Proper 19 (September 18, 2024)

1 Kings 18:21–39 NIV84

21 Elijah went before the people and said, “How long will you waver between two opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him; but if Baal is God, follow him.” But the people said nothing. 22 Then Elijah said to them, “I am the only one of the Lord’s prophets left, but Baal has four hundred and fifty prophets. 23 Get two bulls for us. Let them choose one for themselves, and let them cut it into pieces and put it on the wood but not set fire to it. I will prepare the other bull and put it on the wood but not set fire to it. 24 Then you call on the name of your god, and I will call on the name of the Lord. The god who answers by fire—he is God.” Then all the people said, “What you say is good.” 25 Elijah said to the prophets of Baal, “Choose one of the bulls and prepare it first, since there are so many of you. Call on the name of your god, but do not light the fire.” 26 So they took the bull given them and prepared it. Then they called on the name of Baal from morning till noon. “O Baal, answer us!” they shouted. But there was no response; no one answered. And they danced around the altar they had made. 27 At noon Elijah began to taunt them. “Shout louder!” he said. “Surely he is a god! Perhaps he is deep in thought, or busy, or traveling. Maybe he is sleeping and must be awakened.” 28 So they shouted louder and slashed themselves with swords and spears, as was their custom, until their blood flowed. 29 Midday passed, and they continued their frantic prophesying until the time for the evening sacrifice. But there was no response, no one answered, no one paid attention. 30 Then Elijah said to all the people, “Come here to me.” They came to him, and he repaired the altar of the Lord, which was in ruins. 31 Elijah took twelve stones, one for each of the tribes descended from Jacob, to whom the word of the Lord had come, saying, “Your name shall be Israel.” 32 With the stones he built an altar in the name of the Lord, and he dug a trench around it large enough to hold two seahs of seed. 33 He arranged the wood, cut the bull into pieces and laid it on the wood. Then he said to them, “Fill four large jars with water and pour it on the offering and on the wood.” 34 “Do it again,” he said, and they did it again. “Do it a third time,” he ordered, and they did it the third time. 35 The water ran down around the altar and even filled the trench. 36 At the time of sacrifice, the prophet Elijah stepped forward and prayed: “O Lord, God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel, let it be known today that you are God in Israel and that I am your servant and have done all these things at your command. 37 Answer me, O Lord, answer me, so these people will know that you, O Lord, are God, and that you are turning their hearts back again.” 38 Then the fire of the Lord fell and burned up the sacrifice, the wood, the stones and the soil, and also licked up the water in the trench. 39 When all the people saw this, they fell prostrate and cried, “The Lord—he is God! The Lord—he is God!”

Ephesians 6:10–18 NIV84

10 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. 11 Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. 12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. 13 Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. 14 Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, 15 and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. 16 In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. 17 Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. 18 And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints.

Mark 9:14–27 NIV84

14 When they came to the other disciples, they saw a large crowd around them and the teachers of the law arguing with them. 15 As soon as all the people saw Jesus, they were overwhelmed with wonder and ran to greet him. 16 “What are you arguing with them about?” he asked. 17 A man in the crowd answered, “Teacher, I brought you my son, who is possessed by a spirit that has robbed him of speech. 18 Whenever it seizes him, it throws him to the ground. He foams at the mouth, gnashes his teeth and becomes rigid. I asked your disciples to drive out the spirit, but they could not.” 19 “O unbelieving generation,” Jesus replied, “how long shall I stay with you? How long shall I put up with you? Bring the boy to me.” 20 So they brought him. When the spirit saw Jesus, it immediately threw the boy into a convulsion. He fell to the ground and rolled around, foaming at the mouth. 21 Jesus asked the boy’s father, “How long has he been like this?” “From childhood,” he answered. 22 “It has often thrown him into fire or water to kill him. But if you can do anything, take pity on us and help us.” 23 “ ‘If you can’?” said Jesus. “Everything is possible for him who believes.” 24 Immediately the boy’s father exclaimed, “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!” 25 When Jesus saw that a crowd was running to the scene, he rebuked the evil spirit. “You deaf and mute spirit,” he said, “I command you, come out of him and never enter him again.” 26 The spirit shrieked, convulsed him violently and came out. The boy looked so much like a corpse that many said, “He’s dead.” 27 But Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him to his feet, and he stood up.

Followers of Christ are Armed for Battle

Goal of the Message: To impress on believers the need to take up the full armor of God in order to withstand the attacks of the evil one.

Introduction: “The devil made me do it!” That was a frequent line on a well-known TV program several years ago. It was supposed to be funny, spoken to make the audience laugh—and they did laugh, because many people considered the idea of a real devil tempting humans to say or do bad things to be an old religious superstition. It’s naive to take the devil seriously.

