Lent 3 – Oculi

Good Shepherd

2004 Pass Rd, Biloxi, MS 39531

Draft Jer 26:1–15; Eph 5:1–9; Luke 11:14–28; Ps 4; antiphon: v. 8   –     3/8/26

Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father, and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

Now [Jesus] was casting out a demon that was mute. When the demon had gone out, the mute man spoke, and the people marveled. But some of them said, “He casts out demons by Beelzebul, the prince of demons,” while others, to test him, kept seeking from him a sign from heaven. But he, knew their thoughts. This today shows us two forms of unbelief which plague the preaching of God’s Word from the very beginning. The first are those who utterly despise Jesus and His disciples because they are opposed in their desires with God and try to shift the blame for all evil onto Him; The second are those who want to be neutral between God and the devil, because they like part of God’s Word but also delight in the world and are unwilling to alienate one to fully embrace the other, not understanding that they must fully commit one way or the other in the end, for Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.

How then are unbelieving hearts changed? And what of those unbelievers like these in the Gospel reading who are opposed to Christ? Our Confessions teach, “Moreover, even as God has ordained in His [eternal] counsel that the Holy Ghost should call, enlighten, and convert the elect through the Word, and that He will justify and save all those who by true faith receive Christ, so He also determined in His counsel that He will harden, reprobate, and condemn those who are called through the Word, if they reject the Word and resist the Holy Ghost, who wishes to be {effective} and to work in them through the Word and persevere therein. And in this manner many are called, but few are chosen.” (FC XI §40)

The first category we see in the Gospel reading are those so opposed to God’s Word that they say Jesus performs miracles by the power of the devil, attributing His good to the power of their master. They see that Christ’s forgiveness of sins is backed up by the undeniable miracles He performs for the weak and downtrodden, yet they loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil (Jn 3:19). They attribute to Jesus the very evil they follow. They are like Pharaoh who hardened his heart against the preaching of Moses; they are like Jerusalem who hardened their hearts against the preaching of Jeremiah. The result is that eventually if they persist in their submission to the devil and his demons God assents to their will and hardens their hearts so that they cannot turn from their evil ways.

The second category we see in the Gospel reading are the unsteady people, not fully for or against Jesus, but more interested, perhaps, in their own entertainment. They see the miracles of healing and casting out demons, and are amazed, but they also know subconsciously that there is a cost to following Jesus, giving up their earthly deeds: perhaps crude joking, sexual immorality, covetousness, that is idolatry of possessions, or the like as St. Paul speaks. But they will play along with Jesus and His disciples for a while, pretending at being interested in the faith, but constantly testing, critiquing, and finding some excuse to stay neutral. In the end they will be like those Jesus condemns: I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot. I could wish you were cold or hot. So then, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will vomit you out of My mouth. Because you say, ‘I am rich, have become wealthy, and have need of nothing’—and do not know that you are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked— I counsel you to buy from Me gold refined in the fire, that you may be rich; and white garments, that you may be clothed, that the shame of your nakedness may not be revealed; and anoint your eyes with eye salve, that you may see. (Rev 3:15–18)

Then there is the curious verse at the end of our Gospel, As he said these things, a woman in the crowd raised her voice and said to him, “Blessed is the womb that bore you, and the breasts at which you nursed!” This is another who delights in the teaching but, as it seems, is shallow in understanding, attributing the greatness of Jesus rather to His mother than to God. She is an example, though not one herself I would hope, of people who speak much about loving God and His Word, usually even did at one point, but always turn that Word to suit some opinion other than the salvation of lost souls—lost souls like the previous two groups. They attribute the justification for their evil thoughts and deeds to God, as if He commanded them to support things like homosexuality, abortion, transgenderism, usury, sexual immorality, gluttony, and the idea that there are many ways to God—Mary, the dead saints, angels, buddha, Muhammad, Joseph Smith, and other false idols and false teachers.

