Daily Devotion for 23 September 2026 (17th Wednesday after Pentecost)

0:00Welcome to the Daily Devotions Podcast from Confident Faith. I am Corey J. Moller, a contributor here at Confident Faith, and I will be your reader today. This 18th Wednesday after Pentecost, 23rd of September. In the year of our Lord, 2026, in the time of the Church, there are no feasts, festivals or commemorations on the calendar today. Our readings for today are Psalm 51, Psalm 12, Nehemiah 9, 1-21. This Timothy, starting with chapter 5, verse 17, and reading through chapter 6, verse

1:022, and paragraph 16 through 21 of Article 12b of the apology of the Augsburg confession. We will close, as always, with the Lord's Prayer. Today's first reading from the Psalter is the 51st Psalm. Have mercy on me, O God, according to your great mercy, and according to the multitude of your compassion, wipe out my lawless deed. Wash me yet more from my lawlessness, and from my sin cleans me. For my lawlessness I myself know, and my sin is before me always. Against you alone I have sinned, and the evil before your face I have done, so that you may be justified in your words, and may prevail when you are judged. For behold, in lawlessness I was conceived, and in sins my mother conceit me with craving. For behold, you have loved truth.

2:02The unmanifest things and the hidden things of your wisdom, you have made plain to me. You will sprinkle me with his up, and I shall be cleansed. You will wash me, and I shall be made white beyond snow. You will make me hear exaltation and gladness. Bones that have been humbled will exalt. Turn away your face from my sins, and wipe out all my lawlessness. Build a clean heart in me, O God, and renew a straight spirit in my inward parts. Do not cast me off from your face, and do not take your holy spirit from me. Give back to me the exaltation of your salvation, and with a governing spirit establish me. I will teach lawless ones your ways, and the impious will turn back upon you. Give me from blood, O God, O God of my salvation. My tongue will exalt your righteousness. O Lord, my lips, you will open, and my mouth will announce your praise. For if you had wished to sacrifice, I would have given it.

3:03Whole burnt offerings you will not take pleasure in. A sacrifice to God is a crushed spirit. A heart crushed and humbled God will not set it not. You good O Lord, in your good pleasure to Zion, and let the walls of Jerusalem be built. Then you will take pleasure in a sacrifice of righteousness, and offering and whole burnt offerings. Then they will bring up calves upon your altar. Glory be to the Father, and the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forevermore. Amen. Today's second reading from the Psalter is the 12th Psalm. Save me, O Lord, for the pious man has failed. For the truths have been made few from among the sons of men. Vain things as each man spoken to his neighbor. Deceitful lips in heart, and in heart they have spoken.

4:07May the Lord utterly destroy all the deceitful lips, and the big speaking tongue. Those who have said, we will make our tongue great, our lips are from ourselves, who is Lord over us. From the hardship of the destitute, and from the groaning of the working poor, I will now stand up, says the Lord. I will set them in salvation. I will speak freely in the matter. The sayings of the Lord are pure sayings, silver that has been put through the fire, a proven piece for the earth, purified seven times over. You O Lord will guard us, and you will keep us throughout. From this generation and into the age round about the impious walk, according to your height, you have paid great regard to the sons of men. Glory be to the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forevermore.

5:08Amen. Today's Old Testament reading comes from the book of Nehemiah, and we will be reading the 9th chapter, verses 1 through 21. And on the 24th of this month, the sons of Israel gathered with fasting and in sackcloth, and with ashes on their head, and the sons of Israel were separated from every foreign son, and they stood and declared their sins and the acts of lawlessness of their fathers, and they kept their stance and read in the book of the law of the Lord their God, and they were declaring to the Lord and doing obeisance to the Lord their God. And Jesus and the sons of Catmiel, Seconia, the son of Sarabia, sons of Kanani, stood at the ascent to the Levites and cried out with a loud voice to the Lord their God. And the Levites Jesus and Catmiel said, stand up, bless the Lord our God, from everlasting and to everlasting, and they will bless your glorious name and exalted with every blessing

6:09and praise. And Ezra said, you yourself are the Lord alone, you made heaven and the heaven of heaven, and all their position, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them, and you gave everything life, and the armies of the heavens do obeisance to you. You are the Lord God, you made a choice in Abram and brought him out to the country of the Caldeans, and made for him a name, Abraham, and you found his heart faithful before you, and made a covenant with him to give him and his seed the land of the Canaanites and Ketites, and Amorites and Parasites and Jebiusites and Gyrgishites, and you have established your word, because you are righteous, and you saw the humiliation of our ancestors in Egypt, and heard their cry at the Red Sea, and you gave signs in Egypt against Pharaoh and against all his servants and against all the people of the land, because you knew that they acted insolently against them, and you made a name for yourself as this day, and you broke

7:11a sunder the sea before them, and they passed through in the midst of the sea on dry land, and those who pursued them closely you threw into the depths, like a stone in violent water, and by day you led them with a pillar of cloud, and during the night with a pillar of fire, to give them light on the way in which they should go in it, and you came down upon Mount Sinai, and spoke to them from heaven, and gave them straight forward judgments and laws of truth, and ordinances and good commandments, and you made known your holy Sabbath to them, you commanded them commandments and ordinances and law by the hand of your slave Moses, and you gave them bread from heaven in their famine, and you brought water for them out of the rock for their thirst, and you told them to go in to possess the land to which you stretched out your hand to give them, and they and our fathers behaved arrogantly and stiffened their neck and did not listen to your commandments, and they refused to obey and were not mindful of your wonders that you performed with them, and they stiffened their neck, and they gave

8:16a beginning to return to their slavery in Egypt, and you were the God who forgives sins, gracious and merciful, slow to anger and very gracious, and you did not forsake them. Furthermore, they made a cast-metal bull calf for themselves and said, These are the gods who brought us up out of Egypt, and committed great provocations, and you and your great mercies did not forsake them in the wilderness, you did not turn away from them the pillar of cloud for leading them on the way by day, and the pillar of fire to lighten for them the way in which they should go in it during the night, and you gave your good spirit to instruct them and did not withhold your mana from their mouth, and gave them water for their thirst, and for he years you sustained them in the wilderness, there was no lack of anything for them, their clothes did not grow old, and their sandals did not tear. This is the Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.

