page 539.

[00:00:24]In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. And our psalm is a portion of Psalm 119:es 57-64.

[00:00:35]The Lord is my portion. I promise to keep your words. I entreat your favor with all my heart. Be gracious to me according to your promise. When I think on my ways, I turn my feet to your testimonies. I hasten and do not delay to keep your commandments.

[00:00:55]Though the cords of the wicked ensnare me, I do not forget your law. At midnight, I rise to praise you because of your just and righteous decrees. I am a companion of all who fear you, of those who keep your precepts. The earth, O Lord, is full of your steadfast love.

[00:01:15]Teach me your statutes. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Our Old Testament reading is 1st Samuel chapter 3 1-21.

[00:01:27]Now the young man Samuel was ministering to the Lord under Eli. And the word of the Lord was rare in those days. There was no frequent vision. At that time Eli, whose eyesight had begun to grow dim so that he could not see, was lying down in his own place. The lamp of God had not yet gone out. And Samuel was lying down in the temple of the Lord where the ark of God was.

[00:01:54]Then the Lord called Samuel, and he said, "Here I am." And ran to Eli and said, "Here I am, for you called me."

[00:02:02]But he said, "I did not call. Lie down again." So he went and lay down. And the Lord called again, "Samuel." And Samuel arose and went to Eli and said,"Here I am, for you called me." But he said, "I did not call my son. Lie down again."

[00:02:21]Now Samuel did not yet know the Lord.

[00:02:24]And the word of the Lord had not been revealed to him. And the Lord called Samuel again, the third time. And he arose and went to Eli and said, "Here I am, for you have called me." Then Eli perceived that the Lord was calling the young man. Therefore Eli said to Samuel, "Go lie down, and if he calls you, you shall say, speak, Lord, for your servant hears." So Samuel went and lay down in his place.

[00:02:53]And the Lord came and stood calling as at other times, "Samuel, Samuel." And Samuel said, "Speak, for your servant hears."

[00:03:03]Then the Lord said to Samuel, "Behold, I am about to do a thing in Israel, at which the two ears of everyone who hears it will tingle.

[00:03:11]On that day, I will fulfill against Eli all that I have spoken concerning his house from beginning to end. And I declare to him that I am about to punish his house forever for the iniquity that he knew, because his sons were blaspheing God, and he did not restrain them.

[00:03:30]Therefore, I swear to the house of Eli that the iniquity of Eli's house shall not be atoned for by sacrifice or offering forever.

[00:03:40]Samuel lay until morning. Then he opened the doors of the house of the Lord. And Samuel was afraid to tell the vision to Eli. But Eli called Samuel and said, "Samuel, my son." And he said, "Here I am." And Eli said, "What was it that he told you? Do not hide it from me. May God do so to you and more also if you hide anything from me of all that he's told you. So Samuel told him everything and hid nothing from him. And he said, "It is the Lord. Let him do what seems good to him."

[00:04:15]And Samuel grew, and the Lord was with him, and let none of his words fall to the ground. And all Israel from Dan to Beersa knew that Samuel was established as prophet of the Lord. And the Lord appeared again at Shiloh. For the Lord revealed himself to Samuel at Shiloh by the word of the Lord.

[00:04:36]This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. All right. So, the period of the judges is ending and God is raising up a new prophet in the young boy Samuel uh who his mother Hannah dedicated to the Lord as a Nazerite uh under a Nazerite vow.

[00:04:57]and he's been with the the priest Eli.

[00:05:00]But uh you remember Eli had these two worthless sons who were priests, but they were not god-fearers. And they took advantage of the people. And God had told Eli that um the um priesthood would be taken from him and that both he and his sons would die. And um this is now about to come come to pass. probably be tomorrow's reading would be my guess.

[00:05:28]Anyway, so the Lord is calling Samuel and raising him up now as Eli's life is coming to a close. And it said that um there the Lord had not spoken much in recent years, but that's about to change as the prophet Samuel uh comes into his office. Our New Testament reading is Acts 161-22.

[00:05:53]Paul came also to Derby and Lystra. A disciple was there named Timothy, the son of a Jewish woman who was a believer, but his father was a Greek. He was well spoken of by the brothers at Lystra and Iconium. Paul wanted Timothy to accompany him and he took him and circumcised him because of the Jews who were in those places for they all knew that his father was a Greek.

[00:06:19]So Paul um circumcises Timothy who is a Greek. He's not been circumcised and he does it because he knows it's going to be a stumbling block to the Jews even though he has vehemently maintained that the Gentiles don't need to be circumcised.

