Oculi Sermon 2021

 

Oculi – Luke 11:14-28

St. Andrew’s Lutheran Church, Laramie, WY

7 March A+D 2021, Pr. Mark Preus

 

Once Jesus came upon a crowd of people surrounding His disciples, and the Scribes were arguing with them.  He was coming back from being transfigured and showing His glory on the Mountain of Transfiguration.  When everyone saw Him coming, they all ran up to Him.  Jesus asked the Scribes, “What are you discussing with them?” 

 

Then a father spoke from the crowd.  “Teacher, I brought You my son, who has a mute spirit. And whenever it seizes him, it throws him down; he foams at the mouth, gnashes his teeth, and becomes rigid.  So I spoke to Your disciples, that they should cast it out, but they could not.” 

 

Then Jesus answered this poor father by saying to everyone, “O faithless generation, how long shall I be with you?  How long shall I bear with you?  Bring him to Me.” 

 

So they brought the demon possessed child to Jesus, but when the child saw Jesus, the spirit convulsed him and the boy fell down and rolled around, foaming at the mouth.     

 

So Jesus asked his father, “How long has this been happening to him?” And he said, “From childhood. And the demon has often thrown him into both fire and water to destroy him.  But if You can do anything, have compassion on us and help us!” 

 

And Jesus replied, “If you are able, all things are possible to him who believes.”  And immediately the father cried out and said with tears, “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief.”

 

So Jesus rebuked the unclean spirit, “Deaf and dumb spirit, I command you, come out of him and enter him no more!”  Then the spirit cried out, convulsed the boy, and came out of him. And the child looked like he was dead, and many thought he was dead.  But Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him up, and he arose.”

 

Let us pray.

 

Dear Jesus, my eyes are every towards You, for You alone can pluck me out of the devil’s net.  Amen.

 

You have often heard that our three great enemies on earth are the devil, the world, and our flesh.  They are allies in the war against the truth.  The devil lies, the world repeats his lies, and the flesh believes his lies.  The devil calls good evil and evil good.  He is the one who teaches the world to deceive you with empty words by saying that you can be unclean, that you can fornicate or be greedy, and still be a Christian, when you know that no fornicator, unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God.  The world tells you that it is good to obey your desire to have what God forbids, and your flesh believes that you can have what God does not give you. 

 

The sins of sexual immorality and greed are both alike in that they refuse to stop the desire in our hearts to have what we want when we want it.  If I want it, I should have it.  But those who want sin don’t want Christ’s kingdom.  They want to be ruled by the devil. 

 

And so you must recognize the devil’s work in our lives.  St. Augustine says, “A sinner has many demons as he has vices,” and by vices that dear theologian means sins that rule over you, as Jesus says, Whoever goes on sinning, is a slave to sin.  And St. Anselm says, If you are terrified by the devil, then why aren’t you terrified by his works? 

 

So the devil works in ways that are obvious, as in Jesus’ day and in our day in certain places, and he works in ways that the world accepts, but which destroy us.  Today, we are overridden by greed and sexual immorality, which God in the Bible calls uncleanness.  People do not keep God’s word in their heart or in their lips, but instead are dumb and mute in opposing the unclean spirits who teach the world to worship what defiles us and destroys faith in God. 

 

Let not on deceive you.  Because of these things the wrath of God comes on the sons of disobedience.  You can see it in the madness around us. Greed is called good, and those who do not work eat as much as they want, and those who work, work only for their own leisure;  Men can be women and women men; those who use each other’s bodies not for children, but for pleasure alone, are exalted in our sight as deserving of praise, and they are given power to persecute those who are shocked and horrified by how these sins destroy everyone around them. 

 

And Christians in America are at a loss as to how to stop the flood of filth that has inundated our country, our schools, our homes, and our own minds and hearts, so that many, even who call themselves Christians, defend their greedy ways of pursuing wealth over truth as simply necessary, or they defend their divorces and their children living in sin as simply the way things are.  They are mute to the problem.  They can’t oppose the devil at all in these matters.  What a horrific array of unclean spirits surrounds us! 

 

And what is there to help us?  Focus on the Family radio broadcasts?  Abstinence speakers?  Dave Ramsey wisdom?  Still the unclean spirits are controlling our children from their youth up, casting them into fires and waters that will destroy them. 

 

My eyes are ever toward the Lord, for He shall pluck my feet out of the net. 

