NOTE: I am putting my weekly sermons on the church website. It will be on for two weeks (usually posted on Friday) and then placed in the Archives area by date. You can download in a matter of seconds.

Let me know what you think. The church Email is: SLUMC@att.net, Phone: 480.895.8766

1st Sunday in Lent
February 13, 2005
"Giving Up Temptation for Trust"
Matthew 4:1-11
A good story is worth telling and I begin with one of my favorites. A certain preacher's spouse had a weakness for pretty clothes and charge accounts (and since there are quite a number of preacher's spouses in this congregation, any resemblance to anyone you may know is purely coincidental). Her husband had often objected to this indulgence and complained when the bills piled up and the closets overflowed. "Now, honey," he said, "when you're tempted to buy another dress, just say, 'Get thee behind me, Satan!'" Well, it worked for a while, but one day the preacher returned home to find his wife modeling another new outfit. "But I told you what to do," he said impatiently. "Why didn't you say 'Get thee behind me, Satan?'" "I did! I did!" she cried apologetically, "but Satan said, 'It looks nice from the back, too!'"
Each of us has deep wellsprings of both good and evil, no matter how we may advertise the former and disclaim or even try to disguise the latter. There's a shadow side to all of us from which rise our darker thoughts and impulses. We can be patient, generous, kind and loving; we can also be mean and ugly, destructive and vengeful. We can be strong, principled, courageous and determined; we can also be weak-willed and sneak off from responsibilities, sidestep on moral issues, make excuses and level blame on others. We can think clearly and act decisively; we can also be irrational, allowing biases and prejudices to have priority. We can be persons who seek the truth with integrity of character; we can also be deceitful and dishonest, dealing in rumors and alibis.
There are times like that which the apostle Paul confessed when we "do not do the good we want to do, but instead do the very evil we do not want to do." We can be selfish, vindictive, cruel, lustful, jealous, tyrannical, violent and destructive. An angel may have us by the hand, but the serpent often has us by the heart more that we care to admit. We create but we also destroy; we sacrifice but we also plunder; we love other persons with caring concern but we also humiliate and dehumanize others with cruel oppression and injustice.
In one way or another we all meet the devil, even as Jesus did in the Judean wilderness. I realize there may be some for whom any talk of the devil would be a throwback to another age when the world was considered peopled by demons to explain the irrational and the unknown. There may be others who believe evil itself is mere illusion or distortion. But evil is real, and it arises within us and yet is also experienced as a force outside us more powerful than we are, even as something that would tear our lives apart, so why not evil as Tempter, as Adversary and Accuser (the literal translation of the Hebrew word satanas) or as Deceiver and Slanderer (the literal translation of the Greek word diabolos)? Why not?
Dr. Scott Peck, the psychiatrist-author of the book The Road Less Traveled, makes a pretty good case that there's some relationship between Satan (whom Peck calls "The Father of Lies") and human evil. And because evil arises out of our God-given free will, why not the devil as a fallen angel, as Lucifer, cast into hell by its own doing, where, once the Light bearer, it now dwells in darkness, nursing continual dreams of revenge against God.
The point is, whether we personify evil in the Devil or whether we believe in a demonic force or what some call "the will to destruction," who among us will deny this elemental, destructive force in our twenty-first-century world and that our struggle against it is continual? Choosing what is right, doing what is good and loving others with trust and loyalty do not come easy. At least they don't for me.
Jesus engaged the same struggle. For Jesus the Tempter was so real and his spiritual struggle in the wilderness was so intense that he must have reported the experience to his disciples more than once, because he knew they could easily identify with what he had gone through. So can we! And so we examine Jesus' experience with temptation on this first Sunday in Lent in the light of the Cross and the choices it offers us. For out of Jesus' encounter with and his victory over evil's subtle temptation come two insights (at least two) that we need so we can be empowered to resist evil's alluring invitation to be less than the purposes for which God created us.
The first important insight is to realize who the Devil is. It's to recognize evil and to realize how insidious and powerful a force it is. We're better prepared in any contest if we know our opponent's strength and competitive edge and strategies. That's why athletic teams do scouting, why reconnaissance is important to the military and why surveillance is standard procedure for police work. Jesus even told a parable about a reckless king who entered battle without sizing up either his own resources or his opponent's strength, and consequently, went down to disgraceful defeat. Jesus repeatedly counseled his followers against taking their spiritual strength for granted and treating lightly the strength of those forces opposed to them. "I send you out as lambs in the midst of wolves," he said.
Jesus knew himself and would have us know how vulnerable we are to temptation, how easy it is to yield. So we need to be alert and on guard, like Peter Cartwright. Cartwright was a colorful Methodist circuit rider in the frontier days of our country. One day he rode into a tough town and loudly announced, "I smell hell here!" Cartwright knew what evil was and could recognize it when he first got wind of it. We need that same alertness, for evil is often disguised.
