READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:
Genesis 3:1-21
2 Corinthians 6:1-10
St. Matthew 4:1-11
Grace to you and peace. (1 Thess 1)
Jesus speaks to you on this day from His Gospel heard, saying:
Because, in our sin, we would lose in a direct confrontation with the devil, Jesus has given us His Church and His Ministry. “That we may obtain this faith, the Ministry of Teaching the Gospel and administering the Sacraments was instituted. For through the Word and Sacraments, as through instruments, the Holy Ghost is given, who works faith; where and when it pleases God, in them that hear the Gospel, to wit, that God, not for our own merits, but for Christ’s sake, justifies those who believe that they are received into grace for Christ’s sake.” (AC V)
We condemn others who think that the Holy Ghost comes to men without the external Word, through their own preparations and works.
This is the sore spot in our consciences today as we eavesdrop on Jesus v. satan. Were you able to follow what was happening? What I mean is, can you make the distinction between Cain and Abel? Besides one being a murderer and the other being murdered. Why did God accept Abel’s sacrifice and not Cain? Or the difference between King Saul and King David? Or St. Peter and Judas?
How about the distinction between the Word of God and the Word of God as quoted by satan? These questions are constantly on the mind of the Christian as he faces his own sin and becomes a gold mine for anyone who wants to write about trying to understand these things.
When we entertain those thoughts and try to get an answer, we enter a cycle of doubt. Doubt we even have sin and doubt our salvation, because how do we know if we’re truly sorry for our sin or if we’re just going along to get along?
Let us take Judas as our example here and receive with him, the most heartbreaking words ever spoken to a sinner. When he realizes Jesus has been condemned, he returns to the priests who gave him the 30 silvers and says, “I have betrayed innocent blood.” In response, he is given the coldest words ever uttered by man: “What’s that to us? See to it yourself” (Matt 27:4).
And he did. And even though Judas’s contrition was painfully apparent, he receives the wages of his sin in a suicidal death. We would ask, since he felt sorry for his sins, that means that he was ok and made it to heaven in the end, right? We want to somehow equate contrition, feeling sorry for our sins, as enough to merit grace from God.
But that is not enough. It is not enough just to feel the sting and wish we had never done something. There must be confession.
The priests made themselves unavailable and unwilling to hear Judas’s confession, but God must have heard it, right?
When that excuse fails us, we turn on each other. We may even come to the belief that Judas didn’t love God in the first place. He was faking it. So when he was caught, he only feared the punishments of his actions. Though, a bit more comforting, we are placing a bigger burden on us to live up to that standard and we might as well be the priests, saying this sort of thing about Judas.
Contrition does not merit grace. So what does? When does my sin become forgiven? How bad do I have to feel about the wrong that I have done and continue to do before its enough.
Repent. This is the backwards way of looking at things, which is of course all about me. Regardless of that, we begin all our spiritual journeys with this terrified conscience that can’t tell left from right, up from down, spinning from standing still. So the question actually becomes, “When…will a terrified conscience…[ever] be able to decide whether it fears God for His own sake [out of love it fears God as its God], or is fleeing from eternal punishments?” (AP XII:9).
The bad news is, you can’t tell. Case and point, you think that because satan quotes scripture to Jesus today that that is where the battle is. So you memorize your entire Bible. You know it inside and out, backwards and forwards all in hopes of finally going toe to toe with the devil.
Not that that is not a noble goal to have, the Bible reading stuff, but there is where you lose, because in that contest, your terrified conscious comes out on top. You are sure of yourself until you’re not sure. You can be confident, until you’re not. You can be arrogant, until you’re cut down a peg.
You are sure of yourself, until God says, “Is. 28:21: ‘The Lord shall be wrath that He may do His work, His strange work, and bring to pass His act, His strange act.’ He calls it the strange work of the Lord when He terrifies, because to quicken and console is God’s [true] work.” (Ap XII:51)
If it is the Lord’s work to terrify, then your confidence is shattered and all your hard work preparing goes out the window.
Or are you sure and arrogant in front of the devil? You are, until the Lord says, “ let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall” (1 Cor 10:12). Then the ground around us starts to look like quicksand or a raging sea, and we sink.
