OUR DEFENSE AGAINST ALL ENEMIES; Sermon Summary for 3rd Sunday in Lent, 23 March 2025 Anno Domini, the Anglican Orthodox Communion Worldwide
“Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light.” Ephesians 5:14
The Collect.
WE beseech thee, Almighty God, look upon the hearty desires of thy humble servants, and stretch forth the right hand of thy Majesty, to be our defence against all our enemies; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
There is no greater weapon fashioned than those two arms of Light and Love. We have the Light of the world in our Lord Jesus Christ. The are both defensive in sheltering from the storms of life, and offensive in propagating the Gospel. Our collect for the 3rd Sunday in Lent emphasizes our dependence upon the Lord in our righteous desires and petitions, while the Epistle sets forth the means of gaining the favor of Heaven in all our ways; and that way is one of righteousness conceived in Love (“ . . . walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweetsmelling savour),and illumined by the Light of Christ to show us the way.
When the heart is possessed of the sweet-smelling fragrance of the Love of Christ, and guided by the Light to direct our paths and the Lamp of the Holy Spirit to light our steps, we need not consider sinful temptations for the believer is no longer under the burden of sin. He acts out of love for Christ and his fellows, and love covers all sin (Proverbs 10:12). His desire is to do the will of God and not that of the Serpent of the Garden. “ . . . arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light.”
We find in our Gospel the Lord Jesus Christ casting out devils. I hope we do not believe that the last devil has been cast out from among us, for the minions of the Devil inhabit the very air about us. “2 And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins;” 2:1 Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience:” The world has yet to shed itself of the unbecoming yoke of the devil and sin – and it cannot, in any wise, do so without the power of the Holy Spirit guiding and directing in the lives of His people. There are many among us today (perhaps more than at the time of Christ) of demon-possessed men, women and children who walk among us. One great demon-possession is related to perversions of sex.
There are no pleasant words that come from the mouths of those made dumb with sin; but when the Holy Spirit has drawn the possessed one to the Throne of Mercy and Grace, the righteous tongue is loosed and the one that was possessed speaks with conviction and authority in proclaiming the beauty and wonder of God.
The world refuses to acknowledge the work of the Lord in the lives of His Elect. They denounce every good fruit and prefer the cankered fruits that have lain too long in contact with the earth. The world ascribes false motives to good works. Satan will never cast out himself, but these buggers of the Jews claim that Christ casts out devils by the power of Beelzebub – Prince of the flies and Air. When the fly lands on putrid meats, there will arise maggots that the Pharisees claim is the life that Christ offers. Beelzebub is a demon, and the demon will not cast out his progenitor. No works of the devil have ever resulted in a good and righteous outcome.
The people of the time of Christ were little different from the multitudes of our day who demand a ‘sign.’ There are churches that claim to possess the power to work great signs and wonders; and these seem far more popular to the common mind that those who preach Christ alone, and Him crucified. Signs and wonders are not the fulcrum of faith. “38 Then certain of the scribes and of the Pharisees answered, saying, Master, we would see a sign from thee. 39 But he answered and said unto them, An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given to it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas: 40 For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.” Matthew 12:39-40. What did these words of our Lord mean? It meant that in spite of witnesses many signs, wonders and miracles (even resurrecting from the dead) most still refused to believe. It was not god that these sought, but to have their imaginations pricked by signs and wonders. Most of the mega-churches (maybe all) of our day, tickle the ears of men and women to believe a lie. Our Lord points to the essentials of the matter. Jonah was buried for three days and three nights in the belly of the whale, and the third day, the Lord delivered him from death. The same will be true of Christ. He will be crucified, dead and buried for three days and three nights, and God will raise Him up on the third Day! That is enough to know that He is the Con of God – the Messiah!
Is the rock of Faith enough for us? It must be and certainly will be. We do not need to see a smiling jackal pouncing about demanding things of God and even calling down the Holy Ghost as if He has nothing better to do than to entertain with signs and wonders. My friends, the Church needs to get serious about the deep matters of faith and grace. Our days on earth are too few to waste them on false expectations from the ninety-day wonders of the pulpit.
Jesus did cast out devils by the finger of God – the same Finger that inscribed the Ten Commandments on Tables of Stone, and wrote upon the ground twice when confronted with the woman taken in adultery. It is still our Lord Jesus Christ who must expunge our hearts of sinful desires and behaviors. We cannot do so in the least. We may seek our personal righteousness by believing we can ‘clean up our act,’ But our weakness and failure is borne out in future lapses – time after time. We end with greater sins that ever before we began the attempt. We are already dead in trespasses and sin. A dead man can do nothing to revive his dead soul and body. But the Holy Spirit must proclaim our quickening in making us alive in Christ in the same sense as Christ called forth Lazarus from the tomb at Bethany.
Rather than praise the company attending churches and doing good deeds to be seen of men, it is much more critically important to hear the Word of god and to keep it. “And it came to pass, as he spake these things, a certain woman of the company lifted up her voice, and said unto him, Blessed is the womb that bare thee, and the paps which thou hast sucked. But he said, Yea rather, blessed are they that hear the word of God, and keep it.” And so must we do likewise.
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy ghost. AMEN
