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Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
Brothers and sisters in Christ, the text for this morning comes from all three texts that will be referred to. You may be seated.
So sometime between the very first day of creation and the sixth day of creation, and we know not when because Genesis does not tell us, but since we know that angels are creatures, therefore, they are created. They had to have been created sometime during the first six days of creation, but before Adam and Eve were created, since the angels serve both God and you. We are more important to God than His holy angels. We are the only creature that God created in His image. The angels He did not create in His image. The angels are not sexual beings having maleness or femaleness. They are not. They do not reproduce. They are finite creatures. They have a beginning. And of course, for those in hell, they will have an end that goes on for eternity, separated from God’s gracious presence.
In the reading from Revelation, do we get a picture of this battle that occurred? This battle that occurred before Satan comes to destroy the crown jewel of God’s creation, Adam and Eve. There is this rebellion. Was it envy? Pride? Most assuredly, since that’s still what clings to you and to me. It is what we take pride in. And we’re very careful in our piety to make sure our pride is not too much, but it is never completely humbled except those moments when God gets us in that grip and we realize how empty and how vacuous truly we are without Him when we drop to our knees.
So this rebellion takes place and we get introduced to one of only two angels named in the Scriptures, Michael, the archangel of all the angels. He and all of his angels that stayed with honoring God kicked Satan, the devil, the dragon, the serpent, all synonymous with the archangel of all the evil angels, down to be apart from God’s gracious presence. Christ cemented that disposition and disposition of Satan when Christ died and rose again. Then, as we sang in the hymn, the head of the serpent has been crushed by the one who died to crush it—the offspring of the woman, the one born of Mary, Jesus Himself.
As John in Revelation describes Satan, the devil, his two roles are described very clearly. He is the deceiver, which is what he did to Eve in the garden, and Adam, which is what he does to you. When you and I are deceived to think that we’re not as bad as other people, that our kids are better because of our ability to raise them a certain way, that our marriage is better because we invest more into it and we’re not like those couples, that our family is better because we were raised in the church. We think of all of those reasons to justify our position and our place and the lack of suffering in our life to be different than those who do suffer, and we succumb to His deception. Pride and vanity reign in us just as much.
Or why is it we are so shocked when we see sin in our husband or our wife? And words are said that we’re thinking, how could those come out of my beloved’s lips? Or how about when our own flesh and blood, our son and daughter disappoint us in actions or in words, and we think the same thing. How could this have come from me? Or our grandchildren? Or our parents? We begin to see pride reigns in all of us and is subject to His deception.
The other side of Satan’s tormenting of you and me is having deceived us, then he accuses us. Oh, you who claim to be God’s child and you thus claim this of yourself, who are you to claim such things? Jesus. And he doesn’t just accuse us once and walk away. It is a constant and ever-present accusation. As John says, who accuses our brothers both day and night. It’s always worse at night, isn’t it? As we ruminate. It doesn’t get all that much better when the sun comes up, but it is a little bit better. But isn’t that interesting that even the time of day that Satan picks to do his work?
There are only two kinds of people in this world. Either they are possessed by God and are believers in Jesus Christ, or they are possessed by Satan. There is no third alternative being possessed neither by God nor by Satan, as if you were a free agent. All of my confirmation kids, remember, the most common form of demonic possession is unbelief. Unbelief. That’s what she was thinking. You didn’t get that, but that’s what she was thinking. Trust me. I could feel it through her bones.
The most common form of demonic possession is unbelief. So if he’s going to spend his time, he’s going to spend his time on those that he does not already possess, those who he has been dispossessed of, which is you. And as we come to this understanding that as a baptized child of God, we have been made the archenemy of Satan, then we realize our life is not a life of avoiding suffering, but a life of really enduring suffering. And either we endure the suffering of our own hands or the hands of others, but we endure suffering because we are sinners living in a sinful world who struggle with their own pride and envy.
However, as we live out this faith, we live it out as Daniel spoke to us, as ones who know we shall be raised from this dust and given eternal life because our names are written in the book. Our names are written in the book. The book of Christ’s hands and side and feet where His blood covers us as what the people in the book of Revelation were told they shall conquer by the blood of the Lamb. And is that not what Daniel was told? That in spite of Satan coming down to this world in times that will be worse than ever seen before shall your people, your people, the believers in Jesus Christ, be delivered.
We all have been seeing that in our life. When you were a little boy or girl and you sat on your mommy’s and daddy’s laps or you sat on your grandparents’ laps, you would hear your grandparents ruminate about times of past and how things have just gotten worse than better. And then you found your own parents doing that as they’ve grown older. Well, buckle up because it’s coming out of your and my lips as we grow older. And our children are going to do the same thing because we begin to realize that this world is not getting better with each day. It is only spiraling downward.
