Proverbs 8:11-22; Psalm 111; Philippians 3:17-21; St Matthew 22:15-22
​LSB 500, 750, 732, 851, 754, 714

Revelation 7:2-17; Psalm 149; 1 John 3:1-3; St Matthew 5:1-12
​LSB 671, 677, 676, 618, 594, 672

Revelation 14:6-7; Psalm 46; Romans 3:19-28; St John 8:31-36
LSB 947, 656, 645, 617, 566, 941

Genesis 1:1-2:3; Psalm 8; Ephesians 6:10-17; St John 4:46-54
LSB 839, 607, 578, 713, 615, 737

Isaiah 55:1-9; Psalm 27:1-9; Ephesians 5:15-21; St Matthew 22:1-14
​LSB 901, 672, 647, 563, 514

2 Timothy 4:5-18; St Luke 10:1-9
LSB 810, 677, 518 (1, 26, 3)

Genesis 28:10-17; Psalm 84; Ephesians 4:22-28; St Matthew 9:1-8
LSB 916, 609, 614, 708, 843, 885

Deuteronomy 10:12-21; Psalm 34:8-22; 1 Corinthians 1:1-9; St Matthew 22:34-46
​LSB 402, 694, 579, 852, 637, 583

Proverbs 25:6-14; Psalm 2; Ephesians 4:1-6; St Luke 14:1-11
​LSB 954, 557, 698, 618, 544, 768

St Michael and All Angels (24 September 2023)
Daniel 10:10-14; 12:1-3; Revelation 12:7-12; St Matthew 18:1-11
LSB 670, 522, 659, 604, 520, 521

+INJ+

We are reaching the end of our study of 1 Corinthians. Leaving it up to the Bible Class which book we’ll study could be problematic. It would be sort of like a physician asking his patients to prescribe their own medication. Or an attorney asking his clients to prepare their own defense. Even Sola Scriptura Lutherans are sometimes drawn to the Book of Revelation as moths to a flame. 

At the time of the Reformation, Anabaptist fanaticism bloated itself on the book’s holy rivers. Millennialism has taken on new forms through socialistic utopias. Don’t be deceived, such ideologies are religious. Protestants with political sensitivities draw heavily from its pages. Surprising to our ears, rather than sacrifice biblical clarity, Luther relegated the text of Revelation to be non-canonical. 

The rabbis didn’t allow anyone under thirty to read the Song of Solomon. That might be helpful guidance for the veritable maze of the Apocalypse of St John. It seems that even well-intentioned journeys into Revelation lead to inevitably bizarre conclusions. Leaving one to wonder if Dante’s warning ought to precede our trek, “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.”

Luther found himself caught up in the angelic war between good and evil. His Morning and Evening Prayers, which attend your daily devotions, ask for the aid of God’s holy angel so that the evil foe would have no power over us. This is no child’s play. It is divine wisdom. Luther saw the devil and his legions at work everywhere, undermining not only church and state, but destroying families. He wasn’t wrong. 

In the period after the Reformation angels became gradually less important. The Pietist can improve and be holy without anyone’s help, including that of angels. Rationalists couldn’t see the angels and therefore concluded that they don’t exist. Today most who self-identify as Biblical scholars have no reason to view them as anything more than polytheistic leftovers. While neo-pagans are reviving them in altered forms. Though these aren’t angels.  

In the Bible angels help some people, fight with others, and in cases of necessity wipe out armies. They appear unannounced and often ask people to take off their shoes. They never send prior notification of their arrival and so they inevitably scare the living daylights out of people. Their real joy comes from one sinner who repents rather than the ninety-nine who need no repentance. They also love children. Jesus says that their angels always behold the face of His Father. A remarkable statement considering Isaiah’s angels cover their faces to the Holy, Holy, Holy One. 

The Collect for the Day asks that as God’s holy angels always serve and worship Him in heaven, they would, by His appointment, help and defend us here on earth. 

Jesus would seem to be the last person on earth to need angels, but He did. Jesus is God, but He was so weak after confronting Satan in the wilderness that He accepted the help of angels. An angel attended Him during the awful agony of His imminent death. This isn’t counting the presence of angels at His conception, birth, flight into Egypt, resurrection, ascension, and Second Advent. Angels were deeply interested in the earthly life of Christ.  

So too are they deeply interested in all those who by faith are incorporated into Christ. It’s probably to our net benefit, but we are unaware of most the spiritual warfare all around us. We shouldn’t necessarily revel in this. We can’t afford to remain so naive much longer. The Apostolic exhortation to be clothed in the baptismal armor cannot fall on deaf ears. Prayer is essential to the Christian life of faith and love. It is the arena in which we are strengthened for the battles of body and soul, mind and heart. Pick up the weapons, dear Christians. Draw your swords. Be eager for the fray. YHWH Sabaoth beckons you.   

He knows the names of all the angels. We only know a few. Today we celebrate the day of St Michael and ALL Angels. His name appears only once in Revelation. He’s mentioned in Jude. (Another text Luther didn’t know what to do with.) St Michael is mostly unknown among American Lutherans. He’s probably over represented in Eastern Orthodoxy. In the various lands touched by Anglicanism St Michael icons resemble those of St George who supposedly slew the dragon. Michael with his sword and George with a spear are both warrior saints. 

