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Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
Culture and society often produce sweet and cute images of angels. Hallmark, Etsy, precious moments, they all do their part in this. And there’s fondness for guardian angels, and having guardian angel pins and little plaques on dashboards of our cars. But angels do guard us. Angels do guard us, and in 2nd Kings the prophet Elisha was protected by an army of angels. Peter was freed from prison by an angel in Acts chapter 12, and Psalm 91, which we sang in that really beautiful gradual, says the angels guard you in all your ways.
But angels in the Bible are often awesome and even scary beings. And in the second reading today from God’s revelation to St. John, angels are warriors. They’re not just guardians or trying to get their wings in heaven; they fight. Angels fight for us, and we need them. We need them because we’re at war. We’re at war with the serpent, with the devil, Satan. We’re at war with evil, and there are evil angels at war with us. Martin Luther in the small catechism says the evil angels are many and powerful; they hate God and seek to destroy everything that is good, especially faith in Christ.
Make no mistake. The devil, Satan, and his evil angels, they hate you. And they fight to keep you away from what’s good and away from God. Evil angels don’t fight to cause you trouble or to ruin your day or make life miserable for you. No, they fight to deceive you and accuse you and to destroy your faith in Christ. They want to destroy you, and sometimes they win, don’t they? We’re tempted and deceived, and we fall for it. We sin in thought, word, and deed, maybe even doing things that would be considered downright evil. Our focus goes off of Christ and our faith in Him and unto ourselves, on pleasing ourselves, and then we’ll justify it with some lame excuse.
You know those times. You know the war that you’re fighting. But Michael and his angels, they fought against this evil, and they won. But they don’t fight and win because they have special training like the Marines or the Navy Seals; they have the authority of Christ. They have the salvation and the power of God’s kingdom that Jesus has won for us. And Jesus won this by dying on the cross and rising again from the dead for our forgiveness and for our eternal life. This is salvation; this is the power of God’s kingdom that Jesus has won for us.
Jesus won this for us for those times when the evil angels win, when you’re deceived, when you sin again. You know those times; you know the war that you’re fighting. But that war has been won. Jesus gives us the benefits of that victory. He gives us forgiveness and eternal life, and that, my friends, that is the gospel. That is the good news of Jesus; that is the good news from God for us in Christ. Romans chapter 1 kind of defines it: the gospel is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.
And that’s why evil angels want to destroy your faith in Jesus, because faith clings to that gospel. Faith receives the promises of the good news of Jesus. Faith clings to forgiveness and salvation. And St. Michael and his angels fought against that and preserved that. They fought with that authority, the authority of Jesus. And the saints that have gone before us and are now with the Lord, they fought with it too.
Verse 10 in the Revelation reading today says the accuser of our brothers and sisters has been thrown down. The accuser has been thrown down. Our brothers and sisters, they fought and won. Verse 11: they fought and won with the authority of Christ, with His blood and with the word of their testimony. That word of testimony—that’s their faith in the conquering blood of Christ, the blood that He shed for their forgiveness and for ours. And they testify to the words of that forgiveness.
They fought and they won also by the authority of Christ, and so do we. We experience the authority of Christ today in the gospel reading. In that reading from Luke, Jesus gave authority to His people over the enemy. We, too, fight against Satan and evil with that same authority of Jesus, with that same testimony of Christ and His blood shed for us. We fight with our faith as have all those who have gone before us. Because we can fight temptation when it comes up, and we can win when we fight. And win, it causes Satan to fall from the heavens. That’s the power of the authority of Christ that we can experience and exercise today.
We experience it together. We experience that authority of Christ when we gather together in worship and we confess our sins together. And it’s during that time when the pastor gets to say what is probably one of the most important things that they say all week: as a called and ordained servant of Christ and by His authority, I forgive you all of your sins. You are forgiven by Christ’s authority. And the angels and St. Michael fought for that and won.
You know, in Texas, snakes and scorpions are kind of a thing, right? Things we’ve got to be aware of, things we’ve got to be careful about here, but not in our spiritual lives. With the authority of Jesus, with His blood and the testimony of His Word, we step on and crush the enemy with that forgiveness and that salvation that Christ has won for us.
And in a way, I want to commend to you to help you in this, to help you to fight this battle against evil and evil angels and to win, is in Luther’s morning and evening prayers. Maybe you’re aware of those, but if not, find page 266 in the hymnal. You don’t have to look it up now, but extra points if you do later. On page 266—or Google it—Martin Luther’s morning and evening prayers. In there are these beautiful words in the prayer: let your holy angel be with me that the evil foe may have no power over me. That’s way better than a guardian angel pin or a cute angel figurine in your house. Let your holy angel be with me that the evil foe has no power over me because he’s lost.
Angels are messengers. The Greek word for angel, “Angelos,” means messenger. And in the Scriptures, angels usually have a message of some sort. Well, here’s a message that they have today that’s of great comfort for us, I think. The angels say, “I’ve lost it in my notes here,” this is great, yeah. Sometimes the angels’ message is this: Satan, you lose! Your red pointy-tailed butt has been kicked, or whatever he looks like, we don’t know, you know. They say, “Get out of heaven; get away from God’s people. Jesus shed His blood for them, forgives them, delivers them from death. Salvation and the power of God and His kingdom have come; you’ve been thrown out; get out, don’t come back!”
Saint Michael and his angels have won this for you, and we’re still at war. We still fight in that, but we celebrate their victory for us and the final victory when Christ comes again. At the end of the Revelation reading and the gospel, both times there, the beautiful word: rejoice! Yeah, you’re fighting a war, but it’s been won. Rejoice.
May God grant it. Amen.
Now may the peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Bless us, our Lord. Amen.