But what was told to Daniel hundreds of years before Christ came? And what is told to you through the Apostle John is that the blood of the Lamb shall conquer Satan. That your people shall be delivered in spite of the suffering. That’s the promise which brings us to the 72 and brings us to you and me.
In the Gospel reading, we know throughout the Gospel, the creme de la creme of Christ’s people that, I mean, let’s just face it, that He chose, were the twelve. The whole church is built on the apostles’ teaching. The second creme de la creme of whom God chose through Jesus Christ, who is God in the flesh, are the seventy-two whom He sent out. He sent them out to prepare for Him to come into those places all around Judea and Galilee. And this morning’s texts were when the 72 returned.
Notice what got the 72 all stirred up and excited about God. They saw Satan be defeated by God. But notice what they say. They say, even the demons are subject to us by your name. Notice their focus is on the grand and the glorious. It did not focus on the fact that they were received into people’s homes that they knew not. They did not glory in the fact that they were chosen by God as part of this 72. They didn’t glory in that either. They only gloried in the glorious things.
And Jesus is very clear to them. Yes, when I am preached, Satan falls like lightning. I got it. Notice the result of having seen in these apostles’ lives, Satan be subject to them by His name. Does that have any influence on the future of their life? Does it make them better Christians? No, they run away from Jesus in the garden and they deny him. So much for the grand and glorious. Jesus points them back. Do not… Do not be focused on that, but focus rather on that. Your names are written in the book of life.
So parents, do we focus on the fact that your kids didn’t get into trouble? That your girls didn’t get pregnant and your boys didn’t get the girls pregnant? And that your marriage is not a divorce? Is that what you glory in? Or do we glory in that by God’s grace we are where we are? That’s the point that Jesus is making in the gospel reading. Pride and envy gets us to think we’re different, that there’s something different about us.
We have something different in our veins or in our genes or in our DNA when we are just alike. There are broken marriages among us. There are sinful children and grandchildren among us. There is disappointment in husbands and wives with one another among us because sin is among us. And though we are encouraged when we see strong marriages, behind every strong marriage is a lot of pain and sorrow and a lot of confession and absolution. Behind every child that seems to be different than the other, there’s a lot of confession and absolution and there’s still a lot of need for it beyond that.
Satan uses pride in success to turn people away. That’s why Jesus told those 72, don’t be proud in thinking that success is what marks power. You’ve seen Satan fall like lightning and it hasn’t affected you because you don’t believe it. I don’t always believe it either. I have to remind myself over and over again that I’ve seen Satan fall like lightning and I still get scared when I come to grips with my sin like you do.
And do you know where you’ve seen Satan fall like lightning? Repeatedly? Every single Sunday when you hear the word here and God’s word works on your heart, Satan falls like lightning because Christ has preached. Every time you see a baby baptized, Satan falls like lightning because Christ’s word covers that child. Every time you eat and drink the flesh and blood of the one who wrote you on his flesh and blood, Christ Jesus himself, the book of life, Satan falls like lightning.
And yet we see it, and we believe that’s what God’s Word is, and yet we still quiver and quake because we still wrestle. So we do not rejoice in what we see or fail to see, but only in what we believe to be true by God’s revelation.
Now, I did not make up this saying. I wish I did because it’s a grand one. But I know who told me, and I will never forget this saying because this saying describes everything in these two texts. The devil never quits. That’s the first part of the saying. And that’s very clear in the revelation of St. John. He accuses them day and night. The devil never quits. But the rest of the saying is this: God always wins. That’s in Daniel, that’s in the revelation of Saint John, and that’s in Jesus’ words.
Rejoice that your names are written in the book of life. They’re written in heaven. That’s the power. Though we are troubled in this life, as you and I live out our faith as sinners, among sinners with other sinners, disappointed with sinners’ actions, which we ought not to be. It’s kind of normal to be disappointed by sinners because we disappoint people all the time as well.
And there is what reigns only, Christ’s forgiveness by the blood of the Lamb, by the testimony it shall overcome the one, and your people, as Daniel was told, shall be delivered. God always wins. Every time you come up to this altar, in the middle, on that red block, there is a gold cross and the cross is obvious. But there are eight letters. In the upper left-hand corner are the first and last letters of the Greek word, which we say Jesus. On the upper right-hand corner are the first and last letters of the Greek word Christos, from which we get the word Christ.
At the bottom, the four letters are Nika, which is Greek for conqueror. So every time you see that, and notice the place at which that icon is placed at the altar of the great sacrifice that we eat and drink the benefits of for eternity, Christ Jesus who conquered in the name of Him who conquers and wins always, our Lord Jesus. Amen.
The peace of God which passes all understanding. Keep your hearts and your minds on Christ Jesus, to life everlasting. Amen.
