Hand to Hand Combat with Satan

Welcome to the teaching ministry of Kungsvinger Lutheran Church.

Kungsvinger is a beacon for the gospel of Jesus Christ and is located on the plains of northwestern Minnesota.

We proclaim Christ and Him crucified for our sins and salvation by grace through faith alone.

And now, here's a message from Pastor Chris Roseberg.

The Holy Gospel according to St. Matthew, the fourth chapter.

Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.

After fasting forty days and forty nights, He was hungry.

And the tempter came and said to Him, If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of

bread.

But He answered, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.

Then the devil took Him to the holy city and set Him on the pinnacle of the temple and said to Him, If you are the Son of God,

throw yourself down, for it is written He will command His angels concerning you.

And on their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.

Jesus said to Him again, It is written, You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.

And the devil took Him to a very high mountain and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory.

And he said to Him, All of these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.

Then Jesus said to Him, Be gone, Satan, for it is written, You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only shall you serve.

Then the devil left Him, and behold, angels came and were ministering to Him.

This is the gospel of the Lord.

In the name of Jesus.

All right.

One of my favorite movies of all time is a movie from the late 1990s called The Mask of Zorro,

starring, well, what a wonderful name this is, Antonio Banderas, right?

What a great name, Antonio Banderas.

It just kind of speaks of like Spanish masculinity, right?

And of course, it's the story of Zorro.

And one of the things I love about this particular story is that you can see all the

archetype themes that you see in every one of these movies or stories that taps

into the themes regarding salvation and an evil oppressor and things like this.

The bad guy is a really, really bad guy, and he's going to really, really hurt people.

And the bad people who are participating with him called the Dons, they are really awful too.

And the story begins, Act 1 opens with a sequence where they are in this California town.

California is under the rule of Spain still at this time, but they're getting ready to make a transfer of power,

if you would.

And Spain is about to withdraw its hand from California, and the evil guy decides he's going to pick

three random peasants from the crowd, and he's going to put them up against a firing squad and kill them for no

other reason than to bring his archenemy Zorro out from the shadows and draw him into a fight where he can

kill him.

It's a great story, right?

And of course, Zorro does show up, but surreptitiously.

And then we're introduced to two characters, Alejandro and Joaquin Murrieta.

These men are boys at this point in the story, and of course, they are there to see Zorro because

they know that Zorro is going to come.

He's going to save the day, and of course, he does.

And it's just full of swashbuckling cinematic, it's great, right?

And of course, when Zorro is doing his thing with his sword, there are Joaquin and Alejandro going,.

Yay, Zorro!

Right?

Now, I love watching that movie over and over and over again.

Have you noticed the good movies?

We watch them again and again, right?

Now, I would note that in our text today, we are all familiar with these

texts, but may I make a claim here, and that is that this

series of texts reminds us again of how great our champion Jesus is,

and just how utterly foolish we have been as God's creatures by

listening to voices other than the voice of God.

Last week, we heard the importance of the scriptures over religious

experiences.

And you're going to note here that when we consider our fall into sin in our first

parents, this is history, this is not mythology.

This is really how this went down.

There really was a garden, there really was a serpent, and yes, the serpent can talk, and the serpent had legs,

which means it was a little dragon, but you get the idea here.

We're dealing with something that really took place.

How do I know this?

Well, it's because Jesus himself puts his stamp of approval on this narrative from Genesis and says

that it really went down this way, and who am I to question Jesus?

In fact, who are you to question Jesus?

But in considering this, have you ever heard somebody say something like this?

If only Eve had not bitten from that, well, they say apple,

but it wasn't an apple, now was it?

Okay, we have no idea what the fruit actually looked like.

What would you call the fruit that comes from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil?

So people liken it to an apple, but the reality is that it's not the fact that

she bit from the apple that is the big problem.

The problem is that she was listening to other voices than the voice of God, and rather than

tell the devil to go take a hike the way Jesus did by quoting back to

him the Word of God, which shows who you trust, she acted faithlessly

and listened to other voices to answer the question, should I eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil or

not?

The answer is quite obvious when you think about it.

God said no, and we all know how it went down.

She said yes, but why did she say yes?

So when we look at our Old Testament text, it says, the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the

field that the Lord God had made.

And he said to the woman, did God actually say you shall not eat of any tree in the garden?

I always like to paraphrase it in these terms.

