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The demons never let up. They may be damned but they�re nonetheless determined. Two weeks ago you heard the account of Christ�s battle with Satan himself in the wilderness. Last Sunday you listened to the story of Jesus healing the Syro-Phoenician�s daughter who was demon possessed. And now today� the Gospel tells of a poor man who was rendered mute because of an evilBut remember, evil, though real, has no concrete inherent incarnatable source origin being. There was a time when there was no evil. There was a time when Satan was an obedient loyal messenger. Evil has no true independence but is only a sham, counterfeit, perversion and corruption of that which was originally good and pure. Evil is rot and putrefication. Evil is decay. Only the Triune One is infinite, eternal and self-sufficient: �I AM; I AM THAT I AM.� The Son of God that Saint Luke records in this morning�s text is Alpha and Omega; but the demon who is exorcised, the leader of the demons (Beelzebub) who is named, and the non-believers who maliciously �tested� Jesus are finite and fallible.

God is incarnate; He has flesh and blood, larynx and tongue. God speaks and sings.

The incarnate God/Man Christ Jesus loves with will but also with hands and heart. He delights in both praying, audibly, to His Father but also in telling you with His mouth that He loves you. God is always communing with you, that is, communicating, interacting, not in dry boring musty lecture halls imparting �facts & figures� but at the Banquet Table laughing, singing, and sharing with you. Jesus gives you everything He has done for you.

Of course the man was mute. Did not Adam and Eve run and hide from God after they fell? They didn�t want to be with the Lord. They didn�t want to talk with Him.

Evil is silent. Evil causes silence. Evil wishes to silence the Word. Evil, the evil that men do, the evil which proceeds out of your old nature hearts, tries to keep you from loving God and your neighbor, even if it�s only to thwart you in talking to God, in sharing a kind and comforting, and forgiving word with your neighbor.

Dear Saints, The Word has given you news words, a new vocabulary, a new song; a Victory Anthem.

�O Lord, open Thou my lips� we all pray at the opening of Vespers, and He does.

�And my mouth shall show forth Thy praise� you sing in reply; and you so do.

The Lord came into the house, the castle, the fortress of the �Strong Man.� But Satan turned out to be neither strong nor a man. Satan lies, deceives, and murders; all his activities are derivative, negative, and destructive. Satan can build nothing; create nothing and sustain nothing. Satan can only lust for power and control. He is truly Beelzebub, which means �Lord of the Flies,� in the sense of filthy, disease-ridden flies flitting about the garbage dump filled with offal. Satan can never be an angel again; he can never be a man, and he can never be strong.

True strength is in loving with action. Real strength is in loving and giving. �True love is this that a man lay down his life for his friends.�

And thus, for you, the Lion of Judah, Who was Strong, became docile and meek and gentle. The Ruler became the ransom; the Son of God became the Savior; the �I AM� became �Thy will be done.� Jesus was led into the strong man�s house, into the real �Monster House� which was the sinful world and flesh of all Un-believers, Caiphas, Judas, Pilate, Caesar, Herod, the Pharisees, and all others of all times. Jesus bound the strong man by letting Himself be bound. Jesus pierced the �ancient foe� by allowing His own precious and innocent flesh to be pierced. Appearances are usually deceiving. While the Snake thought he was winning at the tree of death, in reality, The �genuine� brass serpent was being affixed on high. And now again, all who look upon the Crucified One in faith will liver forever and never die. The ancient dragon thought he had won when he bit down hard on the worm� but the bait was no angleworm but the Angel-Worm�the Man/God Christ Jesus.

It is finished. One little Word has bested the beast. The so-called �strong man� is nothing but lying husk of poison, an obnoxious and odious �stink bug� which is best safely avoided by securely staying in the Word: of Baptism +, of Scripture, of Supper. Your own �old Adam� is drowned every day in your on-going Absolution which is Baptism applied daily.

Rejoice beloved ones for surely the Kingdom of God has come upon you.

In the Name of the Father and of + The Son and of The Holy Ghost