The Third Sunday in Lent – Pr. Faugstad sermon
Text: St. Luke 11:14-28
In Christ Jesus, who guards us His prized possessions so closely, that He declares, “no one will snatch them out of my hand” (Joh. 10:28), dear fellow redeemed:
The “strong man” that Jesus refers to who is fully armed, guarding his own palace, and keeping his goods safe is the devil. He rules over the kingdom of darkness and death. Jesus called him “the ruler of this world” (Joh. 12:31, 14:30, 16:11). That means no earthly power, no human authority is stronger than Satan. Ephesians 6 says, “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places” (v. 12).
The devil and his fellow demons are our primary enemy. Their aim is to keep us from Jesus, and in so doing to keep us from life. They want to drag us into eternal death with them. It started with the devil’s temptation of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. God told Adam that if he ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, he would surely die (Gen. 2:17). The devil said the opposite, “You will not surely die…. [Y]ou will be like God” (3:4,5).
The devil lied. Adam and Eve were already “like God.” They were made in His image. Now they knew sin and fear. They went into hiding as soon as they heard God in the Garden. They acted like God was their enemy. He proved to be their Savior. The LORD told the devil that he could not have mankind. He had not created them; they were not his. So God would be taking them back. He said to Satan, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel” (3:15).
This was a prophecy of the coming Messiah. This One would be born of woman, so that He could storm the devil’s palace and take his spoils. It was a perilous mission. Jesus was not welcome on earth. The book of Revelation describes the devil’s response to the incarnation of the Christ: “the dragon stood before the woman who was about to give birth, so that when she bore her child he might devour it” (12:4). But the devil did not succeed.
That doesn’t mean he stopped trying. We heard two weeks ago how he tempted Jesus in the wilderness to give up His mission (Mat. 4:1-11). There were more attempts like these. But Jesus did not fall for his temptations. He kept on marching right through the devil’s territory, as though it were His and not the devil’s. And as He went, He took away the armor in which the devil trusted and divided his spoils.
The armor the devil wore was the power of sin and death. Seeing how successful he had been with Adam and Eve, he kept on tempting man to sin. And as soon as he catches them in his trap, he points the flamethrower of accusation against them. In the Garden, he said, “Did God actually say?” Now he says to you and me, “Does God actually love you? How could He, since you have broken all His laws?”
The incarnate Son of God is the answer to that horrible question. “For God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son” (Joh. 3:16). God had the devil in His sights. 1 John 3:8 says, “The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil.” The devil’s works include the power of death. If the devil can no longer successfully accuse us for our sins, then he can’t torment us with death either. Hebrews 2 says, “Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, [Jesus] himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery” (vv. 14-15).
Jesus came on a rescue mission. He stood alone against the devil’s kingdom, and the devil was forced to give ground. We see this at the beginning of today’s account. Jesus cast out a demon from a man who was mute, and the man started speaking. He did this everywhere He went. He applied the power of His Word, and the demons retreated.
Jesus’ opponents accused Him of casting out demons by the power of the devil, whom they called “Beelzebul, the prince of demons.” Jesus explained how utterly foolish this would be. He said, “Every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste, and a divided household falls.” He was not working with the devil; He was clearly working against him. A stronger Man had come to challenge the strong man, which meant that the devil’s goods were not safe.
The devil’s goods consist of sinful human beings. You and I were once in his prison, but Jesus freed us from it by the light of His truth. That’s how He fights against the devil’s kingdom on earth. He does it by wielding “the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God” (Eph. 6:17). It is by the Word that God “called you out of darkness into his marvelous light” (1Pe. 2:9). And it is by the Word that He keeps you in the light.
That means the last thing you would ever want to do is to step away from His Word. To do that would be to take your life into your own hands, and you already heard how you measure up to the devil—like a predator and his prey. 1 Peter 5:8 tells us that our “adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.” We step away from the powerful and protective Word of God every time we willfully sin against God. We know we shouldn’t do something, and we do it anyway. We listen to our heart instead of to Him who loves us and redeemed us.
Jesus gives an example in today’s account of someone who thinks he is safe but isn’t. He spoke of “the unclean spirit [who] has gone out of a person.” The only reason the demons leave is by the power of God. So the Lord had delivered this person, just like He delivered all of us by the power of Holy Baptism.
But the person who had the demon expelled took his new spiritual freedom for granted. He had his house—or rather his body and heart—“swept and put in order.” Life was going well for him. He was enjoying the pleasures and treasures and human measures of the world. He was not filling his heart and mind with the power and presence of the Holy Spirit through the Word of God. So the unclean spirit returned and brought “seven other spirits more evil than itself” to enter and dwell in that person.
