We've been hearing since Friday night, we've heard the presentation on the law and the gospel, a lot about grace, forgiveness, and many beautiful matters, how it justified and how we live as believers, and I think
My best guess is that when I look around that most of you who are here are childhood believers like I am. And we've been able to enjoy God's grace every day of our life. And I rejoice over this marvelous matter. And I really liked listening to some of the comments about grace and how grace teaches us.
And I, when you sit for so many hours like we have been listening, lots of thoughts come to my mind, to a person's mind and it's been funded at the coffee tables to share some of those thoughts and teachings that we've learned along the way. And one thought that I shared is that when I was in Finland,
Many of you know Mikkel Kinnaman. He invited me into his office. And so I went in there and he said, sit down. So I pulled up, came to the chair and I sat down there. Right above my head I noticed, it said, grace and truth.
Put that there. And he said, well, I put it there because I need it to teach me. He says, as principal, when the students come into my office and there's behavioral problems, he says, I need to remind myself about this old atom I carry, that first grace.
The wholesome grace teaches, and I want to counsel these young students with God's grace, and then we go to the truth of the matter. And I thought that was nice, and every one of us here, most of us, we sit here as a servant of the word,
But then even in our homes, our fathers, and we have experienced both sides. What has happened if we've gone with this old flesh and we start to demand from our children with a heavy hand? It's very difficult for them to open up. But how has it been when, I remember one time I went to my boy
Toby, when he had been banned, and I said, Toby, do you want dad to forgive you? And he right away said [unintelligible]. We still talked about the matter, but he wanted to enjoy God's grace, and I needed that so much in my life that it makes it so nice when God's children come and preach to us God's grace and mercy, forgiveness of sins,
We still talk about the matters. God's grace never gives any permission, liberty to the flesh. The Apostle Paul is very clear to the Galatians on that. And I have a couple quotes. I don't want to speak too long, but I do have a few things that I shorten my speech because there's so many speaking terms. But it's that Juhani Uljas, who we remembered yesterday, who passed away
He says, the grace of God, the complete, wholesome grace of God is a miraculous matter. It does not allow for any permissiveness of sin. Juhani Uljas. Yesterday, in the evening,
Jouko Haapsaari said that he explained to us that the first time that he heard this concept, continual forgiveness, and for me, the first time I heard this was many years ago, and it was from my dear friend, I don't even know if he's here right now, he was sick yesterday, Tom Stewart.
Tom Stewart came to Longview one weekend when we were talking about Juhani Uljas' book. Tom says, I want to show you something. And he showed me that place that so many of us have heard. Maybe it was even some of the presentations this weekend. And we've heard about it and I've just read it since we've been talking about it so much.
This is what Tom shared with me. He says, by grace, we have become partakers of God's love and Christ's righteousness. We have received this through faith, which God has affected. Faith is being in the righteousness of Christ and living in forgiveness every moment. Tom went on to share with me, he says,
He said, in my trips to Finland, he goes, I bumped into Juhani Uljas. And he said that, I asked Juhani about that. And he said, we had a wonderful conversation about that. And Tom shared his thoughts about this with the [Longview] congregation in our evening, which was well received.
And he even said Juhani Uljas signed his name to my book. And he talked to me, had a nice time. But then Tom, I've worked many years with Tom at camps over the years. And sometimes the young people,
Have questions in the question box and sometimes we fumble around trying to answer these questions and we kind of always know if we're giving a good answer or if we're real clear. And I remember Tom answering the question like this, that sort of like, because we all know sin attaches every day.
Apostle, we confess together that the good that I want to do, I so often find that I don't do. And it's been clear to me here at camp, when we've been sitting here, many brothers have wanted to enjoy God's grace, and we haven't been stingy. We have preached it. Dear brothers, sins are forgiven in Jesus' name and blood, and we rejoice, and we're happy. It's comfort for our soul.
And Tom Stewart said to the young people, because people would ask that, if I die, you know, I worry that I die. If I die tonight driving home from work or school or somewhere, I don't get a chance or an opportunity to ask for forgiveness for music or whatever. And Tom said, he would say that you're a young child of God. You're a believer. You live in faith. And you enjoy God's grace.
That every moment you will go to heaven. You can even now believe your sins forgiven and be a free child of God. We can't precisely at every moment along the way have somebody constantly preaching, but we live out grace and grace teaches. We're like that vine on a vine tree where it just,
The nourishment just flows to that branch. It does not immediately become a dry branch or anything like this. And so anyhow, this is something that really touched me this weekend about God's grace
And forgiveness. A couple of years ago, I had the good fortune to be at KIPA with Anita. And many of you who were there know Balala was there. And I just have just a short thing, a couple of verses. I would read what he says.
