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God
sent Moses to free his children from slavery in Egypt. He promised to do miraculous signs to show
Pharaoh that he was God and that there was none like him. The first demonstration was to cast his staff
onto the ground before Pharaoh. It
immediately turned to a snake. But Pharaoh
commanded his own magicians and sorcerers to do the same thing. And with their witchcraft and trickery they
did. Moses’ snake, though, swallowed the
others. This showed that God’s word
overcomes the devil’s lies. This
hardened Pharaoh’s heart. So God sent plagues.
First
God turned the Nile and all the water in Egypt to blood. Fish died and the country stank. They had to dig new wells to get drinking
water. But because Pharaoh’s magicians
managed to mimic the same miracle by means of witchcraft, Pharaoh again
hardened his heart.
After
this God caused frogs to infest and cover the land. Frogs everywhere afflicted Egypt. We might get a comical image in our mind, but
it really was an aggravating plague!
Pharaoh told his magicians to conjure frogs as well. And lo and behold, they could. But then Pharaoh asked Moses to get rid of
them since, although his sorcerers could mimic the plague of frogs, they could
not get rid of them. This showed that the
devil can cause trouble, but only the word of God can end it. This time Pharaoh promised to let the people
go and worship the Lord. So again, God ended the plague, and yet
again, Pharaoh hardened his heart.
The
third plague is where our Old Testament lesson begins. God caused lice, or gnats, to swarm
everywhere. The very dust that wafted up
when Moses struck the ground with his staff turned to little biting parasites
that could not be avoided. They were
everywhere! And everyone was afflicted –
every man and beast, Egyptian, and Israelite alike. But Pharaoh, wanting to show Moses that this
little trick proved nothing, commanded his sorcerers to mimic it. But they couldn’t. Only God could do it. Having been bested by Moses and Aaron, the
sorcerers finally concluded, “This is
the finger of God.” And so it
was! Yet, Pharaoh’s heart grew even
harder against the Lord.
Because
of this, God commanded Moses to warn Pharaoh that another, even worse,
demonstration of the finger of God was about to occur. But this time, the finger of God would make a
distinction. God would draw a line in
the sand, so to speak. This time the
children of Israel would not suffer with the Egyptians. Flies would attack and swarm and spoil
everything they could reach. But they
would leave God’s people alone. They
would be completely spared. This was the
finger of God.
Still
Pharaoh would not listen. He closed his
ears. But God kept speaking. This is why the Bible says that it was God
who hardened Pharaoh’s heart. God did
not make Pharaoh disobey, of course. He
didn’t make Pharaoh say no in his heart.
God didn’t incite rebellion or resistance in Pharaoh any more than God
was the cause of Adam’s fall. No. This was Pharaoh’s doing; this was the
devil’s trick just like it always was and still is. But God can
be said to have hardened Pharaoh’s heart in this
sense: He knew that the more he commanded Pharaoh the more stubborn Pharaoh
would become. He knew it! And yet God did not on that account stop
speaking. Just because God knew that
Pharaoh would harden his heart did not keep him from saying what needed to be
said. For the love of his people and for
the sake of their deliverance, he would not keep silent.
There’s
a lesson here. Just because we might “know” that someone is going to respond
poorly to our confession of what is right or to our defense of pure doctrine,
this should not keep us from speaking.
We might think that it will only make him or her more turned off by the
word of God. Maybe it will. That’s tragic, to be sure. But the line has already been drawn, and not
by you. You have no control over the
hardness of another’s heart. You do,
however, have control over what you listen to and what you hear. Jesus tells you to hear his word. Jesus tells you to confess him before men. Besides this, you never know whom it might
encourage or even persuade when you do speak up and confess God’s word. It’s not up to you. It’s up to the finger of God. It is God who draws the line in the
sand.
God
told Moses what to speak. Moses, like
you, was too scared. So God told Aaron
to speak in his place. So it often
happens with God. He is kind. He patiently considers our weaknesses. He knows what strengths he has given us and
what strengths he has withheld. If you
find it difficult to articulate what you know needs to be said, it is at least
your duty to hold up the prophet’s hands and stand behind the truth someone
else speaks – even if with nothing more than an amen or a nod. Whether it be your pastor or a friend who is
bolder than you, be confident enough in the truth to openly agree with him. And besides this, even if you can’t give a
detailed argument, you can still quote Scripture or the Catechism, can’t you?
