The Lutheran Hour
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"A Temptation Designed For You"
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Text: Mark 1:12-13
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Christ is risen! He is risen, indeed! Those words, verifying the truth of all Jesus has said and promised, stand in contrast to the lies and temptations of Satan. By the Holy Spirit’s power may we embrace and hold fast to the Savior’s truth and the eternal life He alone can give. God grant such discernment to us all. Amen.
About 2,500 years ago, a fellow by the name of Aesop told a tale. This fable of Aesop begins with a sad, sorrowful female eagle sitting on the branch of a tree. Next to her sat a kite, a carrion-eating raptor. Noting the eagle’s dejection, the kite asked, “Why does the most majestic of birds wear such a mournful look?” The eagle sadly replied, “I seek a mate and I have been unable to find one.” After a moment, the kite sympathetically suggested, “Why not marry me?” The eagle turned and asked, “And could you take care of me?” This was in the days before female eagles were liberated. Wounded by the question, the kite boasted: “Why, I have often carried away ostriches in these talons.”
With no other offers forthcoming, the eagle agreed to be married to the kite. Soon after the ceremony, she said to her husband, “I wonder if you would bring back an ostrich for supper. I’ve never eaten an ostrich and I think one would be wonderfully delicious for our evening meal.” In a second the kite was gone. In two seconds he was back and placed before her not an ostrich, but a mouse. A pitiful, pathetic — and, from the smell of things — long dead mouse. Insulted, the eagle cried: “And is this how you fulfill your promise?” To which the kite confessed: “I said what was necessary to get you to do as I wished.”
.This story accurately describes the all-too-successful temptation technique used by Satan since the beginning of time. Our old evil foe has shown his willingness, his readiness, his eagerness to say anything, everything necessary to get us to do what he wants. In the Garden of Eden he slithered up to Adam and Eve and slyly, sneakily suggested they should snack of the forbidden fruit. “What can it hurt?” he asked and implied God must have been mistaken.
I need not tell you what happened. They ate, and since that day all of us have been eating the forbidden fruit of temptation. If you read through the Bible, you will come across stories of men and women who are called heroes of faith. Noah built an ark; Moses parted the Red Sea; Elijah raised a boy from the dead, and David brought down a giant with a slingshot. These folks were goooood, and because they were, we who are not so good can feel we don’t have anything in common.
Well, folks, this past week I spent some time paging through the Bible. What I found might surprise you. What I discovered was this: because of the Lord’s power and the Holy Spirit’s direction these heroes of the faith did have some mighty special moments. But these folks, these heroes, also did some pretty stupid, some amazingly sinful stuff. Noah did build an ark, but he also got himself seriously tipsy. Abraham was the father of nations, but his lying got him into trouble and his messing around with servant girls still has serious consequences. Moses was a legendary leader, but he began as a murderer and he did deliberately disobey God. We point to David the great warrior-king, but he was also David the murdering adulterer. Elijah did miracles and called fire from heaven, but he also hid out in caves and complained about how he was all alone. The Old Testament is chock full, it is positively overflowing with heroes of faith who sinfully succumbed to Satan’s suggestions.
And if you think submitting to Satan is a practice confined to the centuries before the Christ, you are wrong. The Bible describes the human condition, our human psyches, when it dejectedly observes, “Surely there is not a righteous man on earth who does good and never sins.” (Eccl 7:20) Zacharias was an experienced temple priest, but he couldn’t find it in his heart to believe God, even when the Lord sent an archangel to deliver His message. Peter was a great apostle, but almost every action of faith he performed was counterbalanced by a deed of doubt or denial. Peter walked on the water and then he sank; he rightly confessed Jesus as the Son of God, and then tried to talk the Savior out of doing that which was necessary to save us. Peter promised he would be faithful; but he followed up that oath by falling asleep when Jesus needed him. When Jesus was on trial, Peter bravely went to the high priest’s courtyard, and then he cowardly cursed and denied he knew the Savior.
Although I would not presume to understand the wisdom of the Holy Spirit and why He put the story of these serious sinners into the pages of Holy Scripture, I cannot help but believe He did so for three reasons. Reason #1: He did so because the Lord wants us to know every human being, by birth and by choice, is a sinner and worthy of temporal and eternal condemnation. Yes, I know it’s not politically correct to say that, but it’s true. You’re a sinner, I’m a sinner, the best and nicest person you know is a sinner. If you doubt me, talk to an officer on your state’s Highway Patrol. He’ll tell you the sign on the freeway reads, SPEED LIMIT 55, but you probably do 60. You stay at 60 until a semi passes you at 65 and other cars whiz by at 70. That’s when you start bumping up your cruise control. You just got tempted.
