Invocavit ("He shall call") First Sunday in Lent

Today's little gallery is taken from the genius of Jacques Jacob Tissot (James Tissot after his move to London in 1871): Pic #1 is his self portrait. Tissot illustrates Christ being tempted by the devil as in Pic #2 where it is written that Jesus is tempted to turn stones into bread; and, in Pic #3 where Jesus is tempted to cast Himself off the pinnacle of the temple; also, in Pic #4 where Jesus is tempted with all the riches and glories of the kingdoms in the world, if only He would worship Satan; and, lastly in Pic #5, after Jesus fought the devil rightly using Scripture, He is ministered to by many angels. 

This brings me to my address for Invocavit ("He will call" upon Me) Sunday:

“The Written Word of God Overcomes Bad Theology”
Sermon Text: Matthew 4:1-11 NKJV
4:1 Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. 2 And when He had fasted forty days and forty nights, afterward He was hungry. 3 Now when the tempter came to Him, he said, “If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.”
4 But He answered and said, "It is written, 'Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.’”
5 Then the devil took Him up into the holy city, set Him on the pinnacle of the temple, 6 and said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down. For it is written: ‘He shall give His angels charge over you,’ and, ‘In their hands they shall bear you up, lest you dash your foot against a stone.’”7 Jesus said to him, “It is written again, ‘You shall not tempt the LORD your God.’” 8 Again, the devil took Him up on an exceedingly high mountain, and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. 9 And he said to Him, “All these things I will give You if You will fall down and worship me.” 10 Then Jesus said to him, “Away with you, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the LORD your God, and Him only you shall serve.’” 11 Then the devil left Him, and behold, angels came and ministered to Him.

My Christian Friends: George Orwell, the author of 1984, said: “Many people genuinely do not want to be saints, and it is probable that some who achieve or aspire to sainthood have never felt much temptation to be human beings.” But here in the historical Gospel reading for the first Sunday in Lent is the record of St. Matthew of the temptations of Christ. The Lord Christ who both as true man and true God, God in the flesh, now will feel the temptations of being truly human.

The writer of the book of Hebrews says, “For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” Knowing this, you are given the lesson as an example of what to do when temptations come your way, and where it is you should look for help.

In the first temptation of Christ, the devil said, “If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.” Now it had been forty days and forty nights since Jesus had anything to eat and Scripture said, “He hungered”, so this was a great and fitting temptation with which to begin. I would venture to say that none of us had ever experienced the hunger that Jesus had at this point. All we must do is go to the kitchen and we could at least find a can of soup and maybe some crackers to go with it. Yes, Jesus, being true Man, did experience real hunger to the point that He was hungering with real hunger! Yet many feign being hungry to the point of starving. Esau, the twin brother of Jacob, was such a person. As it is recorded in Genesis 25:29-34:
“Now Jacob cooked a stew; and Esau came in from the field, and he was weary. And Esau said to Jacob, ‘Please feed me with that same red stew, for I am weary.’ Therefore, his name was called Edom. But Jacob said, ‘Sell me your birthright as of this day.’ And Esau said, ‘Look, I am about to die; so what is this birthright to me?’ Then Jacob said, ‘Swear to me as of this day.’ So he swore to him and sold his birthright to Jacob. And Jacob gave Esau bread and stew of lentils; then he ate and drank, arose, and went his way. Thus, Esau despised his birthright.”

Jesus would essentially be denying His birthright had He given in to this temptation. And this was the real contention, since Jesus was true God, the only Son of the Father. And as true God He could easily have done that which the devil suggested. Yet, being the Son of God, by taking on human flesh, He was also subservient to His Father’s will. In other words, Jesus was to explicitly trust His Father to provide for His need. And this was the Father’s will, this is what the Father desired of His Son: (Philippians 2:6 8) “Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.”

