Revelation 12:7–12
St. Luke 10:17–20
In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
There is an invisible battle raging all around you: mighty beings of light fighting against the powers of darkness, holy angels fighting fallen angels. It’s going on right now, and it’s right here with us.
This battle has been going on since the first angel rebelled against his Creator. He was envious of the glory and position that God gave to mankind, so he turned from his Master and tried to take us with him. He went to the woman and deceived her, and her man followed him by disobedience to God’s Word. This angel dragged them down into sin and death. But even then, he was not victorious. Because the Lord came down after them, promising them deliverance, and promising him, that fallen angel, utter destruction.
God pledged Himself to us. So, this dark spirit seeks to wedge Himself between us and God. He knows the King’s decrees well and he is bold to enter the throne room, where the Master of the Cosmos holds court. And he brings accusations against us, addressing God: “They are sinners, deserving nothing but Your wrath! They stand accused and condemned under Your Law. How can You have mercy on these evil people?” He is the Accuser—that’s what we call him now. That once great angel of light: Satan—the Accuser.
He tried to perch himself in God’s court, where he could accuse us before the throne of glory. But then Jesus ascended into heaven, entered the court, and gave His answer to every last one of those accusations: “I died for those sins. The punishment has already been carried out. My blood covers these sinners. There is no more condemnation. I died and, behold, I live. I will not hear another word against My righteous people.” And turning to His lieutenant, the commander of His heavenly host, Jesus says to the archangel Michael, “Throw this liar out.”
Michael acts on Christ’s behalf, leading the angelic soldiers, surrounding that great dragon, and hurling him out of God’s presence. That ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world—he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him. And now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of His Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God. Michael and the holy angels carried out the orders they received from Christ, their Master. But the power behind them, the reason Satan can be thrown out and crushed, that comes by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of the testimony. The blood of Jesus has silenced the dragon’s accusations. The testimony of Jesus, the testimony of the apostles, the testimony of all Christians is this: “Jesus died. Jesus lives. Jesus is Lord. The sins of the world are atoned for. Man has peace with God.” And that means that the God of battles, the Lord of hosts, He is not waging His war against us. He wages His war for us, against our old evil foe.
Rejoice, O heavens and you who dwell in them! But 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! With no place for him and his accusations in the heavenly throne room, the dragon is doomed to prowl this earth. So, the battle continues to rage here, among us. It’s going on even now, behind the scenes of this physical life. Fallen angels, demons, lurk in our lives, carefully laying their nets for us to run into unaware. But the holy angels are keeping their watch. Michael and his armies encamp around the people of God.
And even you—as weak as you may be, as inclined to sin as you surely are—even you have the power to resist demons. The disciples of Jesus had authority over the evil spirits, and every time they spoke God’s Word rebuking the powers of darkness, Satan once more fell down like lightning, unable to climb back up to God’s throne. You also have great power, because you are baptized, marked with the sign of your Lord’s victory, His cross on your forehead. You are clad in His bright, shining armor, and you wield His two-edged sword, His Word. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you (James 4:7). Satan could not stand before the blood of Jesus in God’s throne room. And so he cannot stand before someone covered in the blood of Jesus.
Still, the battle rages on, and we do not know for how much longer. But here is comfort for your weak heart: Rejoice that your names are written in heaven. Your name is written in the Lamb’s Book of Life. It’s signed with His blood, and all of your sins are crossed out. The King of the Cosmos, the One who sits on the throne holding court—He knows you. You stand before Him even now. This is His throne room, here on earth. By coming through those doors you entered the gate of heaven. By approaching this altar you come near His judgment seat. But the Satan, the Accuser has been thrown out. And the King does not remember your sins.
Instead we hear the testimony of many witnesses: the prophets and the apostles in the Holy Scriptures telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth—how our God has rescued us. And here is the evidence brought into court: the very body and blood that redeemed us, that paid the price for all our sins and saved us from death. And we hear the verdict of the King, our Judge—His declaration: “I forgive you all your sins. Take, eat, and drink. Depart in peace.”
