- Sermon for 092924
St. Michael and All Angels - Text: Revelation 12:7-12
- Theme: Victory in heaven, hope on earth!
- In the Name of the Father…Amen.
- The Epistle lesson serves as our sermon text for this morning.
- Grace, mercy, and peace be yours from God the heavenly Father through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
Revelation 12:10–11 (NASB95)
10 Then I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, “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 brethren has been thrown down, he who accuses them before our God day and night.
11 “And they overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb and because of the word of their testimony, and they did not love their life even when faced with death.
This is the Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God
- Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, let us pray:
LSB 719:1-2 I Leave All Things to God’s Direction
1 I leave all things to God’s direction;
He loves me both in joy and woe.
His will is good, sure His affection;
His tender love is true, I know.
My fortress and my rock is He:
What pleases God, that pleases me.
2 God knows what must be done to save me;
His love for me will never cease.
Upon His hands He did engrave me
With purest gold of loving grace.
His will supreme must ever be:
What pleases God, that pleases me.
- Introduction
- One of the greatest lies Satan has succeeding in having people believe is that he is a mythical figure depicted in Scripture and not a real being.
- If you don’t think Satan exists, he can work under the radar much more effectively.
- The Scriptures, however, reveal Satan for who he truly is!
- This is clear from Satan’s presence in the Garden of Eden as tempter of Adam and Eve to his presence in the desert tempting Jesus.
- It is the work of Jesus in overcoming Satan and the forces of evil that comes to a climax in our reading from Revelation 12.
- Here we hear of the work of God’s good angels, namely Michael and company, in bringing an end to the activity of Satan as the accuser who accuses sinners before our God day and night.
- Satan is depicted as a prosecuting attorney who argues against sinners before God.
- He accuses sinners of not being worthy of fellowship with God now and for eternity.
- The joyous message for us in this text is that this accuser of all mankind, Satan, is no longer in heaven to bring accusations against us.
- This text unveils this truth for us:
- The Victory in Heaven Brings Hope on Earth!
- I. We need deliverance!
- Satan’s rebellion and removal from heaven is one of those mysteries of which God tells us very little in His Word.
- We do know for sure that Satan led a substantial rebellion of angels after creation and before the fall of Adam and Eve.
- Verse 4 of our text indicates that up to a third of the angels listened to the temptation that Satan later used on Adam and Eve: “You will be like God.”
- Our text is one of the few places where certain details of this mystery are made clearer.
- The book of Job and Revelation 12 both make it clear that after Satan’s fall he still had access to the presence of God for some time.
- His primary activity is to bring accusations before God against sinners, as our text states:
- Revelation 12:10 (NASB95)
10 Then I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, “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 brethren has been thrown down, he who accuses them before our God day and night.
- The scene is not a pretty one; the powerful angel Satan keeps reminding God about the sins of mankind day and night!
- The one who deceived Adam and Eve continued to remind God of the ongoing pattern of sin in Adam’s descendants, including us.
- The prophet Zechariah’s vision shows Satan engaged in such accusation:
Zechariah 3:1–4 (NASB95)
1 Then he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the Lord, and Satan standing at his right hand to accuse him.
2 The Lord said to Satan, “The Lord rebuke you, Satan! Indeed, the Lord who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you! Is this not a brand plucked from the fire?”
3 Now Joshua was clothed with filthy garments and standing before the angel.
4 He spoke and said to those who were standing before him, saying, “Remove the filthy garments from him.” Again he said to him, “See, I have taken your iniquity away from you and will clothe you with festal robes.”
- The picture here is clear:
- Satan reveled in the power to stand before God accusing and condemning sinners.
- The Angel of the Lord, who is the preincarnate Christ, defends Joshua the priest against the accusations of Satan.
- II. Christ’s victory brings that deliverance!
- The good news trumpeted by our text is that this accusation activity of Satan is no longer effective due to his defeat in a great a war—cast out of heaven, thrown down to earth:
Revelation 12:7–9 (NASB95)
7 And there was war in heaven, Michael and his angels waging war with the dragon. The dragon and his angels waged war,
8 and they were not strong enough, and there was no longer a place found for them in heaven.
9 And the great dragon was thrown down, the serpent of old who is called the devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world; he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him.
- No longer does Satan have his day in God’s court to bring accusations against us.
- Michael, one of God’s archangels, and his fellow good angels did battle with Satan and his angels and threw them down to earth.
- It appears, from first glance, that the source of this victory is the power of Michael and the other good angels of God, almost as if Satan and his angels were not as strong.
- The source of this victory in heaven, however, is found in one Person.
- Verse 11 of our text tells us how the martyred Christians overcame Satan and the rest of the evil angels:
Revelation 12:11 (NASB95)
11 “And they overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb and because of the word of their testimony, and they did not love their life even when faced with death.
