Poor in Spirit

Jesus said, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 5:3)

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John the Baptizer came preaching a message of repentance. All who repented of their sins were washed in the Baptism to prepare them to meet their savior, Jesus Christ. The Pharisees also came to hear John’s message, but only to see what was drawing all the people out into the wilderness. The Pharisees thought that their “good works” were sufficient so they felt no need to repent, and did not. They were not baptized, and were subsequently unprepared to meet their savior when He began His ministry.

When John saw the Pharisees listening to his call for repentance, but refusing to repent of their sins, he proclaimed their wicked unfaithfulness to God, much to their dismay and to the surprise of the people who considered them holy. John said, “Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath?” (Matthew 3:7), and called them poisonous serpents.

The Pharisees wrongly felt that they were so rich in spirit that they did not need to repent, nor did they need to rely on the mercy of Christ to save them from God’s wrath, so they were unprepared to recognize their savior when He came and stood right in front of their eyes.

Lest you think that John was too harsh on the Pharisees, Jesus also came preaching repentance and He called the Pharisees “sons of hell” (Matthew 23:15) and “hypocrites” and “whitewashed corpses” among other things (Matthew 23:27).

In the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5) Jesus preached that God gives the kingdom of heaven those who are “poor in spirit.” The “spiritually poor” are those who recognize the poverty of their own spirit to save themselves. They know that they must rely on God’s mercy through Jesus Christ in order to escape God’s wrath over their sin, so they cling to Jesus who brings them to heaven and generously shares with them His eternal heavenly inheritance.

The Pharisees thought themselves “rich in spirit.” They believed that God favored them because they were righteous, holy people who didn’t need to repent of their sins. They rejected Jesus and their salvation because they refused to see how lost they were. This is what Jesus meant when He said, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 19:24) Beware of those modern Pharisees who would explain away this passage as referring to some small, but passable gate in Jerusalem. It was just as impossible for a camel to go through the eye of a sewing needle in ancient times as it is today. Jesus taught that it is impossible for anyone to be saved if he trusts in his own richness of spirit instead of Christ’s works to save him.

Jesus also teaches this in the Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector. (Luke 18:10-14) In this story the Pharisee brags about himself before God, but his empty prayer falls on deaf ears. The tax collector, however, agonizes over his sin and pleads, “God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” God hears this honest, faithful prayer and forgives his wickedness. Thus, having been forgiven his sins, the kingdom of heaven is opened to him.

You are not likely to hear the popular preachers of our day telling you to proclaim to God and the world your poverty of spirit or your unworthiness for the blessings of God’s kingdom. Most popular preachers are more like the Pharisees. They tell you that God wants you to be rich and successful in this life. They tell you that the few good things you do please God enough to receive His favor, or if you aren’t good enough yet, you could be with just a little effort on your part. This is why these preachers are so popular and why it is so easy to be a Pharisee. We all want to be rich and successful. We want to believe that God favors us because we are so good, or at least that we are better than the next guy in some way. But this is all wickedness and lies which lead us to trust in ourselves and reject Christ.

The faithful preachers of today are the ones who teach us to emulate Saint Paul who called himself the “chief of sinners.” (1 Timothy 1:15-16) Yes, it goes against all sinful human logic to see how God is going to welcome you into Paradise when you stand before Him and proclaim that you are the worst, wicked sinner who only deserves punishment. But Saint Paul isn’t bragging about his wickedness as if that would save him. He is bragging about Christ’s mercy and forgiveness – that Christ would forgive such a wicked person as Paul and give him the riches of His heavenly kingdom.

It also is contrary to common sense how telling people of the poverty of their spirit would be a successful evangelism tool. It’s true that you are not likely to fill your church or get rich by telling people just how wicked they are, but neither will you save their souls by lying to them and telling them that they are (or could be) so good that they don’t need Christ to save them. It is so easy for preachers to tell the people what they want to hear. The parishioners will be glad to hear of their goodness and will reward the wicked preacher with praise and monetary blessings – at least until that day when they must stand before Jesus and explain why they think they are better than He is. Then these people won’t be so happy with their false pastors and will curse them forever. On the other hand, those people who hear the hard message and believe in Jesus will receive eternal salvation in Christ’s heavenly kingdom.