You know, I’ve ridden with some of those Highway Patrol people. All of them have had a great sense of humor. They get a kick out of watching you watch them. They know, as soon as they pull out onto the highway, the red brake lights of the speeders in front and behind will flash on. These officers smile as they watch you watch them in your rear-view mirror. Indeed, some patrolman will go past their scheduled turn off spot just to watch your self-imposed suffering. They get disappointed if they have to answer a call or pull somebody over, because they know, as soon as they’re gone, so are you. You’re off to the races. Now, it is possible you are one of those folks who obey the rules of the road whenever you’re behind the wheel. You may be good on the road — but I’m pretty sure you’re not good all the time.
Which takes me to the second thing that the Lord wants to teach us with the stories of Scriptural sinners. He wants us to know the temptations of the devil do not come in a one-size-fits-all. You may resist Satan’s temptation to speed, but I’m sure you fail and fall somewhere else. You see the devil is a master tailor when it comes to constructing your temptation. He has studied you; he knows your tastes. When you read the paper or watch the news and shake your head in wonderment that someone could have done something so wrong, so deplorable, so immoral and so scandalous, Satan listens. He watches your reactions; he studies your tastes; he is willing to work night-and-day trying to understand what you love and what you hate. Then, when he is ready and you’re not, he will come to you with a piece of custom temptation which will fit you to a “T.” He’s not going to bring you someone else’s used, second-hand, temptation. No, he’s going to bring you your very own, one-of-a-kind temptation. You may reject 10,000 of his designs, but he will eventually find one which will catch your eye and intrigue your brain and excite your heart.
Your friends and family may try to warn you about this temptation; they may tell you you’re crazy for thinking seriously about this temptation; your Lord, your church, and your conscience may try to talk you out of buying into Satan’s suggestion, but you haven’t listened – not when it came to this temptation. When it came to this temptation, you said to yourself, “Everybody else is doing wrong things, far worse than anything I’m thinking about.” You liked that temptation didn’t you? When you tried that temptation on for size, it felt right. That’s why you ignored what others said; what the Lord asked of you. You said to yourself, “if they don’t approve, maybe they’d better mind their own business. If they don’t like what I’m doing, I’ll do what I’m doing when they’re not around.” Yes, you liked Satan’s temptation, and the more you looked at it, the better it looked.
You know, I have an old shirt. It’s got paint on it; it’s got holes in it and my wife rightly thinks it’s ugly. She has thrown that shirt away no less than a dozen times, and a dozen-and-one times I have fished that shirt out of the trash and saved it from destruction. I like it. It’s comfortable, and I wrote this sermon while I was wearing it. If a guest had came to the door, I’d have changed — but there, without anyone around, I wore that shirt. I wore it because even though it’s a disgrace and an embarrassment, it’s comfortable. Which is probably what David said about his lechery and Peter said about his boasting. Yes, Satan’s designer label sinful suggestions feel comfortable, quite comfortable indeed.
Which takes me to the third thing I believe the Lord tries to tell us by putting the story of sinners in the Bible. He wants us to know that even if we are comfortable with our temptations, He most certainly is not. Satan may say anything necessary to get us to do what he wishes; the Lord says that which is necessary to save us from sin, temptation, and ourselves. To save us is why He sent His Son, Jesus Christ into this world. He knew that we, left on our own, wouldn’t change, couldn’t change. If we were going to be changed, it would only be by the power of the Holy Spirit and through the sacrifice of our Savior.
Mark, in his Gospel, shows us how the Savior dealt with Satan’s suggestions. Summarizing almost six weeks of Jesus’ life, Mark wrote, “He was in the wilderness forty days, being tempted by Satan.” What Mark doesn’t describe is the nature of those temptations. If you think Satan has worked on you, that’s nothing compared to the preparation and planning he did for Jesus. You can understand why. If the devil tempts you and tears you away from God, he gets one soul. For him that would be nice. But if the devil managed to derail Jesus and take Him out of the salvation equation, he would get the entire world. Having studied the Scriptures, and knowing the difficult days, the terrible torment, the dreadful death Jesus would suffer, Satan tailored a series of temptations which he thought the Savior might find appealing.