The
devil wants you to be silent. The devil
knows that he can suffocate your faith both by closing your ears to God’s word
and by closing your mouth to repeating or publicly affirming it. This is how he is behind the hardening of so
many hearts. The devil wants you to hear,
unrebuked, the lies that he has persuaded the world to believe. And because the world believes the devil’s
lies, it is therefore in the world that you can expect to hear these lies
repeated. This is what makes the world
his kingdom. He rules as a tyrant with
cruel deception. He wants you too to
repeat his lies or at least ignore their threat and watch as others are carried
away. He wants you to express
thoughtless opinions that contradict God’s word. He wants you to “like” on Facebook posts that mock the Church or that celebrate
sin. He wants you to enjoy and repeat
filthy jokes that make a mockery of marriage as much as he wants you to commit
adultery, because he wants to break down your defenses and your sensitivity to
sin. He wants to blur that line that the
finger of God has drawn in the sand. He
is powerful! This is how he rules his
kingdom. He wants our Epistle lesson
this morning to go in one ear and out the other. He wants such words to be silenced. He wants you to drift off during this
sermon. He wants you to ignore the words
of the liturgy and the prayers our Lord has taught us even as our mouths repeat
them.
Although
Christ won’t shut up – ever – his lambs are often gagged on account of their bashfulness
and fear. Through the pressures of the
world, the devil silences God’s children so as to reduce the sound of God’s
precious word as much as he can. Such is
life in the devil’s kingdom. We need God
to forgive our cowardice and rescue us from being robbed of his precious
gospel. More than that, we need God to
speak to us.
A
more-than-symbolic image of this need can be seen in the man whom Jesus
encountered in our Gospel lesson. He was
mute – on account of the fact that he was probably deaf too. A certain demon had closed this man’s ears to
what he needed to hear. In this way he
also bound his tongue from speaking what he needed to say. He couldn’t even beg for mercy! He was utterly helpless! – cut off from all human
communication and fellowship. But Jesus had
compassion. Jesus communicated. Jesus gave the poor man fellowship with
himself. He spoke to the man – or
really, he spoke to the demon who possessed him. And when God speaks to us, we often hear in
his voice directed at the devil a rebuke.
And that’s what happened here. He
spoke to him and commanded him to leave his child alone. Jesus broke into the devil’s kingdom and
declared war! “This man is mine! I came to save him.
Let my people go!”
The
demon obeyed, and the man who could not speak spoke. The crowds marveled. But some said that the demon only obeyed him
because he spoke by the authority of Beelzebub, the chief of the demons. The name Beelzebub literally means Lord of
the Flies. It was a mocking name for the
devil who swarms around dung and other filth.
So Christ’s enemies and scoffers claimed that he cast out demons by the
power of the devil. Jesus gave a very
reasonable defense. It amounts to this:
Why would the devil fight against his
own soldiers? That would divide his forces and cause him to fail. It doesn’t make sense. A kingdom that’s divided against itself cannot
stand. No, I am clearly not on Satan’s
side. Any fool can tell you that! I am quite clearly fighting against Satan by casting out his
henchmen demons from the people they are possessing. Besides, if I cast out demons by the power of
Beelzebub, why is it that you approve of your own disciples trying to cast them
out? How do you suppose they might do it
if I do it by the devil? What will you
accuse them of? But if I do it by the
finger of God, like what happened in Egypt, then the kingdom of God has come
upon you. My kingdom is at war with the
devil’s kingdom just like it was once at war with Pharaoh’s kingdom. I wage this war by speaking the truth. I make distinctions between what is his and
what is mine by plundering the devil and rescuing sinners just like I plundered
Pharaoh and rescued your fathers. I do
what you cannot mimic. This is what the
finger of God does.
And
consider. Is this not exactly what the
finger of God does? Just as Pharaoh was
devastated and destroyed by the plagues that Moses brought, so much more is
Satan routed and ruined by Christ who ushers in the kingdom of God, that is,
the preaching of the gospel and the administration of the sacraments, by which
he says to the devil in our presence week after week, “Let my people go!” The finger of God is the Holy Spirit who has
caused all these things to be written for our learning.
When
Pharaoh’s sorcerers could not mimic what Moses did, they rightly identified his
power as being the finger of God. But when
the Pharisees could not mimic Jesus as he cast out demons, they wrongly accused
him of working for the Lord of the Flies.
The devil is a much greater enemy than Pharaoh. His heart is harder and his hatred of God is
greater. While the sorcerers could admit
when they were beat, the devil never will.