When Jesus began to teach hard things that the people couldn’t accept He didn’t soften his message to keep them in the congregation. Instead He taught harder things which seemed to only drive more people away. Then, when He saw that His disciples were still with Him, He asked them, “What about you? Don’t you want to leave, too?” Peter answered for the disciples, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.” (John 6:67-68)

The blessings of the Beatitudes do not come because of our worthiness. We poor sinners are blessed because Jesus has redeemed us through His perfect life and His innocent suffering and death. We should not necessarily strive to be poor, meek, persecuted, etc., instead we should only recognize that we are those things simply because we are sinners and would be condemned were it not for the salvation we have in Jesus Christ. Christ is our blessing both now and for eternity, no matter what our state or station in life.

Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews - INRI

Finally Pilate handed him over to them to be crucified.

So the soldiers took charge of Jesus. Carrying his own cross, he went out to the place of the Skull (which in Aramaic is called Golgotha). Here they crucified him, and with him two others--one on each side and Jesus in the middle.

Pilate had a notice prepared and fastened to the cross. It read: JESUS OF NAZARETH, THE KING OF THE JEWS. Many of the Jews read this sign, for the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city, and the sign was written in Aramaic, Latin and Greek. The chief priests of the Jews protested to Pilate, “Do not write ‘The King of the Jews,’ but that this man claimed to be king of the Jews.”

Pilate answered, “What I have written, I have written.” (John 19:16-22)

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Why was Jesus crucified? Ultimately it was the will of God, the Father, that Jesus should die as a substitute sacrifice in payment for the sins of all mankind so that we might be saved through faith in Him. However, in bringing this to fulfillment God used the sinfulness of man to bring about man’s salvation from sin. That is just one of many ironies in the death of Jesus.

Neither Pontius Pilate, nor the Jewish leaders had any desire to fulfill God’s plan of salvation. They were all following their own sinful selfish interests.

When they arrested Jesus, the Jewish leaders had already prejudged Jesus as deserving death because the “whole world” was following Him (John 12:19) and they were envious of His authority, power, and popularity (Mark 15:10). Pilate, however, recognized that Jesus was innocent, but let Him be crucified in order to placate the bloodthirsty Jews who were so intent on killing Jesus that they would have started a riot. Killing Jesus was the easy way out for Pilate to keep a semblance of order in Jerusalem.

It seems odd that Jesus and Pilate would speak about kings and kingdoms, except that according to Luke’s account of the Gospel (Luke 23:2) the Pharisees had charged Jesus with subversion saying, “We have found this man subverting our nation. He opposes payment of taxes to Caesar and claims to be Christ, a king.” John (18:30) shows the Pharisees being a little more coy about the guilt of Jesus saying at first to Pilate, “If he were not a criminal, we would not have handed him over to you.”

Pilate must have known that their evidence against Jesus was thin so he responded, “Take him yourselves and judge him by your own law.” The Pharisees, however wanted Jesus crucified as a public spectacle to discourage Christ’s followers from undermining their authority.

Note that the Pharisees tell Pilate that Jesus claims to be “Christ.” It is interesting that they would use this word. The title “Christ” is a Greek word which is a translation of the Hebrew word “Messiah” which means “anointed one.” The Pharisees had to define the word for Pilate (“He claims to be Christ, a king.”) because although it had meaning for them, it had none for Pilate. They knew that Jesus was God not only because of His teaching and miracles, but because God’s chosen Christ was the true King of Israel who would reign forever (Psalm 29:10 “The Lord is enthroned as King forever.”)

It didn’t matter to the Pharisees that Jesus was God Himself in the flesh who would reign as King forever. They only cared about their own power and rule, and if they could kill God then they would take as much pleasure doing it as Friedrich Nietzsche would take proclaiming the deed nineteen centuries later (though Nietzsche made the fatal flaw of forgetting the Resurrection of Jesus).