In this holy place, although our eyes cannot see it, the holy angels join us here in festal gathering. Together, we proclaim and adore the Lord we share. We should marvel at the thought of being surrounded by such a great, fiery army. But I believe those mighty spirits marvel even more at the grace their Master shows to us, lowly, weak, sinful humans. The full wealth of our Savior’s atonement, is not a gift for the holy angels. It is for us, the sons and daughters of Adam and Eve. But the angels are filled with joy for us. They are only glad to sing of the salvation their God worked for us. And they gladly join us in the King’s throne room, at the very gate of heaven here on earth.
The angels are soldiers and servants to the King of Heaven. But you are His royal children. And it is the delight of the angels to serve their Lord Jesus by serving you, their Lord’s brothers and sisters. The holy angels are your angels. And your angels always behold the face of the Father in heaven (Matt. 18:10). No matter how long or hard the battle rages, you cannot get lost in the chaos. The angels are sent to protect His Church—God’s holy people—you.
One day those angelic soldiers will even serve as your honor guard, and escort your soul to their heavenly home of peace, far from the noise and danger of the battlefield. And soon, Christ will return with all His angels and bring the battle to an end once and for all.
In the Holy + Name of Jesus. Amen.
Preached at Trinity, Clinton and Immanuel, Charlotte, IA
Proverbs 4:10–23
Galatians 5:16–23
St. Luke 17:11–19
In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
My son, get wisdom! The Book of Proverbs is a father urging his son to get wisdom from the Lord. It was written by King Solomon, the son of David. And in it, Solomon is addressing his son, Rehoboam.
We don’t know when Solomon wrote his books (Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon), but we do know Solomon was not the best role-model as a father. He started out faithful to the Lord and to all his father David had taught him. He was given wisdom by the Lord, beyond any man. He became wealthy and his kingdom flourished. And he used that wealth to build the magnificent temple for the Lord in Jerusalem. But he ended up marrying many foreign wives, who worshiped foreign gods, and enticed him to worship these false gods as well. The history of Solomon in 1 King leaves it at that. We are not told if he ever repented of his sin and returned to the Lord, which is a little strange since he is the inspired author of three books of Holy Scripture.
But here’s what I like to imagine: I like to think that at the end of his life he did repent and turn away from those idols. And it was then that he wrote Ecclesiastes, expressing the meaningless of life apart from the one true God. And then he wrote Proverbs—the sincere effort of an aged father, trying to rescue his son who had probably already followed him in his footsteps of sin. So Solomon urges his son, Rehoboam, to likewise repent and seek true wisdom from the Lord.
Solomon begins Proverbs, chapter 4, by remembering what his father David had taught him: When I was a son with my father… he taught me and said to me, “Let your heart hold fast my words; keep my commandments, and live. Get wisdom; get insight; do not forget, and do not turn away from the words of my mouth. Do not forsake her (that is wisdom), and she will keep you; love her, and she will guard you. The beginning of wisdom is this: Get wisdom, and whatever you get, get insight (Prov. 4:4–7). This last point from David to Solomon to Rehoboam is the main theme of Proverbs. It may sound circular or redundant, but it is essential: The beginning of wisdom is this: Get wisdom. You are wise when you know you’re not wise and you seek to become wise. Desire to be taught by the Lord. Do not be vain and proud, thinking that you know it all or that you know enough. Keep getting wisdom.
Solomon then goes on in the section we heard earlier, and he describes wisdom as a path that the Lord would lead us on: Hear, my son, and accept my words… I have taught you the way of wisdom; I have led you in the paths of uprightness. When you walk, your step will not be hampered, and if you run, you will not stumble. Keep hold of instruction; do not let go; guard her, for she is your life. So, God’s path of wisdom and righteousness is not so much a thing, not so much knowing a bunch of information or getting the list of rules just right. Wisdom before God is walking on the right path—keeping, guarding, cherishing what the Lord says and gives. This is just what it means to be a Christian. You can only walk on a path as you continue to walk on it. If you’ve stopped walking you’re not going on the path anymore. Solomon is saying that real wisdom is a continual receiving, always listening to the Lord. So long as you’re in this life, in this sinful flesh, then you’re never quite done learning God’s Word. When you stop hearing, you are doing an anti-Christian kind of thing. So long as you keep hearing you keep being a Christian. Wisdom means keep getting wisdom, keep coming along on wisdom’s way.
