[AI translation] There are different kinds of prayers: prayers of thanksgiving, praising God, confession, supplication, supplication. A supplicatory prayer is usually a prayer when one intercedes with God for another soul! Praying for others is supplicatory prayer. That is what this Word is about. And I have chosen this Word for this Sunday, when we are presenting our confirmation brothers and sisters to the congregation, because I feel and know very strongly that the matter of confirmation and this Word are very closely related. Behold, here before the congregation are our young brothers and sisters who have been preparing since October to confess their faith in the God of the Trinity and to make a vow to follow Him. It is such a great matter for this congregation that there is almost nothing else to do here but to pray very earnestly for these souls, to ask the Lord that this confirmation may not be just a repetition of an old, dear custom, but that it may be a real confirmation, that is, a confirmation of faith for them! So, with the whole matter of confirmation in mind, let us now hear God's great call and promise in this Word: And if we know that he heareth us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions which we have asked of him. If any man see his brother sin, but not mortal sin, let him pray, and God will give life to him that sinneth not mortal sin. There is mortal sin; it is not for such I say that he should pray." (1 John 5:14-16)Let's start at the end, there, with God giving life to the one for whom we ask. God's Word, when it speaks of life, uses two different words in the original language of the Bible: bios and dzoé. The Hungarian Bible translates both of these words as "life". But there is a big difference between the two words. The word bios means life on earth, bodily life with all its joys, pains, joys, pleasures and futilities, successes and failures, beauties and ugliness. The life that we live in this body, on this earth, the life that has in it the transience that death can end at any moment! So this is the bios. But the dzoé is the life to which, according to the words of Jesus, that certain narrow path leads, which begins with the forgiveness of sins and never ends, never passes away. So life in God, reconciled life in God, the life to which Jesus says: "I am the life" (Jn 12,25 and Jn 14,6), that is, redeemed, saved life through Christ, that is, eternal life! The state of salvation! And when this Word says that "God gives life to him" (1 Jn 5,16b), it is of course talking about the dzoé, eternal life, salvation! In other words, God here tells us very definitely and unambiguously what we should ask for in our prayers for the other person: salvation, eternal life!
And that is why we have confirmation! It would be good if this whole congregation could see Confirmation preparation as an instrument in God's hands for the salvation of our children. So confirmation is not for the purpose of giving our children some religious education. Neither is it for them to acquire a certain religious knowledge in addition to their many other studies at school. Nor is it so that, if they have had to miss out on religious education for whatever reason, they can still receive some Christian thinking, some godly worldview. Oh, these are not important questions, the question of salvation, the question of eternal life, takes precedence over all questions of ideology and education! And that's what confirmation is for! So what is salvation? It is eternal life, of which this earthly life is only an opportunity to acquire, to find. It is the hope after death, without which life after death, and therefore life on earth, is meaningless and incomprehensible! In other words, without the dzoe, the bios is worthless. Salvation is the state for which Jesus had to descend from heaven to earth, here He had to take on human form, die as the last of the wicked, His holy blood had to be shed, or in short, salvation is the life that was cost to God in the life and death of Jesus Christ! So the most precious treasure, the supreme good, is a necessary thing. At least in God's estimation!
After much difficulty and often suffering, a person comes to see this as God does, that is, to see salvation as the most precious treasure, the highest good, and the only truly necessary thing! It is so much our children's supreme concern that, at their baptism, the Lord made us swear that we would do everything in our power to take care of this precious treasure and to do everything in our power to bring our children to a full reception of it. And the whole Confirmation would be so that our children might recognize this salvation offered to them, the salvation that Jesus Christ has obtained and prepared for us through His death and resurrection on the cross, and not only recognize it, but also be able to say "yes" to it from the heart, that is, to accept it! In order to have the faith to accept salvation, one must hear and know the Word of God, because faith is by hearing the Word. But it is not enough just to hear and know it, something else is needed, something that man cannot create, give, impart, work out, practice, learn or teach: it is the mysterious work of the Holy Spirit of God! That is why we must pray for it much and persistently! This is why the Scripture says: "If anyone sees his brother sinning, ... let him pray, and God will give him life" (1 John 5,16a).
