✠ Psalmody: Psalm 91:15a, c–16a; 1; Psalm 91:11-12; Psalm 91:1–7, 11–16; Psalm 91:4; Psalm 91:4
✠ Lection: Genesis 3:1–21;2 Corinthians 6:1–10;Matthew 4:1–11
In the Name of the Father and of the ✠ Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
The serpent is more cunning than any beast of the field which the Lord God has made. The evil and wily foe is your enemy, a no-longer-holy angel who has set himself against the Lord and His elect and has all manners of hostility and malice in his heart toward you. Your demise, your pain, your suffering your unbelief and faithlessness is the goal of all attacks brought against you, for the root of it all is hate and to cause you to hate God and one another. None of the pleasures the serpent lays before you are good, but only snares. He is not among the enemies for whom you are to pray, for only to fellow man we are not to return evil for evil, spite for spite, curse for curse. Love your human enemies and pray for those who persecute you, but as for this father of lies, hate him with perfect hatred for he shall forever be God’s enemy and yours. Though we with our first parents have listened to his word over God’s and brought enmity between our Maker and ourselves with every sin, we praise the Holy Name of Jesus, because we do not receive from the Lord evil for our evil. Instead, He has taken our wretchedness head-on as is seen in His victory over the evil one who tempted Him in the wilderness.
The great dragon, the serpent of old, is a legitimate enemy with whom you will never be reconciled, for his eternal destination is the exact opposite of yours, a fact that he seeks to change by leading you astray into the eternal lake of fire with him. He deceived our first parents in the Garden after setting his own heart against God. He goes by different names, each of which points out his lying, dark, and murderous character. Behold three of the distasteful names in the account of our Lord’s temptation. The first is devil, διάβολος (diabolos), meaning slanderer, as in one who speaks maliciously about you to God laying claim that you are not worthy of the Holy One’s eternal Presence and bliss as if Good Friday never happened. He also slanders God to you, hoping that in your mind and heart you will question the Lord’s goodness, grow apathetic toward the His care and salvation, and doubt that a merciful God would allow age, pain, anguish, illness, distress, heartbreak, and all sorts of suffering to come upon you the way they do. His tactic from his first words to the woman has been to get us to doubt God and His Word. The devil was a murderer from the beginning, so destroying your life, your very faith in your Savior through slander, only bring to him unholy glee and satisfaction.
He is also the tempter, πειράζων (peiradzon) fully aware of the effect of sin upon you, not only in your relationship with God, but in temporal consequences as well. Thus, he gladly entices you into all the lusts of your flesh, in all the ways that you specifically enjoy or are more susceptible to caving to, only to drive you further into temptation with justifying thoughts like, “well, it needed to be said,” “he or she deserved it,” or “see, nobody was hurt by what you did in secret. Besides, didn’t you enjoy it? Didn’t it feel good?” Yes, dear Christians, our flesh enjoys sin, thinks it fun, and craves more of it the more that temptation is fed. Since the tempter’s desire is your eternal destruction, he could be no more pleased than when you come either to enjoy your sin or to brush it off as if it is no big deal. But to the contrary, know that what you think, say, and do, in public, in private, affects you, and others, in body and soul. No sin is void of altering you. Lord have mercy and keep us all from temptation and from the tempter’s power.
The evil one also bears the name Satan, σατάν (satan) meaning accuser and adversary. Beloved in the Lord, be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. He seeks to devour you by accusation, stalking you with words of lies so that he might lay deep into you the fangs of unbelief, doubt, worry, fear, and sensual pleasures that destroy. Do not be afraid of his true accusation, by which he hopes you despair; the accusation that you are unworthy of salvation because of your sin. Neither despair nor be afraid, because, in faith, such accusations make the enlivened heart cling more to Christ’s worthiness, rightfully looking to Him alone, knowing that there is no salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved. God is greater than your sin and He abounds in grace as opposed to the accuser. Into your ears and minds, as if he is to be believed, to you he accuses God for not being God enough, playing on how you think God should be, luring you away from trusting God to actually be God, and not yourselves. Again, Satan does the same among your earthly relationships, accuses always other people as the sources of your problems, diverting your attention away from the sinful Old Adam strongly lurking within; a trusty ally of the accuser and his demon horde. Beware when you are tempted and sin to then lay blame only on others. Indeed, Satan is your old, evil foe who means deadly woe, but the enemy within is capable of great damage and is responsible for much.
How, then, shall you stand against the devil, the world, and your sinful nature; foes far more formidable than your strength alone can overcome? Thanks be to God that He has sent a Victor into the battlefield of the world, clothed with our own flesh, able to crush the head of the serpent with his holy heel. Jesus Christ is the Righteous One Who is your Victor. He is the One at Whose baptism received glory from the Father and upon Whom the Spirit descended like a dove. He was ordained to do battle with sin, death, and the devil, being cast out into the wilderness by the Spirit, bearing your sins just like the scapegoat of old. After 40 days and 40 nights of fasting, he was hungry, yet did not sin at the tempter’s enticing. In all these activities, Christ your Savior wasn’t on the defensive. In the divine plan of the Blessed Trinity, the Son of God boldly marched into the wilderness to take it to Satan, to put Him on notice. The Lord’s temptation was a warning shot, a first encounter skirmish to declare to the wicked one that the Kingdom of God was at hand and would not be thwarted in its coming; that those redeemed by His shed blood would not be enslaved to the devil and all his ways. Christ’s temptation in the wilderness pointed to the crucifixion, for what we see in Satan is a champion of evil, swaggering onto the battlefield as a haughty Goliath taunting, jeering, slandering, tempting, and accusing the people of God. The Shepherd of our souls, the Son of David, strode onto the battlefield in confidence of the living God to conquer the devil. He gave the death blow by his cross and death, taking away the tempter’s power with the smooth stones of His five holy wounds.
By grace shining upon you in this rising Sun that overcomes the darkness, the Holy Spirit has been poured out abundantly upon you in your baptism, so that you may be fitted with the armor of God by which you may stand firm and do battle with the evil one; not with your strength, but with Christ’s; strength to deliver you by the mystery of His holy incarnation; by His holy nativity; by His baptism, fasting, and temptation; by His agony and bloody sweat; by His cross and passion; by His precious death and burial; by His glorious resurrection and ascension; and by the coming of the Holy Spirit, the Comforter. By these, your good Lord shall help you in all time of your tribulation; in all time of your prosperity; in the hour of death; and in the day of judgment, confident that the Lord hears poor sinners when they implore Him for mercy. Since He hears you, you need not listen to the devil’s lies, to participate in his slander, nor to give in to temptation. God promises you a way out of every temptation, so take up His armor and courage and fight for the good of your soul, for you fight with and for an eternal Victor King.
In ✠ Jesus’ Name. Amen.
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