The devil had tried to make Jesus, by His own powers, according to His human nature, to trust in His own will rather than in the will of His heavenly Father. Many a time there is that we are tempted to trust in anything or anyone else but God Himself to provide for our needs. We are to trust solely in the Father’s will for us and not trust in our own will. Too many ordinary people think that in order to be engaged with God that they would have to be saints.

We often perceive hunger and poverty as God unwilling to act, or as Luther thought the devil was saying, “Trust in God and don’t bake; wait until a roasted rooster flies into your mouth!” But it is not God’s will for His people to starve or lack in anything needful. But the Lord doesn’t want us to be self-reliant to the point that we don’t turn to Him in need or give Him thanks in days of plenty.

See how Jesus used the written Word of God to refute this first temptation of the devil. And the answer regarding that Word was found in Deuteronomy 8:3, “So He humbled you, allowed you to hunger, and fed you with manna which you did not know nor did your fathers know, that He might make you know that man shall not live by bread alone; but man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the LORD.” Thus, Jesus says to the devil “It is written!” Christians learn from Christ to fight the temptation to depend on their own human natures, natures that have been corrupted by Original Sin, to get what they think need.

Now it is that the devil took Jesus up onto a pinnacle of the temple and said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, cast Yourself down, For it is written: ‘He shall give His angels charge over you,’ and, ‘In their hands they shall bear you up, lest you dash your foot against a stone.’” (Psalm 91) Satan is sly for He knows what the entire Scripture he cited says, but he deliberately leaves out the words, “to keep you in all your ways” (Ps.91:11). These words, “in all your ways,” simply mean that if you go outside your way in calling upon the Lord in times of trouble – if you are not kept within all your ways – then it is that you forfeit any claim to the Lord’s protection and providential care. This is what God says He will do for you in Psalm 91:14-16, "Because he has set his love upon Me, therefore I will deliver him; I will set him on high, because he has known My name. He shall call upon Me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble; I will deliver him and honor him. With long life I will satisfy him and show him My salvation.”

It is with half-truths and portions of the Bible, taken out of context, which makes for a great majority of false doctrines within Christendom. To fight against this temptation, you need to hold on to and adhere closely to the pure and unadulterated written Word of God.

Yes, learn from Christ to fight this kind of temptation. Jesus knew that the devil simply proposed false doctrine here, therefore Jesus responded, “It is written again: ‘You shall not tempt the Lord your God’” (Deut.6:16). Adhere not only to the letter of the written Word but also to the spirit of the Word and you will not succumb to the temptations of liberal pseudo-Christianity and bad theology. You will be able to be victorious over all liberal-socio Christianity. You will also be able to be victorious over the temptation to become part of a one world government and, de facto, a one world religion.

Let the Bible interpret the Bible and don’t let some leader in your church who claims to be a scholar tell you what the Bible says. For, as 2 Peter 1:19-20 tells us, “...we have the prophetic word confirmed, which you do well to heed as a light that shines in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts; knowing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation, for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.” Christians learn from Christ to fight the temptation of bad theology and false doctrine by letting Scripture interpret Scripture.

In the next temptation of Christ the devil took Jesus up onto a high mountain and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and said to Him, “All this authority I will give You, and their glory; for this has been delivered to me, and I give it to whomever I wish. Therefore, if You will worship before me, all will be Yours.” Now you may ask, did the devil had it in his authority to grant Jesus all this ‘worldly’ power? The devil is indeed called “the god of this world” 2 Corinthians 4:4; and “the prince of the power of the air” in Ephesians 2:2. Also it is written in Revelation 12:12 “Woe to the inhabitants of the earth and the sea! For the devil has come down to you, having great wrath, because he knows that he has a short time.” And within this “short time” Satan, a spiritual being, was given power to operate within the physical realm of the earth in which carnal man was dwelling.

At first glance one would think that the devil is really very stupid fellow since he was unable to get Jesus to eat when He was starving that somehow Jesus would then give in to the temptation to have all the glory and power of the kingdoms of this earth. However, this was what Satan wished Jesus would do in His human weakness, namely, forget that He, Jesus, was indeed true God, the same essence of His Father, and that it was the devil, and not He, who should be bowing down and worshiping! Therefore, Jesus responds with Scripture by saying, “For it is written: ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only shall you serve.’”