 

In today’s Gospel Jesus casts out another demon who made a man dumb, that is, mute, unable to speak.  And Jesus’ enemies accuse Him of casting out demons by Beelzebub.  This is the world.  The unclean spirit was bad.  Look at what another unclean spirit did to that poor boy!  It stopped him from speaking!  It wanted to kill him!  Jesus cast the demon out!  This is a good thing!  Jesus is opposed to an unclean spirit destroying any person’s life.  He is on the right side of history!  He is on the side of good!  It is clear from what He did! He used His mouth and words to end the power of a wicked spirit over the mind and body of a poor sinner.  And how does the world react?

 

He did it by the devil.  So it is today.  Those who want to help people out of uncleanness, out of greed and fornication and false doctrine, they are the evil ones.  They do it by the power of the devil.  That is the accusation against us Christians and against Christ.  Things have not changed.  We are dealing with the same flesh that longs to sin, the same world that defends sin, and the same devil who lies about sin and what it does to us. 

 

And the Church seems helpless to stop the onslaught.  The disciples tried to cast out the unclean spirit from the father’s son, but they failed.  Jesus rebukes their unbelief beforehand, and later when the disciples ask, “Why couldn’t we cast out the demon?”  Jesus said, “This kind can only come out by prayer and fasting.” 

 

A dumb spirit, a mute spirit, an unclean spirit who prevents someone from speaking, who stops someone from confessing the truth about God, from praising God, from praying to God; a demon who stops God’s Word can’t be cast out except by faith in God’s Word and that same faith confessing God’s Word. 

 

So God comes into the life of someone.  He enters into his heart where the devil, that strong man rules with unbelief and sin, and he tears away his armor he trusted in, that is, he tears away the lie that sin is good and God is bad, and Jesus breathes His Holy Spirit into the heart of a sinner with the Gospel and forgives that sinner, and drives that unclean spirit out.  And the new Christian rejoices!  He lives a better life.  His life is cleaner.  His life is better.  But then what often happens?

 

He thinks he’s clean on his own.  He sweeps his heart with his own broom, so to speak.  His eyes are not toward the Lord, but admiring himself.  He decorates his heart with pride.  And he forgets his first love.  He forgets that it was not his own strength that cast the strong devil out, but the Finger of God, the Holy Spirit in the Word of Christ, the Stronger Man, only God, only Jesus, who cast out the unclean spirit.  He doesn’t thank God.  There is no praise on his lips. 

 

So when the unclean spirit comes back, he finds everything much nicer than it was before, and he finds nothing to stop him.  The soul of the person is as mute and dumb as when he ruled his life, because the Word of God is not there.  And so he brings seven demons more evil than he is back with him and the state of that man is worse than the first.  So it is with those who thing they can stand and remain Christians without the Word of God, without guarding it, without confessing it with their mouth, “For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.” (Rom. 10:10)

 

My eyes are ever toward the Lord, for He shall pluck my feet out of the net.

 

Where do I look, Lord!  Where do I direct my eyes?  I can’t see you as that poor father could, right in front of him, but I see my sin in my heart, and I believe, but my unbelief is right there with me, in my flesh that fears the world more than you!  And I have asked for help even from Your disciples, but I haven’t found it.  Where do I look?

 

Where do I look?  One brave woman in the crowd who heard Jesus speak was against those who said Jesus was on the devil’s side.  She knows that the devil isn’t against the devil.  She knows that Jesus is the stronger man.  And she thinks fondly of the woman who got to be Jesus’ mother, and she cries out, “Blessed is the womb that bore You, and the breasts at which You nursed!” 

 

Blessed is Mary, the mother of God!  If I could see Jesus as she did!  Then I would safe.  But Jesus rebukes the woman, and corrects her, “No, rather, blessed are those who hear the Word of God and keep it.” 

 

Where do I look?  I look with my ears to the Word of God, and I guard it as the only power, the only strength, the only life, the only light that I have in a world where unclean spirits rule with impunity and mock my faith, but I have this word here in my baptism that gives to me the Stronger Man, who rebukes every unclean sin of my heart and my life, and says, “Get out, and enter him no more!” 

 

And this Word of God gives me the Son of God.  It joins me to Him who is stronger than my sin, who, when even the holiest around me have failed to help me, rebukes my unbelief, and yet does not quench a flickering wick, and to my cry and to my tears, “Help my unbelief,” He speaks and attacks my enemy with who He is.  He is the devil’s enemy, and that is what my baptism teaches me.

