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This Week's Sermon The First Sunday in Lent 25 February 2007 "Help Us, Good Lord!" LSB Series C Pastor Philip G. Meyer Soli Deo Gloria!

In a sermon for Invocavit Sunday 1534, the First Sunday in Lent, Martin Luther introduced things this way:

But on this occasion we shall not deal in a far-ranging way with temptation but as it is commonly understood. So, first, we want to note and learn from the example of our dear Lord Christ that every Christian as soon as he's baptized, is marshaled into an army in confrontation with the devil, and from his baptism onward is saddled with the devil who harasses him as long as he lives. If this bitter enemy cannot by his onslaughts get the better of Christians and bring about their downfall, he seeks to hang them on the cross and kill them as he did Christ. [Luther's House Postils, vol. 1, pp. 312f]

When you become a Christian in Holy Baptism, you became part of a lifelong war with the devil. If one belongs to the devil, the devil will leave him alone because he already has him in his grasp. But once a person has been baptized and is no longer part of the devil's kingdom, the old evil foe works harder than ever to regain the baptized. It is a war, a daily battle that we fight, an insurgency that will go on until the day you die. The Holy Gospel for the First Sunday in Lent always proclaims that you are never alone in this battle, that you are never left to your own wits and power. It tells you that your Lord Jesus Christ has already defeated Satan when he withstood every temptation that Satan threw at him. It is through Christ that you conquer when you are assaulted by his temptations. And so you prayed in the words of The Litany, this ancient prayer of the Church on Ash Wednesday:

L By the mystery of Your holy incarnation; by Your holy nativity;
By Your baptism, fasting, and temptation; by Your agony and bloody sweat; by Your cross and passion; by Your precious death and burial;
By Your glorious resurrection and ascension; and by the coming of the Holy Spirit, the Comforter:
C Help us, good Lord.
L In all time of our tribulation; in all time of our prosperity; in the hour of death; and in the day of judgment:
C Help us, good Lord.

The temptation of Jesus parallels the temptation of Adam and Eve, except that where our first parents failed, Jesus succeeds. With Eve Satan held out the promise that if she ate the forbidden fruit life would get better for her. In fact, it was a bold lie:

"For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." (Genesis 3:5, ESV)

Satan introduced doubt of God's Word to Eve. She was taken in by the lie. Satan tried to introduce doubt in tempting Jesus, "If you are the Son of God. . . " Twice more Satan introduced the lie to Jesus, even quoting the Scriptures themselves in order to induce doubt. But each time Jesus countered with the Word.

Satan always attacks the weak part of our human nature. Sinful human beings are fickle and easily swayed. Our flesh is very foolish because we are inclined to believe the lie rather than God's Word. We tend to believe what we perceive rather than what God has said. For example, every single heresy that has arisen in the Christian Church from the beginning has arisen from disregarding the plain Word of God. If one were to ask whether or not women can be pastors, there are very plain words from God that forbid this, but Satan tempts us to think that God has not really spoken that way at all. He whispers in our ears that there is really no difference between men and women and then tries to get us to connect this with the Office of the Holy Ministry. While the Apostle definitely speaks of there being no distinctions between men and women, slave or free in the order of salvation, he does not say that the Order of Creation is thereby overturned by it. Even trained theologians are taken in by Satan's lies!

Our Lord tells us to listen to God's Word as the source of all that is holy and good, but Satan often uses that same Word to deceive us into "misbelief, despair, and other great shame and vice," as Luther teaches us. Some people simply give up and say, "Well, it's just a matter of interpretation," which is another way of saying that no one can really know the truth. Truth becomes whatever I want it to be. That way of thinking we call Post-Modernism. Objective truth no longer exists. Each person determines truth for himself, which, if one thinks long enough about it, is the height of absurdity because then there really is no truth at all, let alone the truth of God. Yet, Satan tempted Jesus in this way and he tempts us, too.

One of the reasons why Christianity is so hated in our world is that Christianity claims to be the repository of God's truth, the foundation of all truth. The unbelieving world wants nothing to do with the kind of truth that condemns its sin. It prefers instead the lies and deceits of Satan because they square up so well with its preference for what is against God. The devil is pleased with that kind of thinking because once the truth has been given up, then such persons belong again to him.

If the assaults of Satan were not enough, there are the assaults that come from within our hearts. C. S. Lewis, in his book, Surprised by Joy, used the following words to describe what was inside of him: "a zoo of lusts, a bedlam of ambition, a nursery of fears, a harem of fondled hatred. Their name is legion." Did you hear that list? Zoo, bedlam, nursery, harem! That seems to be a rather accurate description of what lies in the hearts of all of us. It echoes what our Lord Jesus described as the human heart:

"For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander." (Matthew 15:19, ESV)

What afflicts us so often is the same sin that afflicted Adam and Even, namely, the sin of pride. The way of the serpent is more attractive than the way of Christ; the sin of pride is stronger than love of neighbor. We don't want to do what God wants us to do but what we want to do. Luther explains:

That's the way human nature is. It wishes to do what is forbidden; the rest it ignores and then starts asking, Why? Why? Why? This is what happens when philosophy is introduced into theology. When the devil went to Eve with the question Why? the game was up. One should be on one's guard against this. [AE 54.448].