But watch out! There are two paths. The way of wisdom is righteousness. The other path is the way of wickedness, foolishness, unbelief. Solomon warns his son: Do not enter the path of the wicked, and do not walk in the way of the evil. Avoid it; do not go on it; turn away from it and pass on… The way of the wicked is like deep darkness; they do not know over what they stumble. Apart from the bright light of God’s Word, we grope in darkness, blinded by sin and unable to find the right way to go. Do not listen to the opinions of men, the fads of culture, the presuppositions of your mind, or the feelings of your heart. Do not listen to any of it, unless it agrees with the truth, the Words that your Lord speaks to you. Keep listening to Him and you will eventually see your way. Solomon promises his son: The path of the righteous is like the light of dawn, which shines brighter and brighter until full day. My son, be attentive to my words; incline your ear to my sayings. Let them not escape from your sight; keep them within your heart. For they are life to those who find them, and healing to all their flesh. True wisdom is life. Learning from the Lord brings healing. As Jesus said, The words that I have spoken to you are Spirit and Life (John 6:63).
This wise counsel from Solomon is all echoed then by St. Paul in our Epistle, Galatians 5: Walk by the Spirit—that puts you on wisdom’s way! The Word of God gives the Holy Spirit, so when we walk on wisdom’s path, following the Lord’s Word, then we are not walking by our own power, stumbling like zombies in the darkness of sin and death. But we are indeed alive, walking by the power of the Spirit. Again, this is just being a Christian, nothing more or less.
Walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. So, the path of wisdom keeps us from sinning. Remember, Solomon’s warning. There are two paths: one the way of wisdom and righteousness, the other the way of wickedness and false faith. So, walking by the Holy Spirit keeps us on the path of wisdom, but going along with the desires of our sinful flesh is the way of wickedness, darkness, and death.
And notice how St. Paul describes what the Spirit does to you: the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. Paul knows, God knows, that what you want to do is sin. What you want to do—your Old Adam in your natural mind and corrupt heart—what you want is to go down that other path and see what’s there to see. The devil always wants to tempt us to think that sin means freedom: “Cast off the chains of God’s Law. He’s just a big kill-joy with all His commandments, telling you don’t do that, don’t do this. Be your own man. Make your own path,” says the devil, “Be free.” But sin is not freedom. It is slavery and it ends in death. Those who take the devil’s path and do what they want to do, doing the works of the flesh, any of those works mentioned in the Epistle, they are under the condemnation of the Law. And I warn you, as St. Paul warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.
But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Led by the Spirit on the path of wisdom, you are not under condemnation, because you are following Christ, you are under His righteousness. And faithfulness to God is not bondage. It is Life! And a life full of spiritual fruit. The fruit of the Spirit, what you gain by staying on His path, is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. For today, let’s notice especially that last fruit: self-control. Remember, the Holy Spirit’s work is to keep you from doing the things you want to do. The Spirit gives you self-control, so that your New Man, the new–you–in–Christ, controls you, urges you, speeds you down the path of wisdom, seeking after God, walking in His righteous ways.
Christians exercise self-control against sin. They tell themselves, “No,” despite the fact that their sinful flesh still tries to pull them off-course, onto that other, darker path. And often, the Old Adam succeeds, we lose control, and we go back to staggering around with those works of the flesh. But the Holy Spirit also brings forgiveness. He washes away the sin by the blood of Jesus in your Baptism. The Spirit kills the Old Adam. Indeed by giving you self-control, He kills you. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. The path of wisdom, the Spirit of God—these are at work in you so that your flesh may finally be put to death and gotten rid of.