Sin attaches to us every day. In this connection it is good for us to remember that if we have fallen into a fault and error,
It does not necessarily mean that we would have become unwatchful or that when I fell into a fault and error that now I have lost faith and now I am like those foolish virgins immediately out of oil. Remember my brother and sister?
That in this God's kingdom, there's only sinful people. And that when I fall into a fault, an error, it does not take us out of the kingdom of God at that moment. That would be a terrible situation if we were given that kind of a law, this Valhalla law. So, I remember there are many things he said, but one thing
Stuck in my mind when we speak about the doctrine of justification that what Luther said. We absolutely cannot budge when it comes to doctrine. We have to, as believers, stand firm.
Stand fast in the doctrine of Christ. And I remember he quoted that place, and I have thought about that many times, that there's a lot of things that we can fudge on, but there's some things we can't fudge on. And that's this doctrine of justification, how we're saved.
And this beautiful grace gift of forgiveness that we all enjoy since our childhood days as small boys in the kingdom of God. And on the way here, I was reading and brought with me
Out of the Hintzele's book, and sometimes it's fun to read, what these old brothers had to say on these topics that we're talking about today, the robe of righteousness, forgiveness, and all the things that we've been talking about, and the Holy Spirit, and the Word of God is the highest authority, and all these topics. But Hintzele said something, he said, right.
Cannot be made wrong no matter how poorly it is explained.
When we sit here as ministers, if there's one complaint we probably all have with our own self is that when we go to explain God's word, sometimes we pray that we won't corrupt it, that God's spirit could guide us and we could explain it even in our weak words where God's children could feel bad and it would be correct, it would be our own speech, but we would lean on the holy word of God and we would speak grace and truth
We would speak about sin and grace and we would feed the believers and remind them of this beautiful grace privilege of confession that they can go and have their sins forgiven when sin attaches.
So he says right cannot be made wrong no matter how poorly it is stated or explained. But then he says wrong cannot be made right no matter how eloquently or well one could explain it.
It's very important that wrong cannot become right no matter how eloquently it is stated. So when we speak about this doctrine of justification, how we believe, and these are very important matters, and we understand doctrine is either right or it's wrong. And we as believers, that's what separates the kingdom of God from these false doctrines and false teachings in the world
The spirit of God, God's spirit, God's spirit... Try the button, the mute button. Is it stiff? It says mute. It should not say mute. Okay, so now where was I? That's my train of thought. So...
Anyhow, I thought that was really nice for me to hear.
In the world of churches today, we hear about, like Ruth was saying last night, God's word is everywhere. I mean, the world of churches and everywhere you turn, people quote the Bible. Billy Graham passed away and he talked about the Bible. What's the difference? The Holy Spirit has to be connected to the Scriptures.
And God's servants go there with the Holy Spirit, with God's Spirit, a spirit of meekness and poorness, and explain God's Word. And it has to be connected to the Word. We can't separate the Holy Spirit from God's Word. Otherwise, it would be like anybody else explaining the Bible. And so this is why it's super important for us as children of God that we would pray that this Holy Spirit
We dwell on our hearts and the Spirit would open the Word and help us. We believe in the Holy Spirit. I believe in the Holy Christian Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, and the Holy Spirit, life and resurrection and everlasting life. So, we as God's children, we want to remain being obedient to the Spirit of God that guides the Kingdom of God through the decades
Through the years, our parents and grandparents and elders, and one thing is for sure, we're experiencing storms and we've been talking about the American Zion for now for a number of years. There's a tremendous amount of turmoil and believers are speaking about all these topics that we've been talking about here on the screen this weekend and many other topics and
And it seems like, it just seems like there's lots of concern. And when I look back, like at Elmer Alajoki's book, my uncle Elmer Alajoki's book, and I read with these older brothers, I shared that with our ministers and wives, even along with me, that I had to read in Duscula's book just last winter, it's clear that God's congregation
It's a battling congregation. And the ministers, I know my uncle Elmer, and he'll sit next to me, his dad Ruben, and . So all these older brothers, they fought against
They fought. There were battles and storms that they went through and unfortunately all of them were able to reach the destination by faith and join God's grace. Were they perfect? Not by a long shot. Was Juhani Uljas or or any of these other guys, Hintzala, perfect? No, not by a long shot. And none of us are going to be perfect by a long shot. There's going to be lots of stumblings and lots of forgiveness and enjoying God's grace along the way.
And here we sit today here at camp and the last few months and years with lots of questions about lots of things and we wonder what do we do?
We get tired in faith. All of us have been tired. Workers, we want to just kind of bury our head in their sand and just go to work and not hear a thing about the problems. But we can't do that. We have to preach the word in season and out of season. We have to be faithful workers.
And what all of us many times get to hear from each other, the older brothers. I remember when Bente Salio told me when I was put to speak, he said, be a faithful worker. Listen to God and be a faithful worker. If you're told to go, go. If you're told to sit down, sit down. Be a faithful worker.