Jesus engages Pilate in conversation and answers his question, which is somewhat remarkable. When Pilate sends Jesus to Herod for judgment Jesus has absolutely nothing to say to Herod. I take this as a sign that Jesus knew there was hope for Pilate to be saved, and out of love explained to Pilate “My kingdom is not of this world,” (John 18:36) and “You would have no power over me if it were not given to you from above. Therefore the one who handed me over to you is guilty of a greater sin.” (John 19:11) It was also out of love for Herod that Jesus did not open His mouth in response to his inquiries. Unlike Pilate, Herod was not interested in the truth. He only wanted to see a miracle. Jesus would not perform on command and so I suppose Herod was unsatisfied, but Jesus did give Herod a miracle in His death and resurrection from the dead, though I suspect that Herod didn’t appreciate that either.

Pontius Pilate was satisfied that even if Jesus was Israel’s King, He was no subversive insurrectionist. Several times Pilate declared that Jesus did not deserve to be crucified. The Pharisees were subversive insurrectionists, however, and not only were they willing to free the murderer Barabbas in order to kill Jesus, but they were beginning to start a riot against Pilate and would have continued had he not given in to their wicked demands to have Jesus crucified. Pilate showed weakness in allowing an innocent man to be killed, but in a way Jesus had already absolved him earlier saying, “the one who handed me over to you is guilty of a greater sin.” Jesus knew it wasn’t Pilate who was to die for the sins of all people.

Pilate, however took the opportunity to condemn the Pharisees a little bit, too. Pilate had a sign posted on the cross above Jesus’ head which read, “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.” Pilate had the message written in Aramaic, Latin and Greek so that no one would miss the message. This sign declared the reason this man was condemned to die. As far as Pilate was concerned Jesus was the King of the Jews. The Pharisees had accused Him of being a king, and Jesus had admitted it, too, saying, “You are right in saying I am a king.” (John 18:37) In effect, Pilate was saying, “If you bring this man to me claiming he is a king and insisting he be killed, then look, this is what I think of your king and your legal authority!” That is why the Pharisees objected to the wording of the sign, wanting to change it to say that this man claimed to be king of the Jews. Pilate was angry that they had forced his hand to kill an innocent man and would not change a word, saying, “What I have written, I have written.” (John 19:22)

Now, all this would only be a great injustice except for the fact of who Jesus is and why He died on the cross. As the only Eternal God, Jesus is the eternal King of Israel. Remember why the prophet Samuel was so angry in the Old Testament (1 Samuel 8) when the people asked for a king like the other nations. He recognized that they were rejecting God as their true king. Jesus said, “The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life–only to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord.” (John 10:17-18) Are the Jews guilty of the murder of Jesus? Yes. Are the Gentiles guilty of the murder of Jesus? Yes. Jesus died for the sins of all people, both Jews and Gentiles. We are all guilty of the death of Jesus, but that is why He came to be born in our flesh. Jesus came to die to pay for the sins of all people, so although we are all guilty in His death, we all may also receive His forgiveness and rejoice in His resurrection.

Jesus did not die for Himself, but neither did He rise for Himself either. He died and rose for us. Jesus overcame death and the grave so that we could receive His forgiveness and also overcome our death and grave to live in Paradise with Him forever. It is important for Christians to understand that Jesus is the “King of the Jews.” Not that there is anything special about the Jews (there isn’t), but because God had chosen the Israelite people as His servants so that through them God would bring salvation for all mankind into the world through them. This He accomplished through Jesus.

The sign “INRI” on the cross is not a condemnation of the Jews (except for those who reject Jesus as God and King), but it is an acknowledgment that God has kept His promises and has brought salvation to all who trust in Jesus to save them from their sins.

50th Anniversary of Emmanuel’s Church Building

On Sunday May 3, 2009 Emmanual Lutheran Church in Dearborn, Michigan celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of our current church building.

On a beautiful Spring day we celebrated with a service of worship of Christ, as we have done as a congregation for the past 114 years. Several choirs added their voices in praise of our Lord, Jesus Christ, as people from the Sunday School, Emmanuel Lutheran Day School, and the Adult Choir used their God-given talents in praise of Christ.

