Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ.
Text: (Matthew 4:1-11)
Then Jesus said to him, “Be gone, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve.’”
Prayer: Let the words of my mouth, and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Today the devil’s greatest trick is that he convinces people that he doesn’t exist. People also believe that there will be no judgment, no reckoning, no hell, no punishment. And of course when people don’t believe that the devil exists, it’s a small jump before people don’t believe in God.
But who is the devil? Who is he? What is he?
In the Nicene Creed, we say, “I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all things seen and unseen.”
God not only creates the earth, but he fills it: he puts things on the earth. He makes the fish in the sea, the birds in the air, the animals, the plants, and human beings. There’s all sorts of creatures that God makes and forms and puts on the earth.
But also, God creates the heavens and he fills them: he appoints the sun, moon, stars, planets, meteors, galaxies, nebulae – all sorts of things there.
But when we say that God created the heavens, we’re not simply talking about the sky and the universe and outer space. We’re also talking about the invisible realm where God dwells. In the Nicene Creed we say: “of all things seen and unseen.”
So we also believe that God fills the heavens with invisible creatures, angels, archangels, heavenly spirits, cherubim (which Ezekiel describes as winged creatures with the faces of a lion, ox, eagle and a man), and seraphim (which Isaiah describes as having six wings, two to cover their faces, two to cover the feet, and two to fly). And these heavenly creatures, these heavenly beings, are spiritual beings – they are not fleshly, they are not body and blood, flesh and bones like us. They are without bodies, like wind or fire, but in a way that they are unseen.
The first thing in Isaiah’s prophecies in Isaiah chapter 1 is the words: “Hear, O heavens!” Who is he talking to? The clouds? The sun? The moon? No – he’s talking to the angels, the heavenly beings.
Now, some of you might think I’m being a bit speculative – but I’m not making anything up from my own ideas: I’m simply describing to you the things that are revealed in the bible, in the Scripture itself. We can say that these things exist, and they do things, but we should be careful not to go beyond what the Scripture says about angels.
Now here’s a couple more things: no matter what arrogant atheists think, Christians do not believe that God the Father is stuck up in the clouds somewhere. God does not live on a planet on the other side of the universe, like the Mormons think. God is not confined to physical space. But he transcends it. He breaks into it. So often in the bible, we see God reveal himself from heaven, from clouds, as a voice from heaven, and such like. But that doesn’t mean that he’s stuck up there – but he’s everywhere. God is there, everywhere, at all times and in all places. So it’s fitting that he should send down his voice from the sky, from heaven at various times in history, because he’s there in such a way that we are not. He shows us that there is a difference between us and him. As Ecclesiastes 5 says: “God is in heaven and you are on the earth: Therefore let your words be few.”
Now what about the devil? Where does he come into the picture? Well, he is an angel, but one that has fallen into sin just like the human race. Angels can be either holy and pure, or evil and unclean. Like human beings, God created the angels in the beginning with a certain freedom of will, so that they could freely love God. But with that freedom, also comes the abuse by some of the angels, and with the entirety of the human race.
We don’t know exactly when this fall of the angels happened, and it’s not described in great detail in the Bible. But when Adam and Eve are confronted by the temptation to sin in the Garden of Eden before their fall into sin, the devil is ready and waiting for them.
But here’s another strange thing: the devil is not very often mentioned in the Old Testament. There’s the Garden of Eden in Genesis 3, and there’s the book of Job, where Job is tested by Satan. But apart from that there’s very little mentioned. Also, talk about demons very rarely occurs in the Old Testament either. There’s a couple of passages, one in Deuteronomy 32 and one in Psalm 106, where it talks about idol worshippers sacrificing their innocent daughters to the demons. But apart from that, there is very little written about the devil and demons in the Old Testament.
Nevertheless, in the New Testament, demons are everywhere. It’s almost as if as soon as Jesus comes on the scene, there’s demons yelling out to Jesus around every street corner. There’s a demon-possessed man who calls out to Jesus in the synagogue, Jesus casts out demons, and in our gospel reading today, he is tempted by Satan in the wilderness.
But one thing we have to understand about the devil is that he is a fake. He is a spiritual being like God and the angels, but he pretends that he is equal to God, and wants to convince people like us that we should do away with God and enthrone ourselves as gods instead. But when this happens, we always end up with the cheap alternative. The devil is not God – he is a pretend god.
In the same way, the devil always corrupts something that God created good into something perverted. So we have apostles, then Paul writes about the fake-apostles. We have the gospel, and we have people who preach a false gospel. We have pastors, and we have fake pastors. We have churches, and we have fake churches. We have God, and we have fake gods like money, prestige, honour, and health. Everything that the devil does is making fakes.