Yielding to this temptation destroys faith and kills true worship that is to be offered in spirit and in truth. Yielding to this temptation destroys the very adoration of the Triune God Himself. It has been the destruction of many church congregations, even though they still look busy and prosperous much like the Church of the Laodiceans in Revelation 3:14-18. The poison of earthly things and their glory has destroyed many in Christendom. Indifference to Sunday worship because of things is more contagious than the Coronavirus is to the world today. It can and will spread to our children whenever we become more excited about the world rather than the great and glorious powers in heaven that we have in and through our Savior Jesus Christ!

Yes, the world and its powers, including the god of this world, Satan, are very evil and Christians should stay alert to the fact that the temptations to gain great power and wealth may well mean that you forfeit your very own soul. “For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” Matthew 16:26. Christians learn to fight the temptation of power and lust for things by worshiping and honoring the only one true God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Oh, friends…many otherwise good people have their faith chipped away by sitting under the feet of false teachers and preachers who claim that they are speaking the Word of the Lord and flatter their hearers by smooth talking and a great display of love. But their concerns are of this world and they do grave injustice to the Bible, God’s inerrant and infallible Word.

Remember what Jesus taught, as recorded in John 15:18 19, “If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own: but because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.” The joy that you feel in the recreated heart for Jesus and His glories is beyond this world’s comprehension and always will be. Therefore, if you find yourselves troubled by any of these temptations, remember and learn from the Master how to fight them. Say, “Away with you, Satan, for…It is Written!” Amen.

Quinquagesima Sunday 2020

Faith and Mercy connect the dots in this little gallery. Carl Heinrich Bloch tells of the Gospel account for this Sunday, Pic #1 is his painting of Jesus healing the blind man on Jericho's road; Pic #2 is the Greek god Opportunity, Caerus (also called Kairos, i.e. Time), reminding people how fleeting time and opportunity really are; whereas, Pic #3 shows John Bunyan's Pilgrim taking the opportunity to enter the wicket gate seeking mercy for his sins that are a great burden on his back; and, Pic #4, shows God's mercy, through faith in His Son, to all who believe.

This brings me to my address for this Quinqagesima Sunday (the Sunday before Ash Wednesday):

“Faith: A Blind Man’s Opportunity for Grace” Luke 18:35-43
35 Then it happened, as He was coming near Jericho, that a certain blind man sat by the road begging. 36 And hearing a multitude passing by, he asked what it meant. 37 So they told him that Jesus of Nazareth was passing by. 38 And he cried out, saying, "Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!" 39 Then those who went before warned him that he should be quiet; but he cried out all the more, "Son of David, have mercy on me!" 40 So Jesus stood still and commanded him to be brought to Him. And when he had come near, He asked him, 41 saying, "What do you want Me to do for you?" He said, "Lord, that I may receive my sight." 42 Then Jesus said to him, "Receive your sight; your faith has made you well." 43 And immediately he received his sight, and followed Him, glorifying God. And all the people, when they saw it, gave praise to God. NKJV

Dear Christian friends: Goethe, the German philosopher and poet, once stated: “Art is long, life short, judgment difficult, and opportunity transient.” The ancient Greeks had a way of expressing the adage that opportunity knocks but once. These Greeks had made a statue of a god named Opportunity (Kairos). This statue stood on its toes with wings on the heals to show how fleeting time is ad how quickly opportunity might pass; it had a wavy long lock of hair in the front so that people might be able to grasp it when opportunity came to them, but it was bald in the back to show that once opportunity passed it could no longer be grasped.

