Listen to Him, Satan

Satan is in the business of misinformation, disinformation, hoaxes, and lies. But Jesus speaks the truth. He silences Satan and his horde, that we might know his truth and find life in Jesus' name. 

Transcript

Just days before Slovakia's national election last fall, a mysterious voice recording began spreading a lie online. The manipulated file made it sound like Michal Simecka, leader of the Progressive Slovakia party, was discussing buying votes with a local journalist. But the conversation never happened; the file was later debunked as a "deepfake" hoax.  On election day, Simecka lost to the pro-Kremlin populist candidate Robert Fico in a tight race. (https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/ai-deepfake-election-canada-1.7084398)

This last week, voters in New Hampshire began receiving a phone call from US President Joe Biden. It told them to skip the Primary vote on January 23 and save their efforts for the general election. Except it wasn’t Joe Biden calling them. It was a computer generated voice mimicking the president. It’s unknown how many were fooled. (https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/misinformation /joe-biden-new-hampshire-robocall-fake-voice-deep-ai-primary-rcna135120)

You may have seen popup ads when you browse the internet from the government of Canada. They show a woman looking at her phone with a raised eyebrow. The caption says, “Unsure if something you see online is true? Compare before you share.” But compare with what? 

By one estimate, approximately 328 million terabytes of data are created every single day. My home computer has a 2 terabyte capacity. We fill 164 million of my computers every single day. We send 350 million or more emails every day. But who’s counting? The internet is awash with words and pictures and videos. 

Not all of them are real. Not all of them are true. But do we listen anyway?

Now our Old Testament reading for today is usually the reading that comes with Transfiguration Sunday in just a few weeks. And obviously that makes sense because on Transfiguration, we have Jesus meeting up with Moses and Elijah on the mountain top as Peter and James and John watch on and we hear the voice of the Father once again saying what he said through Moses: “Listen to him.” 

Now, the reason why God gives this promise through Moses is because the last time God spoke to the people directly, it was on top of Sinai, on top of Horeb. And he came with a thunder cloud and lightning, and it was terrifying. The people were scared out of their wits and it was the people of God themselves who said “Don't ever speak to us that way again. Too scary.” Which is what led the Lord to promise through Moses that the next time he comes to speak to the people, it will be as someone just like them. “God will raise up for you a prophet,” Moses says “like me.” With hair. With eyes. A mouth, hands. With feet. But I will be the one speaking. It will be my words that will be in his mouth. So that would match up quite nicely to a certain extent with what we hear in our gospel reading for today. 

Except that do you notice who it is who's doing the listening in the gospel? It's not the people of God. It's not the disciples. It's the demons. It's one demon in particular, and that demon is listening very closely. “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth?” 

Now the demons, interestingly enough, are about the only ones who do listen carefully to Jesus in the gospel of Mark. That's one of the unique features of this gospel to which we are focusing our attention this year. But believe me, the demons listen. They are compelled to listen because when Jesus speaks to them and says, “be silent, come out.” There’s no argument. They do. 

Now, why “be silent”? It seems weird. All of this mismatch of God speaking through Moses and then saying he's going to send somebody who's going to speak and then when that person actually comes, Jesus of Nazareth, the first thing he says is “shut up.” How do you put all of that together? 

Well, part of what the Prophet is going to have to do is not just speak so that we listen, but get the demons to be quiet. Why? Because it is Satan and the demons province of telling lies. One cannot easily discern when what we're hearing is the truth or the lie, because the Devil continues, as Peter writes, to “roam around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour.” Not devour literally with teeth like eat. But think of him as an earworm. Wheeling his way into your brain through your ears and taking residence in your head. 

Jesus gives this powerful description of Satan in the middle of John's gospel. If I could pull in another gospel for a minute. In John, chapter 8, Jesus says “The devil was a murderer from the beginning. He does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him and when he lies, he speaks his native language. For he is a liar and the father of lies.” 