The reason God seems to sweep your leg in front of satan, is because the “two chief works of God in men are these, to terrify, and to justify and quicken those who have been terrified” (Ap XII:53). You are to see and feel your sin clearly, but sin in front of God is terrified.
And yet, “the sum of the preaching of the Gospel is this, namely, to convict of sin, and to offer for Christ’s sake the remission of sins and righteousness, and the Holy Ghost, and eternal life, and that as regenerate men we should do good works” (Ap XII:29). We are not left in our sin, neither do we stay there. We quickly move on to forgiveness.
“Therefore, let pious consciences know that the command of God is this, that they believe that they are freely forgiven for Christ’s sake, and not for the sake of our works.” (Ap XII:72)
Dear Christians, yes you engage the devil. Everyday. But do not forget to look in that mirror and find that even before that battle, before the bell rings, you see you are disqualified. The Gospel is not “you are equipped to fight”, but “you are equipped to receive”. The Gospel is not how well you contend, or don’t contend, but how well Jesus contends in your place.
Yes, in the battle for the Word, it is not a battle of words, but a battle which is practically invisible to us mortals. In other words, it is a battle for the Word, the Word of God, Jesus Christ. It is His battle. The God-man Who steps down from heaven and ascends back into heaven. The God Who suffers and dies on the cross to purchase and win the crown of victory for you.
So if the crown of victory is already waiting for everyone, how is it that not all receive it and how are we supposed to view contrition for our sins, then?
“Tertullian speaks thus: [The Lord] invites by reward to salvation, even sweating. Saying, “I live,” He desires that He be believed. Oh, blessed we, for whose sake God swears! Oh, most miserable if we believe not the Lord even when He swears!” (Ap XII:94)
Similarly, when Jesus commands repentance, we don’t say “I will”, but “I believe”. As in, I hear and believe that Your word of repentance is true, Lord. And in that statement, made in Faith, the good fruit of repentance follows. No doubt.
So it is faith that marks out the distinctions between “fearing God out of love” or “fleeing from God because of punishment”. Instead of saying Judas never believed, faith simply states that Judas did not have faith. He did not believe his Lord’s words of repentance led to forgiveness and therefore attempted to make atonement for himself.
In contrast, St. Peter did have faith. He trusted that His Lord would redeem him and restore him to his rightful place among the 12 and his rightful place among the Believers, regardless of how many times he denied Him. That is the difference. Faith.
“without faith it is impossible to please God”, says Hebrews 11:6, therefore “By faith Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain, through which he was commended as righteous” (Heb 11:4). Abel had faith. Cain did not. King David had faith, Saul did not.
Without faith it is impossible to please God, but take heart, your faith has saved you, as we heard last week. And this Faith is your faith, not that you grew and nurtured it yourself, but that it was a gift from God to you alone, with your name on the tag and no one else’s. So when we say “your faith”, we mean the faith God has given to you, personally.
And because it is even hard to remember all this, the Lord gives us His Ministry, in His Church. In order that we be reminded of Faith and its central importance to all matters concerning God. We quickly forget, because we want to work ourselves into a religious frenzy and prove how great we are.
Instead, Jesus wants us running to Confession. He wants our trust to be in His Word and Sacrament. “Ambrose speaks admirably concerning repentance: Therefore it is proper for us to believe both that we are to repent, and that we are to be pardoned, but so as to expect pardon as from faith, which obtains it as from a handwriting. Again: It is faith which covers our sins.” (Ap XII:96)
Christ’s focus is not on the fight, but on His victory. He lets you listen to His Temptation in order that you believe He did that for your sake. He lets you see His lovingkindness shown to Cain and Abel, Saul and David, in order that you see the Lord keeps His Word.
So that, in Christ, you may return to Psalm 91, quoted by satan today, and believe that they are for you in two ways, not just one as the devil assumed. The first is that God does defend you against all danger and guards and protects you from all evil. But also, second, that He will command His angels concerning you that on their hands they will bear you up and you shall not strike your foot against the stone of your grave. For, in Faith, you will be raised to eternal life with Christ, for His sake, alone.
