St Matthew 18:1-10/Revelation 12:7-12/Daniel 10:10-14; 12:1-3
In the Name + of Jesus. Amen.
Dear little ones of our Lord Jesus Christ, your angels in heaven always behold the face of your Father who is in heaven. For the holy angels were created by God for His service and glory. They were appointed to stand continually around His throne and to carry out His commands. It is in His great mercy and love for you that He commands His angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways.
The Most High God has not only given Himself with all His blessings and gifts for your enjoyment. He has not only sent Jesus Christ for the salvation of your souls. He has not only appointed His Holy Spirit as your Comforter and Guide.
But He has also made the holy angels to keep guard over you. God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible – which includes His angels, His messengers – has given His royal guard and host to serve you!
Therefore do not grieve the holy angels by willful sin. Neither test their protection by allowing yourself to be led into temptation. Woe to the world for temptations to sin! It is necessary that temptations come, but woe to the one by whom the temptation comes! For not simply our hands and feet and eyes have caused us to sin, but also our ears and all our members, our reason and all our senses, our whole bodies rightly deserve to be cut off and thrown into the hell of fire.
Repent and fear not. For you cannot drive your divine guardians from you by sin; but you do give them cause for great joy over you when turn in repentance and faith; when you turn and become like children. For in this way do you enter the kingdom of heaven: in childlike trust and dependence upon the One who for you, allowed His hands and feet to be pierced, and whose eyes beheld your sin in order to turn the Father’s face from it.
Child-like faith is not the exception. It is the rule. Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you repent and become like children, you shall never enter the kingdom of heaven. We should not be surprised that infants are capable of believing. For faith is not of the intellect, but of the heart. It lives and moves in the soul. No one is saved apart from faith in Jesus Christ. No one enters the Kingdom without a vulnerable and dependant trust that risks all on His death and resurrection.
Thanks be to God that we are blissfully unaware of the satanic assault on our lives. For it is manifold. The fowler, the deadly pestilence, the terror of the night, the arrow that flies by day, the pestilence that stalks in darkness, the destruction that wastes at noonday all listed in the Psalm, these are various species of fallen angels, minions of that Great Dragon, Satan, the deceiver of the whole word, and the accuser of our brothers and sisters. Our battle is not against flesh and blood, but against these principalities and rulers, powers of the air.
In mercy our Refuge and Fortress, our heavenly Father, shields our eyes from such disaster, lest we be overcome by fear and be given to utter despair. In faithfulness He delivers you from countless onslaughts and a thousand fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand, but it does not come near you. Like a child relying completely on the protection of her father, you given to pray, “Let your holy angel be with me, that the evil foe may have no power over me?”
Child-like faith does not mean innocent faith, though; naïve faith. It means asking and letting God change your diaper; to wipe away the stinking filth from your most intimate and sensitive parts, confident that He will not hurt you or laugh at you. But that He will cleanse you and keep you healthy.
Because Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of His Christ have come for our accuser has been thrown down. He has been wiped off our bottoms. He who accused us day and night before our God has been roundly defeated, overcome by the bloody Sacrifice of the perfect Lamb.
He who had no blemish, no guilt, no sin of His own, went silent to the slaughter, cut off and plunged headlong into the sea of death for the love of man that no words nor angels can express. And the grave, with all its terror, could not hold Him. He has thoroughly crushed the skull of the Ancient Serpent.
So it is that you have conquered; that Satan has been beat down under your feet. How? By the Blood of the Lamb. By the death of the Innocent for the guilty, by the intervention of the perfect, immaculate One for the imperfect and corrupt, by the power of His resurrection from the dead. For there was a war in heaven. But that wars is over; that dragon finished. Now remains only the last skirmishes, the flickering fights of a trounced enemy heading for Hell, furiously raging about us.
O people greatly loved, angels long to look into this victory, this mystery: God became Man, died in Man’s place, satisfied His own holy wrath over man’s rebellion, that man would be free and belong to Him.
On earth Christians strive to become like angels, as we pray, Thy will be done on earth, even as it is in heaven. But no angel, no matter however mighty, pure, and loyal he might be, calls God “Father.” And His Son, “Brother and Kinsman.” Not even St Michael, the great protector of the Church!
But you, though weak and mortal, you are a son or daughter by grace, by the blood of the Lamb. You are pure. You belong in the Kingdom. Its yours. You have been bought and forgiven. You are His own little child, and your angels, hosts upon hosts of supernatural powerful being, are always before the face of His and your Father in heaven. Those angels pray for you They serve you. And at the last they shall bear you home.
Woe to him who causes you to sin! Who would dare to stand against you, God’s elect, marked with the watery cross of Baptism? Who would accuse you? There is no one. Your Jesus loves you. Your angels serve you. Fear not: for the wars and troubles of earth will not last, but the mercy of God endures forever. In the splendor of Christ’s righteousness you are righteous and shall shine like the stars forever and ever.