 

My baptism cleanses me.  It washes away my sins.  How?  It is joined to the Word of Christ my Lord.  And Christ my Lord did battle against the devil and all his unclean spirits and all the sins which they incite us to do.  Look, brothers and sisters, to this fountain, if you believe but feel your unbelief!  Look to the water that cleanses because it flows with the blood from Jesus’ side!

 

In this water you see God made flesh.  The voice of the Lord is in this waters, thundering over the lies of the devil, revealing to you the Man who is stronger than your enemies, stronger than your sins, who took your place in the fight against the devil’s rage, against the power of death that the devil held over you, against the sins that bound you, but the Word of God shows your sins on this Man alone, and not on you, and all the world opposes Him and cries out “crucify!” and He bows His head in meek submission to the will of God, and the devil bruises His heal, stings Him with every accusation against sin that God’s Law says you are bound to, but He overcomes all of that by suffering it, by enduring the pain of the devil’s lies and our obeying unclean spirits, and as the devil, the world, and your flesh attach this Christ, God’s wrath falls down and consumes them in the sacrifice of His obedient Son, and what destroys you is destroyed in Him, and what bound you is broken in His death, and all the lies, the armor the devil trusted in, the guilt that kept you from believing the truth and speaking the truth – all of this is gone in Him and through Him.  He dies with the battle finished, and the water and the blood flow out of Him into your baptism and into your heart and conscience to cleanse you, to remove the unclean spirit and seventy times seven of them who ruled over you, but they rule no more.  Jesus is Lord.  Your baptism teaches you that.

 

And so you believe, and therefore you speak.  You renounce the devil, and you renounce all his works, and you renounce all his ways.  How? Your eyes are ever toward the Lord, for He shall pluck your feet out of the net.  You look to His Word.  You pray His Word.  You speak His Word.  You sing His Word.

 

As Saul, who was possessed by an unclean spirit, went after David to kill him, but when he came to David and Samuel, heard the word of God on their lips when they were prophesying, and Saul was overcome by the words of God and joined them in praising God and speaking His Word, so the word of God will stop every enemy of your soul.  Mary was blessed because she kept God’s Word and pondered it her heart.  She believed God’s Word and guarded it.  She spoke it.  She taught it to her Son Jesus, who taught her. 

 

The world is stronger than we are.  The help of man is useless, unless it is the man who is our God, who spoke and all was created, and spoke again, and the unclean spirits left poor sinners, and still He speaks to you, to you in your weakness, to your faith that feels your unbelief in you, to your life that is riddled with doubts and fears that you can’t overcome, but He does.  Only look with the eyes of your heart to His Word.  He will not deceive you.  He will accomplish what He says.  When heaven and earth pass away, His Words will be in your heart and on your lips.  When the sun falls and all is darkness, you will still be light, a child of the light in the Lord. 

 

And so I ask you all, when you come to church, to learn how to sing and keep God’s Word on your lips.  To believe God’s Word is to listen and take it to heart.  To keep God’s word is to guard it.  How do you guard it?  You speak what you have heard.  You pray it.  You sing it.  You confess it.  You speak God’s word to your family, to your spouse, to your children, to your friends, to anyone who will listen to you.  You speak it alone when there is no one to help you, but you are not alone, and Jesus is there to help you.  He is in every little word of God that your heart believes and your mouth confesses.  I know that some of our hymns use archaic language. Well, so what.  It only means you have to concentrate more on God’s Word, which will help you keep it in your heart all the better.  God didn’t make you a beast to bark or roar or yelp.  He made you man, whether you are male or female, to sing the praises of Him who casts every unclean spirit out of your heart and life, and if such praises could stop Saul from killing David, then they will surely stop the world from destroying you.  God puts in your mouth the very word that cast unclean spirits out of poor sinners in Jesus’ day.  It is still Jesus’ day.  It is the Lord’s Day.

 

Come and receive what He gives.  He gives words that are spirit and life.  He speaks and bread is the body that despoiled the strong man.  He speaks and wine is the blood that cleanses you from every unclean spirit and every sin.  He speaks and your conscience is at rest because God is at peace with you, you have the victory, because your eyes are on the Lord. Amen.