KEEPING GOD'S WORD

Rev. Mark F. Bartels

The Lesson; Ephesians 6:10-18
Sermon Text; Mark 1:12-15

THE FIRST COMMANDMENT: You shall have no other gods. What does this mean?

We should fear, love and trust in God above all things.

THE SECOND COMMANDMENT: You shall not take the name of the Lord, your God, in vain. What does this mean?

We should fear and love God, so that we do not curse, swear, practice witchcraft, lie or deceive by His name, but call upon Him in every trouble, pray, praise and give thanks.

THE THIRD COMMANDMEN: You shall keep the day of rest holy. What does this mean?

We should fear and love God, so that we don not despise preaching and His Word, but hold it sacred and gladly hear and learn it.

THE FOURTH COMMANDMENT: Honor your father and your mother, that it may be will with you, and that you may live long on the earth. What does this mean?

We should fear and love God, so that we don not despise our parents or superiors, nor provoke them to anger, but honor, serve, obey, love and esteem them.

THE FIFTH COMMANDMENT: You shall not kill.

We should fear and love God, so that we do no bodily harm to our neighbor, but help and befriend him in every need.

THE SIXTH COMMANDMENT: You shall not commit adultery.

We should fear and love God, so that we lead a chaste and decent life in word and deed and that husband and wife each love and honor the other.

THE SEVENTH COMMANDMENT: You shall not steal.

We should fear and love God, so that we do not take our neighbor's money or goods, nor get them in any dishonest way, but help him to improve and protect his goods and means of making a living.

THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT: You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.

We should fear and lobe God, so that we do not lie about, betray or slander our neighbor, but excuse him, speak well of him, and put the best construction on everything.

THE NINTH COMMANDMENT: You shall not covet your neighbor's house.

We should fear and love God, so that we do not craftily seek to gain our neighbor's inheritance or home, nor get it by a show of right, but help and serve him in keeping it.

THE TENTH COMMANDMENT: You shall not covet your neighbor's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his cattle, nor anything that is his.

We should fear and love God, so that we do not tempt, force or coax away from our neighbor his wife or his workers, but urge them to stay and do their duty.

For centuries, the Holy Christian Church has begun the Season of Lent by going, not to the cross, but out to the wilderness where Jesus was tempted. And so, we hear Mark chapter 1, verses 12 - 15.

These are your words, Heavenly Father. Lead us in the way of truth. Your Word is truth.

Amen

In 1673, a Dutch scientist by the name of Antony van Leeuwenhoek, invented the microscope. And having invented the microscope, he enabled us to see into a world that up to that time had been hidden and secret from our eyes. He enabled us to see a world of tiny, little attackers, called germs, which attack and try to hurt, harm, or can even kill the body. And, because of this invention of the microscope, and discovering these little things called germs and viruses, it really changed the way the world looks at diseases. People became much more aware of personal hygiene - keeping themselves clean, keeping their food clean, washing their hands, very often. But, it enabled people to fight against those unseen, little enemies that are out there.

Scripture reveales some unseen enemies. And, these unseen enemies are far worse than what is revealed by the microscope. There are two, unseen enemies that scripture describes for us, and they are very, very powerful. The first is this. Scripture describes what you and I are like, by nature. It is something that we do not want to admit to. It is something that we do not want to accept. It is something that we almost want to put our hands over our ears and say, "I am not listening. I am not listening!" But, the Bible describes us being born, inheriting a sinful nature, so that by nature, we are opposed to the things of God and we don't want to do the things of God.

We don't want to do the things of God.

We are born sinners.

The Bible reveals that hidden fact about us.

The Bible also reveals a hidden world of evil spirits. The passage that Pastor Tweit read from Ephesians, describes the devil this way: "Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against spiritual forces of evil in heavenly realms."

Our fight, sinners that we are, is against these powerful, spiritual, dark forces. The Bible says, "Our enemy the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour."

He hates God, with a passion.