[00:06:34]As they went on their way through the cities, they delivered to them for observance the decisions that had been reached by the apostles and elders who were in Jerusalem. So the churches were strengthened in the faith, and they increased in numbers daily. And they went through the region of Friia and Galatia, having been forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak to the word in Asia. And when they had come up to Msia, they attempted to go to Bethne, but the spirit of Jesus did not allow them. So passing by Messia, they went down to Trrowass. A division appeared to Paul in the night. A man of Macedonia was standing there urging him and saying, "Come over to Macedonia and help us."

[00:07:15]And when Paul had seen the vision, immediately we sought to go to Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them. So setting sail from Trrowass, we made a direct voyage to Samothrace and the following day to Neapolis, and from there to Philippi, which is a leading city in the district of Macedonia and a Roman colony. We remained in the city some days, and on the Sabbath day we went outside the gate to the riverside, where we supposed there was a place of prayer.

[00:07:45]And we sat down and spoke to the women who had come together. One who heard us was a woman named Lydia from the city of Thotyra, a seller of purple goods, who was a worshshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what was said by Paul. And after she was baptized and her household was well, she urged us, saying, "If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come to my house and stay." And she prevailed upon us. As we were going to the place of prayer, we were met by a slave girl who had a spirit of divination and brought her owners much gain by fortune telling.

[00:08:20]She followed Paul and us, crying out, "These men are servants of the most high God who proclaimed to you the way of salvation."

[00:08:30]And as she kept doing this for many days, Paul having become greatly annoyed, turned and said to the spirit, "I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her." And it came out of her that very hour. But when her owners saw that their hope of gain was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace before the rulers. But when they had brought to the brought them to the magistrates, they said, "These men are Jews and they are disturbing our city. They advocate customs that are not lawful for us as Romans to accept or practice. The crowd joined in attacking them and the magistrates tore the garments off them and gave orders to beat them with rods.

[00:09:11]This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.

[00:09:14]So we see a lot of things going on here.

[00:09:16]Um clearly the Holy Spirit is uh guiding Paul and Silas and the others and opening up places where they are to go and preach the gospel and other places where they're not ready to preach the gospel yet. And sometimes when the pre gospel is preached, it's received well um as with the women. Uh but uh other times it is rejected as in the case of um this these parents um that or these men this these people that had the slave girl and were using her um for divination. She was possessed by a demon and when they cast out the demon they turned on them and wanted to have them beat.

[00:09:58]Today's writing comes to us from the solid declaration of the formula concord article 2.

[00:10:06]So solid declaration formula concord article 2 on free will or human powers lines 25 and 26.

[00:10:15]Third, in this way too, the holy scriptures do not credit the human powers or of the natural free will with conversion, faith in Christ, regeneration, renewal, and all that belongs to their effective beginning and end. They do not credit free will the whole way, halfway, or in any way, even in the smallest or most trivial way.

[00:10:36]They credit conversion solely and completely to the Holy Spirit's divine work, as the al the apology also teaches.

[00:10:44]Reason and free will are able to live an outwardly decent life to a certain extent. But only the Holy Spirit causes a person to be born a new and to have inwardly another heart, mind, and natural desire. He opens the mind and heart to understand the scriptures and to listen to the word as is written.

[00:11:04]Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures.

[00:11:10]One who has heard us was a woman named Lydia from the city of Thotyra, a seller of purple goods who was a worshshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what was said by Paul. Acts 16:14.

[00:11:25]For it is good. It is God who works in you both to will and to work for his good pleasure. Philippians 2:13.

[00:11:33]God exalted him at his right hand as leader and savior to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins. Acts 5:31 God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth. 2 Timothy 2:25.

[00:11:49]For it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ, you should not only believe in him, but also suffer for his sake. Philippians 1:29.

[00:11:58]For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not of your own doing. It is the gift of God. Ephesians 2:8. Jesus answered them, "This is the work of God that you believe in him whom he has sent." John 6:29.

[00:12:13]Okay, that's our writing for today. And we also have the additional reading from the apology of the Auxburg confession, article 4. So apology four on justification.

[00:12:30]uh lines 12 to 21.

[00:12:33][snorts] In this opinion, there are many great and deadly errors which would be too boring to list. Let the careful reader think only about this. If this is Christian righteousness, what difference is there between philosophy and Christ's teaching? If we merit forgiveness of sins by these acts, of what benefit is Christ? If we can be justified by reason and the works of reason, what need is there of Christ or regeneration?

[00:13:05]For these opinions, the matter has now reached the point that many ridicule us because we teach that a righteousness different from philosophic righteousness must be sought. We have heard that some preachers, after setting aside the gospel, have explained Aristotle's ethics instead of a sermon. Not that such men, if those things the adversaries defend are true, for Aristotle wrote about civil morals in such a learned way, that nothing further about the topic needs to be demanded. We see books published in which certain sayings of Christ are compared with the sayings of Socrates, Zeno, and others.