So at last we come to that faithful leper in Luke 17. And speaking of crucifixions and death, Jesus is on His way to Jerusalem. But that Samaritan leper comes back to Him, glorifying God. He is acknowledging what Jesus has done for him. He is a Christian. When you give thanks and praise you’re highlighting, you’re extolling the goodness of the gifts you have received and the Giver of those gifts. Glorifying God puts a magnifying glass up to Him and His gifts. “My soul magnifies the Lord!” all Christians sing with the Blessed Virgin Mother. Along with Mary and this Samaritan, we make God known for His gracious, free goodness. Most especially we make Him known for the death and resurrection of Christ our Lord. The grateful Samaritan knew that he received far more than clean, healthy skin. He recognized that he received a clean heart on account of Jesus’ holy blood.
And hear what Jesus says to him. Our translation says, “Rise and go your way.” In English, “go” has the sense of “going away,” but “come” has the sense of “coming here.” In English, we distinguish those two. But that’s not the case in Greek. They don’t make that distinction between “going” and “coming.” So, I believe, it would be best to hear Jesus say, “Rise and come,” as in, “Come with Me.” However we translate the phrase, the truth remains that this man is a Christian, and so he does truly go with Jesus—with Jesus on the way of wisdom; with Jesus on the path that leads to more and more fruit from the Spirit; with Jesus on the path of the righteous that is like the light of dawn, which shines brighter and brighter until full day. Yes, this path leads on to Jerusalem, on to the cross, to crucifying and dying, for Jesus and for all Christians who follow Him. But this path also leads on to the brightness of the full Day, the glory of the resurrection. Jesus lives. And so His Words, His path, is Life for you, now and forever.
The path of wisdom does not end at the grave. Don’t be deceived by the fools of this world. Don’t go on thinking, “Let’s eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we die.” You keep that up and death is all you’ll get. The way of the wicked will perish (Ps. 1:6), and those who do the works of the flesh will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the path of wisdom does not end at the grave. The way of the–righteous–in–Christ is the way of forgiveness, faith, resurrection, and eternal life.
So, do you want this wisdom? Then get wisdom. Do you want to follow this path? Follow it. Keep on. What’s the secret for getting wisdom? Seek wisdom. You’re not done, you don’t know it all. Learn from the Lord. Come back to Jesus—back to His Word; back to your Baptism; back to the Lord’s Supper that He has provided for you while you’re on this journey. Jesus told the Samaritan that his faith saved him. But faith, like wisdom, is not a thing. Faith is not a one-time event, or just a bit of info. Faith, like wisdom, is following the Lord’s Word on His path. Your faith saves you, that is, returning to Jesus—coming along with Jesus—saves you, because Jesus saves you.
In the Holy + Name of Jesus. Amen.
Preached at Trinity, Clinton, IA & Immanuel, Charlotte, IA
St. Luke 10:23–37
In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
We make our friends; we make our enemies; but God makes our next-door neighbor.
That’s not what the lawyer wanted to hear. He stood up to put Jesus to the test, but Jesus ended up testing him—diagnosing him, exposing what was wrong with him. Jesus turned the question on the lawyer: “‘What shall I do to inherit eternal life?’ You tell me. What does the Law say?” Well, obviously… You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself. “Yep,” says Jesus, and He begins to turn away.
Well, that wasn’t very fun. Jesus made me give all the answers… Oh, I know how to get Him talking: And who is my neighbor? Answer me that, Jesus. If you can. The lawyer was trying to justify himself. But let’s be honest, that’s not really a bad question. Who is my neighbor? It’s easy to say, “Love your neighbor.” But what does that actually mean? Maybe we should seriously ask ourselves, And who is my neighbor?
Now we’ve been trained to give the answer: Everyone—everyone’s my neighbor. We should love everyone. But again, how do you really do that? We like this answer even though it’s horribly impossible. But we like it because it’s also wonderfully impossible. There’s no humanly possible way to love everyone, which really helps to get us off the hook. Just say, Oh yes, we should love everyone. Be nice and claim to love everyone. Just think about loving everyone. And with any luck, you’ll never have to do any real work. You can avoid any real suffering with real neighbors.