This is not a figure of speech or old-fashioned superstition. The demons exist, and they are constantly working to destroy your faith. A heart that is not filled with the Holy Spirit is a heart that is exposed and open to other spirits. Our modern culture may think this is foolishness, but the devil and demons are just as active today as they were in the past. And baptized believers are their special target.
This is why Jesus says, “Blessed… are those who hear the word of God and keep it!” It is not enough to hear the Word of God. We could hear it but then reject it with our mind or reject it by our intentional sinning. Jesus says we are blessed when we hear His Word “and keep it.” The word for “keep” does not mean “obey.” It means to “watch over” the Word, “guard it,” “keep it close.” It is the same word as the one used earlier in the reading for the strong man guarding his own palace and goods. We want to hold on to the Word with all that we have, guard it, and keep it close because God’s Word is the source of our faith and life.
It is by His holy Word that Jesus holds on to us. He says, “For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them” (Mat. 18:20). We need His presence every passing hour because only His grace can foil the tempter’s power (ELH #561, v. 6). Alone, we cannot withstand the devil’s attacks, but by the Lord’s power, we can stand. We would fall, but Jesus did not. He stayed faithful to His Father’s will all the way to His death on the cross to redeem us.
His death and resurrection are how He destroyed the work of the devil and wrenched the power of death out of his hands. The devil threw everything he could at Jesus, and everything failed. There was nothing he could do. The LORD told the devil what He would do after the fall into sin. He would send the woman’s Offspring to crush Satan’s head, and that is just what He did. Jesus defeated Satan. He booted him right off his dungy throne.
The devil knows now that he cannot overcome Jesus, so he focuses his destructive powers on the followers of Jesus. But our Lord does not leave us to fend for ourselves, just as He did not give up Adam and Eve. We are His prized possessions purchased by His holy blood. He guards us and keeps us close. He fights for us. He does not get tired of defending us, no matter how weak we are or how often we slip up. He continuously forgives our sins and places His protective armor on us through His Word and Sacraments.
He keeps speaking His powerful Word into our ears and hearts. He tells us: “I kept the holy Law of God for you. I died for you and rose again to free you from sin and death. I have called you by name. You are mine (Isa. 43:1). I will not let you go.” And we trust Him; we find refuge in Him. We see the great powers of darkness arrayed against us, but we know they are no match for our Lord Jesus. His Word will prevail. His Word stands forever (Isa. 40:8).
Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, forevermore. Amen.
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(picture from “Exorcism” woodcut by Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld, 1794-1872)
The Fifth Sunday of Easter & Saude Confirmation – Pr. Faugstad sermon
Text: Judges 7:1-7, 16-21
In Christ Jesus, whose grace is sufficient for you, whose power is made perfect in weakness (2Co. 12:9), dear fellow redeemed:
The Israelites had become everyone’s doormat. They should hardly have been surprised. They lived on prime real estate in the land of Canaan—land that was the envy of all the nations around them. The only reason they had this land and the only reason they ever had peace is because the LORD God gave it to them. But as the generations passed, the Israelites did not give thanks to God or honor Him for these gifts. Instead they gave up the worship of the true God for the false gods of the nations around them. So God gave them up to their enemies.
That’s how we find Israel in today’s reading. They were currently under the thumb of the Midianites. Every time the Israelites’ crops matured, the Midianites and others “would come like locusts in number” and take whatever they wanted; “they laid waste to the land” (Jud. 6:5). The Israelites were completely impoverished. They had no way to defend themselves. And only now at rock bottom did they remember the LORD. They cried out for His mercy.
The LORD chose an unlikely savior for them. He visited a man named Gideon and told him he would deliver Israel. Gideon replied, “Please, Lord, how can I save Israel? Behold, my clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father’s house” (Jud. 6:15). The first task the LORD gave him was to destroy his father’s altar to the god Baal and the monument next to it to the goddess Asherah. Gideon was so afraid to do this that he waited until the middle of night, so he wouldn’t have to face any opposition for his actions. Not exactly hero material.
It was harvest time again, so the Midianites were on the march. But this year wouldn’t be like the ones before it. The Midianites would not be taking whatever they wanted. The LORD prepared timid Gideon to stop them by giving him strength and courage. We are told that “the Spirit of the LORD clothed Gideon, and he sounded the trumpet, and [his countrymen] were called out to follow him” (6:34). Altogether 32,000 men showed up for battle. That sounds like a lot, but the camp of Midian had 135,000 men—more than four times as many! Just looking at the numbers, Israel wouldn’t stand a chance.