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
In the Name + of Jesus. Amen.
Dear little ones of our Lord Jesus Christ, your angels in heaven always behold the face of your Father who is in heaven. For the holy angels were created by God for His service and glory. They were appointed to stand continually around His throne and to carry out His commands. It is in His great mercy and love for you that He commands His angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways.
The Most High God has not only given Himself with all His blessings and gifts for your enjoyment. He has not only sent Jesus Christ for the salvation of your souls. He has not only appointed His Holy Spirit as your Comforter and Guide.
But He has also made the holy angels to keep guard over you. God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible – which includes His angels, His messengers – has given His royal guard and host to serve you!
Therefore do not grieve the holy angels by willful sin. Neither test their protection by allowing yourself to be led into temptation. Woe to the world for temptations to sin! It is necessary that temptations come, but woe to the one by whom the temptation comes! For not simply our hands and feet and eyes have caused us to sin, but also our ears and all our members, our reason and all our senses, our whole bodies rightly deserve to be cut off and thrown into the hell of fire.
Repent and fear not. For you cannot drive your divine guardians from you by sin; but you do give them cause for great joy over you when turn in repentance and faith; when you turn and become like children. For in this way do you enter the kingdom of heaven: in childlike trust and dependence upon the One who for you, allowed His hands and feet to be pierced, and whose eyes beheld your sin in order to turn the Father’s face from it.
Child-like faith is not the exception. It is the rule. Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you repent and become like children, you shall never enter the kingdom of heaven. We should not be surprised that infants are capable of believing. For faith is not of the intellect, but of the heart. It lives and moves in the soul. No one is saved apart from faith in Jesus Christ. No one enters the Kingdom without a vulnerable and dependant trust that risks all on His death and resurrection.
Thanks be to God that we are blissfully unaware of the satanic assault on our lives. For it is manifold. The fowler, the deadly pestilence, the terror of the night, the arrow that flies by day, the pestilence that stalks in darkness, the destruction that wastes at noonday all listed in the Psalm, these are various species of fallen angels, minions of that Great Dragon, Satan, the deceiver of the whole word, and the accuser of our brothers and sisters. Our battle is not against flesh and blood, but against these principalities and rulers, powers of the air.
In mercy our Refuge and Fortress, our heavenly Father, shields our eyes from such disaster, lest we be overcome by fear and be given to utter despair. In faithfulness He delivers you from countless onslaughts and a thousand fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand, but it does not come near you. Like a child relying completely on the protection of her father, you given to pray, “Let your holy angel be with me, that the evil foe may have no power over me?”
Child-like faith does not mean innocent faith, though; naïve faith. It means asking and letting God change your diaper; to wipe away the stinking filth from your most intimate and sensitive parts, confident that He will not hurt you or laugh at you. But that He will cleanse you and keep you healthy.
Because Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of His Christ have come for our accuser has been thrown down. He has been wiped off our bottoms. He who accused us day and night before our God has been roundly defeated, overcome by the bloody Sacrifice of the perfect Lamb.
He who had no blemish, no guilt, no sin of His own, went silent to the slaughter, cut off and plunged headlong into the sea of death for the love of man that no words nor angels can express. And the grave, with all its terror, could not hold Him. He has thoroughly crushed the skull of the Ancient Serpent.
So it is that you have conquered; that Satan has been beat down under your feet. How? By the Blood of the Lamb. By the death of the Innocent for the guilty, by the intervention of the perfect, immaculate One for the imperfect and corrupt, by the power of His resurrection from the dead. For there was a war in heaven. But that wars is over; that dragon finished. Now remains only the last skirmishes, the flickering fights of a trounced enemy heading for Hell, furiously raging about us.
O people greatly loved, angels long to look into this victory, this mystery: God became Man, died in Man’s place, satisfied His own holy wrath over man’s rebellion, that man would be free and belong to Him.
On earth Christians strive to become like angels, as we pray, Thy will be done on earth, even as it is in heaven. But no angel, no matter however mighty, pure, and loyal he might be, calls God “Father.” And His Son, “Brother and Kinsman.” Not even St Michael, the great protector of the Church!
But you, though weak and mortal, you are a son or daughter by grace, by the blood of the Lamb. You are pure. You belong in the Kingdom. Its yours. You have been bought and forgiven. You are His own little child, and your angels, hosts upon hosts of supernatural powerful being, are always before the face of His and your Father in heaven. Those angels pray for you They serve you. And at the last they shall bear you home.
Woe to him who causes you to sin! Who would dare to stand against you, God’s elect, marked with the watery cross of Baptism? Who would accuse you? There is no one. Your Jesus loves you. Your angels serve you. Fear not: for the wars and troubles of earth will not last, but the mercy of God endures forever. In the splendor of Christ’s righteousness you are righteous and shall shine like the stars forever and ever.
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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