First, the devil tried to appeal to Jesus’ physical needs and encouraged the Savior to turn some stones into bread. Understand, it’s not that Jesus couldn’t do it… not so very much later the Savior would multiply a boy’s lunch and feed thousands. Jesus could do it, but He didn’t want to. He didn’t want to because He knew He shouldn’t listen to any suggestion from Satan. When that temptation failed, Satan offered Jesus a shortcut. “Jesus, there’s no need”, he said, “for You to carry the sins of humanity. You shouldn’t have to go through all this betraying, beating, spitting, and whipping stuff. Look at these people You’re supposed to be rescuing. Your church is going to railroad You to the cross; Your government is going to condemn You, Your disciples desert You. Why not just do a really spectacular miracle and get people to believe on You?” In truth, Jesus did many a miracle, some far more grand than anything Satan proposed. But those He would do on His time and according to His will. Yes, Jesus wanted people to believe on Him as Savior, not just as a Worker of signs and wonders. Jesus was the Savior not just some Master Magician. Jesus remembered He was the Son of God Who had been sent to say, “NO!” to the lies of the devil.
Do you remember how I said ‘if one of Satan’s special suggestions doesn’t seem to your liking, he just keeps trying?’ That’s what happened to Jesus. If the devil, the father-of-lies was upset by Jesus’ rejection, he didn’t let it show. No, he just went back to his tailor shop and came up with something else. Knowing Isaiah (9:6) had called the Prince of Peace, Satan reasoned, “why not give Jesus a sampling of power.” That little ploy had worked, has worked, countless times in the past, so Satan had no reason to assume Jesus wouldn’t gladly accept an opportunity to rule the world. That was his offer: the devil tempted Jesus with the world. All Jesus had to do was acknowledge the devil as His boss. Throughout history men and women have sold their souls to Satan for far less.
But Jesus was not an ordinary man. Jesus, who had been there at the world’s creation, was not interested in merely ruling this world, this universe. He wished to rule the hearts and minds and souls of men. His goal was not to be a temporal King. It was to be the eternal Ruler of our immortal souls. When He was on trial for His life, He said exactly that. “My kingdom is not of this world”, He told Pontius Pilate and then He added, “(Pilate), you say that I am a king. For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world-to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.” That day, Jesus’ judge didn’t understand what the Savior was saying. I pray you do.
I pray you understand If you want the truth, you must to listen to Jesus. And what is this truth you need to hear? Simply this: Jesus is the truth and the devil is not. Hear this: Satan has been a murderer from the beginning of time, and because there is no truth in him, he has nothing to do with the telling of the truth. When he lies, and he does, those lies come from his core. It’s part of the character of him who is a liar and the father of lies. In contrast to Satan stands the Savior Who always told the truth.” (Based on John 8:42ff) Jesus told the truth when He said He had come to seek and save the lost; He told the truth when He said He had come to give His life as a ransom for many. He told the truth when He promised He would be crucified and on the third day rise from the dead. And because His third day resurrection from the dead came about, we may believe our loving, living Lord when He says all who live and believe in Him will never die.
Because Adam and Eve believed God’s truth, they were saved. Because Noah believed, he was saved. Because Moses believed, David believed, Peter believed in Jesus Christ as their Redeemer, their Savior, their Judgment-Day Intercessor, they were forgiven of their sins and they were saved. The power of the Holy Spirit had exposed the devil’s lies and temptations. The light of Jesus had shown Satan’s tailored invitations to be made up of nothing more than the cheapest of material and filled with holes. Only by being turned from the devil’s temptations to Jesus’ deliverance can any person be saved. That was what those heroes of the Bible found out.
About 10 years ago I first told the story of a minister whose wife went shopping for a dress. Like Aesop’s tale, this story hasn’t died and recently it has started making the rounds again. If you’ve heard it, forgive me. If not, it begins, as I said, with a minister’s wife shopping for a dress. He trusted her to be reasonable, knowing their checking account was not as flush as they would like. That’s why he was shocked when she came home with an outfit, a beautiful outfit, a costly outfit. Politely he pointed at the garment and asked, “Why?” She replied, “The devil tempted me. He told me the dress looks good.” “Then why”, he asked, “didn’t you say, ‘Get thee behind me, Satan.” “I did say that. Yes, I did. That’s exactly what I said.” “I’m proud of you, dear. You did right. So, how come you still bought the dress?” “Well”, she said, “when I told the devil to get behind me, he did. And then, from behind me, the devil said, “The dress looks pretty good from back here, too.” That is the way the devil works. He tells you what you want to hear so you will follow him, not the Savior Who gave His life as a ransom for your redemption. If you’ve been buying in to the devil, it’s time to be turned from Satan’s lies to Jesus who was and is the truth. Be turned from what you were to the Redeemer who shows His truth by what He says and by what He does. Believe on Jesus Christ the truth, and to that end, if we can help share the truth of Him who lived, died, and rose to save you, please, call us at The Lutheran Hour. Amen.
