Sermon: Wittenberg Academy – Oct 13

13 October 2020

Text: Matt 12:22-37

In the name of + Jesus.  Amen.

Our Lord casts out a demon.  He shows His authority over the entire created universe, even over the demonic.  The people are witnessing His miracles and hearing His preaching.  “Can this be the Son of David?” they begin to ask.  This alarms the Pharisees, for they have made Jesus their enemy.  If He is the Messiah, they are in trouble.  So rather than repent, rather than change their minds, rather than honestly listen to the Lord and examine the Scriptures – they double down and call Him evil.  The demons must listen to Him because He must be their boss.  He must be in league with Beelzebul, the prince of demons, they say.  Beelzebul means “the Lord of the Flies.”

So they are blaspheming the Lord and Creator of the universe by casting Him as a low-level demon, a false Lord whose kingdom consists of maggots and dead things. 

The Pharisees must be careful, dear friends.  For they are calling good evil.  They are calling God a devil.  They are playing directly into the hands of Lucifer, who inverts and perverts everything, the same snake who tempted eve with, “Did God actually say…?” as he sewed rebellion, chaos, and death into our world.

Some of the Pharisees – like St. Paul – will repent of this blasphemy against the Son of Man.  The scales will fall from their eyes as Jesus casts out the demons that blinded them and beguiled them.  But Jesus warns of a worse blasphemy: that against the Holy Spirit.  For this blasphemy refuses to repent.  It is like a dying person who refuses to take the cure.  That person not only will not, but cannot, be saved. 

We live in a Luciferian culture, where up is down, good is evil, and the divine categories of creation are distorted and turned into a chaos that produces misery and confusion on top of the already existing suffering and death of this fallen world.  The devil casts Jesus as evil, as a fraud, as an infringement on the world’s freedom.  In reality, He is the only one who is good, He is the truth, and He offers the world freedom by dying on the cross.  He is no Lord of flies reveling in death, but rather the Lord of life who conquers death.

The Holy Spirit “calls, gathers, enlightens, and sanctifies the whole Christian Church on earth.”  He bids the unbeliever and the blasphemer to repent and join us in making war against Satan, Beelzebul, and the demonic realm that oppresses people, makes them blind to the truth and mute to confess the truth of what God has done to redeem us. 

Let us pray that God’s merciful, loving, and almighty Spirit might bring the Word of God to our world that is demon-oppressed, and may those trapped in blindness and muteness and the doctrine of demons be brought to salvation, health, truth, and everlasting life – through the forgiveness of the Son of Man.

Amen.

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.