9:18Today's New Testament reading comes from the book of 1 Timothy, and we will be reading from verse 17 of the 5th chapter through verse 2 of the 6th chapter. Let the elders who rule well be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in preaching and teaching. For the Scripture says, You shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain, and the laborer deserves his wages. Do not admit a charge against an elder, except on the evidence or two or three witnesses. As for those who persist in sin, rebuke them in the presence of all, so that the rest may stand in fear. In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus and of the elect angels, I charge you to keep these things without prejudging, doing nothing from partiality. Do not be hasty in the laying on of hands, nor take part in the sins of others, keep yourself pure. No longer drink only water, but use a little wine for the sake of your stomach and your frequent ailments. The sins of some people are conspicuous, going before them to judgment, but the sins of

10:22others appear later. So also good works are conspicuous, and even those that are not cannot remain hidden. Let all who are under a yoke as slaves regard their own masters as worthy of all honor, so that the name of God and the teaching may not be reviled. Those who have believing masters must not be disrespectful on the ground that they are brothers. Rather, they must serve all the better, since those who benefit by their good service are believers and beloved. This is the Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Today's reading from the book of Concorde comes from the apology of the Augsburg Confession and we will be reading Article 12b, paragraph 16 through 24. The Church Fathers on Satisfaction The word Satisfaction has been left from this right of public repentance. The Holy Fathers were unwilling to welcome back the fallen, or the notorious sinners

11:26unless, as far as it was possible. Their repentance had first been examined and shown publicly. There seemed to have been many causes for this, to discipline those who had fallen served as an example, as the gloss upon the decrees reminds us. Also, it was improper to admit notorious people immediately to communion. These customs have long since grown obsolete. It is not necessary to restore them, because they are not necessary for the forgiveness of sins before God. The Fathers did not maintain that people merit the forgiveness of sins through such customs or works. These spectacles, outward ceremonies, usually lead astray the ignorant, who thought that they merited the forgiveness of sins before God by these works. If anyone believes this, he has the faith of a Jewish person and a pagan. For even the pagans had certain remedies for offences through which they imagined they were reconciled to God. Now even though the custom has been cast aside, the word Satisfaction still remains.

12:29A small part of the custom also remains a prescribing and confession, certain satisfactions, which they define as works that are not required. We call them canonical satisfactions. Like the complete listing of sins, we hold the canonical satisfactions are not necessary by divine law for the forgiveness of sins. Neither were those ancient displays of satisfactions in public repentance, necessary by divine law for the forgiveness of sins. The teaching about faith must be kept that we receive the forgiveness of sins for Christ's sake through faith, not for the sake of our works that precede or follow. This is why we have discussed especially the question of satisfactions. The righteousness of faith should not be clouded over and submitting to them. Nor should people think that they receive the forgiveness of sins for the sake of these works. Many current sangs in the schools aid the error. Some of these are those that give the definition of satisfaction, namely that it is done to

13:30reconcile divine displeasure. Nevertheless, the adversaries admit that satisfactions do not help in the parton of guilt. They imagine that satisfactions help in delivering one from punishment, whether of purgatory or other punishments. They teach that God partons guilt in the forgiveness of sins. Yet because divine justice requires sin to be punished, he transfers eternal punishment into temporal punishment. Further, they add that a part of this temporal punishment is pardoned by the power of the keys, but that the rest is delivered by means of satisfactions. It cannot be understood what punishments the power of the keys partially forgive, unless the adversaries say that a part of the punishments of purgatory is forgiven. That would mean that satisfactions are only punishments delivering from purgatory. They say satisfactions benefit, even though they are presented by those who have fallen again into mortal sin, as though indeed the divine displeasure could be appeased by those

14:30who are in mortal sin. This entire matter is fake and recently made up without scriptural authority and the old writers of the church. Not even Lombard speaks of satisfactions in this way. The scholastic saw that there were satisfactions in the church. They did not notice that these displays had been set up, both for the purpose of example, and for testing those who desired to be welcomed back by the church. In a word, they did not see that it was a discipline and entirely a secular matter. So they superstitiously imagined that these displays benefit not for discipline before the church, but for reconciling God. In other places they frequently, with great incompetence, have confused spiritual and civil matters. The same happens also regarding satisfactions, but at various places the explanation of the cannons confirms that these observances were set up for the sake of church discipline. This concludes our reading from the book of Concorde.

15:34I now invite all of you to join me in reciting the Lord's Prayer, one of the most ancient prayers of the church. I do encourage you to say it aloud if you are somewhere reasonable to do so, but praying it silently is, of course, also fine. The Lord knows what is in your heart. Lord, remember us in your kingdom and teach us to pray. Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. 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. Go in peace and grace to serve our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ in whatever calling has been given you or tasks that before you until tomorrow.

16:39God be with you.