Bible Text: Matthew 4:1-11 | Preacher: Pastor Christian Preus
Depart, Satan, Get out of here, you liar, that’s how Jesus ends the battle with the devil. And the devil leaves. He obeys the words of His master. The devil is not a willing subject of our Lord. But he is subject to Him. You see this throughout the Gospels: What Jesus says goes. He casts out demons and they obey. He tells the devil to leave, he leaves. When we say that every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord, we don’t exclude even the devil. He tempted and said, “If you are the Son of God,” and the Son of God showed the devil that now that God and Man are one, united in the person of Jesus Christ, humanity is no longer his whipping boy. If the Son of God defeated the devil in that wilderness, then so did Man, because the Son of God has become a man. If the devil obeys Jesus, he obeys a man. If he will in the end bow down to Jesus, he will bow down to the very humanity that he plunged into misery and death and sin. If the devil hates anyone or anything more than he hates God, it’s us, it’s humanity, because we are the object of God’s love, the apple of his eye. And the devil’s boast is that he removed us from the God who loves us. He brought us over to his side, to sin, to death, with God far away in His holiness, and horrible in His condemnation of all we have become. But here stands Jesus, and there is no separation of God and man there. There is no anger of God against man there. The God-Man puts the serpent’s head under his feet, and they are real feet, human feet, the feet of God, which are pierced through with nails. “He shall crush your head, and you shall bruise His heal.”
Our victory over the devil is in Jesus. Luther is right to warn us about the devil, “on earth is not his equal.” We are not equal to the devil. Look what happened in the garden of eden. She wasn’t hungry. She wasn’t in a desert. God had given her everything she needed. But she couldn’t resist the devil. That is what you are, left to yourself, without your Lord Jesus. Remember Peter, who as soon as he took his eyes off of Jesus, sank down in the water. Remember Peter, that Jesus called him the devil, “Get behind me, Satan,” when he denied the need for Jesus’ death and resurrection. All our power against the devil is in Jesus, our Lord.
So it is a very dangerous thing to sing and boast against the devil without understanding what you’re saying. We love these hymns, “Satan, hear this proclamation, I am baptized into Christ. Drop your ugly accusation, I am not so soon enticed. Now that to the font I’ve traveled, all your might has come unraveled. And against your tyranny, God my Lord unites with me.” And, “Satan, I defy you.” “Satan, you wicked one, own now your Master.” But remember the unbelievers in the book of Acts who took up the name of the Jesus Paul preached and tried to cast out demons, and the demons say, “Jesus I know, and Paul I know,” but who are you? And then they destroy them.
Who are you? That’s the question. If you are in Christ, you are a new creation. If you trust in Jesus, in the words of your Baptism, where God called you His child, and put His name on you, and united you to the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ His Son, then you are Christ’s and Christ is yours, and you can do battle against the devil with total confidence. You cannot fail. Your words are Jesus’ words and have all the power of your Lord. No temptation of the devil can stand against them.
But this isn’t easy. It wasn’t easy for Jesus. He was hungry. He was suffering. He was in the wilderness. As it goes with the head, so with the body, as with Christ, so with you. The devil attacks. He hates you. And we see the devastation he still inflicts on our human race. Please, for Christ’s sake, learn to hate the devil and all his works and all his ways. Love people. I know they do evil things. People openly advocate for the slaughter of little children and call it healthcare. People try to convince little boys that they are girls and girls that they are boys, and confuse them and ruin their lives. Wives leave husbands for no good reason, and husbands leave wives and children for cheap nothings. Men slander and cut down their own friends in order to advance themselves – look at Adam in the garden, “The woman you gave to me did it,” blames his wife, blames God, because he’s not man enough to blame himself. That’s all the devil. Love people. Pity them. Hate the devil and all his works and all his ways.
And know what those works and ways are, not just in other people, but in your own life.
