You may have heard it said that the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Its true of politics and of war. A common enemy has the power to unite those who should be at odds. But demons are not polite. They are smart enough to know that you don’t cast out other demons. Apparently the scribes of Jerusalem did not get this. They accuse Jesus of being a demon and give as evidence that He casts out demons. No demon wastes his time on those who are already friendly with a demon. Jesus knows this even if the scribes do not.
Jesus taught His disciples the ways of the world. Satan cannot survive if his house is divided. The devil does not compete against himself but has a common enemy – the Lord and those who trust in Him. They will work with any enemies against God and His people. The demons do not seek power but to steal from under God’s nose those who belong to Him. Before they sneak into His house and steal His people, they must first bind up the strong man. In order to enter the Lord’s House and steal those who belong to Him, they must bind up the strong man – they must silence Jesus and His Word.
For it is the Word of God that is His power. The Word is the sword of the Lord, a two edged sword that buts both ways. In order for the devil to gain a foothold in the house of the Lord, the devil must silence the voice of God. You might think that this is a hard thing to do. Well, it is and it isn’t. The Lord does not surrender His Word without a fight but the people of God surrender it all the time. We are quick to place our reason above Scripture and to ignore the parts of Scripture we do not like or want to hear. And that has turned much of Christianity into an empty shell. The churches and the people in them have surrendered the Word of God to doubt and fear and now they are vulnerable to the ways of the devil, who loves to plunder the House of the Lord.
Where has this happened? Look around you. It was not that long ago the Church and most Christians accepted the verdict of the government that worship was not essential. We lost many from God’s House over those many months and many of them have not returned. Jesus will never surrender you to the devil but we surrender Jesus to our fears, to that which makes believing hard or living as a Christian difficult.
Look around you. The churches and the Christians in them have decided that God does not know anything about biology or gender or sex and they have surrendered themselves to their desires. From cohabitation to every kind of perversion to every whim of desire, churches have been rendered mute to challenge the prevailing confusion that passes for sexual morality today. The churches and the Christians in them put up and shut up because they are afraid to that which might offend or cause retaliation.
Look around you. From social media to the preaching on Sunday morning, many churches and the Christians in them have decided not to speak of sin and not to speak of God’s judgment upon sin. So the cross is no longer the place where sin is paid but merely a symbol of sacrificing for others. As H. Richard Niebuhr put it, modern Christianity confessess in “A God without wrath who brought men without sin into a Kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a Cross.” But if you do not talk about sin, you render the cross irrelevant and love becomes so weak and fragile it can do nothing but tolerate, accept, and approve of everything.
Look around you. There is not a church without empty pews even though most have members enough to fill those pews many times over. Churches no longer compel the people to worship and people no longer believe that worship has a primary claim on their time, on their interest, on their abilities, or on their money. Children are raised to believe that they don’t have to do anything they don’t want to and that includes learning how to pray, learning about Jesus, coming to Church, finishing catechism, or communing. They learn it from parents whose witness was inconsistent and they learn it from pastors and churches who did not hold their parents accountable.
The devil enters the house of the Lord all the time and picks off those who once belonged to the Household of Faith. There are more people in Clarksville who used to be Lutheran than those who are Lutheran now. Its true for every church body. The me’n Jesus mentality prevails; church is optional. But they have forgotten, Jesus is not out there somewhere but where He has placed His promise – in the water of baptism, in the voice of His Word, and in the bread and wine that is His body and blood.
The Lord does not cast out demons in the name of demons. He does not forgive our sins so we may sin more. No faith can endure long by choosing to be absent from the Lord’s House, to forsake the assembly of God’s people together in God’s House, and to reject the need to be near the Lord through His Word and Sacraments. Jesus has over come the strong man. But if we surrender Jesus to the altar of doubt, reason, lack of desire or because we find church inconvenient, we lose the blessings that Jesus has won for us. The Lord guards us but He guards us through His means of grace. Where we no longer desire to hear the voice of God’s Word or eat at His table, the fruits of that saving work of Jesus are lost to us.
