[Machine transcription]
Grace, mercy, and peace be unto you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
Brothers and sisters, the text for this morning comes from the second reading, the Revelation of St. John regarding St. Michael and the angels. From the very moment of your baptism, you were snatched from the kingdom of Satan and of death and damnation and thrust into the kingdom of eternal life with Christ Jesus. But the moment that that happened, you ceased to be an ally of the evil one and became the arch enemy of the evil one. And from that moment on, you have bore the heat of the battle. Whether you experienced it in the outward part of your body and in the outward aspect of your life, or like most, whether it occurred within yourself, the space between your and my two ears.
Paul talked about this battle in a different way. Hear the word of St. Paul in his book of Ephesians: For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in heavenly places. Unless we think that this battle is only for grown-ups, you look around at the babies near you, the young people. It wages the same war within them. You remember it well, and it will continue.
And it doesn’t just happen during the day, does it? It doesn’t just happen when you are encountering your own flesh in regard to a relationship with someone else. It doesn’t just happen during the day when you’re about your daily tasks. It occurs in the middle of the night when you can’t go to sleep and your mind is running and going through all kinds of gymnastics and thoughts. And you’re wishing sleep to come, and it doesn’t. Because you can’t turn your mind off. It occurs then as well, doesn’t it?
And this battle in which we’ve been thrust is not a battle for our bodies. It is a battle for our souls. Our Lord said himself, do not fear the one who can destroy the body. Rather, fear the one that can destroy both body and soul, meaning God himself. And this battle that we’ve been thrust into, this war in which we have been engaged since our baptism, is a war not of weapons that we’re familiar with, but a war rather of words. Yes, words. Powerful words. Words. For it is words and actions in your life that have been done to you and that you have done to others that ultimately is what you and I wrestle with in our mind and in our heart.
We live with the consequences of many things that we have said and done and their consequences in our lives of what they have said and done. And we play them over and over in our mind, don’t we? Because with those words we either justify ourselves or we damn them. And it is with those same words that Satan accuses you and brings damning words against you. And it is with those same words that your Lord Jesus seeks to justify you in him alone.
But the war of words never ends, does it? It is like the tide on the ocean that flows in and recedes, but it never stops. Two beautiful examples of Satan’s work in this world and in your life are found in the scriptures. The first one in the book of Job. That’s the one we’re probably more familiar with. It is the story where Satan is before God in heaven. And God throws down the trump card and says, “Have you considered my servant Job?” Have you considered the fact, in essence he’s saying, he stands on my words declared about him. He trusts in my declaration of his justification in me.
And you know Satan’s response. It is this: “Does Job fear God for no reason? Have you not put a hedge around him and his house and all that he has on every side?” And then the real question is, “Stretch out your hand. Touch all that Job has, and he will curse you to your face.” Very important to remember, in this text, it reveals two important things about Satan. One, Satan cannot do anything in this world without God. He is not a loose cannon. He is not uncontrolled. He is not unleashed. He is still God’s creature whom God runs. The second thing is, throughout all of this, God is the one in control of Satan.
It does not answer the question why God allows things like this, but it does give us confidence that God alone is in control of things like this. There is a difference, isn’t there? Mark it well, because Satan wants you to think otherwise so that fear and anxiety fill your heart and your mind and not trust in his words about you.
So Satan is saying, “Job, the only reason Job loves God is because God has allowed the outward aspect of Job’s life to go smoothly. He has ten beautiful children. He has lots of cattle and sheep and camels. He has a beautiful home and an estate.” And God is saying to Satan, “No, it is not because of the outward blessing that Job loves me, but because of what I declare about him.”
So you know the story. Job loses his ten children. They all die. Job loses his house. It’s completely destroyed and burned. Job loses all of his assets in his animals. And Job says, “The Lord giveth, the Lord taketh away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.” The story continues. Another threat is given to God: “Ah! But strike out his bone and his flesh, and then he will curse you to your face” because everything that happened to him was outside of his own person. Let it be done to his own person.
So God does allow Job to go through physical malady. And Job still trusts in the words declared about him from his God and not the words that Satan keeps accusing Job of. Again, Satan is allowed to do that only because God allows Satan to do that and the extent of which Satan is allowed is controlled completely by God. He does not, that is God, reveal to you and me as to why. He does not reveal to you and me as to when these things happen. Only that if we experience things we cannot think about, that we can find the answer.