The Gospel text for this Sunday speaks of a certain blind beggar sitting on the side of the road. It would be very hard for any of us to understand the unfortunate qualities that comprised this man; his blindness as well as his poverty. And it is most certainly true that many of us have taken hold of the time when opportunity presented itself to us in education, love, health care, families and friends, laughter and recreational times; opportunities that never once came to this poor, blind beggar. It was only the few coins he daily received from people who took pity on him that gave him some comfort. But opportunity is now going to change his outlook as Jesus relates this story regarding His office as the Christ as well as to instruct us today on important spiritual matters.

Jesus tells us how this man uses his God-given gift of hearing. Scripture says, “And hearing a multitude passing by, he asks what this meant.” The blind man was alert to the opportunity that was coming his way; this was God’s Time for him, otherwise he would have just passed up this “noise” coming his way of being none of his business. Now his faith perceived this great opportunity coming His way and so uses his voice. After people told him that it was Jesus of Nazareth coming on this road, faith causes him to cry out: “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” By this manner of addressing the Lord, it was obvious that the man heard of the mighty works Jesus had done. So it was he cried out to Jesus for mercy seeking this great opportunity as it was coming his way.

Others seemed oblivious to this man’s miserable condition and more interested in the passing parade while still others discouraged this man and even told him to shut up and keep quiet! The greater part of the crowd didn’t share the blind man’s faith as he cried out to Jesus or else they, too, would have cried out for mercy if they were to perceive their very own blindness that was worse than the beggar’s, namely, a spiritual blindness. But this blind man, who evidently heard the Word of God that created faith in him, showed a great display of trust as he was being obedient to what the prophet Isaiah said: “Seek the Lord while He may be found, call upon Him while He is near.” (Isaiah 55:6) Yet no one, but no one, can call upon God for mercy if his eyes have not yet been opened to the goodness of God’s providential care. It is just as Ephesians 2:1 says, “And you…were dead in trespasses and sins” i.e. dead, spiritually, having no power to either call upon God or grasp at all any opportunity for healing and salvation.

This spiritual blindness is commonplace in our homes, in our schools, and especially in our universities and our government. Spiritual blindness is pervasive as well in the mainline churches in America and institutions that claim to have knowledge of God. What our country really needs is not so much a revival but rather a simple obedience to the truth of God’s Word for the namesake of Jesus Christ. As the Old Testament prophet, Samuel, told King Saul, “Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice!”

Many within the Church of Christ rather change the words of Christ’s comfort and grace without God, merely pretending that sickness, infirmities, trials and temptations that come with living life today are somehow not related to the sufferings of all mankind. God understands suffering. Through Christ, God has experienced what we experience: Pain, loss, betrayal, heartache, and persecution. He’s been there; He’s done that. As St. Paul says, Isn’t the whole creation subjected to the futility because of Him who subjected it in hope?

The late Catholic Bishop Fulton J. Sheen related this story in the 1950’s about this same futility that caused a mother and a father to ask their little girl to include her family, with their various afflictions, in her bed-tine prayers one night. And so she obediently prayed: “Dear God, my brother has the mumps; my sister fell off her bike and broke her leg; my older brother has pneumonia; and my daddy just lost his job. So please, Lord, take care of Yourself, because if anything would happen to You we would all be in the soup!” Lord, have mercy.

This blind man had nothing to sacrifice to the Lord and yet he showed a great faith in calling on Jesus while others were telling him to be quiet. In obedience to God’s Word, this man, sitting on Jericho’s road was to seize Opportunity personified. His prayer, cried out loud, was of the same essence of that particular prayer of the tax collector standing afar off in the temple, with his eyes lowered as he beat his chest, saying, “Have mercy on me a sinner!” And who is it that Jesus wishes to see other than the one that admits his guilt of sin? Our text reads: “So Jesus stood still and commanded him (the beggar) to be brought to Him.” In this blind man, our Lord sees the destitute, spiritual blindness of His fallen creation; the same fallen creation that He is on His way to Jerusalem to offer Himself as the pure and holy sacrifice for the world’s sins.