But that’s not how God saw it. He said to Gideon, “The people with you are too many for Me to give the Midianites into their hand, lest Israel boast over Me, saying, ‘My own hand has saved me.’” He told Gideon to send anyone home who was afraid. 22,000 left, leaving just 10,000 fighting men. “The people are still too many,” said the LORD. He devised a test to whittle down the number by how the men drank water. Of the 10,000, all but 300 knelt down to drink. The LORD chose the 300.
So it was 300 Israelites against 135,000 Midianites. No one would take those odds. Israel did not have superior armor or equipment. They had no weapon of mass destruction. But the Israelites did have one thing the Midianites did not—they had the LORD on their side. Would Gideon and his 300 trust the LORD to give them the victory?
God’s faithful people have often faced long odds. The prophet Elijah thought he was the only believer left in his day, but God had preserved 7,000 who had not bowed the knee to Baal (1Ki. 19:18). Shortly after Jesus’ resurrection, only a handful believed in Him. When persecution began against the Christians after Pentecost, their number was only at 5,000. Martin Luther had many more opponents than allies when he articulated the Bible’s teaching of salvation. And still today, our congregations are on the smaller side in our communities, and our church body hardly registers on anyone’s radar.
When we look at all that threatens us, all around us who would like to see the Church go under and go away, it is easy for us to wonder if our days are numbered. How can we as Christians stand in a society and culture that is moving further away from God’s Word and will? We are tempted to stop speaking the truth because we don’t want to face the consequences for it. We might stay silent because we don’t want to become targets of people’s criticism or ridicule or risk our good standing in the community. Like the Israelites who were “fearful and trembling” at the thought of facing the powerful Midianites in battle, we are afraid to face the world’s opposition to our faith. Do we even stand a chance?
But we must not forget who is on our side. In God’s holy Church, where something appears to be weak, that is often where He shows His strength. And where something has the appearance of strength, that is often where you find weakness. The first chapter of First Corinthians lays this out clearly: “God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God” (1Co. 1:27-29).
Think of how God adds members to His holy Church. He does it through simple water and Word in the Sacrament of Baptism, and typically the ones brought to the font are little infants! How can helpless babies endure against the spiritual enemies arrayed against them? When our youth are confirmed, they renounce the devil and all his works and all his ways, and they promise to remain faithful to the pure teaching of the Bible until death. But how can they be so sure they will? They don’t know what life will throw at them and what challenges they will face in the future.
The devil, the unbelieving world, and our sinful flesh look disdainfully at us weak Christians and say, “They don’t stand a chance.” But they are forgetting something. Look at Gideon with his 300 facing an army of 135,000. The Israelites did have a plan for confusing the Midianites by dividing into three companies and then blowing their trumpets, breaking their jars, and holding their torches high in the dark of night. But that alone does not account for so few defeating so many.
Right after today’s reading it says, “When they blew the 300 trumpets, the LORD set every man’s sword against his comrade and against all the army” (7:22). It was the LORD who did this, the LORD who defeated the great Midianite army, the LORD who gave victory to Gideon and his fellow Israelites. The task seemed impossible, but not for God. He delights in making the seemingly impossible, the humanly impossible—possible. “For nothing will be impossible with God” (Luk. 1:37).
The angel Gabriel said those words to the virgin Mary the day the Christ was conceived in her womb. As He grew up, almost no one would have picked Jesus to be a Savior, just as they would not have picked Gideon to lead so many years before. And if the odds were stacked against Gideon, they were stacked even more against Jesus. Gideon had 300 men for his mission. Jesus had 12, and they deserted Him right when He was at His lowest point. The Jewish religious leaders carried out their scheme, the Roman soldiers flexed their muscles, and Jesus was nailed to a cross. Everyone who passed by agreed: He didn’t stand a chance.
But why did Jesus on the cross talk like He wasn’t losing? “Father, forgive them,” He said. “Today, you will be with Me in Paradise.” “Father, into Your hands I commend My spirit.” His enemies must have been perplexed. He talked like someone who was in control, who was not suffering against His will. This is because Jesus was no regular man hanging on the cross. He was the Son of God in the flesh! He predicted very clearly leading up to His crucifixion, “I lay down my life that I may take it up again” (Joh. 10:17). He did lay down His life on the cross, and He did take it up again on the third day when He left His tomb empty. No one could stop Him. No one could keep Him from doing what He came to do.