The devil here is making kind of a tacit attack against the very character of God.

And so the devil comes up to Eve and says, oh honey, is it true he's not letting you eat anything?

He's a real tyrant, I understand that.

He's probably working you to the bone and he's not even feeding you, is he?

Right?

When you hear it that way, you can see what the serpent's really getting at.

He's basically saying, I'm here to save you, I'm your friend.

And God, he's a big meanie and he's really insecure and all these other horrible

things and you really can't trust the God who created you.

And so the woman kind of thrown back on her back foot says, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden.

Of course, God's feeding us.

But God said you should not eat of the fruit of the tree that's in the midst of the garden.

Neither shall you touch it, lest you die.

Now, she's a little bit wrong in her catechesis here.

God didn't actually say the part about not touching it.

Maybe her husband told her that, but you'll know.

When you go back into Genesis 2, God didn't say that to Adam and Eve.

He said it to Adam.

Which means Adam was the one who was teaching his wife the word of God.

And they had a pretty good arrangement, if you think about it.

They're living there in paradise.

And food prep had to be great because all he had to do was pick something off of a tree and say, hey, would you like this for dinner, right?

It's a great gig, right?

But what is going on here is that she's thinking back to what her husband has

instructed her.

And she's got her memory work a little off.

But neither shall you touch it, lest you die.

Yeah, maybe that's not exactly true.

But the serpent's response is where we need to pay really close attention.

The serpent then says, you will not surely die.

Really, how do you know that?

Because reasons?

What's your thinking here, serpent, right?

And you'll note here, by saying this, the serpent is tacitly accusing God of being

a liar.

Oh, I understand.

He's just a complete abusive person.

He totally lied to you.

You're not going to die.

I know he threatened you with death.

But believe me, he's just a bloviating blowhard.

And he really doesn't have your best in mind.

I'm here because I'm your friend.

I know a thing or two about how God operates.

Right?

So, he goes on to say, God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes

will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.

Well, I mean, who doesn't want to be like God?

That sounds like a good, pious, religious thing.

Wouldn't you like to be like God?

Isn't that why we're all here?

To hear the word of God, so that we can be more like God?

Right?

But in this particular case, he's legitimately kind of conveying here that the reason why God

doesn't want you to eat of that tree is because, well, then you'll be a God yourself.

You see, God's threatened by your potential.

You have lots of potential here.

This is the reason why he's not really feeding you.

He's told you not to touch that tree because, well, he doesn't want you to be like him.

Because then there would be two deities.

You see what's going on here?

After all, you were created in the image of God.

Don't you understand what that means?

And you can see how this temptation's working.

And this is where everything goes off the tracks.

Because what.

Eve and Adam, who was with her the whole time.

Where's Adam?

You're going to see in a second.

He's standing right there.

Okay?

Adam just stepped in and said, whoa, whoa, whoa.

God said, no.

God said you cannot eat from that tree.

The Lord has said.

It's not written at this point, but we know what God said.

But listen to how this works out.

So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, uh -oh.

Uh -oh.

Where's she looking now?

She's not looking outside of herself to the word of God.

She's looking inside of herself.

She's going into her feelings and into her thoughts.

And as Luther says in the small called articles, the serpent made enthusiasts out of our first parents.

This is never the place to go to figure out whether or not you should disobey God's

words.

So if you're alone with your significant other and you're not married, right, and you give them a kiss on

the cheek and things start to warm up and all of a sudden you recognize, whoa, whoa, whoa, things are kind of heating up here.

You know what Scripture says to do?

Flee. Flee.

All right.

Run away.

That's what you're supposed to do.

Don't sit there and tempt fate.

But then always and again, when we as human beings try to sort these things out, we sit there and go, yeah,

but, you know, I do kind of feel good.

It makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside.

And next thing you know, you've committed a sin that you deeply regret.

Right?

Should I rob that bank or not?

Well, I am hungry and a little bit of money would help me put some food on the table.

Uh -uh.

It is written you shall not steal.

Right?

Well, what about other temptations when it comes to the Word of God?

Should I really believe that we're created in God's image?

Or shouldn't I believe Mr. Darwin and his claim that we are, well, evolved and that my great -grandparents

were actually monkeys?

Or should I believe the Word of God?

Maybe I should go with Mr. Darwin.

Right?

You'll note we are constantly doing this in so many different ways, and you're looking in the wrong place

for the answer.

