Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church

09/25/2025

02/14/2024

11/22/2023

Never Be Rebaptized

11/22/2023

One Baptism For The Remission Of Sin

09/06/2023

As always Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church pointing the way to heaven by the Cross of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Some say; “Avoid sermons on political beliefs": This seems to imply that all political beliefs are neutral. Abortion is not neutral. Euthanasia is not neutral. The death penalty is not neutral. The Bible makes clear moral statements on timely political issues, we should not fail to teach the whole counsel of God for the sake o winsomeness
- "People know you are a church or school leader - avoid taking "public" stance on issues that will drive some away" and "Is a very public expression of your beliefs really worth losing the people who might be driven away from your church or school as a result?": These are cut from the same cloth. The implication that to 'drive some away' is to deprive them of the Gospel or miss an opportunity to witness. But we as Lutherans know better - God has written our names in the Book of Life, and none shall be taken from His hand. The Holy Spirit calls, gathers, enlightens and sanctifies, not us mortal men. We scatter indiscriminately and God brings the increase.

06/05/2023

Love” at the Expense of Truth
Some ministers and ministries are so concerned about gaining/keeping clients/congregants, etc., that they studiously avoid any topic labeled political or controversial. That would include anything the Bible/God has clearly declared false or evil. The excuse is “love” at the expense of truth.
How can we be silent when innocent babies are mass-murdered (abortion), children are deceived and mutilated (LGBTQI+), people are punished/rewarded based on nothing but the tint of the outer layer of their skin (CRT, BLM), lies and slanders abound and lives are ruined without consequence (everyday in the news), when God’s Word, the Creator/Redeemer, and even the concept of truth are canceled.
Jesus did not avoid offending people for the sake of being non-political and popular. He didn’t drive money changers and their property out of the Temple (twice) to make friends. In fact, he was crucified for offending the politically positioned, privileged and powerful. Paul and Peter were frequently imprisoned. All the apostles were martyred except John, who spent his last years in exile and isolation. That didn’t happen by accident or by avoiding offense.
Paul reprimanded his Galatian church: “If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed. For am I now seeking the approval of men or of God?” (Galatians 1:9-10) He ordered his trainee Timothy to “Reprove, rebuke, and exhort.” (2 Timothy 4:2) In good conscience he could tell the Ephesians, “I am innocent of the blood of you all, for I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God.” i.e., the Law and the Gospel, without omitting the political or controversial. (Acts 20:27
All those you gain or keep by canceling, twisting or denying the truth, you do it at the expense of their and your own souls, and confirm them and yourself in delusion

04/25/2023

The Center For Apologetics and World Views ELS

What Does the Bible Say About Life in the Womb?
May 2023
There is no question that what is living in the womb is biologically human. At the moment of fertilization, the child’s genetic makeup is complete, with uniquely human DNA. The child’s gender already has been determined, along other characteristics such as hair color and eye color. To become a fully functioning child and eventually an adult, the only thing the tiny human embryo needs is time. As ultra-sound equipment continues to advance, we are able to see this development earlier and earlier and ever more clearly.
This being so, abortion advocates have shifted the debate to metaphysics. In order to be human, in the same sense as the woman whose womb it occupies, the life must know that it is alive. It must be self-aware. If it isn’t (and surely it isn’t, they say) then it doesn’t have the same rights as the woman.
Assuming, for sake of debate, that self-awareness really is the chief defining characteristic of human personhood, is it a fact that the pre-born are not self-aware? How would that be proven either way? Presumably, by means of rational thought and speech. So then, what does that say about infants and toddlers? At what stage of development outside the womb does one become “aware of his own existence”? What are the implications for persons in a vegetative state? What about the elderly in the latter stages of Alzheimer’s?
Is self-awareness essential to being truly alive and thus truly human? Certainly being aware of one’s existence and of God’s existence is an attribute of being created in God’s image. It’s part of what separates mankind from the animals. God did not sanctify the Seventh Day of Creation as the day of deliberate, conscious worship for the animals, but for man. Nor did He give the means of worship (the two trees in the midst of the Garden) to the
animals. What is essential to true personhood, though, is not self- awareness, but God’s awareness and His sanctifying of human life —body and soul—even from conception.
What does God say about life in the womb? In Genesis 25:21– 22, Rebekah’s unborn twins are referred to by the common Hebrew term for “children” outside the womb. Exodus 21:22–25 dictates that if a man strikes a pregnant woman and harm follows (to the baby) “then you shall give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth.” Both of these passages demonstrate that what is in the womb is truly human, and that God places equal value on life inside and outside the womb.
In Psalm 51:5 David says he was a sinner even in his conception. Passages like Judges 13:3–5, Psalm 139:13–16, Isaiah 44:24, Isaiah 49:1,5, and Jeremiah 1:4–5 teach that God personally and purposefully creates each and every life in the womb and that He is fully aware of and invested in each human life even before that child’s conception.
When the Virgin Mary visited her cousin Elizabeth, who was pregnant with John the Baptist, their interaction affirmed the personhood and value of the unborn (Luke 1:39–45). Mary was only three months pregnant, and yet Elizabeth calls her a “mother.” John leapt for joy at the sound of Mary’s voice. Was he self-aware? Scripture affirms that he was aware of being in the presence of the God-Man and he reacted accordingly. Even in the womb, then, John was a person capable of emotion.
Elizabeth referred to the pre-born Christ as “my Lord,” confirming that Jesus’ incarnation did not begin at birth, but at His conception in Mary’s womb (Matthew 1:20–23; Luke 1:30– 35). What the Bible teaches and the Church confesses about life in the womb in general, applies to the life of God the Son in Mary’s womb specifically.
Jesus is the true Man “who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary and was made man” (Nicene Creed). God became a man to ransom and redeem people at every stage of life, even from the moment of conception. His creation and His redemption are the ultimate reason for the sanctify of human life both inside and outside the womb.
Rev. Robert Lawson, Jr., serves as pastor of Bethany Lutheran Church, The Dalles, Oregon, and Concordia Lutheran