This is why you have great courage, even as your enemies surround you and you seem hopelessly overmatched and outnumbered. The crucified and risen Lord is on your side. He paid for each of your sins and rose again for your justification, for the declaration of your righteousness and innocence before God. Jesus won it all for you. And He gives His victory over sin and death to you right now. He gives it to you by the power of the Holy Spirit. In the Holy Gospel for today, Jesus said that the Holy Spirit “will guide you into all the truth… for He will take what is Mine and declare it to you” (Joh. 16:13,14).
This is how you are able to stand against your many and formidable enemies. On your own, relying on your own strength, you would be crushed. But with Jesus contending for you, you cannot lose. At your Baptism, you “put on Christ” (Gal. 3:27); you were joined to Him. In Holy Communion, He gives you His own body and blood to eat and drink for your forgiveness and life. He is the one who fortifies you and fights for you.
With your confidence and trust in Him and not in yourself, you can look disdainfully at all your spiritual enemies—your sinful flesh that would betray you, the devil who would destroy you, death which would swallow you up—you can look at them in the courage of the Holy Spirit and say, “They Don’t Stand a Chance.”
As true as God’s own Word is true,
Not earth or hell with all their crew
Against us shall prevail.
A jest and byword are they grown;
God is with us, we are His own;
Our vict’ry cannot fail. (Evangelical Lutheran Hymnary #375, v. 3)
Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, forevermore. Amen.
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(picture from stained glass window at Saude Lutheran Church)
The First Sunday in Lent – Pr. Faugstad sermon
Text: Exodus 14:5-31
In Christ Jesus, our Refuge and Strength, a very present help in trouble, so that we have no need to fear (Psa. 46:1-2), dear fellow redeemed:
By all appearances, the Israelites were in big trouble. They had just marched out of Egypt carrying the wealth of the land with them after the Egyptians freely gave them whatever they asked for (Exo. 12:35-36). Egypt’s economy was in a shambles after the ten plagues the LORD sent. Every firstborn Egyptian son was dead. And the Pharaoh realized that the slaves who might rebuild the economy were kicking up dust on their way out of town. In great wrath (and because the LORD hardened Pharaoh’s heart), he and his army quickly set off in hot pursuit of the Israelites.
What could the Israelites do without proper weapons, without military training, and with so many vulnerable people in the company? Pharaoh and his charioteers were getting closer and closer. Soon they would be overtaken! In this moment of tremendous fear, they took out their anxiety on Moses. Why had he brought them out to die in the wilderness? Why couldn’t he have just left them in Egypt? It would be better to be slaves in Egypt than to die out here!
We can understand their reaction. They were thinking logically. Pharaoh’s army was much more powerful than they were. They could not stand against him or try to fight him. They had no chance. All very logical. But they were forgetting something. It wasn’t Pharaoh and his army against them. It was Pharaoh and his army against God! The LORD had already shown beyond a shadow of a doubt that He was far superior to Pharaoh. He had brought ten plagues on the land of Egypt, and there was nothing Pharaoh could do about it. The LORD could have sent a hundred plagues, and no one could have stopped Him.
We fall into the same kind of thinking as the Israelites. We imagine that when we face challenges, it’s up to us to find the strength inside ourselves to stand firm. It could be relationship problems with a family member or friend. It could be a health issue like a cancer diagnosis. It could be trouble at school or work or in the community. “Somehow, someway,” we think, “I have to dig deep and find a way out of this mess. I can’t count on anyone but myself.”
We try the same approach with strong temptations to sin. We might be tempted to take someone else’s work or possessions and pass them off as our own. We might be tempted to lie to avoid having to answer for our wrongs. We might be tempted to consume drinks or drugs that we know will harm us. We might be tempted to view images and videos online that we know we shouldn’t.
When those temptations come, how well does it work to grit your teeth, clench your fists, and shout your defiance into the darkness? “Take your best shot! I’m too strong for you! You can’t beat me! You picked the wrong target!” As soon as you are done shouting, the desire to sin will still be in your mind. The tug o’ war will keep happening. The devil will keep trying to draw you toward your destruction. He will tell you that you will never have rest until you do whatever it is you desire to do. But when you give in, you don’t find relief, you don’t find satisfaction. You find guilt, a gnawing, bitter guilt.
Guilt is a heavy burden. It’s so heavy, we look for ways to get rid of it. One of those ways is trying to pass the blame for the sin we committed. Moses became the target for the people of Israel. “It’s your fault! You led us out in the wilderness. You led us right into this trap. There’s nowhere to go!” Repentance never crossed their minds or their lips. And so we might blame a bad boss as the reason our stealing was justified, or another person’s bad deed as the reason we were compelled to lie, or an uncaring spouse for why we looked elsewhere to fulfill our needs.