Jesus speaks to you on this day from His Gospel heard, saying:
“Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness
to be tempted by the devil”
Because, in our sin, we would lose in a direct confrontation with the devil, Jesus has given us His Church and His Ministry. “That we may obtain this faith, the Ministry of Teaching the Gospel and administering the Sacraments was instituted. For through the Word and Sacraments, as through instruments, the Holy Ghost is given, who works faith; where and when it pleases God, in them that hear the Gospel, to wit, that God, not for our own merits, but for Christ’s sake, justifies those who believe that they are received into grace for Christ’s sake.” (AC V)
We condemn others who think that the Holy Ghost comes to men without the external Word, through their own preparations and works.
This is the sore spot in our consciences today as we eavesdrop on Jesus v. satan. Were you able to follow what was happening? What I mean is, can you make the distinction between Cain and Abel? Besides one being a murderer and the other being murdered. Why did God accept Abel’s sacrifice and not Cain? Or the difference between King Saul and King David? Or St. Peter and Judas?
How about the distinction between the Word of God and the Word of God as quoted by satan? These questions are constantly on the mind of the Christian as he faces his own sin and becomes a gold mine for anyone who wants to write about trying to understand these things.
When we entertain those thoughts and try to get an answer, we enter a cycle of doubt. Doubt we even have sin and doubt our salvation, because how do we know if we’re truly sorry for our sin or if we’re just going along to get along?
Let us take Judas as our example here and receive with him, the most heartbreaking words ever spoken to a sinner. When he realizes Jesus has been condemned, he returns to the priests who gave him the 30 silvers and says, “I have betrayed innocent blood.” In response, he is given the coldest words ever uttered by man: “What’s that to us? See to it yourself” (Matt 27:4).
And he did. And even though Judas’s contrition was painfully apparent, he receives the wages of his sin in a suicidal death. We would ask, since he felt sorry for his sins, that means that he was ok and made it to heaven in the end, right? We want to somehow equate contrition, feeling sorry for our sins, as enough to merit grace from God.
But that is not enough. It is not enough just to feel the sting and wish we had never done something. There must be confession.
The priests made themselves unavailable and unwilling to hear Judas’s confession, but God must have heard it, right?
When that excuse fails us, we turn on each other. We may even come to the belief that Judas didn’t love God in the first place. He was faking it. So when he was caught, he only feared the punishments of his actions. Though, a bit more comforting, we are placing a bigger burden on us to live up to that standard and we might as well be the priests, saying this sort of thing about Judas.
Contrition does not merit grace. So what does? When does my sin become forgiven? How bad do I have to feel about the wrong that I have done and continue to do before its enough.
Repent. This is the backwards way of looking at things, which is of course all about me. Regardless of that, we begin all our spiritual journeys with this terrified conscience that can’t tell left from right, up from down, spinning from standing still. So the question actually becomes, “When…will a terrified conscience…[ever] be able to decide whether it fears God for His own sake [out of love it fears God as its God], or is fleeing from eternal punishments?” (AP XII:9).
The bad news is, you can’t tell. Case and point, you think that because satan quotes scripture to Jesus today that that is where the battle is. So you memorize your entire Bible. You know it inside and out, backwards and forwards all in hopes of finally going toe to toe with the devil.
Not that that is not a noble goal to have, the Bible reading stuff, but there is where you lose, because in that contest, your terrified conscious comes out on top. You are sure of yourself until you’re not sure. You can be confident, until you’re not. You can be arrogant, until you’re cut down a peg.
You are sure of yourself, until God says, “Is. 28:21: ‘The Lord shall be wrath that He may do His work, His strange work, and bring to pass His act, His strange act.’ He calls it the strange work of the Lord when He terrifies, because to quicken and console is God’s [true] work.” (Ap XII:51)
If it is the Lord’s work to terrify, then your confidence is shattered and all your hard work preparing goes out the window.
Or are you sure and arrogant in front of the devil? You are, until the Lord says, “ let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall” (1 Cor 10:12). Then the ground around us starts to look like quicksand or a raging sea, and we sink.
