Matthew 4:1-11 - Nothing New Under the Sun - March 1, 2020

Last week our family went to a cousin’s 2 year birthday party. The kids were all playing with hula-hoops. It felt like the 1970’s all over again. If you’re looking for a movie lately and feel like you’ve seen them all before (The Lion King, Aladdin, Mulan)…you have – they’re all remakes. Millennial men are wearing their grandpa’s beards and flannel. If you observe cultural trends, you quickly recognize that what’s old is suddenly new again. The same is true of our lives spiritually – when you look closely, you see that Solomon was right: there is nothing new under the sun (Ecclesiastes 1:9). Our lessons this morning bear that out. From Eden to the Judean wilderness to McFarland – the devil’s tactics are always the same. By studying his tactics this morning we will be better equipped to identify them as the lies they are, and, more importantly, we will rejoice in the victory that is ours in Christ.

The devil rarely leads with a big, bold lie. He doesn’t usually come right out and say “God is wrong,” “God is evil,” or “God’s Word is untrue.” Instead he starts in small, seemingly harmless ways. The little lie…the half-truth. In Eden, it started with a harmless little question to Eve: did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden?’ (Genesis 3:1). The devil knew full well that God had said that Adam and Eve could eat from any tree in the garden except for one (Genesis 2:16-17), but – like the political ads flooding the airwaves around us – he rewrites the narrative in order to paint his enemy in the worst possible light.

Thousands of years go by, and the second Adam, Jesus, the Son of God, appears. At his baptism, God the Father says this is my Son, whom I love. (Matthew 3:17). And in the next breath – after Jesus is led out into the wilderness by the Spirit for a 40 day fast – the devil calls God’s proclamation and Jesus’ identity into question: If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become bread. “If you are God’s Son and God loves you, he wouldn’t want you to starve to death…go ahead, zap those stones into bread.”  What’s wrong with that? Nothing…except the biggest thing. It was God’s will that Jesus would go hungry. To miraculously create food would be rebellion against God’s will. Jesus nails the heart of this temptation: man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that comes out of the mouth of God. Here is trust: Jesus trusted that God could preserve his life even without bread.

2000 years later, the devil still slithers into our lives with his sneaky little lies and half-truths – intended to paint God in the worst possible light. “If God is loving, why does he let something like the coronavirus spread like wildfire around the world? If he’s in control why didn’t he stop that madman before he gunned down his coworkers at a brewery in Milwaukee?” Or: “If you’re really God’s child, why are you so weak and sick, why did he let you lose your job, why did he let the stock market crash – and your retirement portfolio with it – this past week?” And, unlike Jesus, how often don’t those little seeds of doubt blossom into full-blown unbelief and distrust in our hearts?

The devil doesn’t usually start with bold lies, but once he has his foot in the door, he quickly gets there. Eve correctly tells the devil that God warned them not to eat from the tree in the middle of the garden or they will die (Genesis 3:3). The devil responds “No,” you will not surely die (Genesis 3:4). God had promised life if they didn’t eat from the tree. The devil promises life if they do eat. Eve is left with a choice: trust God’s Word or test it.

In the wilderness, the devil comes at Jesus again – this time, armed with Scripture. He tells Jesus to throw himself off of the temple since his Father had promised that his angels wouldn’t let him even stub his toe (Psalm 91:11-12). First, the devil attacked Jesus’ weakness: his aching stomach. Here, he attacks Jesus’ strength: his trust in God’s Word. “You trust God’s Word, Jesus? Prove it. Toss yourself off the temple and let God prove himself good to his Word.”

How is the devil tempting you to test God’s promises? How often don’t we test God in our prayers – asking for something he hasn’t promised, and then, when he doesn’t give us the answer we want, blame him for failing us? How many times haven’t we tested the limits of God’s forgiveness by knowing something is wrong and doing it anyway, thinking “God will always forgive me”? It’s true, God has promised to guard believers as they live according to his will (Psalm 91:9-12). But God hasn’t promised long life to those who slowly kill themselves with gluttony or laziness or by abusing drugs or alcohol. God hasn’t promised to send his angels to guard the lives of reckless or distracted drivers. God hasn’t promised to keep every hardship, disease, or disaster away from you. God hasn’t promised to put food on the table or money in the bank if you will not work or if you waste what he has given you. God’s Word is to be trusted, not tried and tested.

In the end, the temptation that proved fatal for Eve was that if she ate the fruit she would be like God (Genesis 3:5). That’s pretty appealing, isn’t it? Who of us hasn’t thought at least once that if we were in charge, we could run things better than God? The devil makes the greatest evil look like the greatest good. God is not good and his Word is not trustworthy – so the only logical conclusion is that he should be rejected and replaced. It’s the greatest lie ever told because it blatantly contradicts the greatest commandment ever given, the first commandment, you shall have no other gods (Exodus 20:3; Matthew 22:37).