[00:13:43]It's as though Christ had come to deliver certain laws through which we might merit forgiveness of sins. as though we did not receive this freely because of his merits. Therefore, if we here accept the teaching of the adversaries that by the works of reason we merit forgiveness of sins and justification, there will be no difference between righteousness of philosophers or certainly of Pharisees and of Christians.

[00:14:10]Yet the adversaries do not pass by Christ completely. They require a knowledge of the history about Christ.

[00:14:16]They credit him by writing that from his merit a way of life is given to us or as they say first grace prima graatia.

[00:14:24]They understand this as a habit inclining us to love God more readily.

[00:14:29]Yet what they credit to this habit is of little importance for they imagine that the human will's acts are the same before and after this habit. They imagine that the will can love God. But nevertheless, this habit stimulates it to love more cheerfully.

[00:14:46]They tell us first merit this habit by your earlier merits. Then they tell us that we should merit an increase of this habit in life eternal by the works of the law. In this way, they bury Christ so that people may not benefit from him as a mediator and believe that they freely receive forgiveness of sins and reconciliation for his sake. They let people dream that by their own fulfillment of the law, they merit forgiveness of sins, that by their own fulfillment of the law, they are counted righteous before God.

[00:15:21]However, the law is never satisfied since reason does nothing except certain civil works. In the meantime, a person neither fears God nor truly believes that God cares. Although they speak about this habit, God's love cannot exist in a person without the righteousness of faith. Nor can his love be understood.

[00:15:42]They make up a distinction between due merit and true complete merit. meatum congrui and meitum condnney.

[00:15:52]This is only a tactic so that they do not appear to agree openly with the pelagians. If God must give grace for the due merit, it is no longer due merit but a true duty and complete merit. They do not know what they are saying. After this habit of love is in a person, they imagine that such a person can gain merit in a wholly deserving way. deondo.

[00:16:16]Yet they tell us to doubt whether there is a habit present. Therefore, how do they know whether they gain merit in a merely agreeable way or a wholly deserving way, de congruo or de kondigno?

[00:16:31]This whole matter was made up by idle men. They did not know how forgiveness of sins happens and how by God's judgment and the terrors of conscience trust in works is driven out of us.

[00:16:45]Secure hypocrites always judge that they gain merit in a holy deserving way whether the habit is present or is not present because people naturally trust in their own righteousness. But terrified consciences waver and hesitate. Then they seek and heap up other works in order to find peace. Such consciences never think that they gain merit in a wholly deserving way. And they rush into despair unless they hear in addition to the teaching of the law, the gospel about free forgiveness of sins and righteousness of faith.

[00:17:25]So the adversaries teach nothing but righteousness of reason or certainty or certainly about the law.

[00:17:33][snorts] They see the law just like the Jewish people see Moses veiled face in self-secure hypocrites who think that they fulfill the law. They stir up assumptions and empty confidence in works and cause them to have contempt for the grace of Christ. On the other hand, they also drive timid consciences to despair. The timid labor without or with doubt. They can never experience what faith is and how effective it is.

[00:18:01]So at last they completely despair.

[00:18:06]All right, that's our additional writing from the apology of the Auxburg confession.

[00:18:12]Today is the commemoration of the prophet Elijah. Elijah, his name means my God is Yahweh. The Lord was a prophet in the northern kingdom of Israel, primarily during the reign of Ahab, which is uh 874 to 853 BC under the influence of his pagan wife Jezebel. Ahab uh was encouraged uh a Ahab encouraged the worship of Baal all throughout the kingdom. And Jezebel sought to get rid of the worship of Yahweh altogether. Elijah was called by God to denounce this idolatry and to call the people of Israel back to the correct worship of Yahweh as the only true God.

[00:18:58]Elijah was a um an imposing figure. He lived in the wilderness dressed in a garment of camels hair with a leather belt. John the Baptist very similar. He was a prophet mighty in word and deed. Did many miracles including the raising of the dead and um affecting a long drought in Israel. At the end of his ministry, he was taken up into heaven while Elisha, his successor, looked on. Later, the prophet Malachi proclaimed that Elijah would return before the coming of the Messiah. That prophecy was fulfilled in the ministry of John the Baptist.

[00:19:41]The Lord be with you. Let us pray.

[00:19:44]Lord God, heavenly father, through the prophet Elijah, you continue the prophetic pattern of teaching your people the true faith, demonstrating through miracles your presence in creation to heal it of its brokenness.

[00:19:57]Grant that your church may see in your son, our Lord Jesus Christ, the final end times prophet, whose teaching and miracles continue in your church through the healing medicine of the gospel and the sacraments through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

[00:20:14]Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

[00:20:24]Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever. Amen.

[00:20:41]The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious unto you. The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.

[00:20:49]Amen. All right, folks. Have a blessed day and we'll see you tomorrow.