Bible Text: Luke 11:14-28 | Preacher: Pastor Christian Preus
He who is not with me is against me. There is no neutrality between good and evil or between God and the devil. We can’t stand on the sidelines, because we’re the ones being fought over. That’s actually a beautiful thing, because it shows you your worth. God and the devil are fighting over you. But your worth is actually all in God’s eyes. The only reason the devil wants you is because God wants you and he hates God. He’s like the charlatan who woos a lady not because he loves her, but because he can’t stand the thought of his rival having her; and so he wants to corrupt her and make her worthless. And he has corrupted you, but that hasn’t diminished your worth to God, which is so frustrating to the devil, because your worth isn’t in yourself, it’s in God’s love for you, which does not change: He wants you, and that, to be the object of God’s love, so much that He sends His Son to become your brother and live and die for you, that is to have eternal worth.
I used to play chess, and several times I competed with a player who was just plain better than I was. So I’d lose, a lot. But even good players let their guard down, and three times, with three different players way better than I was, I won. And then I stopped playing them. I just refused to play another game. Because I knew if I did, I’d lose, and I don’t want to lose, I’d rather have my last play against them be a win. That’s not how it works with the devil. You can’t stop playing. You have no choice. And more than that, you don’t want to stop. He’s your enemy and it should give you particular joy to see him lose.
The problem is he’s way better than you are. He wins a lot. In fact, it seems like he’s more powerful than God at times, because he wins so often. The Psalms complain about this all the time, “Why do the wicked prosper?” “How long O Lord, how long, shall the wicked triumph?” So Jesus describes the devil as a strong man. And he’s stronger than we are. We are weak because of our sin. Jesus will call those who hate Him children of the devil. Because in sinning we do what the father of sinning conceived in us.
But the devil is no creator. God is. The devil only corrupts. God makes everything good and the devil takes from the good and that’s what evil is. It’s the negation of good. Evil has no substance of itself. That’s why the devil’s main weapon is the lie. What is a lie? It has no substance. It isn’t, that’s the problem with lies. They aren’t. The truth is, and the lie covers up the truth. This is why the demon that possesses this man in our Gospel is described as deaf and mute – what are those? They are privations, they are the absence, the lack of something, of hearing and speaking.
And when you know this, you know the devil’s weapons, and you know how you win against him. He lies. If you know the truth, the truth will set you free. Jesus is the truth. The devil’s greatest lie is that God does not care for you. Jesus shows emphatically the truth. He is God. He is the eternal Son of the Father. And He loves you. He comes in flesh and blood, becomes your brother, and that truth destroys the lie of the devil. What do you see Jesus doing in our Gospel? Why is He there? He saves a man from the devil. He opens his ears, loosens his tongue. Why? Because He loves us. All of us were captive to the devil. All of us were born in sin and subject to death. And our God came and crushed the devil under His feet, opened our ears to hear His word, and loosened our tongues to praise His name forever.
The irony of being a Christian is that no one experiences the devil’s attacks harder than we do. You see this here with this deaf-mute, that as soon as Jesus casts the demon out, he hears Jesus attacked – the first things he hears! – Jesus attacked, His work attributed to Beelzebub, the devil, and people demanding from Jesus a sign from heaven. We should remember this often when we experience the devil’s attacks and people saying, “Where is your God,” “How do you know God is and that He loves you and that you will live forever with Him?” That deaf-mute knew that he could hear. He knew he could talk. And he knew Jesus gave it to him. And you know what Jesus gives. You know the pain of sin and the divine joy of being released from all guilt and shame by the love of God almighty who suffered for you. You don’t need a sign from heaven, when the Son of God came down from heaven and was incarnate of the virgin Mary. And you know it was by the finger of God, by the Holy Spirit, that Jesus drove the devil away from you and made you renounce all his works and all his ways.
But the devil comes back with seven more devils. That’s what Jesus says. He describes the devil wandering in the desert, in barren places, and being bored with it. That’s a description of the devil working in the sons of disobedience. He already has them. It’s boring. Another murder, another divorce, another life ruined by alcohol, it’s repetitive. His real prize is you, whose house Jesus has swept clean, whose sins Jesus has washed away, who belong to God and are called children of the Most High, from whom he has been cast out, who are now temples of the Holy Spirit. He wants you. So he attacks.