God says in our fundamental hymn, "If anyone sees his brother sinning, ... let him pray." So the apostle is not saying that if a man sees his brother in trouble, or sick, or hungry, or without clothes, or homeless and without a place to lay his head, that he should beg, oh no, not beg, but help his brother. That is to say, if I see my brother in such a trouble, in which the Lord has entrusted me to help him, then I must not entrust his help back to the Lord, that is, then I must not beg for him, Lord give him bread, but I must pluck a piece of my own bread and give it to him, for I can do that too! On the other hand, if the trouble is so great that I cannot help it - for sin is so great that only the Lord God can help it - then let a man pray for his brother! Therefore, if a man sees his brother sinning, let him pray. Do not do what we would all do according to our own instincts, and we do do it when we see someone sinning: we go to him, we talk to him, we preach to him, we try to convince him, to make him see the gravity of his sin, the wrongness of his ways. Isn't that what we would do very wisely, very zealously, and what we do when we see someone sinning? Well, the Word tells us not to do that, or at least not to do that at first, but to pray for that person! Not to him, but to God. Not to speak to him, not to speak with his "head", but with the heart of God. How good it would be if parents, who are often helpless with the educational problems of their adolescent children, when they sadly see that all their good intentions have failed, all their fine words are in vain, all their moral preaching is like peas in a pod, would really consider talking to God first about their children and then to their children about God! The order is important here. First of all, beg, first of all, bring your case to the Lord, and only then should you do anything else about it!
But it applies not only to parents in relation to their children, but also to everyone here in the congregation, in relation to everyone! Let us consider carefully, as the Scripture says: "If any man see his brother sinning, ... let him pray." It is good to think about this very seriously, because it is not usually the case, but when one sees his brother sinning, he begins to talk about it, to gossip, to whisper, to gloat, to gloat and to shame his brother! "If any man see his brother sin" - well, this is not lacking, one is usually quite used to seeing the sin of others! And often this is what makes God's people so suspicious and stumbling to many, that men so judge one another, so measure the reality of one another's faith, the weight of one another's infirmities, and talk among themselves about it, instead of talking about it to the Lord God alone! "If any man see his brother sinning, ...let him pray." Pray to God for his brothers! Let him plead his brother before the Lord, who came not to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Let him bring his sinning brother before the Lord in prayer, who does not want anyone to perish, but that all may repent and live!
"If any man see his brother sin": this applies not only to those who are walking and living in some strange, interesting, great, glaring sin, but to all who are not yet alive! So if a man sees that his brother is only in the bios, but not in the dzoé, that is, if it seems that he has not yet found Christ and salvation in him: then it is most important and urgent to plead for eternal life for him. God alone can bring him from the bios to the dzoé, that is, from life on earth alone, which is passing away, to eternal life in heaven and on earth. That is why we must pray for them! Do we see what a great and simple way of help is here opened before us?
Brother! Here are the confirmands before us! The mere fact that they are free and allowed to prepare themselves without disturbance for the Confirmation profession and profession of vows, is also an undoubted sign that the Lord Jesus wants to love them into the dioe, wants to save them for salvation. Well, it is precisely so that this may happen, precisely so that the child has a father or mother, a godfather or godmother, and precisely so that the confirmands are surrounded by believing members of the congregation, so that they may beg God to give them this life! To such prayer, which is a supplication for the salvation of the soul, God has given a wonderfully rich and sure promise! "And this is the confidence that we have in him, that if we ask anything according to his will, he will hear us." (1 John 5:14) Many of our prayers are not heard because we do not ask according to the Lord's will! But what better way to know for sure that our request is in accordance with the Lord's will than to ask for life for someone! For He has said so clearly and so often in His Word that He does not want the death of a sinner, but that He wants life, eternal life, even for the sinner. Therefore, if you pray for the salvation of someone, it is always, without fail, heard. The Lord has written that "if we ask anything according to His will, He will hear us." "And if we know that He heareth us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions which we have asked of Him." (1 Jn 5,15) "We have our requests" - that is, they are not lost, not forgotten, even if I do not see the result of such supplication for a long time: it is not in vain! We have such petitions, and one day, when God sees the time is right, they will come forth and be granted! Many a time a man is converted, and perhaps no one knows how long ago that blessed hand, which once upon a time clasped every day in prayer and supplication for what has now at last come to pass, has been dust in the grave! If you pray for someone's salvation, you do not pray in vain. You may not get your petition granted here on earth, but you still have the petitions you have asked of Him according to His will. These children may have a long way to go, they may have a long way to go spiritually, but those for whom they pray persistently, faithfully, trusting in the Lord's promise, for whom they have asked for life, will one day, however roundabout the way, arrive in life!
People of the Lord, Church of Christ, know then those souls for whom the Lord is now placing upon you the precious burden of praying for eternal life. I present them to the congregation by name, that we may know for whom we pray, that God may give them life!
Amen
Date: 5 March 1950.
Lesson
Mt 18,1-14