In addition to the musical talents of Kantor Karen Meyer, whose musical skills bless us every week, Emmanuel’s handbell choir and brass choir added music to our worship.

The guest preacher for the service was Rev. Wallace Schulz. Pastor Schulz is a very dynamic speaker, and he gave a beautiful Christ-centered sermon. However, Emmanuel is blessed with two fine preachers who deliver Christ and His salvation to us every week, so I would have been happy to hear either of our pastors.

After worship we gathered for a fellowship meal and heard from the leaders of the congregation and saw a video presentation which chronicled the history of our current church building.

The timing of the celebration was perfect on a number of levels. As I mentioned above it was a beautiful spring day. It was warm enough to open the windows to let in some fresh air, but it was not too hot at all. If you follow the link below you will see many flowers around the church in bloom on the day of the celebration that had dropped their petals and were not blooming at all just one week later!

I was asked to take some photographs of the celebration to chronicle the event in pictures. I have posted 89 of my favorite photos from the celebration which you may find here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/Paul.Wolff.4/EmmanuelSanctuary50thAnniversary

Conversion by the Holy Spirit

John 11:43-44

Jesus called in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, and a cloth around his face.

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There is much misunderstanding about just what exactly the Holy Spirit does when He converts a sinner. It is popular these days to believe that the Holy Spirit simply changes a person’s mind to make him favorably disposed toward God. Some don’t even give God credit for this miraculous work, instead some say that a man must change his own heart and make some sort of a decision that would cause God to come into his wicked heart. Neither of these are taught by Holy Scripture.

Scripture describes conversion to faith in Christ as something like a birth or a resurrection. Remember that because of our inherited sin we are by nature “dead in (our) transgressions and sins” (Ephesians 2:1). Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit.” (John 3:5-6) Since we are spiritually dead by nature then the new life that is begun in us through the power of the Holy Spirit in the sacrament of Holy Baptism is like a resurrection. God creates life where before there is only death.

The raising of Lazarus both gives a great example how this works, and it shows that Jesus has the divine power to accomplish this miracle. Lazarus was four days dead when Jesus came to visit his home in Bethany. Lazarus had no power to walk out of the grave on his own to meet Jesus halfway. Lazarus had no will to make a decision that would cause Jesus to act favorably on his behalf. Even Lazarus’ sisters did not presume to encourage Jesus to raise their brother (see John 11:23-26) even when Jesus told them what He was going to do. Lazarus was as dead as dead can be and his body was beginning to decay (John 11:39). Lazarus had no active role in his resurrection, no will, decision, cooperation, nor any help whatsoever.

Jesus didn’t need any help from Lazarus or anyone else. Jesus displayed the same power that He used in the beginning of time when He created all things visible and invisible. He simply spoke the words, “Lazarus, come out” and Lazarus came out of the tomb alive and well.

The same thing happens when a baby (or anyone) is baptized in the name of God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. “We were, by nature, objects of wrath” (Eph. 2:3) but when God’s Word is spoken and the water is applied, then a new child of God is born as Jesus says in John 3. It is a true miracle what God does in Holy Baptism. It is equal to what happened to Lazarus in Bethany four days after he died. It doesn’t seem to us to be a great miracle, especially when the person baptized is still an infant, and many would deny the miracle, but it is a great miracle nonetheless. “The Spirit gives birth to spirit,” is how Jesus describes the miracle of Holy Baptism.

Our sinful nature does not like to give Christ credit for even the miraculous things that He does in our lives, especially when that miracle includes killing our sinful nature. That is why people make up stories about the supposed power of a personal “decision” to follow Jesus. Martin Luther’s Small Catechism says that Baptism “indicates that the Old Adam in us should by daily contrition and repentance be drowned and die with all sins and evil desires…” Luther writes this based on the words of Jesus in Luke 9:23, “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me,” and the words of St. Paul in Galatians 5:24, “Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires.”