There are constantly examples of this third group of false friends of Christ in our media, one especially prominent who is running for office in Texas. These people, not necessarily the woman in the Gospel reading, these people twist God’s Word so as to deceive others and turn them away from Christ. These people are malicious in the evil work they do on behalf of the devil because they do it in a guise of goodness and love, they are like those of whom St. Paul wrote, For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into apostles of Christ. And no wonder! For Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light (2 Cor 11:13–14). But in the end God will send His armies and destroy these false teachers and false Christians; they have chosen their own fate.

Our Confessions continue, “For few receive the Word and follow it; the greatest number despise the Word, and will not come to the wedding, Matt. 22:3ff The cause for this contempt for the Word is not God’s foreknowledge [or predestination], but the perverse will of man, which rejects or perverts the means and instrument of the Holy Ghost, which God offers him through the call, and resists the Holy Ghost, who wishes to be {effective}, and works through the Word, as Christ says: How often would I have gathered you together, and ye would not! Matt. 23:37.” (FC XI §41) Each of these three groups choose their own damnation if they obdurately refuse to repent and believe, if they refuse to reject the devil and accept responsibility for their own sins, refuse to reject the world, and refuse to reject their own false opinions. They ought to stand as warnings to us and to all people about the pride of man and his unwillingness to repent his evil, any one of us could fall to pride. And St. Paul warns us, Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. Therefore do not associate with them.

“Thus many receive the Word with joy, but afterwards fall away again, Luke 8:13. But the cause is not as though God were unwilling to grant grace for perseverance to those in whom He has begun the good work, for that is contrary to St. Paul, Phil. 1:6; but the cause is that they wilfully turn away again from the holy commandment [of God], grieve and embitter the Holy Ghost, implicate themselves again in the filth of the world, and garnish again the habitation of the heart for the devil. With them the last state is worse than the first.” (FC XI §42) By which they mean this: When the unclean spirit has gone out of a person, it passes through waterless places seeking rest, and finding none it says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’ And when it comes, it finds the house swept and put in order. Then it goes and brings seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they enter and dwell there. And the last state of that person is worse than the first.

In response to the woman Jesus said, “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and keep it!” The Bible does not serve our political or ideological ends. God gave us a book so that we would have the words of eternal life before us not the opinions of men. He gave us a book to teach us not only that we are sinners but that we may be saved. The Bible places before your eyes the crucifixion of the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for our sins, that He might deliver us from this present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father (Gal 1:4), and therefore the crucifixion of your sins. The Bible explicitly tells you that in the crucifixion sin, death, and the devil are all defeated, further that you who are baptized partake of this victory if we follow Christ’s word and keep ourselves from sin. Thus Romans 6 says,

What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it? Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. For he who has died has been freed from sin. (Rm 6:1–7)

Further, that even while the world will reject us as it did Christ, even as many will call us evil, as many will be wishy-washy, as many will smear the name of Christ with their evil, we are commanded to love and pray for them. Jesus said, I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust (Mt 5:44–45). But doesn’t St. Paul say in our Epistle that We are not to associate with sinners lest we join them in their sins for at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light (for the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true). He does indeed. But St. Paul is not in disagreement with Jesus. Consider Zacchaeus, a social outcast and sinner. Does Jesus join him in his sin? No, He dines with the tax collector and brings God’s Word to the man, Today salvation has come to this house, because he also is a son of Abraham; for the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost. Son of Abraham? Yes, one by faith as Galatians 3:7 states, know that only those who are of faith are sons of Abraham. What does all this mean? We are called not to be of this world nor join the world in unbelief and wicked works but rather we are sojourners in it who are lights to the world, if we are imitators of God and are His beloved children who in our lives and deeds show the love and sacrifice of Christ to the world.

The first group would use social peer pressure to turn you away from Christ because, you don’t want to be part of that hateful body. The second both tempt you with the world’s wealth and try to mislead you with vain argument about the supernatural, claiming superiority for their neutrality. The last tempt you to believe that Christ is but one way to God, or that you have to use an intermediary in prayer. Know their lies, guard against their unsteady ways, but pray also for these lost souls, for you were once like them and dwelt in darkness. However, also rejoice for you have been redeemed by the cross of Christ so that you can say, In peace I will both lie down and sleep; for you alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety. Amen.