George probably never existed. But Michael’s pedigree goes back to the Book of Daniel. God’s prophet and His people were languishing in Babylon. Michael was dispatched to assist another angel, Gabriel, who was being withstood by the princes of Persia. Michael will reign as God’s prince in troubled times. In Jude, Michael fights with Satan alone. His trophy is the body of Moses. In the Book of Revelation, Michael commands the heavenly armies against the dragon and his horde. He wins not by brute force, but by the Blood of the Lamb and the Word of His Martyrdom. We can’t ever forget that part.

Luther may not have known quite what to do with the symbolic manifestations of Revelation, but from its pages he borrowed the image that became his hallmark. In confronting Satan, faith does not despair, because, “For us fights the Valiant One whom God Himself elected. Who is our Champion? Jesus Christ it is, of all Angels the Lord, and there’s none other God. He holds the field forever.” 

Michael’s name is a question, “Who is like God?” There is none except He who IS God. Not an angel, but true God and true Man, our Lord Jesus Christ. He still fights for us and in His crucifixion He is enshrined among the seraphim and carried aloft into battle by the cherubim. He is Holy and is enthroned, as the psalmist sings, on the praises of Israel (Ps 22:3). And that’s the prayer of the One who was a Worm and not a Man! Who, for a little while, was made lower than the angels. He is crowned with glory and honor. His Father has put everything - everything! - under His feet (Ps 8:4-6).

Neither mortal man nor immortal angel is able to overcome the cunning of that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world. “On earth is not his equal.” When you pray in the Our Father, “on earth as it is in heaven,” you are asking God that the victory that Christ accomplished in heaven may be accomplished among us also. When you pray the Our Father you pray against the devil, all his works and ways. 

Today is not only a commemoration of the Nicene Creed’s phrase that God is the Creator of all things visible and invisible. Today we also get a sit-rep as the Church. A report for the Church Militant. The Church still fighting. For Christians are trapped by devils, who, as Luther says, fill the earth. Like devouring forest fires, devils seek to engulf on all sides. 

Be on your guard, dear ones. By hook or by crook, the devils attack not only on all sides but even within. Through the ally of your flesh. They lure you into sin and then quickly point the finger at you and vehemently accuse you. You are assaulted in heart and mind, with distractions and enticements, with fears and trepidations, with pride one moment, despair the next, with envy and jealousy, lust and greed, guilt and shame. 

Woe to the world for temptations to sin! It is necessary that temptations come, but woe to the one by whom temptation comes. When the devils cannot shake your hope and confidence within the they level all wrath and hatred against your frail flesh. Against your household and family and friends. With lying and murdering night and day they let you have no peace, within or without. To whom shall we for refuge flee?!

Into our no-exit existence comes the Lord of Sabaoth, the Prince of Angels, our Lord Jesus Christ. He is our well-armed Michael, the Child of the Woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars. Because this Man hallowed God’s Name and did His will in heaven, Satan waited for His birth to destroy Him. More even that One who is like God, is the One who is Emmanuel, God with us, who did not become an angel, but a Man, in order to lead the devil captive and make men His again. 

And we pray for His victory among us every time we say, “on earth as it is in heaven.”

But we have no leisure to listen to approaching victory trumpets because Satan and his horde still quench their thirst with the blood of the saints. Our only hope is that God will hear our prayer to “deliver us from the Evil One,” so that we have the evidences that the One who is not only like God, but IS God, our Michael, is our Emmanuel, God with us. 

This is why He has ordained and constituted the service of angels and men in a wonderful order. It is not an angel the Son of God became. Nor is it angels to whom He entrusts the proclamation of the Word of His testimony and distribution of the Blood of the Lamb. He gives that duty and privilege to men for the sake of men. The Lord’s messengers serve Him in fearless obedience. Angels and the Office of the Ministry. 

Jesus promised Peter that the gates of hell shall not prevail against the Church. In the midst of our trouble, we, like Joshua, look up and see the Captain of the Lord of Hosts standing before us. He comes, not in copper statues, standing on crocodiles, but as our Michael He comes by the water. And not by water only, but by the water and the blood and the Spirit. These three agree. 

And in the presence of these Sacramental weapons, He commands us to take off our shoes, because the Font and the Altar have become the holy ground on which the Lord of Sabaoth marches. Where Christ is present, there is heaven. And where heaven is, there ALL the angels and archangels are gathered, longing to peer into the sacred mysteries. 

For He who once rescued the body of Moses from Satan, now in the Word and Sacraments, rescues our bodies from the grave. By His Word He delivers you from snare of the fowler which seeks to lure you into passionate sin. He who breathed your poisoned air, delivers you from the deadly pestilence, giving you His life-breathing Spirit. Here at His Altar, your Michael covers you with His pinions and under His wings you find refuge. With His own eternal Life does He satisfy you and give you to share in His salvation.

Thus do we pray with Luther, “Let Your holy angel be with me that the Evil Foe may have no power over me.” Or better, pray with Jesus, “And deliver us from the Evil One.” For at the Last He will let His angels come, to Abr’ham’s bosom bear you home that you may die unfearing. 

In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.