There is great comfort in the miracle of new birth by the Holy Spirit in Holy Baptism. It takes away any question or doubt regarding the sincerity and effectiveness of one’s own decision or self-driven conversion. It gives us the assurance that what Christ says is done, and it is very good, as are all things that God creates by His holy Word. It is also as wonderful as a dead man walking out of his grave alive after Jesus calls him by name. Jesus does that to all of us who believe and are baptized.

Christ’s Blessings Through Wine

Jesus changes water into wine

John 2:1-11

A wedding took place at Cana in Galilee. Jesus’ mother was there, and Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. When the wine was gone, Jesus’ mother said to him, “They have no more wine.”

“Dear woman, why do you involve me?” Jesus replied. “My time has not yet come.”

His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”

Nearby stood six stone water jars, the kind used by the Jews for ceremonial washing, each holding from twenty to thirty gallons.

Jesus said to the servants, “Fill the jars with water”; so they filled them to the brim.

Then he told them, “Now draw some out and take it to the master of the banquet.”

They did so, and the master of the banquet tasted the water that had been turned into wine. He did not realize where it had come from, though the servants who had drawn the water knew. Then he called the bridegroom aside and said, “Everyone brings out the choice wine first and then the cheaper wine after the guests have had too much to drink; but you have saved the best till now.”

This, the first of his miraculous signs, Jesus performed at Cana in Galilee. He thus revealed his glory, and his disciples put their faith in him.

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I remember watching a television documentary years ago on the making of wine. They interviewed a man from the so-called “Bible-belt” in the Southern United States who said, “I’m almost ashamed that the first miracle of our Lord was changing water into wine.”

This man was wrong on at least two counts (probably more). He wasn’t “almost” ashamed, he was completely ashamed of Jesus. In the Bible, the Pharisees were ashamed of Jesus. Christians are never ashamed of Jesus (except while we are sinning). Next, though the Holy Scriptures condemn drunkenness in many places, they never give an absolute ban on drinking wine (or similar drinks). Instead, wine is described as a blessing from God, and as a sign of His grace and favor.

The Holy Bible is very clear that drunkenness is a sin against the Fifth Commandment (“You shall not murder.”) because it hurts the body that God gave you. “Do not join those who drink too much wine or gorge themselves on meat, for drunkards and gluttons become poor, and drowsiness clothes them in rags.” (Proverbs 23:20-21) Also, “Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit.” (Ephesians 5:18) There are also many examples in Scripture of those who have gotten drunk and have suffered because of it. Noah, and Lot (after the destruction of Sodom) are two examples. King David got Uriah drunk to try to cover up his own sins with Uriah’s wife (2 Samuel 11:13), though Uriah was more righteous when he was drunk than David was when he was sober.

Scriptures also show that wine is a blessing from God. “[Yahweh (the Lord), my God, makes] wine that gladdens the heart of man.” (Psalm 104:15) In addition to making man’s heart glad, the blessings of wine are used in the Old Testament to describe the blessings of heaven. “‘The days are coming,’ declares the Lord, ‘when the reaper will be overtaken by the plowman and the planter by the one treading grapes. New wine will drip from the mountains and flow from all the hills. I will bring back my exiled people Israel; they will rebuild the ruined cities and live in them. They will plant vineyards and drink their wine; they will make gardens and eat their fruit.’” (Amos 9:13-14)

Those who say that Christians should not drink wine or alcoholic beverages are adding new laws that God never spoke. They are like Eve, who said that God told them that they shouldn’t touch the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Genesis 3:3). God only told Adam and Eve not to eat the fruit (Gen. 2:16-17), but when Eve added to God’s Word it made her more vulnerable to fall for the devil’s temptation and lies.

Besides changing water into wine, Jesus did not refrain from drinking it either. This should be enough to show people that God does not forbid the moderate use of wine. However, our sinful flesh often looks for opportunities to justify itself, especially when we can pretend to be more righteous than God Himself. That is what the Pharisees were doing when they criticized Jesus for not observing the rules that they had added to God’s Word. Jesus noted their hypocrisy in Matthew 11:18-19 when He said, “For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon.’ The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and “sinners.”’ But wisdom is proved right by her actions.” Jesus was certainly neither a glutton nor a drunkard, but because He didn’t follow the rules invented by the Pharisees they looked down on Him and thought they were better than Him, even though Jesus was obeying God’s law perfectly in every way.