The devil’s first temptation not only of Jesus but of our human race, was to point to food. You notice that? The fruit of the tree. Eat it, doesn’t it look good, won’t it make you happy? And with Jesus, it’s the bread. Make these stones bread. Why? Because this is our weakest point. We have appetites. We need to provide for our bodies. Know this about yourself. The devil is mocking you. He doesn’t have a body. He thinks you’re pathetic because you do and that a simple thing like hunger or thirst or exhaustion or lust or dollar bills can drive you away from your God. When you are worrying about money, and your worry makes you lash out at others, or dream of winning big in the lottery, the devil is mocking you. When you are suffering some sharp lust of the body, the devil is sneering at you, that such a little, momentary thing, could make you sin against your God. Don’t let him. God will provide for you. Fight, with God on your side. Call on the Father who gives you His Spirit and He will give you the victory.
Know that it’s never about you needing something that God won’t give. It isn’t. God will provide for you. It’s about wanting more than God gives. It’s about not trusting that God has provided for your every need and He will now and forever. Jesus had no fruit trees around him. He was in the wilderness. He could see nothing with His eyes that would tell Him, “Don’t worry, God’s got this, He’ll provide for you.” But He knew it. He knew it because His food was God’s Word. “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.” And that Word tells you that God is your Creator and He provides even for the birds of the air, and how much more will He care for you. He’s created you in His image, He’s called you His child in Baptism, He’s sent His Son to live and die for you. So if you look around and don’t see how the money is going to come in, or how you’ll find a spouse, or how you can live without this or that pleasure, listen to the Word of your God. It will crush the devil under your feet. And your God will give you a satisfaction that satisfies not only your body but your soul.
The second temptation of the devil is to get you to test God. God tests us. We don’t test him. The devil says, “The angels will take care of you,” so go ahead and sin. Won’t God forgive you? Hasn’t he promised to? So go ahead, gossip, go ahead and click on that, go ahead and vent your anger, go ahead and do whatever you want. The devil even quotes God’s Word, “lest you dash your foot against a stone.” But the devil leaves out the words, “And He will guide you in all your ways.” The way on which God guides you is Jesus. He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. God does forgive for Christ’s sake. He does send His angels to guard and protect you. But who are you? His child! And what do God’s children do? They fight against sin. They strive to please their Father in heaven. They don’t test Him.
When the devil tempts you to test God, know that God is using the devil to test you. God is strengthening you, making you run to His Word, giving you the privilege and honor of joining your Savior in saying NO to the devil. Jesus reversed the curse of the fall. And you are the fruit of this reversal. We are the body of Christ. And that body has feet. And when you resist sin because it is not your master, Christ is, then those feet come down again on the devil’s head and heaven and all the saints rejoice.
And when you speak that Word of God against the devil, he finally outs himself. You see him with Jesus, “If you bow down and worship me,” then I’ll give you everything. It’s so crass. So ridiculous. That’s what sin is. What unbelief is. The devil can’t give you anything but misery. Sin can’t give you happiness now or ever. And God has already given you everything. You need nothing from sin, nothing from the devil. The world is the Lord’s and all its fullness. The Lord has not been stingy with you either. He has given you everything you have, he has healed your diseases, he has renewed your youth like the eagle’s. He has sent His Son to become your brother. He has lived for you, conquered your death by His death, forgiven you all your sins, secured for you everlasting life. He is your Lord and your Master. And He is a good one. To be a slave to sin is to serve what kills you. To serve Christ is to be raised to the status of sons of God, to have His life, to have that good portion that will never be taken from you.
Jesus faced the devil after His Baptism, after the Father spoke those words, “This is my beloved Son in whom I am well-pleased.” You don’t fight against the devil on your own power. You face Him armed with the Word of your Baptism. You belong to Christ. His angels surround you. His Spirit dwells in you. And His victory is yours. When you fail. When the devil gets the best of you in your weakness, when he mocks and taunts because you have done what shames your God and tarnishes your conscience, return to the Lord your God and do not listen to the devil’s lies. If you are faithless, He is faithful, He cannot deny Himself. And when you trust in His mercy, in His forgiveness, when you take the body and blood of your Savior in your mouth, and confess with your lips and know in your heart, My God loves me, forgives me, calls me His child, that is the devil’s downfall, that is the crushing of his head within you, and that is the power of the Spirit to raise you up with Christ and stand with Him in everlasting peace, as you give glory to Father, Son, and Holy Spirit for all eternity. Amen.