Thousands of years go by and the devil again wants Jesus to believe that God and his plan must be replaced. From a very high mountain he showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory, and promised to give them all to Jesus if he would just do one little thing: bow down and worship the devil. We maybe don’t appreciate how tempting this would have been for Jesus. He could have his cake and eat it too. He could have all that his Father had promised him, all authority in heaven and on earth (Matthew 28:18), without the spit and the whips, the shame and the cross. There was just one catch: not a word of it was true. If you take only one thing from this sermon, take this: the devil always lies; it’s the only language he speaks (John 8:44). He lied to Eve – she didn’t become like God, she died like a wretched sinner. He lied to Jesus – the kingdoms of the world aren’t his to give, they always have and always will belong to God alone (Psalm 24:1).

Satan still lies today, still tempts us to play God, still tempts us to believe that we can have our cake and eat it too if we just replace God’s will with our own. That is, tempting us to become God by deciding what is right and wrong for ourselves. What shortcuts has the devil highlighted on your path through life? From the classroom to tax forms – he can always make cheating look pretty attractive, can’t he? Teaching children to know and love the Lord takes time and effort we don’t always have – why not keep your leisure time and let daycares and schools and the church do the hard work? God is love, isn’t he (1 John 4:8)? Doesn’t he want us to love everyone regardless of their doctrinal positions and sexual orientations and support their choices? Bible study, law and gospel, confession and absolution demand focus and humility – why not just find a church where God loves you just the way you are? After all, God wants you to be happy, doesn’t he? Yes, God does want you to be happy…forever in heaven with him. The lie is that disobedience get you there. We all know from experience that redefining God’s right and wrong doesn’t lead to happiness but broken lives, broken homes, and broken hearts.

And yet, there’s nothing new under the sun – the devil uses his same old tactics – he’s not creative, his temptations today are the same as they have been for thousands of years – and yet we fall for it time after time. So what’s the good news? I want to be very clear here. The good news is NOT that if you follow Jesus’ example you can defeat the devil all by yourself. The moral of the story is NOT that if you know your Bible well enough you can shred his lies and temptations and send the devil running.

Why not? Well, have you ever tried doing what Jesus did? When you’ve doubted God’s love, has reciting John 3:16 helped you overcome doubt in a moment of weakness? Have you ever found contentment by repeating Jesus’ command do not worry (Matthew 6:31) like a mantra? Have you ever stood firm against the devil’s sinful shortcuts by reciting Deuteronomy 6:13 – worship the Lord your God, and serve him only? If I were to stand at the door and hand each of you a Bible as you walk out the door and say, “everything you need to defeat temptation is in this book” – it wouldn’t do any good. Not because the Word isn’t powerful, but because we are weak and fallen (Romans 3:12). Moreover, teaching you how to defeat temptation is Law, not Gospel! This account doesn’t teach us how to win the victory, rather, it shows us Christ, who has won the victory for us. The good news is that even as the devil’s schemes don’t change, neither does the fact of Jesus’ victory. He went head to head with the devil in the wilderness and won – and in three years he would face him down on the cross and crush his head in the dust once and for all – that’s the good news!

So, what should you do when the devil shows up and takes aim at your weaknesses: “Look at what’s happening in your life, your marriage, your family – it sure doesn’t seem like God loves or cares about you.” Don’t look for evidence of God’s love in your heart or your life. See it in your baptism. Through that washing with water and the Word God adopted you into his family and promised that nothing in all creation can separate you from his love (Romans 8:38-39).

What about when the devil attacks your strength: your trust in God’s Word? “Go ahead, give in, just this once. Everyone’s doing it. God apparently isn’t serious about punishing evil (Exodus 20:5-6). And God will just forgive you anyway, won’t he (Romans 6:1)? Go ahead, test him and see if he’s good to his Word!” The only way to silence that devilish voice is to appeal to God’s Word outside of you. To remember those simple, yet profound, words of absolution, in which God himself cast your sins into the bottom of the sea (Micah 7:19). In the absolution, we died to sin, how can we live in it any longer (Romans 6:1)?

What about when the devil leads you to believe that God is not as good as he claims to be, that he’s holding back on you? “God wants you to be happy, right? Who cares if the means are necessarily moral or not; the ends always justify the means.” You could argue with the devil. But he knows as well as we do that we’re no good at delaying satisfaction. The only hope is to look outside of yourself. To look here, to the altar. Here God gives you the best he has to give; here he gives you the body and blood of his only Son. What better evidence could God give you that he is not holding anything good back from you than by giving you his only Son (Romans 8:32)?

You can’t beat the devil by quoting Scripture. He knows it better than you do. And…you don’t have to, because Jesus did. Yes, the devil can point to the struggles and suffering you have in your life and make you doubt God’s love for you; but the Word and water of Baptism cannot lie. Yes, the devil can convince you to sin; but he cannot bring back sins that God has buried in the sea of absolution (Micah 7:19). Yes, the devil can make it seem like God is holding back on you; but he can’t take the body and blood of his Son – tangible evidence of his loving presence – out of your mouth.

There is nothing new under the sun. The devil’s tactics won’t change when we walk out those doors. He will tempt us to question God’s character, test God’s Word, and play God ourselves. But something else won’t change, either. Jesus defeated the devil in that wilderness and crushed his head on the cross and rose victorious – for you! So when you feel the tempter breathing down your neck, don’t make Eve’s mistake and try to fight him alone, run to the Word and Sacrament, where Jesus’ victory is your victory! Amen.