Jesus ultimately fulfills the promise of the blessings of wine when He institutes the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper and gives His holy blood to those who drink the wine of the Sacrament. “Then [Jesus] took the cup, gave thanks and offered it to them, saying, ‘Drink from it, all of you. This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. I tell you, I will not drink of this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it anew with you in my Father’s kingdom.’” (Matt. 26:27-29)

In this holy Sacrament Jesus joins Himself with us even after His ascension into heaven. Jesus is still “God with us” even as He is seated at the right hand of the Father and ruling all of God’s creation. Jesus has not abandoned us, but has given Himself to us through the ordinary means of wine in the Sacrament by the power of His Word. Through Christ’s blood in the wine, we receive the forgiveness of our sins that Christ has won for us on the cross. This is why the devil works so hard to demonize wine, even in the church, or to tempt us to misuse or abuse it. Satan doesn’t want us to enjoy the blessings of Christ’s forgiveness through the Lord’s Supper. However, Christ has given us a greater gift than we could possibly hope to receive. He has given us Himself. First, on the cross where Jesus exchanged His holy life for our sinful lives, and now He unites us to Himself through bread and wine that we may enjoy His gracious blessings both now and forever.

Temptation

The Temptation of Jesus

Luke 4:1-13

Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the desert, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing during those days, and at the end of them he was hungry.

The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread.”

Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man does not live on bread alone.’”

The devil led him up to a high place and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. And he said to him, “I will give you all their authority and splendor, for it has been given to me, and I can give it to anyone I want to. So if you worship me, it will all be yours.”

Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God and serve him only.’”

The devil led him to Jerusalem and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down from here.

For it is written: ‘He will command his angels concerning you to guard you carefully; they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’”

Jesus answered, “It says: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’”

When the devil had finished all this tempting, he left him until an opportune time.

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In our culture we all are very familiar with temptation. Unfortunately, instead of teaching our children to resist temptation, they are taught quite early to give in to nearly every temptation. Nearly all marketing and advertising uses temptation to get us to desire the product or service being sold. A great portion of our economy is driven by temptation, much of it sinful.
It is important for Christians to understand how temptation works. Temptation is the ONLY weapon the devil can use to destroy us, but he wields this weapon skillfully and it is why he is so dangerous. The devil is a big problem, but he is not our biggest problem. Our biggest problem is that we are by nature sinful and we naturally desire only the things which will destroy us. Obviously this makes the devil’s job much easier. All he has to do is to get us to do what we want to do anyway.

I think that the danger of temptation is one of the reasons why God limited man’s life span to a maximum of 120 years after the great flood of Noah's day (see Genesis 6:3). Before the great flood people lived hundreds of years. Noah himself lived 950 years (see Genesis 9:29), but he was the last one to live anywhere near that long. When people lived that long it gave the devil more opportunities to tempt them to sin and to find their weaknesses so he could lure them away from the faith. This is one of the reasons why the world was so evil in the days of Noah, which prompted God to send the flood.

Many of the most popular preachers in America are fond of telling you how “great” it is to be a Christian, but you don't often hear them teaching about how difficult it is to fight temptation. This is completely backwards. It is much more difficult and troublesome to be a Christian than to be an unbeliever because the Christian must struggle and fight against temptation, while the unbeliever generally doesn’t care and freely gives in to temptation whenever he desires.

The way temptation works is that the devil tries to get us to want or desire that which will kill us. That is how it has worked all the way back to the garden of Eden. There Satan got Eve to desire the forbidden fruit by getting her to believe the lie that eating the fruit would make her more like God.

Satan didn't (and couldn't) force Adam and Eve to kill themselves, and he couldn’t make God condemn the people He loved, but by getting Adam and Eve to desire to eat the forbidden fruit the resulting effect was the same. Once they desired evil it didn’t matter to them that God had decreed death to all who disobeyed Him.