The answer still lies in the words declared about you at the beginning of your thrust into the war against Satan. You are my child. You are my beloved. You are my precious bride. I shall not forsake you. I shall command my angels, as the choir sang, to have charge over you, to guard you, to protect you, and to preserve you.
The second example is in the prophet Zechariah, the third chapter. A shorter scene, but still nevertheless a heavenly scene. Joshua the high priest stands before God. And right next to Joshua the high priest who stands before God is Satan. Joshua is described as wearing a filthy garment. You know what that represents. It does not need to be explained. Satan, standing beside Joshua, accuses Joshua because he wears the filthy garment. And the Lord says to Satan, “Is this not a brand plucked from the fire?” Meaning, is he not, though he appears to be filthy, one of mine? For I am the one who put my hand down into humanity’s mass and thrust him forth and made him my child, as he did to you at your baptism.
When he made you his child, did he not pluck you a brand from the fire? Then the text goes on. The angel said to those who were standing before him, “Remove the filthy garments from him.” And to Joshua he says, “Behold, I have taken your iniquity away from you. Behold, I will clothe you with pure vestments.” Truly, truly, this is a war of words. In that second example, the words of Satan accusing of Joshua’s sinfulness and the words of the Lord Jesus proclaiming the innocence because of his bearing Joshua’s sin, because of his clothing Joshua with his righteousness.
This is what the text of Revelation speaks of, about the dragon that was thrown from heaven, Satan himself. The great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent who was called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world. The accuser of our brothers has been thrown down who accuses them day and night before God. That’s the battle in which you have been thrust day and night, sadly. That’s the battle in which is being waged right now for your very soul. A war of words.
Satan, whose argumentation is impeccable according to human reason and logic, flawless against the declaration of the word of God, which trumps flawless logic because God is the declarer of your innocence, the very one who bore your iniquity and punishment upon the accursed tree. That’s the war of words that are occurring right now. And there are only two arguers. There is either Satan or there is our Lord Jesus. One, words declare you guilty as charged. And without Christ, this one’s words, impeccable logic and flawless reason, says you are rightfully to be denied by the Father as not being his child. And with flawless logic and impeccable reason does he say, you are also rightly to be damned by the just Father.
But this one, this one’s words trump all. This one declares you innocent because this one declares to you he is the one who was denied by the Father on the accursed tree for you so that you will never have to be denied. He is the one who was damned to the depths of hell for you that you would never be damned. And these words are continually proclaimed to you, nursed into your lips, fed to you, and given to you to be nourished, to continue the battle. This is the war of words in which you and I have been waging since our baptism.
Satan was cast out of heaven, as the text says so clearly. Why? Because he denied the very sacrifice for us. He was thrown out for contempt. Contempt of the very sacrifice for the unrighteous by the righteous one. And God cast him out of heaven by the archangel Michael and all of his angels.
But, as the text says, “Woe to you, O earth and sea! For the devil has come down to you in great wrath because he knows that his time is short.” But Satan is like a dog on a chain. Remember that and never forget it. Satan is like a dog on a chain. He cannot harm you, for you are God’s child. But you will have the you-know-what scared out of you because he will make you realize you are the one whom God should have damned and denied. And God declares to you, on the other hand, no. No. In spite of what you see and assess yourself as, in spite of your impeccable logic and flawless reason of your judgment of yourself, one higher than you has judged you and has judged you innocent and has judged you his child and has not denied you but affirmed you as his and embraced you as his father embraced the prodigal son. You are my beloved.
It is also in the book of Revelation where these robes that Joshua wore. It says, not their flawless logic or reason, but the blood of the Lamb, which defies logic and reason because it is grace-oriented and it is God-oriented and not man. That defies logic. That obliterates reason. That is the war of words that declares you victor, not victim. Victor. You. You. Who know yourself sometimes more than you wish you did.
Remember the gospel reading: unless you turn and become like children. Children fight and argue about many things. Children love to throw out this trump card. The trump card that children love to throw at us: “My daddy said so.” My daddy said so. That is your trump card in the war of words within your very mind and heart that is being waged every day. Your Father in heaven has said so. Believe it and eat it. Drink it and be sustained by it. It is your trump card, for you are the victor. You are not the victim.
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.