Verse 1: A mighty fortress is our God, a sword and shield victorious; He breaks the cruel oppressor’s rod and wins salvation glorious. The old satanic foe has sworn to work us woe! With craft and dreadful might he arms himself to fight. On earth he has no equal.
Verse 2: No strength of ours can match his might! We would be lost, rejected. But now a champion comes to fight, whom God himself elected. You ask who this may be? The lord of hosts is he! Christ Jesus, mighty Lord, God’s only Son, adored. He holds the field victorious.
Verse 3: Though hordes of devils fill the land all threatening to devour us, we tremble not, unmoved we stand; they cannot overpower us. Let this world’s tyrant rage; in battle we’ll engage! His might is doomed to fail; God’s judgment must prevail! One little word subdues him.
Verse 4: God’s Word forever shall abide, no thanks to foes who fear it; for God himself fights by our side with weapons of the Spirit. Were they to take our house, goods, honor, child or spouse, though life be wrenched away, they cannot win the day. The kingdom’s ours forever!
Written by none other than Martin Luther himself, this is perhaps the strongest song we have in our hymnal. Every year it is essential that we sing it on Reformation Sunday. But there is far more reason to sing it than because of who the author is. The lyrics speak to the two most powerful opposing forces in the world: God and Satan. As you read the lyrics, you can see that the devil is always trying to deceive and devour us, to fight us, and steal us away from God. Luther does not shy away from this and neither can we. There are forces of evil in this world. There are demons and devils trying to deceive us and get us to turn away from God and the Truth.
Then we can read and sing that Christ stands for us. We are not in this fight alone. Not only are we not alone, but we aren’t even the ones fighting the fight. Verse 2 starts off by saying that if we were to rely on our own strength, we would have no chance. But God sends His Son for us! And the end of verse 3, the fight is over: One little word subdues Satan.
What is this word? You are forgiven! You are forgiven of all of your sins in the name of Christ. These are the words that are forever true and put the devil in his place. You are a child of God. May you cling on to this promise so that you may have the kingdom forever!
This is most certainly true.
Pastor Maxwell Whitehead