Perhaps in some way, these justifications might make our conscience less sharp and therefore the burden of guilt less heavy. But however we came to the sin, we are the ones who did it. We are the ones who chose to do or say or think what God said we should not. In the big picture, in the grand accounting of it all, it is obvious that we have fallen far short of the righteousness that God has called us to. In our weakness, we have given in to many temptations. We have committed many sins.
If the Israelites were afraid of Pharaoh’s army on one side and the Red Sea on the other, we are in even worse shape. We have the devil, the world, and our own flesh facing us on one side with weapons poised to strike, and on the other side we look behind us into the deep pit of death. “Fear not,” Moses said to the people, “stand firm, and see the salvation of the LORD, which He will work for you today. For the Egyptians whom you see today, you shall never see again. The LORD will fight for you, and you have only to be silent.”
“The Lord Will Fight for You.” That’s the key! We are stuck in the middle of a battle, a battle which on our own, we can’t win. We don’t have all the answers. We are not equal to the seasoned fighters who oppose us. But the LORD, our LORD, is more than their equal. Like David facing Goliath, He may have appeared overmatched in His state of humiliation on earth. But like David overcoming Goliath, Jesus won a complete victory.
Even in the Holy Gospel for today, it looked like Jesus was vulnerable. He was very hungry after forty days and nights of fasting. The devil seemed to make a good case from Scripture why Jesus should throw Himself down from the temple. The devil flexed his muscles by offering Jesus “all the kingdoms of the world and their glory.” All Jesus had to do was bow down and worship him. He could bypass all the suffering, all the pain, all the trouble for saving sinners. He would have instant rest and relief if only He would acknowledge the devil’s authority (Mat. 4:1-11).
Jesus stood firm against these temptations. He wouldn’t budge. Where we would have easily caved to the pressure, He did not. Hebrews 4:15 says that “in every respect [He] has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.” He stayed strong for you. He resisted every temptation for you. He maintained a perfectly clear conscience, so He could credit you with His righteousness and holiness.
He gave this gift to you when He called you to the waters of Baptism. He brought you freedom from sin and eternal life and salvation through those waters. He baptized you into Him through those waters. The Israelites passing through the Red Sea is a picture of your Baptism. Just as a new people emerged from the sea no longer enslaved, with their captors destroyed, so the new man of faith was raised up in you through holy Baptism, and your old Adam was drowned.
If the Israelites doubted God’s commitment to them before, they could hardly doubt it now as they walked over dry land with walls of water on either side of them. This was their Baptism, as 1 Corinthians 10 says, “our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea” (vv. 1-2). But they did doubt God’s commitment again, many times. This is why St. Paul adds, “with most of them God was not pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness” (v. 5).
Just because you are baptized does not mean that you will always remember what Baptism means and take comfort in it. Baptism means that the Almighty God of heaven and earth has claimed you for His own. He committed Himself to your care and salvation. He promised to guide you and comfort you and strengthen you through His Word and Sacraments. He promised to fight your battles for you, stand against all your enemies, and deliver you from every evil.
Going your own way and relying on your own strength is to step away from these baptismal protections. It is like picking up a little stick and charging at the whole Egyptian army by yourself. Or loading up your pockets with bars of gold and silver before jumping into the Red Sea in an attempt to swim to safety. Moses told the self-centered Israelites that the LORD would fight for them. All he asked of them was this: “you have only to be silent.”
The same goes for you. “The LORD will fight for you, and you have only to be silent.” Being silent means not shouting boastful words into the darkness. Being silent means stopping your words of self-justification. Being silent means quietly repenting of your sins each and every day. Being silent means listening to the LORD’s strong word, hearing His promises, and trusting that He can take on any enemy that threatens you.
He certainly can. It appeared that the Israelites were doomed. But by the end of the day, they were singing and dancing while the Egyptians washed up dead on the seashore. You may feel at times like you are without hope, but the LORD makes a way through the trouble just as He opened a path for His people through the Red Sea. “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; For Thou art with me” (Psa. 23:4).
The LORD is with you. When the devil attacks you and fires temptations at you, that is your reminder that you need the LORD to guard and protect you. You need to hear Him speak His powerful Word into the darkness that threatens you. He will not back down from the devil. He will never abandon you. He will fight for you.
Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, forevermore. Amen.
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(picture from woodcut by Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld, 1794-1872)