St. Matthew 4:1–11
Catechesis gives you Words for the fight
In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Catechesis means hearing or learning God’s Word. Last Sunday with the blind man, we heard that catechesis gives sight and it is the Way on which our Teacher leads you. On Ash Wednesday with Jesus and His Christian disciplines of fasting, almsgiving, and prayer, we heard that catechesis lays up treasure for you in heaven. Today with Jesus enduring the devil’s temptations in the wilderness, we will hear how catechesis gives you Words for the fight.
Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith (1 Peter 5:8–9). The devil wants to devour you because he envies you. He is the hater and envier of all that is good. He rejected and forfeited goodness when he rebelled against God who is the Giver of all good. And the devil sees that you have it—the goodness of God’s creation and the goodness of faith in Christ. And it’s not even that he wants it for himself, because he can’t even appreciate what’s good anymore. He just can’t stand that you have anything good. That is envy. He just wants to smash everything so no one can have anything good. This is why he attacked Jesus, tempting Him to stop being the Christ. The devil wanted to stop salvation from happening. If he could get Jesus to turn away from God, to doubt God, to side–step God’s plan, if the devil could get Jesus to not suffer and die as the perfect sinless sacrifice for the sins of the world, then the devil would’ve won and there would be nothing good.
But the devil failed in devouring Christ, so the only thing he can do now is turn his attention on Christians. Remember, he is an envier. Even if he can’t destroy the goodness of salvation completely, he doesn’t want you to get any of it. So, the devil attacks us to stop us from receiving that salvation. He tries to devour us by tempting us away from the goodness of God our Savior. He twists all the good things that our Father gives us in this world, even twists the good things He gives us in the Church, so that we misuse God’s good gifts or take them for granted. If he can get us to deny God’s goodness and rely on our own version of goodness (which is just sin), then he wins, he devours us, so that God can’t have us and so that we can’t have God or anything else good either.
But fear not, the Lord of hosts, the Creator of the Universe, the Almighty, He is in your flesh and blood. He is on your side. Jesus, your Christ and Savior, is here for you so that you might endure the devil’s temptations and resist him, firm in your faith. This is why Jesus went through His temptations. He did it vicariously for us, in our place. In every respect, Jesus has been tempted as we are, yet without sin (Hebrews 4:15). He won the victory for us. He did not give in, He did not sin, so when you believe in Christ that victory is counted as yours. His resisting temptation counts and covers over all the times you have succumbed and given into temptation. Your sins are forgiven because they are canceled out by Jesus’ perfection. Your baptism and faith in Christ mean you are victorious.
However, there is still real danger from the devil, from this evil world, and from our own sinful flesh. Jesus won the battle, but it’s not completely over yet. As long as we remain this flesh, with this sinful mind and heart, as long as we remain in this life with the devil and all other enemies of God surrounding us, we will always be in danger. We are still weak when it comes to our own ability to resist temptation. And the devil is still seeking someone to devour. And if we don’t resist him, we can still be lost.
This is why we need catechesis. We still need training in God’s Word because as long as the fight rages on, as long as we are still in the sinful flesh, still in the sinful world, and still attacked by the devil, well then, we’re not yet perfect are we? Not until the resurrection. So, if we are not yet perfect, then we must still train, we must still hear and learn God’s Word. God knows we need this, which is why He commands it.
Did you know that all three of Jesus’ replies to the devil come from Deuteronomy? I don’t think this is an accident. Deuteronomy is a book particularly devoted to teaching God’s Word. It’s the second giving of God’s Law to Israel before they enter the promised land. You might say it was Moses’ last catechism lesson for them. And over and over again, he tells the people to remember and keep all the words that the Lord has given them. Listen to this from Moses in Deuteronomy, chapter 6 (right where Jesus is pulling His quotes): “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates” (Deuteronomy 6:4–9). This is what catechesis is all about: getting God’s Word in our hearts and keeping it there. Teaching it, talking about it, having it with us everywhere, in our minds, in front of our eyes, and in our hands. God commands that we continue to hear and learn His Word. Because only in this way will we be able to endure and resist the devil’s attacks.
Jesus used His written Word to defeat Satan. He resisted the devil by quoting Scripture. That means we can also defeat the devil by using the written Word of God. When we have the Word in our hearts and minds and use it to gain knowledge and direction and strength, then we wield the power of the victorious Christ. When we speak God’s Word to ourselves and to others in order to resist the devil’s attacks, then the crucified and living Christ speaks through us. And the devil cannot stand against that.
You need this Word, because you are daily in the devil’s kingdom. He ceases neither day nor night to sneak up on you and to kindle in your heart unbelief and wicked thoughts. That’s why you must always have God’s Word in your heart, upon your lips, and in your ears… And that Word is so effective that… it always awakens new understanding, pleasure, and devoutness and produces a pure heart and pure thoughts. For these Words of Godare not lazy or dead, but are creative and living Words. In this way, the devil is put to flight and driven away (Large Catechism I:100–2).
So, how do we do that? Paying attention to sermons and talking about them. Reading the Bible and talking about it at home. Remember from Deuteronomy, teaching and talking about God’s Word at home is commanded by God. And He promises to bless it. Beyond reading or hearing, we need to be memorizing it, rehearsing the truth of God as often as we can. Adam and Eve neglected their memory work, their commandments and creed and prayer, and they were led astray. The point of memorizing and re-memorizing God’s Word is so you have it with you when temptation comes, so you can spot the commandment you’re being tempted to break, so you can confess the creed against the devil’s lies, so you can pray to our Father and ask that He lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.
What’s more, your catechesis in the Word helps you make use of God’s gifts in the sacraments, which will also support you in your fight against the devil. All the things I’ve mentioned are ways to make use of your Baptism, because only a baptized believer can do these things. And if we are using God’s Word as His baptized children then we will also want to make use of the power we have in confession and absolution. The devil loves it when we don’t confess our sins and we keep them to ourselves, thinking they’ll just go away. He also loves it when we don’t use the absolution, the authority to actually forgive sins in our homes when members of the family sin against each other, and then also use it in private confession with our pastor. Finally, you can grasp the Word and impress it upon your heart and mind in the Lord’s Supper. His Word gives you what it says: His body and blood for the forgiveness of your sins. Trust that Word as you eat and drink, and the devil won’t be able to tear you away from the Lord who fills you with His own life and power.
But how easily we forget and how quickly we get tired. We let the devil twist our minds and talk us out of what God calls good. So, we must never cease to practice and train ourselves in the Lord’s Word. Catechesis gives you the Words you need for the fight, and it gives you the promise that the Lord Himself is with you.
In the Holy + Name of Jesus. Amen.