People loved by God, thanks be to God you are here – where you need to be. God comes to you here, through the voice of His Word and through the blessings of His Sacraments. I commend you for being here. You exercise your choice every Sunday to be here or not. God bless you today for hearing God and heeding His call to be here. And blessed are you for your work of guarding the Word of God, of making sure that this Word speaks, of providing for this building and a pastor, of ensuring the Word goes forth to others in the missions supported – these are the things you should be doing! God bless you for it. God will not forget you or forsake you. He is always here to welcome you here, forgive your sins, remind you of your baptism into Christ, and feed you upon the flesh and blood of Christ. Do not fear. Remember the promise. If you have hold of the Word of God, God has hold of you. But do not grow weary.
The Hollywood movies portray wars are exiting and suggest that big battles and great heroics happen all the time. If you have been in war you know this is not true. Most of war is waiting. Waiting and not growing numb to the danger around you. Waiting and not growing weary of that waiting. So it is with you life as a child of God. Christ has accomplished the big things. But the little things are where you are lost. Waiting on the Lord, being together in His House, praying, teaching your children, being nice to your neighbor, being a good and responsible citizen. This is stuff that counts and this is where the devil will work to undo your faith. When you are faithful in the mundane and routines of daily life, God is with you and will never let go of you. Where you guard the Word of God together in God’s House and where you guard the Word of God in your home with your family, God guards you. But surrender His Word or give up in the waiting that defines most of life, and God will allow you your choice.
God does not harden the hearts of unbelievers because He does not love them or because He does not want them to be saved. When God has fought against your will over and over again and lost, God will allow you to live with your choice to abandon Him and His Word and His house. So, dear people loved by God, endure, maintain, keep the faith, come to where the Word and Sacraments are freely given, and the devil will be defeated. Such a strong man of faith the devil cannot bind and he will move on to look for easier prey. And you, my friend, will endure to everlasting life. Amen.
3 comments:
Where does Scripture say that we receive the forgiveness of sins when we receive the Sacrament? The answer is "Nowhere." But we must believe it, because of Luther's convoluted argument, as expressed in the Large Catechism, which is, in principle, the same as that which kept the laity from receiving both the body and the blood. Also, I am sure this was one of the beliefs of the Roman Catholic Church, with which he was just unable to part.
It is not surprising when those outside the Church deny the Word of God. At the same time, we should be aware of the fact that sometimes it is the Church that swallows the camel.
Peace and Joy!
George A. Marquart
Possibly the future will evidence one of the greatest blessings of technology for the Church; the ability to place sermons like this into the ears of strayed sheep. Prayers are powerful, but the spoken Word does what it speaks.
Really, George? Jesus made the Eucharist-forgiveness connection at the Last Supper when he took a cup of wine and said, “This is my blood … shed for you for the forgiveness of sins” (Mt 26:28). The first generation of Christians acknowledged this gift of forgiveness in the Sacrament as something profound and part of the foundation of Christian faith and worship. “by his blood … [we have] the forgiveness of sins previously committed” (Rom 3:25); “the blood of … Jesus cleanses us of all sins” (1 Jn 1:7); and, “Jesus Christ … has freed us from our sins by his blood” (Rv 1:5). "The blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all our sin..." 1 John 1:7. Wherever the blood of Christ is, there is the forgiveness that blood accomplishes and there it is accessible to us.
The teaching that sins are forgiven in the reception of the Eucharist is ancient and hardly unique to Luther. Saint Ambrose, De Sacramentis, IV, 6, 28: PL 16, 464: "I must receive it always, so that it may always forgive my sins. If I sin continually, I must always have a remedy"; ID., op. cit., IV, 5, 24: PL 16, 463: "Those who ate manna died; those who eat this body will obtain the forgiveness of their sins"St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) referred to it, “No other sacrament has greater healing power; through it sins are purged away.”
Even the Orthodox say this: “The first and most important [is] the unity of the believer with Christ and the subsequent increase of the new life of grace which arises and is maintained through it” says theologian Panafiotes Trembelas. [He] points out that frequent participation in the sacrament of Holy Communion aids in weakening our tendencies to sin and in increasing our growth in the true and abundant life. The sacrament is also a source of forgiveness of sins which are not great enough to bar us from communion as unworthy participants. …The sacrament is called communion not only because we commune with Christ, but also because “through it we commune with and are united with one another. For because we all receive one bread, one Body of Christ and one Blood, we become members of one another–all together one body with Christ.
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