See, we love the “idea” of our neighbor. We love humanity in the abstract. But real neighbors are annoying. The people we have to live with, the people we don’t like but show up in our lives anyway, we don’t really want to deal with them. So, we tell ourselves we have a duty to humanity or to society—very abstract ideas that are nice and easy to think about without worrying too much about any real details. We come up with ways to love others (the generic “others”)—ways that are often not much more than things we like doing anyway.
Also, I have to point this out: it’s no coincidence that while talk of “social justice” and “equality” is the fashionable thing, there is less and less care for individuals. Everything is race and gender and class—groups we can lump people into. And the individual baby in the womb, or the individual terminally ill parent is gotten rid of (often literally), or the individual poor person is put into the system, because we don’t want to actually deal with them. And while everyone talks about love and acceptance in general, personal interaction and communication grows more and more hostile, with people refusing to listen to each other.
We don’t exactly escape this in the Church either. We especially like to choose our favorite ways of showing love. We’ll serve our neighbor or the church by doing our hobbies and declaring our hobbies to be holy. Some of us think you can tell the church is strong when the building is taken care of, when the budget is met, when the pews are full. They care about the building projects more than what the building is there for—that it’s a place to hear and talk about God’s Word. They think: There. I helped out. I did my duty. Or others love to talk about missions and they send money to various church organizations… because we don’t have to know “those people out there.” We don’t have to deal with them. And we don’t want to think about the people in our own families that don’t come to church.
We make our friends; we make our enemies; but God makes our next-door neighbor. And frankly, we resent that. We resent being told who we must love, because often we don’t personally like those people. But we have to love our neighbor because he is the one who is put there for you to love. What an alarming, almost ridiculous, reason for such a serious work as love. But it is precisely because love is such a serious work that we are not allowed to choose whom we love, but we must be directed to the ones we are to love. (Remember, when I say “love” we’re talking about doing the Law, sacrifice, service, giving of yourself. We’re not talking about romantic love or pleasant feelings). But if who we got to love, who we got to serve, was completely left up to us, then we would make idols out of them all. We would only serve and love them because of something in them (because we liked them), rather than because God commanded us. We would turn love into the most outrageous blasphemy against God. Indeed, we do exactly this, as we claim to love people while approving or celebrating their sins; and as we claim to love people while not actually lifting a finger for a neighbor in need.
So, for our good, God directs us to our neighbors: real people God sticks right in your face. There’s no such thing as love for humanity in general. There is the neighbor, who is the concrete sample of humanity that is actually given to you to love. And helping our real neighbor is always uglier, dirtier, always less convenient, than helping the people we like. It’s certainly harder than just talking about love, or thinking lovely thoughts.
The priest and the Levite had the job of teaching people God’s Law. It was their job to teach people about loving their neighbors. And yet, when confronted by one of their own, lying half-dead in a ditch—a concrete example where they could put their teaching into practice—they looked the other way. And they probably went back to their congregation later, and mentioned the sad sight: “Oh, it was just so terrible. Yes, poor man. It’s such a shame how unsafe the roads are these days. So many robbers about. You can’t trust anyone anymore.” Empty words and useless handwringing, but no acts of love.
Instead, the Samaritan recognized that he didn’t have much choice in the matter. There was a neighbor in need if ever there was one: a real, flesh and blood man, with much of his blood pooling beside him. The Samaritan had to love this man because he was the one put there. He had to show love to that Jewish man, and it didn’t matter that the Jews had never been very nice to him. The Samaritan did the dirty, bloody, inconvenient work of loving his neighbor.
So, who is your neighbor? Who precisely should you love? And remember, the answer isn’t “Everyone”—that’s too generic. So, does this mean you should wait until somebody is literally lying in your path, half–dead? Well, kind of. That would certainly be a big clue. But you don’t really have to wait for that. Who is already lying in your path? Who are your neighbors? Who are the people next to you? We like to pretend this is so complicated, but it’s really not that hard.
