18 February 2018
Text: Matt 4:1-11 (Gen 3:1-21, 2 Cor 6:1-10)
In the name of +
Jesus. Amen.
The
lie is the most dangerous thing in the world.
To go about our daily lives, we have to be able to know what is
true. We make decisions based on
information that we receive – often from the word of other people. One lie can cause us to make a decision that
could result in death and destruction.
One untruth can destroy the world.
And
in fact, it did.
God
gave us a perfect world. Our ancestors
Adam and Eve lived in that perfect world.
They didn’t know what pain, suffering, poverty, or death were. They didn’t know what sorrow, regret,
heartache, or fear felt like. They had
no knowledge of such things, until they were tempted to secure the knowledge of
good and evil through partaking of forbidden fruit. God had forbidden that fruit out of love and
mercy for Adam and Eve. Perhaps he was
preparing them for it at some point in the future.
But
one day, the serpent came. And he did
something Adam and Eve had never experienced before: he lied to them. “You will not surely die,” said the serpent,
contradicting God’s warning not to eat of that tree, that one forbidden
tree. Satan lied. They believed the lie. They enjoined the lie. They reveled in the lie. They lied to themselves and to God. “You will not surely die,” said the serpent,
“for God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be opened, and you will
be like God.”
But
it was a lie. It was the most destructive
lie ever, and that lie ruined life on our planet – for every person and every
animal born in history. It meant not
only death, but economic scarcity, struggle to survive, war and conflict,
natural disasters, diseases, and every kind of pain and suffering
imaginable. It meant inexplicable
evil. It meant the lust for domination
by the strong over the weak. It meant
hatred and covetousness by the weak towards the strong. It meant revolutions
and genocides and cruelty beyond imagination over the course of thousands of
years.
All
because of one lie.
But
in the words of a hymn that we will sing in a few weeks, God did not allow the
lie to remain, sending our Pascal Lamb to set us free… “Let truth stamp out the
lie.” Our Lord Jesus Christ has come to
restore truth and crush the head of the serpent, saying, “I am the way and the
truth and the life.”
And
a confrontation between the Truth and the Lie came as “Jesus was led up by the
Spirit into the wilderness” where the lie came to Him to tempt Him, to turn Him
from the truth, to enlist Him in the cause of the Lie. And the serpent did to the second Adam what
he did to the first: plying him with temptation.
First,
he tempted him to turn stones into bread to appease His hunger, as He was
fasting. Our Lord Jesus Christ
truthfully quoted the true Word of God: “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by
bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”
Second,
the Father of Lies took the Incarnate Truth to the temple, the place where the
First Lie in the Garden of Eden continued to result in death on a grand scale
through the slaughter of innumerable sacrificial animals. There the Liar tried to deceive our Lord by
means of a distorted truth, urging Him to destroy Himself based on the
Scripture: “He will command His angels concerning you” and “On their hands they
will bear you up” – two passages that referred to our Lord being protected by
the angels.
Jesus
replied, “Again it is written, ‘You shall not put the Lord your God to the
test.’”
Finally,
the serpent brought his targeted victim of the Great Lie to a mountain, and
“showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory” in the telling of a
lie that these kingdoms were his to give away, demanding that Jesus worship
him.
Our
Lord replied in truth: “‘Be gone, Satan.
For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God and Him only
shall you serve.’”
And
indeed, the truth stamped out the lie, even as the Truth will trample the
Liar’s head at the cross.
“Then
the devil left Him, and behold, angels came and were ministering to Him.”
Dear
friends, we live in an age where truth is not only distorted, but many people
claim that there is no truth. This is a
Satanic lie. For Christ is the truth,
his Word is true, and the gifts He gave to you at your Holy Baptism:
forgiveness, life, and salvation, are truly yours.
And
yes, Satan comes to us all the time, lying, tempting us to put faith in
ourselves instead of God; tempting us to treat life – even our own – with
contempt; tempting us to dominate rather than serve. Satan tempts us with the same lie uttered to
Adam and Eve: “You shall not surely die,” lying to us that our sins don’t
matter, that we can justify our rebellion against God, and that there are no consequences
for our transgressions.
But
there are consequences, dear friends: deadly consequences. There is a cross: the sacrifice of the
Paschal Lamb, the bloodshed of the only one of our race who stamped out the
lie. He who is true suffered and died
for us poor miserable sinners who have chosen to revel in the lie. He truly died in our place, and how calls us
to live in the truth of His love, His mercy, and His triumph over the father of
lies.
For
when we resist the devil and fight his lies by means of the true Word of God,
the devil leaves. And by the cross and
the blood of Christ, the serpent’s head is crushed. By clinging to the truth, the lie is
extinguished.
This
is what St. Paul is referring to when he says to us: “Working together with
Him, then, we appeal to you not to receive the grace of God in vain.” For in truth, the apostle says, “Behold, now
is the favorable time; behold, now is the day of salvation.” He speaks of the things the “servants of God”
have to commend themselves to this great work of the Gospel, which includes, “truthful
speech, and the power of God.”
For
in truth is power, dear friends, the power of God. The darkness of the lie cannot stand against
the light of the truth. Temptation and
the tempter cannot stand against the Word of God. Satan cannot stand against the righteousness
of our Lord Jesus Christ. The lie, “You
will not surely die” has become an ironic truth in Christ, by His cross,
through your baptism, empowered by the truth of God’s Word, yes, indeed, the
serpent’s lie has become the Lord’s truth.
You
shall not surely die because He has surely died, He has surely risen, and He
will surely come again. He comes to
stamp out the lie and deliver truth, dear friends, the truth of the Gospel.
The
lie is the most dangerous thing in the world.
One untruth can destroy the world.
But conversely, the truth is the most powerful thing in the world. One truth can and does restore the world: the
truth of Christ. Indeed, dear friends,
let truth stamp out the lie! “For it is
written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you
serve.’” This is most certainly true! Amen.
In the name of the Father
and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
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