The Reverend J. Howard Cepelak

Trinity Church

Waltham, Massachusetts

Pentecost XIX – 7 October 2012
The Sacrament of Holy Communion

Job 1:1, 2:1-10; Psalm 26, Hebrews 2:5-12, Mark 10:2-16

From the Book of Job:
There was a man…whose name was Job; and that man was blameless and upright, one who feared God, and turned away from evil.

From the 26th Psalm:
Prove me, O Lord, and try me; test my heart and my mind.

From the Epistle to the Hebrews:
For it was not to angels that God subjected the world to come….
And speaking of the son of man,
Thou didst make him for a little while lower than the angels, thou hast crowned him with glory and honor, putting everything in subjection under his feet.

And From the Gospel According to St. Mark:
And Pharisees came up and in order to test him asked, Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife? He answered them, What did Moses command you?

Let us pray.
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable in thy sight, O God, our Rock and our Redeemer, our Strength and our Salvation,
Amen.

On April 3rd, 1965, Paul Harvey – one of the most beloved radio personalities of our time, presented a radio broadcast of his 1964 column entitled, If I Were the Devil. The broadcast had been a revision of the original column but conveyed essentially the same message. More recently, in 1999, another revised version circulated all over the internet. Although updated to be even more relevant to the times, the essential message remained the same.

And that message is just this. If I were the devil I would set God’s people against Him so that I could take His place. And I would do it by convincing the people that all that’s good and right and true is bad and wrong and false.

I would love to read to you all three versions – one is as good as the other – and all are excellent documents reflecting Harvey’s deep Christian conviction – but time this morning simply does not permit. I encourage you to google it and read – or listen to – all three. The radio broadcast can be found on YouTube. You will be inspired for sure as well as impressed by this man’s faithful perception.

Harvey most certainly had the divine gift of discernment. He could – almost instinctively – tell good from evil, right from wrong, truth from falsehood. This gift – the gift of discernment – must not be undervalued.

We know that evil always masquerades as good resulting in the deception of multitudes of otherwise decent people. They will place their faith in the deception. They will believe – and believe in – the deceiver. Regardless of how they may characterize their faith, the deception becomes their religion. So completely deceived, many people who would identify themselves as Christians will not realize that they have actually devoted themselves to the anti-Christ lie.

The lie looks so good – sounds so good – and appeals so powerfully to human self-interests, primal desires as well as to one’s highest hopes and greatest aspirations that many – even a majority – will simply believe; believe without thinking, without evaluating, without questioning, without demanding full disclosure. Such blind faith prevents them from putting the deceiver to the test.

At the same time, those captivated by the lies and by the liar, will put everything that God has done, everything that God has said (the Word of God) – and especially His supreme and perfect revelation in Jesus Christ – to the test. Critical of Christians on the grounds of blind faith, they cannot see their own blindness.

So be it. Evil happens all the time – and from the beginning of time – from that first deception in the Garden of Eden when the devil told Eve that she – and her husband – could become as gods themselves if they but ate of the forbidden fruit – the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. God had given Adam and Eve everything – except that forbidden fruit. He commanded, Thou shalt not eat…. But rather than obey God, Eve believed Satan’s lie. She believed in him more than she believed in God.
She obeyed him and disobeyed God. And Adam did as well, following her into sin. The rest is history – the history of the whole world. Devil’s disciples abound in every generation.

Paul Harvey’s work expresses the basic, Biblically revealed, methodology of how the devil works in this world; the Satanic modus operandi.

But before we go into his methods, let us review Satan’s history. Satan, originally named Lucifer, which means the son of light, is generally referenced as an archangel. But he actually fits into the higher order of the seraphim. The seraphim burn with God’s light – hence his name. He was once the greatest, most intelligent, most powerful and most beautiful of all of God’s creations. So in love with himself – the supreme narcissist – he wanted to take God’s place. So he led a rebellion against God in Heaven.

St. Michael the Archangel – his name means he who is like God – defeated Lucifer – and all of the angels that had joined in the rebellion – and they were cast out of heaven. Lucifer became Satan – that name meaning the accuser of God, the Lord of the Flies, the Father of Lies, the Prince of Darkness – and his angels became demons. They fell from heaven and landed on earth as a part of the one third of all creation that they were able to take with them as they fell.

And here – on earth – Satan began his mortal deception – a deception that will continue until the end of time. Both the Bible and our friend, Paul Harvey – and every other true theologian – as well as every other true believer – know that the first place that the devil does his evil is to place enmity between the man and the woman resulting in enmity between all men and all women. He then expands his this to parents and children, brothers and sisters, beloved friends – and finally, to all mankind and God. Separated from God, we become the devil’s dinner.

The devil’s first battleground was the first man and the first woman. Being an agent – actually, the agent of death, he chose the only relationship in this world that participates in God’s creative power. The Lord has blessed us as male and female with pro-creative power – the power of life itself. The marriage covenant takes on primal importance.

Caution. We do not create – only God can do that. But we can pro-create because God has given us that power – perhaps the most abused power in this world – for the sake of life. Hence, the sanctity of life. Anything sacred becomes a target for Satan’s work. Life, being of supreme sanctification, remains the deceivers favorite battlefield.

He has won many of those battles. Witness mankind’s long history of heartbreak, deception in love affairs, his ongoing attack on marriage, the perpetual temptation to adultery in all its forms – and the frequency of both murder and suicide usually – not always – but usually – resulting from deception and heartbreak.

When the Pharisees attempted to test our Lord by asking Him the question, Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?, they go directly the devil’s favorite battlefield. The divinely established relationship between a man and a woman in marriage – best designated as holy matrimony – has always been one of the most difficult challenges in this life. The human heart – which Jeremiah declares to be deceptive above all things – at one time filled to overflowing with love – can change. Love and lust get so terribly confused. That love can turn to animosity even hatred – always a win for the devil. He despises love s much as God delights in it.

