You’re in the Battle
Matthew 4:1-11
February 21, 2021 – anno Domini
If you’re baptized you’re in for a fight. If you don’t like to fight you’re going to have a hard time remaining a Christian. If you do not fight you’ll lose, because the moment you were baptized you were drafted into the battle.
Saint Matthew begins his account of Jesus’ temptation with the little word “then.” Then means something happened before. Then connects events. What happened before the “then” of Matthew 4 was the “then” of Matthew 3. Read Matt 3:13
When Jesus publicly began the good work of salvation with His baptism the Devil immediately came to do his evil work of tempting. The same thing happened in the garden. As soon as God declared Adam and Eve very good the Devil came to do very bad.
Whether you want it or not, you’re in the battle. If you’re here, if you’re baptized, if you believe you’re a sinner in need of forgiveness, if you’re clinging to Christ for life and hope, then you are in the battle. If you think the Devil is going to leave you alone you’re lost. If you think you can fight one hour a week and win, you’ve lost. If you want to keep the peace you’ve lost, because there is no peace without victory and there is no good without the destruction of evil. In Matthew 10 Jesus says, Read 10:34
This battle is not of guns and mobs and destroying public buildings or wishing your neighbor harm. Satan goes after God’s Word. In His baptism, the Father said of Jesus, (read 3:17). What did Satan say, “Prove it.” (read 4:3) In the beginning God said to Adam, “Don’t eat from that tree.” To which Satan said, “Did He really mean it?”
The Devil has all sorts of weapons in his arsenal. Ironically, most of his weapons are God’s good gifts which he twists and perverts to undo you. He will use friends and family, money and work, the government and your employer, schools and hospitals, language and grammar. However, every attack will be along one of these two lines. The Devil will try to change the meaning of God’s Word as he did with Adam and Eve or he will demand proof that God’s Word is true (as He did with Jesus).
“Did God really say?” Did God really say boys can’t be girls and women can’t be men? Did God really make men to protect and women to nurture? Are you sure an unborn baby is a human, a person, alive? We have boys winning state girl’s track meets and increasing sexual misconduct in our military institutions because we are not calling a thing what it is. An aborted baby is called a fetus and the Johnson and Johnson vaccine for COVID used aborted fetal tissue in its development. Why don’t they call it what it is? Because the Devil is the father of lies and we don’t want to fight.
Sometimes it appears we have already lost the battle. Our sin and sloth has destroyed so much of what is good and beautiful and right and true. Half of the Church has already surrendered by imitating the world, but we have not lost. We cannot lose to the Devil because Christ has won for us and He has won us from the Devil.
Jesus did not win with His power or might. He could have easily blown the devil to bits. Jesus is God and the Devil is merely an angel. Jesus is the Creator and the Devil is a measly creature. But Jesus wasn’t in the fight simply to win – that would have been no contest. He was in the fight to win you and He won by doing what Adam did not do. He won by keeping His Father’s Word. Adam went silent in the Garden. He did not stand up for his bride. Christ spoke His Father’s Word. Three times Satan tempted Him in the wilderness and three times Christ destroyed the Devil with God’s Word. When it was all over Satan retreated so he could try again.
When Jesus went to the cross He was keeping God’s Word. God promised Adam and Eve a serpent crushing Savior and Jesus of Nazareth kept the promise. Once Jesus suffered hell on the cross He declared, “It is finished” and that means the Devil is finished. When your sin is finished off what can Satan say to you? Can he threaten you with guilt and shame? Can he demand proof of God’s love for you? You have proof. You have the Word of God. Christ Jesus died for your sins and rose again for your justification. This is why you don’t redefine gender and marriage and life and death and the worth of human beings of different ages and races? Jesus Christ defined all those Words and He rose from the dead. What has the Devil ever done? Jesus won and the Devil lost. Our sins are forgiven and the Devil got his teeth knocked out. All of this comes to us in God’s Word so we’ll go with the Word of Him who rose from the dead instead of some college professor who says there are 37 genders and 22.7 different types of marriages and that all religions are dangerous and essentially the same.
Jesus fought in an odd way. He did not beat His opponents with might, but with love, obedience, and the truth. He did not fight for Himself to gloat in victory. He fought for His Father and for you. He fought to please His Father and to win you for His Father. Jesus fought by sacrificing Himself and dying. That is a strange way to win the battle for life.
So here are your rules for the battle according to Jesus. You aren’t fighting against flesh and blood. Your fight isn’t with your political opposites, the public school, or the people who live near tall buildings. The enemy is not the 50 percent of Americans you disagree with It is with the Devil and his lies. Your goal isn’t to win the victory so you can boast. Your goal is to please your Father in heaven who loves you and to love your neighbor by confessing the truth to your neighbor.
Every soldier trained for battle is told, “Know your weapon. Know what it can and cannot do. Keep it sharp, clean, ready, and working. It will save your life.” So Jesus says, “Know God’s Word. Read, study, mark, learn, and inwardly digest it. It will save your life.”
Saint Paul tells us how the battle is fought in today’s Epistle. (Read 2 Cor 6:4-10). God grant us the strength and faith to fight for the good of our neighbor by holding to and confessing the truth of God’s Word. In the name of Jesus. Amen.