“Man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord" Deuteronomy 8:3

The temptations of Jesus worked in the exact same way. In each case the devil tried to get Jesus to desire something sinful so that He would act on it and in so doing make himself unworthy to save us from our sin. The trick was to get Jesus to act on self interest rather than love. The first temptation was to satisfy His own hunger after 40 days of fasting. Other temptations tried to get Jesus to take the easy way out instead of having to suffer and die or to test God the Father to make Him prove that His Word was true.

We should also take notice of how Jesus resisted the temptations of the devil. Jesus did not do anything miraculous in resisting the devil. All Jesus did was to quote the Holy Scriptures and put His trust in God and His Word over and against the lies and innuendo of the devil. This also should give us comfort and confidence in our task to resist temptation. Jesus did nothing that we cannot do. It is true that we have our sinful nature working against us which really does want to sin, but we, too, can learn and quote Bible verses to resist temptation. As sinners, we are not going to be able to resist all temptation, but when we fail we can trust that Jesus will forgive us, even as we ask for strength to resist the next time we face a similar temptation. We also have to be careful to use Scripture properly because you may have noticed above that the devil quoted the Bible, too, in trying to get Jesus to sin. The verses he quoted were accurate, but out of context. God' s Word should never be used to justify disobedience against God, but the devil has been doing that since he asked Eve, “Did God really say, ‘You shall not eat...?’”

Fortunately for us, Jesus loved us more than He cared about His own comfort. Jesus also trusted that God the Father’s will is always best, even if it cost Him tremendous suffering and death. That is what love does - it cares more about someone else than one’s self. Because Jesus wished to obey God the Father and save us from our sins He always resisted temptation, and though it cost Him greatly, He won for us full forgiveness and everlasting life.

The Slaughter of the Innocents

Matthew 2:13-18

When [the Magi] had gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in adream. “Get up,” he said, “take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him.”

So he got up, took the child and his mother during the night and left for Egypt, where he stayed until the death of Herod. And so was fulfilled what the Lord had said through the prophet: “Out of Egypt I called my son.”

When Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi. Then what was said through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled: “A voice is heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because they are no more.”

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This window depicts the holy family’s flight to Egypt. This happened in response to the first attempt by God’s enemies to take the life of Jesus. It is a very tragic story and it shows why all of Jerusalem was “troubled” when King Herod was upset to learn of a potential rival newborn king (see Magi). History tells us that Herod was so ruthless that he murdered his own son when he believed the young man was a threat to his rule, so the babies of Bethlehem were of no concern to him.

This was a great tragedy, but greater massacres occur every day in the United States alone, not to mention numerous other nations, when thousands of innocent babies are mercilessly slaughtered in the womb by people who view these children as some threat to livelihood or prosperity just as Herod did. All this tells us is that we live in a cold, cruel world full of sinners who need redemption from our sin.

Christians know that there are no real “innocent” people in the world. The unborn victims of abortion need a savior from inherited sin as well as their murderers. Fortunately that is where Jesus comes in. It is precisely because God loves both murder victim and murderer alike that Jesus was born to redeem sinners. When Jesus was less than two years old He had not yet accomplished all that was necessary to win our salvation, so He walked away. This is exactly the same tactic He used on other occasions when people wanted to kill Him before He had finished His work. However, when his work was done He did not walk or run away, nor did He try to save Himself in any way, but He let them torture Him, humiliate Him, and crucify Him. By suffering in this way, Jesus paid the price for sin so that all sinners may escape punishment for sin though faith in Him.

The life and death of Jesus does not excuse the wickedness of King Herod, nor of modern day abortionists and their apologists. Evil is still evil no matter how one may try to excuse it. We can take comfort, however, that just as Jesus forgave those who nailed Him to a cross and killed Him, so He will forgive my sins, no matter how wicked they may be. This is what gives Christians the courage to repent of all our sins - the assurance that God has forgiven us all our sins for the sake of Christ Jesus.