Given those circumstances, divorce entered in so as to dissolve the broken relationship. Under the Law of Moses, divorce was possible under certain circumstances – those circumstances being that a man would find some form of uncleanliness in his wife.

In the first century, many religious leaders interpreted uncleanliness as anything that might displease the husband including any manifestation of disobedience. Then as now, people debate the nature of those circumstances. But with this finding, a man could write a certificate of divorce and that was that.

So Jesus answered the question with a question. He asked these experts in the law, What did Moses command you? They answered with the issuance of a certificate of divorce. Jesus responded, For your hardness of heart, he gave you this commandment. With these words, Jesus acknowledged the sadly fallen human estate.

Our Lord then went on to say regarding this sacred covenant, What God has joined together, let no man put asunder. He then elaborated with His disciples that although divorce is possible, remarriage is not. In Matthew’s account, He elaborates further as He does in Luke’s gospel.

Although Jesus acknowledges the fallen condition of harness of heart, He does not endorse it. In His kingdom, holy love would prevail. Holy love would apply in marriage as well as in all forms of human relationships. He underscores this when He taught that the first and great commandment was to love God above all else and then love thy neighbor as thyself. And most certainly holy love would be the foundation of mankind’s relationship with God – the supreme marriage covenant.

The marriage covenant with God is eternal. Earthly marriage is temporal. Remember, He taught that in the resurrection, no one is either given or received in marriage, but are like the angels in heaven.

Satan also works with great success on the battlefield of life’s sufferings, particularly physical sufferings. He has filled this world with illness, afflictions and disease – an attack on the sacred human body – the body, created in the divine image – that belongs to God although entrusted to us.

The story of Job tells us that physical afflictions can be a test of our faithfulness. We all know Job’s story – a righteous man unconditionally faithful to God. Being righteous, he was, of course, a prime target for the devil. Satan’s purpose was to so afflict him with the loss of everything – his wealth, his family and his health, that Job would curse God and die.

Even Job’s wife – surely heartbroken for her husband’s suffering, wants him to end it by doing just that – the first recorded attempt at mercy killing. But Job remains faithful having successfully endured the test of his faith. Job personifies the psalmist words, Prove me O Lord, and try me; test my heart and my mind.

So many people throughout time turn away from God when physically afflicted. They say, How can there be a good God if He allows such things to happen? Well, the problem is not in the asking of the question – it’s in how one answers it.

God answers the question. The answer can only be found on the cross. Tried and tested, God the Father proves His holy love in His self-sacrifice in God the Son. The Son, who reigned – and reigns – in Heaven as the King of angels, became lower than the angels so as to share in the full human condition. He, like Job, was physically afflicted.

Although tempted to sin in every way, He never sinned in any way. He took our sin unto Himself so as to set us free from that Satanic power. Only His shed blood could remove sin’s stain. Only His broken body could break the tempter’s power. Only the Truth of His perfect love could expose the deceiver’s lie.

And only the full light of His resurrection – the manifestation of His victory over death itself – could enlighten those who dwell in the land of deep darkness – under the power of the Prince of Darkness who once had been the Son of Light.

Jesus Christ, the Son of God, was – and is – and will be forever, the light of light since He was – and is – and will be forever, very God of very God – true God of True God. In God the Son, God the Father took on the fullness of the fallen human condition – even the worst part – suffering and death itself – to show and to prove the perfection of His love.

In Him and in Him alone can we participate in a righteous relationship with God, for exclusively in His sacrifice and victory can mankind find salvation for eternal life.

Hence, the supreme marriage covenant, the covenant of faithfulness that God has established with all mankind, does not end with a divine certificate of divorce. It should because of mankind’s perpetual adultery. It should – but it doesn’t.

God offers us an alternative. God has chosen not to divorce us but to die – and live – for us so that we can die to death and live in Him. It’s the death and resurrection of the groom for the sake of the salvation of His dearly beloved bride.

We are His bride – as well as all who truly believe in Him. Despite our unfaithfulness, He offers us a whole new marriage – one that will last forever.

God has made His choice. We have to make ours. We have to choose over and over again to remain faithful since the devil tempts us over and over again. We have to choose to reject the liar’s deceptions. We have to choose the perfection of God’s Truth. He leaves us free to divorce Him even though He will not divorce us. But, at the end of time, He will accept our final choice.

And one last though.
The devil feeds on the souls he has captured. He lives off the perpetual death of his victims, sacrificed on the altar of his deception.

Contrast this with the eternal wedding feast in Heaven. We, if we have made the right and righteous choice for salvation – we, the true church being the bride of Christ joyfully dine at the wedding banquet that the groom, Jesus Christ has set before us.

This great Sacrament of Eternal Life, presented in these simple and humble elements of bread and of wine, tastes of that heavenly banquet. The bread, His broken body – and the wine – His shed blood become heavenly food for us – right her and right now – in this world – as we anticipate the world yet to come.

The choice remains. Heavenly food in the body and blood of our Lord willingly broken and shed for our salvation – or devil’s food – our bodies and souls willingly given to the Father of Lies.

Choose well.
Choose righteousness.
Choose life – now and forever.

Let us pray.
Heavenly Father, deliver us from the deceptions that so often delight us. Grant that we may properly discern your goodness from that Satanic deception. Bless us with the will to make the right and righteous choice that we may so live in this life as to inherit eternal life and feast at your banquet table forever.
We ask this in the name of the groom,
your Son our only Savior,
Jesus Christ the Lord.
Amen.