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Jesus, send your angel legions when the foe would us enslave. Hold us fast when sin assaults us. Come then, Lord, your people save. Overthrow at last the dragon. Send him to his fiery grave. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Grace, mercy, and peace be unto you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
Be seated. As you heard in the readings, and as you sang in the hymns, this morning is about the celebration of these ministering spirits that God created. Somewhere in the first six days of His creation, did God create these heavenly beings, these angels. Amen. About whom we sing and about whom we heard in the word of God this morning. You and I, we give thanks to God for these ministering spirits, for they are sent by God to protect you and to serve you. You who are God’s crown jewel of his entire creation. You whom the angels serve.
For when God wished to redeem us flesh and blood, he did not become like the angels, no matter how glorious they may seem. When God chose to redeem you, flesh and blood, He became like you, flesh and blood, not like the angels. And the angels God created to serve you and to serve Him and to protect you. Now, He does not have to do this. He’s God. He can protect us and preserve us in any form or fashion that He wishes, but according to Scripture, He has chosen us by His divine will and providence to protect and serve us through these ministering spirits whom we call angels, the messengers of God.
Now, in this text that we have this morning before us, we see that there are also these other angels that have fallen from heaven, that have rebelled against God, whose pride filled them. And they are after you because you’re a child of God, and they despise children of the Heavenly Father. We know from the book of Job that God allows these angels and enables them to serve and protect you. And we also know from the book of Job that these same angels, God allows these evil angels, that is, to get you to struggle, to have difficult times in your life.
Remember Job at the very beginning? Remember Job? The evil one, Satan, says, “How about your servant Job? Let me thwart him and cause him to molt. Then this guy whom you say is yours will curse you, God, because the only reason he loves you, the only reason he loves you, God, is because you blessed him with so many gifts.” Now, that’s an interesting thought, isn’t it? Why do we praise God? Do we praise him because of all these good things? And do we curse Him when bad things are allowed to come upon us? Hmm.
So we know from Scripture there is this reality of good angels and evil angels. In fact, you confess that in the Creed: “I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible.” There in that creed, we’re confessing the very angels about whom these texts speak, both good and evil, and we’re confessing this horrible warfare that is surrounding us at every turn and of which we are oblivious.
We believe in it absolutely, but the unbelievers of this world think that everything that we’re talking about this morning—unbelievers think about it’s nothing but poppycock to them. No relevancy and no reality. Absolutely. And yet we believe in it and confess it as God’s children. Speaking of God’s children, where do the children come into this day of celebration of angels? Think about it. In the first text, we heard of the archangel Michael and of the angels battling. In the second text, the book of Revelation, we see Michael throwing out all the evil angels, Satan being their head, out of heaven, that they may only afflict the earth and no longer take away or diminish from God’s glory.
And then there’s this Gospel reading that talks about kids or children. Where does that fit in with this? God makes it very clear in this text. Truly I say to you, Jesus said, “Unless you turn and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” The reason that this text goes with the other text is this. Children are the very definition of frailty and vulnerability. Now, I’m not talking about that time in your life when you gave your parents a lot of hassle because you rebelled against them, or the time in the life of you as a parent when your children did the same. I’m talking about that phase in their life when they knew, as frail human beings, they had to depend upon you for protection. Right?
And they showed you as frail human beings their vulnerability as flesh and blood, so that you would care for them, and they relied upon you to be their protection. God is saying in this text very clearly, unless we become frail and vulnerable, admit our own weaknesses, we deny the very angels of darkness that surround us and are tempting us at every turn, and we deny the very need for the protection of the good angels. The very thing that Satan loves to tempt you and me, to pull us away from our childlike faith, is with earthly, material, and temporal things. Anything that has to do with this world.
Remember Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness? What were the three temptations that Jesus received from Satan? One: feed his flesh, earthly hunger. Turn these stones into bread. Two: throw yourself down from the temple. Let God take care of you in this life so that you are shown to be God’s son, earthly fame and pride. Three: bow down and worship me, and I’ll give you all these kingdoms so that you will be the greatest. Again, earthly pride. All three temptations by Satan to Christ our Lord were all about earthly, material, and temporal things.
Now what do you find your mind worrying the most about in this life except earthly, material, and temporal things? What is it that we’re not willing to admit our own vulnerability except in earthly, material, and physical things? Why do we not confess that we are frail and vulnerable and have no one except our Heavenly Father to protect us? We deny by that in our hearts the existence of Satan and his evil angels who are all about us.
Back to the children. Woe to the world for temptations to sin. For it is necessary that temptations come, but woe to the one by whom these temptations come. Now, if you look this up in your scriptures, this is the very beginning of Matthew chapter 18. And any of you who have been around the church for a while know that the middle part of Matthew 18 is about reconciliation between two people. And the root of that reconciliation lies in forgiveness. The very end of Matthew 18 is about the parable of the unmerciful servant who would not forgive another servant of the debt owed him after he had been forgiven everything by the king.