- This is the only these Christians overcame Satan, it is also how created angels overcame him.
- The song of praise in our text puts the credit where the credit is due:
- “the blood of the Lamb.”
- This is an obvious reference to Jesus Christ as the unblemished, perfect sacrifice whose blood makes payment for all sins of mankind.
- The basis for Satan’s removal as the accuser before God is the blood of the Lamb.
- Satan can no longer accuse sinners because Christ paid the price of all sin and has taken his place before God as the Advocate of all sinners, interceding for us.
- John writes of this wonderful work in his first epistle:
1 John 2:1–2 (NASB95)
1 My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous;
2 and He Himself is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world.
- The apostle Paul also tells us of Christ defending us before the Father:
Romans 8:34 (NASB95)
34 who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is He who died, yes, rather who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us.
- The source of this victory in heaven, then, is the blood of the Lamb.
- All of us are familiar with individuals who are constantly at the gym pumping iron, namely, lifting weights to build up muscle in every tissue of their bodies.
- They want to be stronger than the next person, or even the strongest in the world.
- Was that St. Michael’s secret, that he had pumped more iron in heaven than Satan had in hell?
- The key to the battle in the war against Satan (Rev 12:7) was not one angel, Michael, confronting another angel, Satan.
- It was the Lord Christ confronting Satan and all the forces of evil as the sacrificial Lamb whose blood was pumped out on the cross as payment for our sin.
- Michael and his good angels are not some sort of independent militia who had pumped more iron in the gym than Satan and the evil angels.
- They are the army of the Lamb enforcing the victory of the Lamb by casting Satan out of heaven.
- III. Through God’s good angels, Christ’s victory brings us hope here on earth.
- This victory in heaven brings us hope on earth.
- Verse 12 of our text states this way:
Revelation 12:12 (NASB95)
12 “For this reason, rejoice, O heavens and you who dwell in them. Woe to the earth and the sea, because the devil has come down to you, having great wrath, knowing that he has only a short time.”
- When we first hear these words, they do not seem very reassuring.
- Even with all of Satan’s wrath, we who dwell on earth have hope because Satan can no longer effectively accuse us before God.
- When your sins:
- are drowned in the waters of Holy Baptism,
- or forgiven in the Absolution,
- or pardoned through the eating of Christ’s body and the drinking of his blood in this Holy Sacrament, you stand forgiven before God in heaven.
- Christ is your advocate; Satan cannot accuse you!
- We are reminded that the same angels who cast Satan out of heaven are the very angels who guard and watch over us each day on this earth.
- Michael and all good angels have the victory of Christ on their side; they do not meet Satan as equals but as angels who are superior in the Lord, their Creator.
- Just in case anyone think that we do not have hope in the midst of the evil that Satan furthers on this earth, we need only fast-forward to chapter 20 of Revelation, where we read of Satan’s destiny:
Revelation 20:10 (NASB95)
10 And the devil who deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are also; and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.
- When the devil reminds you of your past, be sure to remind him of his future!
- Conclusion
- This text from Revelation serves as a summary of the themes of what we hear throughout the book of Revelation, which unfortunately, is not preached on enough:
- God
- The slain Lamb who triumphed over sin, death, and the devil
- The Holy Spirit
- Redemption
- Sin, Satan, and conflict
- God’s judgment
- Witness and worship
- Resurrection and renewal
- We thank God for this victory in heaven, won by Christ on the cross and carried out by Michael and the angelic hosts.
- This victory fills our earthly struggles with hope as we press toward our heavenly goal.
- Surrounded and protected by these angels, we join their voices in praising the Lamb:
Revelation 5:9–10 (NASB95)
9 And they sang a new song, saying, “Worthy are You to take the book and to break its seals; for You were slain, and purchased for God with Your blood men from every tribe and tongue and people and nation.
10 “You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to our God; and they will reign upon the earth.”
- Amen.
- Let us pray:
LSB 719:3-4 I Leave All Things to God’s Direction
3 My God desires the soul’s salvation;
My soul He, too, desires to save.
Therefore with Christian resignation
All earthly troubles I will brave.
His will be done eternally:
What pleases God, that pleases me.
4 My God has all things in His keeping;
He is the ever faithful friend.
He gives me laughter after weeping,
And all His ways in blessings end.
His love endures eternally:
What pleases God, that pleases me.
Text: Public domain
- 2 Corinthians 13:14 (NASB95)
The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ,
and the love of God,
and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be with you all. Amen.
- Come Lord Jesus, come quickly. All of us are waiting and none of us will be disappointed. Amen.
- The Lord continue to bless us, shine His face on us, be gracious to us, that He lift His countenance upon us, and give us His peace. Amen.
- In the Name of the Father…Amen.