He hates you with such a passion that he wants to hurt and harm you in the worst possible way. The devil wants you to suffer the same fate that he has to suffer, because he has fallen against God. The devil, this hidden secret enemy that is out there, who he is real, hates you so terribly, that

• He wants to cast you into eternal fire and darkness.
• He wants to cast you into a place where there is eternal weeping and gnashing of teeth.
• He wants to cast you into a place where the worm never dies, and the fire never goes out.

That is how despicably the devil hates you. The devil peruses you and he is relentless in pursuing you.

I have a question. Who of us can stand against him? Who of us can stand against the devil, by nature, the way we are born, sinners that we are by nature? Is there anybody in this room, who could stand against the devil, if the devil were to stand here and taunt us and say, "Come on. Come on! Who of you can stand against me? Who of you can keep the Ten Commandments? Try it! Come on! If just one of you could keep the Ten Commandments, why I would let you all have the victory."

But, who can do it? None of us. Those Ten Commandments, which you read at the beginning of this sermon - we have gone against them so many times, so many ways, and the devil can taunt us all he wants. And what are we to do? Why, we all deserve exactly what he plans for us. We deserve eternal condemnation.

But, it reminds me of something that happened several thousand years ago, with another mighty taunter. That mighty taunter was a man by the name of Goliath. This man was huge. He was huge! His armor weighed 125 pounds! That is how strong he was! His spear, the tip of his spear weighed 15 pounds! Can you imagine getting hit by something like that? It would be like getting hit by a rocket.

Goliath had all his forces of the Philistines lined up with him, on his side. They were enemies of the People of God. (Just like Satan has all of his forces lined up against us, with all of the evil demons lined up against the whole human race.) On the other side of Goliath and the Philistines were the Children of Israel, the fighters with their swords, weapons, and their spears. (They were both encamped on hills, facing each other.)

For forty days, forty days, this mighty giant, Goliath, would go down into the valley. He would go down to the valley and he would taunt the Children of Israel. He would say, "Come down and fight. Just send one of your men down to fight. Are you afraid? If one of you can come down here and defeat me, you can have the victory over all of the Philistines. But, if I defeat you, if I defeat one of you, we have the victory over all of you."

Well, for forty days, the Children of Israel were terrified. Who would go? Who could fight against him? Would you? Who would go? But, on the 40th day, a youth by the name of David came to the camp. He saw what was happening and this youth stepped down in the valley, with nothing - no armor, no sword, no spear! And, Goliath laughed. Goliath laughed and taunted him. David said, "You come after me with sword, spear, and javelin, but I come in the name of the Lord. I come in the name of the Lord." He picked up five smooth stones, hurled one of them, and it hit Goliath, this mighty giant, in the forehead. Goliath fell, with a thud. David then went and cut off the head of Goliath. One man, one man won the battle. One man won the battle, but he shared it with all of Israel. And the victory belonged to all of them.

That is such a beautiful picture of what happened when Jesus was tempted in the wilderness. Remember, Goliath taunted them for forty days. It is a beautiful picture, as Satan taunts us and says, "Who of you, who of you can defeat me? Who of you can do it? Who can stand against me?"

That one Man, the real Shepherd of the sheep, (David was a shepherd of the sheep, too, wasn't he?) but, the real Shepherd of the sheep, the One who went, not with mighty weapons, but armed simply with the Word of God, our dear Savior, Jesus, went into the wilderness for forty days and for forty nights, where He was tempted by the devil. The devil threw all of his weapons, all of his temptations at our Savior. The Bible says,

"He was tempted in every point,

just as we are,

yet, He was without sin."

Jesus stood firm, in our place, fighting the victory for us, with the simple Word of God. He simply responded to Satan every time Satan tempted Him, "It is written..." He defeated Satan's temptations in our place. The Bible says that Christ's victory there in the wilderness, Christ's victory over sin, Christ's perfect life, keeping the Ten Commandments fully, that has been declared to be yours. He shares that victory with you, just like David shared the victory with all of Israel. They all benefited from what he did. The Bible says,

"Through the obedience of the one Man,

the many will be made righteous."