Pertaining to this Gospel, Martin Luther says this about the blind man: ”The spiritually blind, the state of every man born of Adam, who neither sees nor knows the kingdom of God; but it is of grace that he feels and knows his blindness and would gladly be delivered from it. They are saintly sinners who feel their faults and sighs for grace. But he sits by the wayside and begs, that is, he sits among the teachers of the law and desires help; but it is begging, with works he must appear blue and help himself. The people pass him by and let him sit, that is the people of the law make a great noise and are heard among the teachers of good works, they go before Christ and Christ follows them.”

And then Luther says: “But when he heard Christ, that is, when the heart hears the Gospel of faith, it calls and cries, and has no rest until it comes to Christ. Those, however, who would silence and scold him are teachers of works, who wish to quiet and suppress the doctrine and cry of faith; but they stir the heart the more. For the nature of the Gospel is, the more it is restrained the more progress it makes. Afterwards he received his sight, all his work and life are nothing but the praise and honor of God, and he follows Christ with joy, so that the whole world wonders and is thereby made better.”

When the blind man was brought near to Jesus, Jesus asked him, “What do you want me to do for you?” The man saw his opportunity and acted according to faith and said, “Lord, that I may receive my sight.” He took hold of Jesus with his words, knowing that he would not let Jesus go until his prayer was answered. This is how faith reacts when Jesus is near; faith will not let Jesus loose until He has demonstrated His love and mercy that was promised of old. It was through the prophet Isaiah that we have this promise: “Strengthen the weak hands, and make firm the feeble knees” and “the eyes of the blind shall be opened and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped; the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the dumb sing…”

Friends, don’t let those of your families and acquaintances dissuade you from your faithful cries to your Lord. Don’t let your lips just sing the Kyrie eleison in the liturgy out of tradition, just another thing to do in our worship services void of meaning without hearing your own cries of “Lord, have mercy upon me; Christ, have mercy upon me; Lord, have mercy upon me!”

The Kyrie itself was a litany prayer of the early church as the business language of the first three centuries was Greek, even in Rome. And even though the Kyrie was not mentioned in the liturgy until the mid-fourth century it nevertheless is the cry of the Church acknowledging the frailty and weakness in need of God’s pity and mercy. It is found in many of the Psalms used even in Old Testament worship; such as Psalm 25:16, “Turn Yourself to me, and have mercy on me for I am desolate and afflicted” and, Psalm 41:4, “Lord, be merciful to me; Heal my soul, for I have sinned against You” and, Psalm 123:3, “Have mercy on us, O Lord, have mercy on us! For we are exceedingly filled with contempt.”

There are other Psalms that are a cry for help in times of distress. All cries of Kyrie eleison have one thing in common which the writer to the New Testament book of Hebrews 4:16 tells us: “Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” This you can do simply because you have a High Priest, Jesus, who can sympathize with your infirmities as you come to Him by faith that gives you access to His marvelous grace.

Therefore, don’t ever see opportunity as being fleeting because of the many voices of those who try to silence you and stop you from presenting your requests before your Lord. If you feel that Jesus has passed you by, not hearing your cries for mercy, remember this, namely, that traveling through Jericho, Jesus’ eyes were set upon the purpose for which He was born; His face was set toward Jerusalem where He would be tortured and put to a sacrificial death not only for the blind man’s sins but also for the sins of the world. Knowing this, Jesus has not passed you by if you sincerely believe that you are still in this world but not of this world. The road that Jesus was travelling, when the blind man encountered Him, was the road of love; the road that led our Savior to Calvary.

Jesus told the blind man, “Receive your sight; your faith has made you well.” Again, Luther speaks to this point, writing: “Finally, we see how Christ encourages us both by His works and words. In the first place by His works, in that He sympathizes so strongly with the blind man and makes it clear how pleasing faith is to Him, so that Christ is at once absorbed with interest in the man, stops and does what the blind man desires in his faith. In the second place, that Christ praises his faith in words, and says, ‘Thy faith has made thee whole;’ He casts the honor of the miracle vouchsafed what it asks, and it is moreover our great honor before God.” Amen.