Satan is not reluctant to distort God's Word in appealing to our weaknesses. He knows that we cannot stand any more than Eve could stand when he deceived her. Over and over again you and I continue to fall for the same lies! Our fallen human nature is so weak that it cannot, by its own strength, remove sin, escape the punishments of sin and death, or recover a lost obedience. He knows that there are simply no "do-overs" when it comes to sin. Once we have given in we have been hooked.

This much is clear: every temptation of Satan and our sinful flesh seeks to tear us away from God's Word. See how he tempted Jesus with bread! He wanted to rob Jesus of faith and reliance on God's lovingkindness and to prompt the thought in his heart, "God has forgotten you; he's indifferent to your needs; he's willing to let you die of hunger, begrudging you even a piece of bread." He whispers to Jesus: "Your only concern is for bread; forget about God's Word; bread is what you need and you can make that happen just by speaking the word."

How many times have you been tempted in just the same way? Young people are constantly tempted to break the Sixth Commandment because Satan whispers: "You really want love! This is so good and pleasurable and God is depriving you of something good. You need this to be happy. You want to be happy, don't you?" Besides, look at how many other people are having sex! It can't be wrong if everybody else is doing it. Go ahead!" And he might even quote Scripture to back up his point, "God is love" [1 John 4.8]. And this might appear to be love!

Because of our sinfulness we need a greater power and a greater strength than any human being possesses. It is precisely here again that the words of The Litany are so precious:

L By the mystery of Your holy incarnation; by Your holy nativity;
By Your baptism, fasting, and temptation; by Your agony and bloody sweat; by Your cross and passion; by Your precious death and burial;
By Your glorious resurrection and ascension; and by the coming of the Holy Spirit, the Comforter:
C Help us, good Lord.
L In all time of our tribulation; in all time of our prosperity; in the hour of death; and in the day of judgment:
C Help us, good Lord.

It is through Christ, the Second Adam, that we achieve victory over Satan and ourselves. It is because Jesus obeyed God when we did not and when we cannot that we have victory. By his life, especially by his winning the victory over temptation in the wilderness, we have victory. He is the true man who has kept God's Law perfectly for us. When you are assaulted by Satan, you should say: "Yes, indeed, I have given in to temptation to sin, but there is One who has kept God's Law for me, my Lord Jesus Christ. I take refuge in his innocent life, in his wounds, in his death, in his resurrection and ascension. He is the One who helps me when I am tempted and when I fall."

Let me say a word about a necessary first step, that of confession. Clearly our age has no desire to confess. Individuals no longer confess that they have sinned; they merely go into rehab! Rehabilitation seeks to put things back to a former state, except that this former state got such a person into the trouble she is in! Or some can be like Britney Spears, checking into rehab one day and leaving the next, and then doing it all again and again! For those who have been baptized into Christ there can be no excuses. There can be only confessing, that is, saying the same thing as God says about our sins, namely, that we have sinned and that we deserve his punishment now and forever.

And the second part of this is fleeing to Christ in faith that he has indeed put away your sin by his life, suffering, and death. Christ is the only One who can heal what is wrong with your soul. No therapist can speak the Absolution you need, but your pastor can! And he speaks it not only in Holy Absolution, but also in Holy Communion. Luther wrote:

Then we may with joy find strength and comfort, and say, "Though I am a sinner and have fallen, though this or that misfortune has befallen me, nevertheless I will go to the sacrament to receive a sign from God that I have on my side Christ's righteousness, life, and sufferings, with all holy angels and the blessed in heaven and all pious men on earth. If I die, I am not alone in death; if I suffer, they suffer with me. [I know that] all my misfortune is shared with Christ and the saints, because I have a sure sign of their love toward me." See, this is the benefit to be derived from this sacrament; this is the use we should make of it. Then the heart cannot but rejoice and be strengthened.¹

This Sacrament, then, is the strength and comfort of those who are troubled and beset by temptation and sin. It is the life of the Christian to partake of Christ's body and blood and so be united with Christ in a fellowship so intimate that Christ's strength becomes his own.

Instead of trying to stand on one's own two feet in temptation, Luther said, it is better "to fall on one's knees and pray an Our Father. This will help more" [AE 54.448]. And then he adds:

"Dear Lord God, protect us from the devil, and also from ourselves!"²

Amen! And as The Litany says, "Help Us, Good Lord!"

¹Luther, M. (1999, c1960). Vol. 35: Luther's works, vol. 35 : Word and Sacrament I (J. J. Pelikan, H. C. Oswald & H. T. Lehmann, Ed.). Luther's Works (35:54). Philadelphia: Fortress Press.
²Luther, M. (1999, c1967). Vol. 54: Luther's works, vol. 54 : Table Talk (J. J. Pelikan, H. C. Oswald & H. T. Lehmann, Ed.). Luther's Works (54:448). Philadelphia: Fortress Press.