The answer is not found inside of you.

Stop making your decisions based upon your feelings and your reasons.

This is what plunged us into this misery that we find ourselves in.

So she saw that the tree was a delight to the eyes, feelings.

The tree was to be desired to make one wise.

Oy.

So she took of its fruit and ate.

And she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.

And all the Norwegians in the congregation said, uff da.

Right?

This is why we are now under the dominion of darkness.

From that moment on, rather than hearing the Word of God and listening and

trusting Christ and trusting His Word, Adam and Eve acted faithlessly, listened to other voices.

Adam listened to the voice of his wife.

Eve listened to the voice of the serpent.

And, of course, the serpent had his own agenda.

He wanted to murder them and make God the murder weapon.

This, then, is what plunged us into the misery that we're in.

We read in our Epistle text, Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for

all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification in life for all men.

For as by the one man's disobedience the many, that's including you and I, we were made

sinners.

And as a result of it, we have been born, and this world is under the tyranny

of Satan.

And believe me when I tell you, as tyrants go, Satan makes Hitler look like a schoolgirl.

And he isn't your friend.

And if he's offering to make a bargain with you, it's really the end of the bargain is your

destruction.

Satan is an ultimate tyrant, and we are unable to free

ourselves.

We do not have the military might.

We don't have the spiritual might.

We don't have the self -discipline to save ourselves.

And as a result of it, we need somebody to come and to rescue

us.

And here again, in this text, we hear a great promise given to us kind of backhandedly

by God when he is cursing the serpent.

He says to the serpent, I will put enmity between you and the woman and between

your offspring and her offspring, and he shall bruise your head and you

shall bruise his heel.

I like other translations that talk about the serpent's head being crushed and Christ's heel being bruised, but you

get the idea.

And this is where then Christ enters into the scene.

Jesus is a lot kind of like Zorro if you think about it.

Zorro wore a mask to hide his identity.

Jesus is God in human flesh, and you'll note he turned the glory off.

For all intents and purposes, Jesus really is the greatest masked man of them all,

hiding his deity under humanity.

He now has stepped onto the scene in order to save you and I and

to rescue us from the dominion of darkness, and he does it gloriously.

I have to say that right.

Gloriously.

There we go.

That's how he does it.

And so consider each and every one of us, we have all

foolishly, egregiously, regularly, constantly given in to the

temptations of the world, Satan, our own sinful flesh.

We've participated in the rebellion of Satan.

We've participated in the works of the dominion of darkness, but Christ has come in order to set us free

from that.

But first things first, he's going to need to go mano a mano,

face to face, hand to hand combat with the devil.

And where each and every one of us has failed, and note here, the devil constantly

plays us like a Stradivarius.

I mean, he knows how to niggle his way into your minds, into your hearts, and he

knows how to make temptation look like a great thing, something justifiable.

And he then, when you give in to that temptation, is always there to tell you how sinful you

are and how you will be damned.

And it's just horrible the way Satan operates.

So Jesus, in our gospel text, goes mano a

mano with the devil.

And where Adam and Eve and where you and I have failed, Christ, well,

he conquers gloriously.

And you'll note, I've pointed this out in the past when we've worked our way through this text, whenever there is the big

showdown between the bad guy and the good guy, and they meet on the field of battle,

usually in cinema there's a montage, a training montage, a preparation montage,

something to show that the hero is doing everything necessary to make himself

worthy of going against the bad guy and finding a way to better

him and to conquer him.

Jesus doesn't do that.

He goes into the wilderness and he fasts for 40

days and 40 nights.

And the text says he was hungry.

Now, let me tell you a little bit about myself.

When I'm hungry, I become the most pathetic human.

On planet Earth.

I become a three -year -old child.

Who has little temper tantrums and I can't possibly function because my stomach is grumbling.

Right?

You'll note that in the message of the therapists, you were never

supposed to engage in an argument with somebody or a discussion when you're hungry,

angry, lonely, or tired.

That stands for halt.

Note, top of the list, hungry.

Why?

Because people get angry and grumpy and mopey and stupid when they're hungry, okay?

Me being the top of the list.

Ask my wife if you're not sure about this.

This is a confession of sins, correct?

Okay, my kids can also attest.

That being the case, Christ has gone 40 days without eating

and he's hungry.

He, by human standards, is not at the top of his game, okay?

At this point, he's in dire need of some protein.