But the weapons in which he trusts Jesus has taken away. “But when the stronger man comes, he conquers him and takes away the weapons in which he trusted.” What does that mean? What are the devil’s weapons and how has Jesus taken them away? His weapons are lies. And Jesus has taken them away by teaching you the truth.
Just look at a few of the devil’s lies. He lies and says human life is worthless, instigates the industry of abortion, which not only takes innocent human life but creates a culture where human life is measured against money and found lacking. How can you believe that any human life is worthless, especially a tiny baby in the womb, when you know the truth that the Son of God was a tiny baby in the womb of the virgin Mary?
The devil lies and says that your sins outweigh God’s love. How can you possibly believe that when the truth of Christ, bleeding and dying on a cross, is imprinted on your soul?
He lies and says death is the end, that you evolved from slime and you will only return to dirt. How can that lie harm you when you know the truth that you are fearfully and wonderfully made, that your God bore the sin that is killing you, and that He rose again to bring life and immortality to light through the Gospel?
He lies and says you will be happy if only you have what God hasn’t given you, or if only you feed your pride or your lust or your greed. How can you believe that lie when you know the truth that sin can’t make you happy, you’ve tried and it only makes you miserable, and you know that God made you for Himself and your soul is finally happy because it rests in Him?
A woman cries out, “Blessed is the womb that bore you and the breasts at which you nursed!” A wonderful thing to say! We call her the blessed virgin Mary, because she is the mother of God. The baby born to her, who took his sustenance from her womb, is the eternal God made flesh. So she is blessed. And we listen to this blessed woman’s words to the servants at the wedding of Cana, “Do whatever he says.” And Jesus says, “More than this, blessed is he who hears the word of God and keeps it.”
The hearing of God’s Word is no one time thing. Obviously. That’s why Jesus says, “and keeps it.” Because the devil doesn’t stop his attacking. And you know it. Your Baptism into Christ has not given you a life of leisure. It has placed you into a battle on God’s side against sin and the lies of the devil. And they assail you more than they do the unbelievers. Jesus describes the unbelievers as guarded by the devil in peace. It’s a false peace that we can never fall into. “I walk in danger all the way, the thought shall never leave me.”
We return again and again to Christ’s Word, because it is the truth against which the devil cannot stand, that the gates of hell cannot prevail against. Your weapon against the devil is not living a perfect life, because you can’t live that. It’s not never sinning again, because you will. It’s not never again being depressed, never again worrying, never again doubting God or coveting what God hasn’t given you. God will give that, but not now, not till He brings you to glory. Your armor is the Word of Jesus that shows you the truth, that sin is not your master, and neither is the devil, that even if you had more sins than the sand on the ocean shore, your God will forgive them all, because one drop of His blood is greater than all the sins of all the world. Your sword is the Spirit of God who convinces you that the name placed on you at your Baptism belongs to you, God has claimed you as His own, and He will never leave you or forsake you. Your weapon is the body and blood of Christ given and shed for you and placed into your mouth as the guarantee that you are Christ’s and all He has is yours.
When we hear God’s Word, we hear all of it. His commandments become a delight for us, even though we so often sin against them. They are no burden, but a description of what Christ did for us, what He lived, and what He gives us to live. We have little victories over the devil every time we conquer some temptation, when we love, and forgive, and fight against lust and envy and pride and greed. That is the finger of God, the Spirit, working in us. The Kingdom of God has come upon us. But our greatest victory remains always what we do not do, but what we receive, when we have failed, when we are pressed hard by the devil and know not where to flee, when storms of woe assail our souls, because then our strength, our hope, our life, is all in Christ, we trust in Him and know that He is the Stronger Man, no matter how weak we are or feel, as He crushes the devil and all evil under us, cleanses us completely from all sin, and declares us righteous heirs of eternal life with the God who loves us. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.