Evil comes to us in the temptation to do the right thing for the wrong reason. So the Devil says to Jesus, "If you're the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread." How easy it is to sell our soul for the sake of a cause or to solve a problem. Some still follow the Master for selfish gain, sometimes joining the church to make business contacts and increase their professional practice. Some do good works to gain the limelight and showing love for others is an unfortunate (although refined) form of caring only for themselves. Albert Camus said it well when he wrote: "Jesus asked people to take up the cross, but some people today merely climb on the cross to be seen by others."
Evil also comes to us in the temptation to do the wrong thing for the wrong reason. So the Devil said to Jesus, after taking him to a high place and showing him all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them, "All these I will give to you, if you fall down and worship me." How perverse and malicious that lure can be and how destructive the outcome. Sir John Hawkins kidnapped black Africans for the slave trade in America. Do you know the name of Hawkins' ship? "Jesus." Again, the temptation to do the wrong thing for the wrong reason.
Evil can come to us in the temptation to do and think the wrong thing for the right reason. After taking Jesus to the top of the temple in Jerusalem, the Devil said to him: "If you're the Son of God, throw yourself down; for it's written, 'He will give his angels charge of you,' and 'On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.'" The Devil even quoting from Scripture to clothe the temptation with religious garments. But Jesus saw through the Devil's deceit. He realized the consequences of the compromises being offered to him and refused to yield.
During the Civil War and the Union's blockade of Southern ports, the naval officer in charge of one blockade was offered a bribe by blockade runners to turn his head while they slipped their loaded ship through. He refused. They raised their offer. Again he refused. They increased their offer again and this time sweetened it with persuasive arguments, pointing out how others were doing it and how no one would care if he did it. The officer rose and shouted: "Get out! You're coming to close to my price!" Evil, you see, names our price and tempts us to sell out. The Devil offers us clever excuses and sensible rationalizations we can use to justify doing and thinking the wrong things for right reasons. To withstand temptations, to accept the choices the Cross offers us, we need to know who the Devil is, we need to realize how evil works and we need to anticipate the consequences of our sin.
More important than knowing who the Devil is, though, is to know the One to whom we belong. It's to know we belong to God who made us with strength of love and the power to stand firm. It's to remember that during times of temptation what we need most are the strength of will and the courage that Jesus called forth, not only in his wilderness testing, but when he confronted those who opposed and plotted against him, who laughed and taunted him who tried to dissuade him, who betrayed and crucified him. We need the power of God in us that enabled Jesus not to yield, not to give in or give up and not to sell out.
The Enemy may be near, but so is God. The power of evil may be great, but God's power is greater. The Father of Lies may offer attractive schemes and clever arguments, flattery and a soft sell, but God gives us the truth of God's Word that opposes and exposes the Tempter's claim and reminds us of Whose we are and the power we can claim. The Devil may appeal to our weaknesses, but God affirms our strength through the Holy Spirit. The Deceiver may wear us down, but God will lift us up. The Accuser may tempt us to idolize who we are not and to deny our destiny as the children of God, but God keeps renewing the vision in us of all we are meant to do and be. The Prince of Darkness may succeed in getting us to give up on God, but God never, ever gives up on us!
The apostle Paul, in his letter to the Corinthians, wrote:
God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your strength, but with the temptation will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.
We can resist evil and endure, no matter how hostile or destructive it is, because the ultimate victory belongs to God. We live on this side of Easter and we follow a Risen Lord. He's our way of escape. In his name and in the strength of his love we, too, can face evil's temptation and say, "Begone, Satan!" and mean it.
There's a book entitled Trouble Doesn't Happen Next Tuesday. A Salvation Army worker who poured her heart and soul into helping troubled youth on their one-way road to hell wrote it. She wanted them to turn their lives around through God's grace in Christ. In her book she tells how a black youth, who had become a close friend, veered away from his intentions and got into trouble again. The boy's name was Terry. He had huge hands-the hands of an athlete.
The writer tells of the moment when she and Terry came together after he had been arrested again. She writes:
I took Terry's hands, that one day might carry a football for the Chicago Bears, and attempted to put my hands around them. Then I asked the Lord to accept these hands and use them for his glory. Then Terry prayed his own simple prayer-something like this:
"God, he'p me not be usin' my hands for bad-just good. Take my hands-take all of me-and make me so I be doin' nice things for people-like old folks and little children. I like to he'p. Make my hands stronger so I can be a big he'p in the world. Amen, God."
That's my prayer this morning: "Lord, make me stronger!" I hope it's yours, too! Amen.

Let me know what you think. The church Email is: SLUMC@att.net, Phone: 480.895.8766