We have to make sure that we worship the one true God.
And so where we have Jesus, we have fake Jesus-es. We have Christ, and we have antichrists.
We have to understand that wherever Jesus is, the devil is always working very hard to destroy his work and corrupt it into something fake. We are gathered here in a church today where we believe Jesus is actually here, physically present in his resurrected body. Mt 28: “I am with you always to the end of the age.” Ephesians 2: “Christ is the cornerstone of the church.” The devil wants to make sure that we don’t believe it, and that we build a church where Jesus simply isn’t around and is stuck up in a tardis on planet Mars somewhere.
We believe that the Word of God, the holy Scriptures, are pure and clear. The say what they mean, and they mean what they say. There’s nothing that we need to remove from them, and there’s nothing that we need to add to them. The devil doesn’t want us to trust in them in their simplicity: He wants us to be intimidated by learned scholars who have never prayed a word to God in their lives and write books twice the size of the bible explaining what it means. He wants to turn our eyes away from the clear Scripture a pope to add his authority to it, or towards a Koran, or a Book of Mormon, or to the Watchtower Society. Or else he wants us to trust in what we think God is speaking to us in his own hearts in the privacy of our own bedrooms, as if we think we’re the Christian version of the Dalai Lama or something. The word of God is clear.
We believe that the water of holy baptism saves us through the word of God, and brings to us all the gifts of the Holy Spirit: forgiveness of sins, life, salvation, and the promise of the resurrection of the body. 1 Peter 3: “Baptism now saves you.” Titus 3: “God saved us, through the washing of the regeration and renewal through the Holy Spirit.” The devil wants to make sure that we believe that the water of baptism is nothing and to put our trust in our own feelings, and the “working of the Holy Spirit” in our hearts. This is nothing else but the devil ripping away the certainty of salvation from us, by taking our eyes away from God’s work outside of us, and turning our eyes inside of us.
We believe that the bread and wine of the Lord’s Supper is the body and blood of Christ. Mt 26, Mk 14, Luke 22, 1 Cor 11 says: This is my body. This is my blood. Four times in the New Testament. The devil wants to make sure that we believe that Jesus is not there and give us a fake, empty sacrament – some sort of remembrance meal – instead, so that Jesus own pledge, which he gave to us in the night he was betrayed, as his will, his testament, is no use to us, and then people blaspheme the sacrament, and trample all over it like it’s nothing.
Jesus on the other hand says, “The gates of hell will not prevail against the church.” There is still a church on earth, and as long as we have the church with us, we should be courageous and bold in inviting people to be part of it, so that they can meet Jesus here in the divine service for themselves, walk into the presence of the living God, believe in Jesus and be saved.
1 Peter 5 says: “Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.” St John says: “The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil.”
So what is the work of the devil? One sentence: He twists the word of God. In the Garden of Eden, he said: “Did God really say?” And all the work is done.
And so in the wilderness, the devil goes to Jesus and says: “If you are Son of God, turn stones into bread.” Create something for me. Show off for me. “Jump of the temple, because you know it says in Psalm 91 that the angels will come and save you.” “Bow down and worship me.”
And each time, Jesus simply restores the clarity and simplicity of the Scriptures: It is written. It is written. Begone, Satan! It is written.
It is written: Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.
It is written: You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.
It is written: You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve.
The most amazing thing about our reading today is not simply that Jesus didn’t eat for 40 days and 40 nights. But the amazing thing is that after centuries of centuries of the devil leading all sorts of people astray, Adam, Eve, Cain, King Saul, King David, King Solomon, you name it – there is not one person unscathed – after all this time, and after all the practice that the devil had in deceiving people, Jesus was not deceived. He won the victory. And it’s in the midst of this great suffering and temptation of Jesus that we read that the angels came and were ministering to him.
But apart from all that, Jesus shows us the weapons, and he gives us the weapons: the living and active Word of God, sharper than any two-edged sword.
And you are buried with Jesus through baptism into death. You are covered over with the blood of Jesus so that when the angel of death passes over you will not be touched. Christ’s death is yours, his resurrection is yours, the gift of eternal life is yours: and it is all yours for one simple reason – “It is written.” Amen.
Though devils all the world should fill, all eager to devour us, we tremble not, we fear no ill, they shall not overpower us. The world’s prince may still Scowl fierce as he will. He can harm us none, he’s judged, fore’er undone. One little word can fell him. Amen.
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