And that's what we want to be. We want to be faithful to the gospel, our doctrine, the word of God. We want to stay in the word of God. And so here we sit and there's lots of turmoil. Names were brought out. I have had kind of this opinion that
In the general sense, when we go to a speaker's meeting, I've been to many meetings over the years, many in Finland and here, and the general rule is that when we have a speaker's meeting, we don't get in to start calling people out by name, but we have a biblical presentation, biblical discussion, brother by brother goes up and explains in a general sense
General sense, the word of God, how they see it, how God has revealed to them. As Dostoevsky, or Hensela says, what's important is that it doesn't matter how little we understand, it's what we explain, even the little that we understand. What little we guess that he says, whatever we comprehend, whether it's much or little, we can explain that little or much. Whatever the gift God has given us, we can explain it. But it's been sure sad to see
But Steve was speaking there a moment, and he talked, whatever he said there, the thought came to my mind, and it's been my prayer that I would follow any man. I would want to follow any speaker. And many of you know that John Lehtola has been my longtime friend, and Keith, you have too. I worked with you at this camp, Stony Lake Camp, for two weeks.
At one of the very beginning camps, we spent two weeks together, along with John, Lehtola, Ebke Piri, Ebke Piri, when we were here. We had a wonderful time. Those were wonderful days. I have precious memories from those times. So we have been going back many, many years. There's no question about it. And I don't, I wouldn't want to follow you, Keith. I don't want to follow John. I wouldn't want to follow any man. I want to follow what God has to say. I want to hear the voice of the Good Shepherd. I want to be a child of God. That's my, that's my prayer.
But at the same time,
It's been so sad to see it's troubled my heart greatly when, and I wasn't gonna bring this up, but since it kinda went the way it went last night, I think it's important that I bring it up the way I see it. And I'm not gonna go say much, but I will say a little bit. And then we can leave it in God's hands and trust that our good God, gracious God,
Who knows better than any of us here, way above our thoughts and ways, I don't understand everything, why things have gone the way they've gone, but here's what I want to say to dear brother John Lehtola and you, Keith Waaraniemi.
I think, as I said here, this is my best guess, very few have understood or are aware of the long 20 plus year of spiritual differences that have existed between you two brothers. I know some of the close friends on the work committee and on the board, they would certainly know about it.
But, John, I'm aware of many of the problems, many of the issues, multiple issues that have come up. And John's been, has shared with me how on many, he's been accused of wrong doctrine and wrong spirit on many issues over the years.
And I haven't known what to do with it. To be honest with you, I feel even dirty that I haven't known how to speak about this stuff. But I trust now that I was happy to hear that many of this congregation can now hear you two brothers, where you serve. You can speak freely about those spiritual differences and whatever doctrinal differences or whatever disagreements have come up,
Go before the congregation, let them hear them, and talk freely. And I believe that God will begin to take care of this matter. It's spread so far in so many different ways, but that's all I want to say about that right now. But we can leave this in the good God's care. We have a gracious God, and no one's too big to fail. None of us are.
None of us are too big to fail. All of us can fall and sin, as Valda says, every day. But God's grace is a marvelous matter. It's a very marvelous matter that we can enjoy. Today, as we see you, we can say, today is a new day of grace. And my heart has been warmed when, even at this camp, we haven't been stingy with the gospel.
Every brother who's needed comfort for his soul, fears, doubts, worries, wrong watchings, you name it, they've been freely preached to, and this has warmed my heart. And my soul is very need to be comforted with this precious gospel that I've enjoyed since a small boy. Can you all bless me? Tom, I share that you've been a dear brother to me.
Just a couple of notes. I don't want to use much time here. And certainly I'm open to speaking about anything and everything that Tom has brought up there. I have no problem with the fact that this. But in the interest of time, we only have about an hour of time. I'd ask that we avoid long speeches.
I hope you don't take this offensively, but I'm just thinking about all the names that we have on the list. Let's try to avoid... We all agree with those quotes. And speak what you feel, like you did in the end of your speech, Tom. I'd encourage that we do that so that we can get as many brothers to speak as possible. And I hope I'm not unreasonable in my request here. No, I agree with that. My thought has always been we keep our speeches short, and I as well.
And then, secondly, I just want to say this, that the speech, the concerns that have arisen about continual forgiveness, those of us that have been concerned about that, we're not concerned about what Juhani Uljas wrote on page 79 of his treasure hidden. I've memorized that page because
Um, now that Megan told me it was the wrong page, but anyway, um, I've memorized that page because it's been sent to me or quoted so many times. But I agree fully, and I don't think anyone disagrees with what our brother Juhani has brought out there, that the concerns about continual forgiveness are not concerns about what Juhani Uljas wrote.