By Christ's obedience, His victory over Satan, the mighty battle that He won, that you and I could never win, Christ's holy life has been declared to be yours. The Bible says,

"God made Him who had no sin,

to be sin for us

so that in Him

we might become the righteousness of God."

There is that victory!

As we see our Savior, Jesus, having lived that holy perfect life for us, we cling to that by faith. That victory is ours. The devil now can taunt you all he wants to. He can say to you, "You have sinned. You have done wrong things. You have gone against God's Word. You deserve to be condemned." But, we have the victory. We have our Victor, who we stand beside by faith.

After Jesus defeated Satan, the Bible says He went into the Galilean countryside and said,

"Repent and believe the Good News!"

Cling to the Good News! Cling to Christ. You can say right back to Satan, "Satan, Jesus has given me His holy life. God sees me as if I have never sinned. You can accuse me all that you want to, but I stand holy and righteous in God's eyes, for Christ's sake. And, I am forgiven."

We call that the active obedience of Christ. It is like, you have a debt that you have to pay. Every month you have to make the payments. If you miss the payments, then there is punishment for missing the payments. When Jesus died on the cross, He was, as it were, taking the punishment for the payments we missed. But, when He lived His holy life, it was like He was making the payments that we can't make. He was living that holy life. So, we are saved by what Jesus did, by His victory.

So, I want to ask you this. What do think the Children of Israel did, when David defeated Goliath, knowing that they got to share in David's victory? The Philistines had been defeated by one man, by David. Do you think that the Children of Israel stood on their side of the hill and they all clapped their hands saying "Yah!" And that was it?

Is that what we do? Do we just stand here, clap our hands, and say, "Yah, Jesus won the victory"?

What did the Children of Israel do? Having seen that David won the victory, the Bible tells us that they surged forward with a shout. And they went after all the other enemies. And so, our King has won the victory for you and me. Let's surge forward with a shout, and let's enter into battle with Him. The devil still plans your overthrow. The devil still seeks to defeat you, although he has been defeated in Christ, and we stand in Christ's holiness and righteousness. Let us go into battle, surge forward with a shout, fighting alongside our King, against Satan and his foes.

How do we do that? What do you rush forward with into battle? The one weapon that we have that we surge forward with is the Word of God. I cannot encourage you enough, (and I know we do this many times from the pulpit), I cannot encourage you enough to become an expert in the Word of God, in wielding the Word of God.

is the Word of God.

When Jesus was tempted in the wilderness, He always fought Satan simply with the only weapon you and I have - that is the Word of God. He said, "It is written..."

I would encourage you to study the Ten Commandments, which are written at the beginning of this sermon. Set them to memory. Use that as your weapon against Satan, when you are tempted, when he is trying to fight the battle against you.

You know what else David used in battling Satan? Remember Saul, the king, and how an evil spirit used to come upon him? You know how David drove away that evil spirit for Saul? He would play the harp. The Bible says, "The evil spirit would flee." Was it just the music, the sound of the music that caused the evil spirit to flee? David was the author of the Psalms. Certainly, as David played the harp before Saul, when the evil spirit came upon him, we understand that he must have been singing the very Psalms of God, the Words of God, because it is only from the Word of God that Satan flees. And so, I would encourage you to do the same as David, who fought the devil with music. Many of our hymns are beautiful ways to do so. That is why we have our children memorize hymns, here at Holy Cross School, so that they have the Word of God set to music in their hearts. I encourage you, to do the same. Maybe you should consider memorizing the hymn that we sang today, the hymn of the Ten Commandments or many of the other wonderful hymns in our hymnal, which are God’s Word set to music. You can sing them throughout the day, in your own heart, as weapons against Satan.

We begin the Lenten Season now. Ultimately we will end at the cross, where we see Jesus make full payment for our sin. We begin by seeing that He lived a perfect life in our place. The victory is ours. Now, let's enter into battle with Him, and fight against Satan.

Amen.

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