Think of the three estates, the three main areas of life: Home, Society, Church. First: the Home—there’s your closest neighbors. Your husband or wife, your children. These are people God has commanded you to love and care for. It doesn’t matter if you “like” them every moment of the day. God has put them in your life for you to serve. And you cannot abandon your duty to love the people in your home, in order to find your fulfillment somewhere else—not in a job or a hobby or some mission. But God gives a blessing with this command: you will find fulfillment and joy by sticking with it. It won’t always be easy or pleasant to serve your spouse or teach your children. But it will be a good work, a true sacrifice of love. God is pleased with that. And He promises that, in time, you will be pleased with it too.
Second: the Civil Society—or we could say, your community. Your literal neighbors. Do they need your help? Do you let them fend for themselves and figure their relatives will take care of it? It’s easy to complain about our society these days. There’s a lot to complain about—our culture seems to be dying. But nothing will get better if we aren’t looking for small ways to improve our community. It’s up to us to see that our schools are teaching children well, that we value human life, that we even be willing to give up some of our mindless entertainment and give to others.
Third: the Church. Most people naturally like their family, and you can have some choice about what neighborhood you live in, but you don’t get to choose the members of your church. Once again, these are the ones you must love because they’ve been put there. So, in church we should certainly care for one another’s needs—if someone is sick, if there’s been a death in the family, if we can provide some help out of poverty and hardship, then we should do that for fellow members in the Body of Christ. But the best way the members of the Church can love one another is by praying for one another and encouraging one another in the faith. And that doesn’t happen with just a friendly smile or handshake. We build up one another in the faith by being in church together. It is encouraging to your brothers and sisters in Christ to see you in the pew—to see they are not alone, to pray and sing with more voices than just their own. Even if you think you didn’t “get anything out of it” today, someone else was blessed just by your being there. And when you are absent, you hurt your neighbors who are here without you. The Body hurts when its parts are missing. We also build up one another and love each other by speaking God’s Word to each other, talking about it, learning it together. So, not just sitting in church, but also engaging with the Word, whether that’s in a Bible class or over a cup of coffee in the fellowship hall.
All of this has been God’s Law: Love the Lord your God with all your heart… and love your neighbor as yourself. God has commanded it. That’s why we should do it. But there is another reason why we should love God and love our neighbor. St. John the Apostle wrote in his First Epistle: In this is love, not that we have loved God but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God loved us in this way, we also ought to love one another (1 John 4:10–11). We love because Jesus did it for us. He did His love—it was an action, a sacrifice. By His suffering, bleeding, and dying He turned away God’s wrath. He made satisfaction for our sins. He did not love the people He liked. He made us unlikeable, unlovable people worthy of God’s love—totally justified by His righteousness. He loved His real neighbors, the ones in desperate need right there in front of Him. And for Him that really was everyone. He made everyone His neighbor by His love, you included.
We can’t do that. We can’t love everyone the way Jesus did. We certainly can’t love them by taking away their sins. We aren’t Jesus. So, Jesus gives us specific neighbors—a limited amount of people we truly can love, we truly can serve. And He gives us specific earthly works—the Ten Commandments—ten things to do for God and for other people. That’s what real love for humanity looks like: doing a commandment for another person. Your Small Catechism gives good suggestions on how to do that (and if you don’t remember what it says, then your homework is go read it).
Real love is action. It’s sacrifice. Real love is what God did on the cross where Jesus suffered and died for us. And that same real love is now here at work in the lives of His people. Let us pray:
Lord of glory, You have bought us With Your life-blood as the price,
Never grudging for the lost ones That tremendous sacrifice.
Give us faith to trust You boldly,
Hope, to stay our souls on You;
But, oh, best of all Your graces, With Your love our love renew (LSB 851:4).
In the Holy + Name of Jesus. Amen.
Preached at Trinity, Clinton, IA & Immanuel, Charlotte, IA
Some ideas from G.K. Chesterton, "On Certain Modern Writers and the Institution of the Family", Brave New Family, p. 41