He's in dire need of some carbs.

He's in dire need of calories.

I'm sure that he's burned off practically every ounce of fat off of his body.

I wish I could do that, by the way.

Man, isn't it terrible that the word diet has the word die right in the front of it?

Okay, but you get the idea.

He's lost weight.

His lips are probably chapped.

He's out in the wilderness.

He's not at his top shape and the devil comes to him when Christ is at

his weakest and watch where he goes.

If you are the son of God, well, why is he saying that?

Because Jesus, just prior to this, he was baptized by John the Baptist

and when he was baptized by John the Baptist, what happens?

The heavens opened up.

The spirit of God descended on Jesus like in the form of a dove and the voice of the

father was heard from heaven saying, you are my beloved son in whom I am well pleased.

He can hear the voice of God and so Satan heard that voice too and just like he went after Adam

and Eve to get them to doubt God's word, the devil is now trying to get Jesus to have a

little bit of pious doubt regarding whether or not he truly is the son of God.

I mean, after all, don't you think that's quite a lofty thing to hear?

I mean, you're the son of God.

Isn't it arrogant to actually trust a thing like that?

Ooh, you better test to see if that's true, Jesus.

And so what he's trying to get Jesus to do is to act faithlessly the way he

got Adam and Eve to act faithlessly by doubting God's word

which had come to him from outside of him.

So if you are the son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.

Man, after 40 days, I would be so hungry.

I would have been fine if he wanted me to command pebbles to become crickets.

I would have eaten them, right?

But in this particular case, bread sounds like a good thing.

If you are the son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.

Notice he's playing on Jesus' weakness, playing on the fact that he's hungry.

And then Jesus does what Adam and Eve should have done.

In fact, Jesus does what all of us should be doing.

It is written, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that

comes from the mouth of God.

And I can hear, I can hear Alejandro and Joaquin going,.

Yo, Zorro!

Wait a second, let me change that.

Yo, Jesus, yeah!

Right?

He just scored a hit against the devil.

Booyah!

That's our Jesus.

Now, the devil then took him to the holy city, set him on the pinnacle of the temple,

and said to him, if you are the son of God, throw yourself down.

And then the devil quotes, well, let's see here, Psalm 91.

It's part of our intro it.

But notice he misquotes it.

If you are the son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written, he will command his angels

concerning you, and on their hands they will bear you up.

Well, let's do a little fact check here.

Oh, look it here, he left some words out.

And it says this in Psalm 91, for he will command his angels concerning you to

guard you in all your ways.

The devil omitted that part.

And on their hands they will bear you up.

By taking out the words to guard you in all your ways and then conflating the

portions that he misquoted, the devil is making it sound like Jesus can basically be the ultimate daredevil.

He could be the ancient world's equivalent of evil Knievel.

And yes, I'm showing my age here.

Jesus can throw himself off the Grand Canyon and the angels would have to sit there and go, quick, grab

something to catch Jesus, because he's coming down here, that adrenaline junkie Jesus, right?

But that's not what this text is saying.

It's talking about how the angels would guard Christ, not that Jesus could live recklessly and

act as if the law of gravity doesn't exist.

And so the devil has misquoted the scriptures, because he can quote the scriptures

too, you know, but always and again the devil, he misquotes them.

And Jesus sees right through it and he's not having any of it, because he trusts, he knows that the

voice he heard from the Father is true.

He is the Son of God.

No point in testing or tempting God or making sure that this is the case.

He trusts emphatically God's word that he spoke over him.

And so Jesus said, again, it is written, you shall not put the Lord your God to the test.

And Alejandro and Joaquin, ay, Jesus, ah, scored another point.

It's just an awesome battle taking place here, right?

And again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory.

And I have no idea how he did this.

We're not told how the devil is able to do it.

Is he able to cause thoughts to be put in someone's mind?

Is he able to use some kind of a hologram thing?

It doesn't say.

Maybe he had an old 1080 HD television.

Maybe not.

That's pushing it.

But you get the idea.

We don't know how he did this.

But somehow he showed Christ all the kingdoms of the world and their glory.

And then he said to them, all of these I will give you if you will fall down and worship me.

Now Jesus knows full well that all authority in heaven and on earth will be given to him by the Father.

So Jesus knows what the plan is and he knows that at the end of this, after his crucifixion,

his burial, death, resurrection, and ascension, Christ will be given the

entire world and the universe.