His pride won’t let him. His head
is crushed, yes. But even now, and until
the final judgment, he will continue to roam around as a ravaging lion seeking
someone to devour, or as Jesus puts it, seeking a swept-out heart to make his
home. He ravages by lying. He devours by closing our ears to the truth
and removing God’s words from upon our lips.
But just as God alone could end the plagues of gnats and flies, so it is
God alone who can silence the buzzing of the devil’s lies. In this sense they were right. He is the Lord. And even the flies are subject to him. And he will soon also end the plague of Satan
upon this earth.
But
before he does, or really, while he
does, he separates us from the sons of disobedience by drawing a clear line
between them and the children of promise, that is, he sanctifies us, he sets us
apart. He does this with the same finger
of God, the Holy Spirit. Just as he
rescued the poor man who could not speak, so he rescues us from the dumbness of
unbelief. He teaches you! Just as this man had a demon, so also we were
born under the power and influence of the devil – into Satan’s kingdom, in dire
need of being rescued. Just as he had
mercy on this man by rebuking the demon who possessed him, so he has mercy on
us by rebuking the devil who would presume to claim us. He teaches you to join in this rebuke by
claiming your Baptism.
Because
in Holy Baptism, God invaded the kingdom of Satan to rescue you from a strong
enemy – stronger than Pharaoh or any earthly oppressor – stronger than whatever
it is you worry about instead of praying.
Here in your Baptism, he gave you a new birth by the finger of God, the
Holy Spirit. As he led the children of
Israel through the Red Sea and drowned Pharaoh’s armies, so he leads you
through water by his word and drowns all your sin and all Satan’s claims on
you.
Jesus
depicts the devil as a strong man who guards his goods. He’s jealous of you. He is depicted as strong, because he is
stronger than you. He guards what is
his. His claim on you is found in the
fact that you by nature are a slave to sin who ignores God. His weapons by which he guards you as his own
are his lies by which he aims to harden your hearts. He lies when he promises satisfaction in
doing what God forbids. He lies when he
promises that you must earn God’s approval by fulfilling what he commands. This is what Jesus came to do for you.
He is the stronger man. And he
comes with the finger of God to distinguish you from all self-serving, deluded
sinners and from the devil. He spoils
the devil’s kingdom by living the perfect life in your place and dying as your
Substitute under God’s wrath, and so teaches you to mimic him and be distinct
from a world that is perishing, to flee fornication, to flee every form of evil
that would tempt us to be enslaved again to the passions of the Gentiles. He disarms the devil and binds him on the
other side of the line by teaching you the truth – that he has earned your
salvation and even now gives you full forgiveness for all your sins. This is the finger of God!
Just
as Pharaoh’s sorcerers could mimic some of Moses’ signs, so as you separate
yourself from unbelievers, as you pursue godliness, so the devil will mimic God
— as St. Paul tells us: he “transforms himself into an angel of light”
(2 Corinthians 11:14). But as St. Paul also warns elsewhere, “but
even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than what
we have preached to you, let him be damned” (Galatians 1:8). The devil will mimic the virtue and goodness
that you desire to see in yourself. He
will tell you that this is the gospel – to become what God requires you to
be. He disguises himself behind messages
of peace and harmony and acceptance that the world embraces. He seeks to separate you from God’s word so
that he might find a house swept clean. But
he seeks to enslave you to your own good works and to your own passions, which
are ultimately the same. And they can’t
save you. His is a false gospel. That is why to rescue you even now from the
devil, Jesus does what the devil cannot mimic.
With the finger of God, he puts his words in your mouth to confess your
sins and to confess your Savior. With
the finger of God, he writes his word on your heart and writes your name on his
hand. He teaches you that your blessing
is not found in what you offer God — even Mary’s wasn’t! But rather it is found in what God offers
you. That is why he says, “More
than that, blessed are those who hear the word of God and guard it!” You guard it like a soldier guarding his
goods. You guard it like a virgin
guarding her chastity. We guard that
word that we hear. We guard it with as
much zeal as the devil guarded us before our stronger Man broke in and
plundered him. When we do so, when we
cherish God’s word and find our forgiveness and life in it, when we listen to
it, when we speak it, we become true imitators of God – in a way that the devil
can’t mimic. We mimic what he cannot
reproduce so that even he must throw his hands down, and say, “This is the finger of God!” We lay hold of God’s divine approval and
constant mercy. This is what separates
us. This is what sanctifies us – which
Christ our stronger Man and mighty Lord has given to us.
Amen.
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