A murderer from the beginning. To what is Jesus referring? Surely he's referring to the serpent who appears in the garden to Eve. The serpent back in Genesis, chapter 3 who says to the woman, “Did God actually say you shall not eat of any tree in the garden?” But the serpent said to the woman after she answered no, that there's some wiggle room here. “Well, you will not surely die if you eat the fruit. God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” Truth and lie all mixed up together such that it really doesn't matter that there's any truth in what the serpent says at all. 

It's like taking one little grain of salt and dropping it into your glass of water. It's now salt water. You can't say, well, I'm just gonna drink the part that's fresh. One little bit of lie can make all the stuff that's good turn evil. 

Now, in case you're wondering if this Satan that Jesus talks about in John and this serpent in the garden, are the same, the Lord connects the dots for us in the very last book of the Bible, the Book of Revelation. There John says, “And I saw the great dragon being thrown down, that ancient serpent who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world. He was thrown down to the Earth and his angels were thrown down with him.” 

Now the problem that is being addressed today by Jesus, is that the devil is still speaking. The devil still speaks today, and boy, he has a whole new playground to use that he never had before. You see, the devil is the master of misinformation, of disinformation, of hoaxes, of AI fakes and spin. Anything that can turn us against God and turn us against each other. Because once our focus is on God and each other, who are we not paying attention to? To him. And he can hide himself even though he is the real puppet master and the real enemy of the human race. 

To whom do you listen? That's the question that God is asking through Moses today, that God is asking in this encounter between the demon and Jesus, “to whom do you truly open your ears”? 

Now I am the called Minister of Christ here. And so it is my obligation to speak Jesus and him crucified for your sins to you and I do that in 15 to 20 minutes, roughly from this place every Sunday. A few more minutes talking about the catechism and then an hour on Wednesday evening if you come to Bible study. Which many of you do, but not everybody does.  And maybe a few extra minutes if you read my Midweek with Christ. 

How many hours of podcast do we listen to? Hours of newscasts, websites that we peruse, articles that we read, YouTube videos, TikTok videos? Isn’t Jesus competing with all of them? I am here to speak Jesus to you. I am here to speak to you the words of the one who said, “Listen to me and I will give you life.” And as we go through the next few months, we will hear Jesus speak to us through Mark's Gospel. 

Mark 2:17 (ESV)17 And when Jesus heard it, he said to them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.”

Mark 3:33–35 (ESV) 33 [Jesus said to] them, “Who are my mother and my brothers?” 34 And looking about at those who sat around him, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! 35 For whoever does the will of God, he is my brother and sister and mother.”

Mark 7:15, 20-22 (ESV) 15 There is nothing outside a person that by going into him can defile him, but the things that come out of a person are what defile him.”20 And he said, “What comes out of a person is what defiles him. 21 For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, 22 coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness.

Mark 8:34–35 (ESV) 34 And calling the crowd to him with his disciples, he said to them, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. 35 For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it.

Jesus will not just be having the disciples listen to him. He will continue speaking to Satan. He will continue addressing the ultimate deception and deceiver of the human race, because ultimately, Jesus knows, unless the deceiver is bound, there is no hope for us. We will continue to be sucked in by lie after Lie hoax after hoax, deep fake after deep fake.  Without Satan’s defeat, we are left defenceless:

Mark 3:24–27 (ESV) 24 If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. 25 And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. 26 And if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but is coming to an end. 27 But no one can enter a strong man’s house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man. Then indeed he may plunder his house.

Jesus will make Satan listen to him. “Be silent. And come out.” The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers. It is to him you shall listen. And while we hear that word is being addressed primarily to us, we will find that in Mark's Gospel it's addressed to the whole cosmos, including the forces of evil. They will be compelled not only to listen, but to obey the one who will redeem you and I from our sins and open to us the gates of heaven. The name of Jesus Christ, Amen.