King of kings and Lord of lords and sit on the throne of David forever.

So what the devil is doing here is offering Jesus a

faster, less painful route.

Alright Jesus, I'm going to give you everything in the world here and here's the thing, I'll give it to you.

You don't have to go to the cross.

You don't have to suffer.

You don't have to bleed.

You don't have to die.

You can just have it right now and all you have to do is worship me.

What?

You want the God who created you to bow down and worship you.

Doesn't this tell you something about just how sick the devil is in his head?

This is just, it's gross.

And you'll note he's trying every little angle to get at Jesus

and Jesus says, Be gone Satan, it's written.

You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve.

Right?

Our Lord has conquered wondrously, gloriously.

He defeated the devil in three rounds and we can't and we don't.

And he has done this all for us.

What an amazing conquering Christ that we have.

Is it any wonder that Martin Luther taught us to sing, A mighty fortress is our God.

Because he truly is.

And so I would remind you that when we are

considering the fact that we are in Lent, hence the purple, right?

This is a time, a season of penance.

A time to reflect on our own shortcomings.

Let us again use this Lenten tide for the purpose of examining our lives and ask

ourselves this question.

How many different ways have we acted and thought

faithlessly regarding God's words?

When tempted by the devil and our own sinful flesh, how many of us have thought, well you know,

I know the Bible says this and God says that, but.

Right?

And it's always the but that erases the thing before and so you've erased God's word.

You've taken God's words, you've cast them behind you and as a result of it, you have sinned and

transgressed God's holy law and shown again that God's law is holy, righteous and good and that you

are not.

But you'll note this, that Christ where you have failed, he has succeeded and he has succeeded for

you.

Scripture is clear that Christ was tempted in every way that we are and yet is without sin.

And the purpose of that has nothing to do with now Jesus has done it, so just follow his example and now you can do it too.

That's not the point.

The point is that we were unable to do this and we still are unable in our own strength to

stand up against the devil and his schemes and temptations, but Christ has conquered him for us.

And ultimately, what Christ does is he goes to the cross and he conquers

and crushes the head of the serpent by laying down his life, bleeding,

suffering and dying as the spotless lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, your sin and mine.

And by his death he conquers Satan and by his resurrection he proves

that Satan has been defeated, God has accepted his sacrifice and by his ascension we now know

that he is the one who is king of kings and lord of lords and the devil truly is a defeated

foe.

He might be trying to muster his troops for one last huzzah, but we know how this

will go down.

And on the last day when Jesus returns in glory, think of it like you would

Zorro.

Zorro comes riding in on his horse.

Well, how does Jesus come on the last day?

He comes riding in on his stallion, his great white horse and he comes

swinging a sword.

And on the day that Jesus returns we will see our champion in all of his true glory

and we will see the angels and the armies of God and we will join Christ up in the air.

The angels will come gather us, we will be up in the air when Christ comes riding in and with

that same exuberance and glory and joy that Alejandro and Joaquin showed for Zorro,

we will have that same exuberance and glory and joy when we

see Jesus riding in to finally defeat Satan and put an end to sin once

and for all.

We will be going hurrah!

Huzzah!

Jesus, right?

And it'll be glorious.

So note then, brothers and sisters, it is true that we are weak and that we are easily

played by the devil and our own sinful flesh in the world.

This calls for us to humbly recognize our weakness, our sin, and our guilt and

trust in the one who has conquered for us because that is exactly what he has done.

So you'll note, repentance is the, well, the theme buzzword of the Lenten season,

but repentance requires two things.

To recognize your sin but to also have confidence in the forgiveness that is in Christ.

The two go together.

So have great confidence in the one who conquered where we could not conquer, who

succeeded where each of us has failed because he did this for us.

He ultimately bleeds and dies for the forgiveness of our sins and through that sets us free from the

captivity that we have to death and to Satan and to the world.

And we now, having been set free in Christ by our great conquering king, look forward to the day

when the kingdom itself will be consummated.

We will see Jesus with our own eyes.

We will worship at his feet.

And rather than be condemned, we will walk as free human beings into the new earth,

into the new world that Christ is creating and we will finally be able to live

unfettered and untempted, unsinful and all of that stuff in glory

in the world without end all because this is what Jesus has done.

He has saved us and conquered the devil.

All praise, glory, and honor be to our conquering king.

In Jesus' name, amen.

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