Is it any coincidence that this text then precedes those two sections about forgiveness? The answer is no. Children forgive a lot easier than we do. In fact, you learned how not to forgive and how to hold a grudge, and you grew into it by watching other people. Whether your sister or brother, whether your mother and father, or whether other people in your life. You watched and learned and perfected the art of withholding forgiveness so that you could control.
Jesus said very clearly, “If any of you causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.” And the greatest way, according to this text for this morning, that we lead little ones to sin—and little ones aren’t just children chronologically—little ones are anyone who believes. When we lead them to think that we won’t forgive and we don’t have to forgive and we can play games with forgiveness, that’s Satan’s temptation who’s always around us. Always.
And notice, forgiveness is not about earthly, material, physical things. It is about spiritual things—the most important thing that God has given you in your life. You stand here and you sit here in this place to receive God again and again, not because He blesses you with physical things or earthly matters or anything else to do with this world, but because He gives you forgiveness—spiritual things, things that do not have a price tag except the blood of Christ, the very blood by which we overcome the evil one.
Paul talks about this struggle in which we are always wrestling, day in and day out. Listen: “Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, not earthly or temporal things. Our struggle is against the rulers, authorities, cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” That’s where our struggle is. And it’s real, as you know. Isn’t it interesting that at times we know and at times we think we don’t? At times it has us by the nose and we listen carefully by God. And at other times we think we hold the world by the tail.
Again, Paul says, “…for though we walk in the flesh, though we live in a temporal physical world, we are not waging war against the flesh, against this world.” Because everything in this world will be destroyed. It matters not. That’s why Job said, “The Lord gives and the Lord takes away. Naked I came from my mother’s womb, naked I shall return. Blessed be the name of the Lord.” We wage war against these things.
All right then, pastor, what do we do? What do we do as the body of Christ? How do we rout the old evil foe? How is our constant accuser Satan put away from us? What do we do to overcome our enemy and slanderer, the devil? First and foremost, as John wrote in Revelation, by the blood of the Lamb—the blood that cleanses you, that causes you no longer to be guilty. Satan’s greatest tactic is to accuse you of your infidelity. But because of the blood of the Lamb that you eat and drink, that has been wiped away. Because of the baptism in which you have been baptized, that has been wiped away. You are acquitted. You are innocent.
And you can thumb your nose at that evil one and tell him to go to hell because you’re God’s child. The result of trusting in that blood of the Lamb that acquits you and gives you forgiveness is that you will speak forth God’s praise in His promises. Just as you have been made clean, you’re going to tell the world and tell yourself and tell Satan, “This is why I’m clean. This is why I’m innocent.” In spite of being raised by sinful parents who taught me sins and being a sinner myself—learning them and perfecting them in my own life, especially with forgiveness—in spite of that, the blood of the Lamb causes me to be innocent.
And no longer does Satan accuse me. That matters. Oh, he’ll constantly bark at you like a chained dog. But he’s chained because of that blood. Remember Luther’s hymn: “Though devils all the world should fill, all eager to devour us, we tremble not, we fear no will. They shall not overpower us. Though this prince of this world may scowl fierce as he will, he can harm us none. He’s judged; the deed is done. One little word of God’s promise can fell him.”
Back to children again. If we are vulnerable, if we are helpless, if we truly are frail, then we will hearken unto these great words by the same apostle who penned this almost frightening scene in the book of Revelation, the apostle John. He wrote in his first epistle these words: “Listen. See what kind of love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God, and so we are.” You have been born of God. You are the child of the Heavenly Father. You have a daddy that will not walk away from you. You have a daddy who will not leave you in your life alone. You have a daddy who will claim you no matter what in your life because the blood of the Lamb has acquitted you, and you are innocent.
Listen again: “Little children, you are from God and have overcome them,” meaning the evil one and all of his angels. “For he who is within you”—and that means Christ. If you’ve been baptized into Christ, Christ dwells within you. “He who is within you is greater than he who is in the world,” and that’s Satan. Now let me read it without all of that explanation: “Little children, you are from God, born of God, and have overcome them. He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.”
Little children rely on their daddy for protection. Listen again: “For everyone who has been born of God”—there’s that children motif again—”everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world.” That’s you. You overcome the world because of your father, right? Because of the blood of the Lamb sent for you, who accounts you innocent. And this is the victory that has overcome the world: the faith He gave you to begin with. Your faith is the victory that overcomes the world.
Listen again: “He who was born of God”—there’s that children motif again—”he who was born of God is protected by Him, and the evil one does not touch Him.” We know that we are from God. Amen. All those quotes come from John’s first epistle. It’s a short one. Take time to read it. “He who is born of God is protected by Him, and the evil one does not touch him.” We know that we are from God because the blood of the Lamb has acquitted us and made us innocent, and by faith, trusting in that blood of the Lamb, we proclaim His promises because He has been thwarted.
And those promises, those four passages that I just read to you, are His promises that you have within you because of the faith. So dear children, turn and become like children. Acknowledge your frailty. Fess up to your vulnerability. And let the Father protect you. Find comfort and courage in Him and in Him alone, for children always rely on their Father’s protection.
In the name of Jesus, amen. The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and your minds on Christ Jesus to life everlasting. Amen.