LUTHERAN HOUR MAILBOX (Questions & Answers) for March 1, 2009
Topic: Witnessing – Part 2Announcer: Now, Pastor Ken Klaus answers questions from listeners. I’m Mark Eischer and today we continue a discussion we began last week.
Klaus: About a listener whose pastor said he should be an evangelist.
Announcer: And our listener said he tried to lead a good life–wasn’t that kind of like being an evangelist? You said, no, it wasn’t enough.
Klaus: But I think I tried to say it nicer than that.
Announcer: What you really said was that leading a Christian life helps to put you into a position where people might come to you and ask what it is that helps you through difficult situations.
Klaus: Exactly. You know, Mark. Just about everybody in this world has moments when they’re played out. The world puts them into situations where they need something or Someone beyond themselves.
Anouncer: And they can try all kinds of things. Sadly, God usually isn’t at the top of the list.
Klaus: Especially if they’ve lived their lives thinking they are masters of their fate and captains of their souls. You know how far that goes. For such people, admitting they need help is a bitter pill to swallow.
Announcer: And here we’re talking about the major crises of life. And they will often go to someone who has shown that he or she has a way of coping with such problems.
Klaus: Right. You know, Mark. For 78 years now, The Lutheran Hour” has been on the air telling people about Jesus. A lot of people think we convert folks.
Announcer: But actually, we never do that. The Holy Spirit should get the credit for that.
Klaus: Always. With that in mind, The Lutheran Hour has never converted a single person. What it does is share the Savior’s story of salvation–that the Son of God was born, lived a perfect life for us, died the death we earned and conquered death through His resurrection so that all who believe on Him as their Savior might be forgiven and be brought into God’s family of faith.
It is that message, heard at the right time, that plants seeds of faith in the hearts of listeners. It gets people to wondering, “Maybe this Jesus really is for me.” That’s when they call our Response Center. Or that’s when they turn to a family member, a good friend and say, “Would you tell me about Jesus?”
Announcer: But what does this have to do with our question about being an evangelist?
Klaus: Simply this, Mark. When those around us have a situation where they turn to us with questions, that is the right moment. People might listen to a hundred sermons, maybe even a thousand, but until that time comes when their heart is prepared for the seed of God’s Word to take root and grow, nothing happens.
Our listener may not think he’s cut out to be a door-knocking evangelist, OK. But when the time is right, God will open the door for him to share his faith and tell the Good News about Jesus.
Announcer: And at that moment the Holy Spirit may give him something to say that no one else in the entire world could say.
Klaus: That’s right. At that moment — and it may only be a moment or two, when the other person is ready to hear.
Announcer: So each of us should be ready to share who Jesus is and what He has done for us.
Klaus: Once, again, you’re correct. We dare not say, “Hey, tell you what, I’ll talk to my pastor and have him make an appointment with you for sometime next week. I’m sure he can help you out.”
Announcer: As your father, the Chicago blacksmith might have said, “Strike while the iron is hot.”
Klaus: At that moment when that heart is malleable, open to the voice of the Holy Spirit, able to be shaped and changed. Later on, it may become cold and hard again, and all the pounding and all the preaching in the world won’t do a lot of good.
Announcer: So, if we miss that opportunity, that heart might become even colder and harder than before.
Klaus: Which is why we need to be ready to make a witness and share the hope we have in Christ.
Announcer: Is there any advice you can give for folks who are not necessarily door-knocking evangelists?
Klaus: In just a few sentences? I’ll try. The first Christian witness was very simple. Andrew said to his brother, ‘Come along, I’ve found the Lord.’ It was an invitation. Andrew didn’t say, “Hey you, go.” He said, ‘Come with me.’ Simplicity. People aren’t looking for a big theological dissertation. They want somebody to speak to them from the heart — someone to tell them about Jesus and how Jesus makes a difference for them.
Announcer: Anything else?
Klaus: Pray. Ask the Lord to use you, and trust that He will. That’s a promise He has made to all His Gospel tellers. Pray that He will let a person see the Savior–sometimes in spite of us, rather than because of us.
Announcer: This has been a presentation of Lutheran Hour Ministries.
Music selections for this program:
“A Mighty Fortress” arranged by John Leavitt. Concordia Publishing House/SESAC
“O Lord, Throughout These Forty Days” arr. Henry Gerike. Used by permission
“Rise, My Soul, to Watch and Pray” public domain
“Wir danken dir, Herr Jesu Christ” by J.S. Bach. From Orgelbüchlein & More Works by J.S. Bach by Robert Clark and John David Peterson (© 1997 Calcante Recordings, Ltd.)