But Bible-believing people do not find the devil at all funny. We know that the devil is real, and very dangerous. God warns us to be alert: “Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith” (1 Pet 5:8–9). Today’s text also speaks of the devil. May the Holy Spirit guide and bless us as we consider how God provides heavenly armor for our battle with the devil.

We are in the midst of a real spiritual battle.

The battle is for our souls. It is a matter of eternal life or death. Satan is terribly potent (v 12). People who do not believe that Satan is real lay themselves wide open to attack.

We can withstand the devil’s attacks only with the full armor of God.

Beware of trying to solo it. “With might of ours can naught be done.”

God says to be strong in him and his might. Note the familiar prayer, “You and I together can handle anything and everything.”

Illustration: Recall the terror of Elisha’s servant when he saw the Aramean army surrounding them, and how God opened his eyes to see the angelic army he had sent to protect his servants (2 Kings 6:14–17).

This is a wonderful illustration of the invisible but very real spiritual battle that is being waged around us, and how “those who are with us are more [or greater] than those who are with them.”

We cannot protect ourselves piecemeal. Our text tells us to “put on the whole armor of God.”

God says we are to put it on. Action on our part is necessary if we are to fight the forces of evil successfully.

Illustration: Is it possible to have the armor lying around the house without putting it on? Here is a rhyme about a child who found a dusty Bible (author unknown):

Mother, I’ve found a dusty old thing

High on the shelf. Just look.

Why, that’s God’s Bible, Tommy dear.

Be careful, that’s God’s book.

God’s book? Then, Mother, before we lose it

We’d better send it back to God,

for you know we never use it!

Application: It is not merely crafty humans with whom we contend. We’re confronted by spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. That’s why we need to be alert to what this text teaches, aware of our need for the whole armor, and appreciative that God offers it to us. This war cost the life of God’s own Son. Jesus Christ died on the cross to defeat the devil and to be able to clothe us with the armor of his own righteousness. While Jesus has already won the war for us, battles will still rage until he returns again. In gratitude for his supreme sacrifice, we gladly fight on his side.

God tells us to stand firm, protected by the spiritual equipment he provides.

He describes the equipment as a soldier’s armor. (Briefly describe the various pieces).

Vv 14–17: This fascinating section describes the pieces of armor. To do justice to the whole text, however, the preacher should limit his discussion of the various pieces and what they symbolize. The girdle was a belt wrapped snugly around the loose flowing robes so they would not impede during battle. —Shield “refers to the large door-shaped shield . . . the Roman scutum which had an iron frame and sometimes a metal boss in the center of the front. Often the several layers of leather were soaked in water before the battle in order to put out the incendiary missiles of the enemy.”

—Barnes (p. 130) says “faith here is made to occupy a more important place than either of the other Christian graces. It protects all, and is indispensable to the security of all, as is the case with the shield. The shield . . . could be made to protect the head, or the heart, or thrown behind to meet an attack there. As long as the soldier had his shield, he felt secure; and as long as a Christian has faith, he is safe.” Luther comments, “Do not think that the devil is in hell, or beyond Babylon, or only in Turkey, or at Rome . . . here among us he is struggling and striving to turn us out of the heaven in which we are through Christ” (Plass, p. 399).

—Kretzmann (Popular Commentary of the Bible [St. Louis: Concordia, 1922] NT vol. 2, p. 292) quotes Luther “Here it is not enough that we defend ourselves against the devil with faith and hope as our shield and helmet, but we must also draw the sword and go for him with such insistence that he must fall back and flee, and we thus obtain the victory over him . . . the Word of God is this weapon.”

Illustration: The armor which God provides is best. Saul meant well in offering David the king’s ill-fitting armor, but that wasn’t what David needed. He was victorious as he trusted only in God’s protection (1 Sam 17:38–50). God’s armor is tailor-made and all-sufficient for every individual believer.

God tells us to pray constantly in all circumstances.

Soldiers need to keep in touch with their commanding officer lest they fall prey to a sudden attack by the enemy.

We are to pray alertly (v 19), not merely repeating prayers without thinking.

We pray by the power of the Spirit, according to the will of God, with a believing heart (v 19).

We pray on all occasions for all kinds of needs, “without ceasing.”

In particular, we pray for “all the saints.”

Application: Stress the blessed service believers can render one another by faithful, frequent prayer. Are we helping each other to wear God’s protective armor by our prayer support of each other? In an army, the individual soldiers depend heavily on each other and on the unit as a whole.

Conclusion: May we go forward together as God’s soldiers, in his mighty power, taking full advantage of his armor, and prayerfully supporting each other. Grateful to Jesus Christ, who promises that we will share in his victory, we daily fight on his side. By his grace we will stand firm until God takes us out of this world, out of Satan’s reach, to be with him in glory forever.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.