The reason God seems to sweep your leg in front of satan, is because the “two chief works of God in men are these, to terrify, and to justify and quicken those who have been terrified” (Ap XII:53). You are to see and feel your sin clearly, but sin in front of God is terrified.
And yet, “the sum of the preaching of the Gospel is this, namely, to convict of sin, and to offer for Christ’s sake the remission of sins and righteousness, and the Holy Ghost, and eternal life, and that as regenerate men we should do good works” (Ap XII:29). We are not left in our sin, neither do we stay there. We quickly move on to forgiveness.
“Therefore, let pious consciences know that the command of God is this, that they believe that they are freely forgiven for Christ’s sake, and not for the sake of our works.” (Ap XII:72)
Dear Christians, yes you engage the devil. Everyday. But do not forget to look in that mirror and find that even before that battle, before the bell rings, you see you are disqualified. The Gospel is not “you are equipped to fight”, but “you are equipped to receive”. The Gospel is not how well you contend, or don’t contend, but how well Jesus contends in your place.
Yes, in the battle for the Word, it is not a battle of words, but a battle which is practically invisible to us mortals. In other words, it is a battle for the Word, the Word of God, Jesus Christ. It is His battle. The God-man Who steps down from heaven and ascends back into heaven. The God Who suffers and dies on the cross to purchase and win the crown of victory for you.
So if the crown of victory is already waiting for everyone, how is it that not all receive it and how are we supposed to view contrition for our sins, then?
“Tertullian speaks thus: [The Lord] invites by reward to salvation, even sweating. Saying, “I live,” He desires that He be believed. Oh, blessed we, for whose sake God swears! Oh, most miserable if we believe not the Lord even when He swears!” (Ap XII:94)
Similarly, when Jesus commands repentance, we don’t say “I will”, but “I believe”. As in, I hear and believe that Your word of repentance is true, Lord. And in that statement, made in Faith, the good fruit of repentance follows. No doubt.
So it is faith that marks out the distinctions between “fearing God out of love” or “fleeing from God because of punishment”. Instead of saying Judas never believed, faith simply states that Judas did not have faith. He did not believe his Lord’s words of repentance led to forgiveness and therefore attempted to make atonement for himself.
In contrast, St. Peter did have faith. He trusted that His Lord would redeem him and restore him to his rightful place among the 12 and his rightful place among the Believers, regardless of how many times he denied Him. That is the difference. Faith.
“without faith it is impossible to please God”, says Hebrews 11:6, therefore “By faith Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain, through which he was commended as righteous” (Heb 11:4). Abel had faith. Cain did not. King David had faith, Saul did not.
Without faith it is impossible to please God, but take heart, your faith has saved you, as we heard last week. And this Faith is your faith, not that you grew and nurtured it yourself, but that it was a gift from God to you alone, with your name on the tag and no one else’s. So when we say “your faith”, we mean the faith God has given to you, personally.
And because it is even hard to remember all this, the Lord gives us His Ministry, in His Church. In order that we be reminded of Faith and its central importance to all matters concerning God. We quickly forget, because we want to work ourselves into a religious frenzy and prove how great we are.
Instead, Jesus wants us running to Confession. He wants our trust to be in His Word and Sacrament. “Ambrose speaks admirably concerning repentance: Therefore it is proper for us to believe both that we are to repent, and that we are to be pardoned, but so as to expect pardon as from faith, which obtains it as from a handwriting. Again: It is faith which covers our sins.” (Ap XII:96)
Christ’s focus is not on the fight, but on His victory. He lets you listen to His Temptation in order that you believe He did that for your sake. He lets you see His lovingkindness shown to Cain and Abel, Saul and David, in order that you see the Lord keeps His Word.
So that, in Christ, you may return to Psalm 91, quoted by satan today, and believe that they are for you in two ways, not just one as the devil assumed. The first is that God does defend you against all danger and guards and protects you from all evil. But also, second, that He will command His angels concerning you that on their hands they will bear you up and you shall not strike your foot against the stone of your grave. For, in Faith, you will be raised to eternal life with Christ, for His sake, alone.
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