Text: Rev 12:7-12
We don’t know a lot about the beginning of the war.
Most wars go on for a few years: maybe five, maybe thirty, maybe a hundred. But this war has been going on for six thousand years. One side has been beaten to the point of defeat, but refuses to surrender. Its leader is mortally wounded, and the entire universe is waiting for the Victorious One to return and put an end to it once and for all.
This war is a rebellion. For God created the universe, and gave life to the angels: non-material beings with a mind and a will. But one angel refused to serve. We know him as Lucifer (the angel of light who embraced the darkness), as Satan (“the accuser of our brothers”), the serpent, the dragon, the prince of this world, the devil.
And when God fashioned a material world and created mankind in His own image, Satan turned his attention to Adam and Eve, using Eve to get to Adam, deceiving her and allowing her to beguile her husband. These first human beings were tricked into rebellion, and the world has been a mess ever since.
And although Satan has been conquered “by the blood of the Lamb,” we continue to feel the effects of our foolish rebellion: in our sinfulness, in the cruelty of the world, and most especially by the fact that we all die. For this war has consequences and casualties. We human beings have been caught in the merciless crossfire for six thousand years.
But when the war raged in heaven, the archangel Michael led his forces against the dragon and his forces. What angelic warfare looks like, we don’t know. But we do know that the “ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world” was cast out of heaven and “thrown down to earth” with his evil angels (we call them demons today). And as St. John points out, the heavens rejoice, “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.”
We join the angels in this warfare, even here in earth. And we resist the evil one when we push back against temptation, when we pray, when we hear Scripture read, when we arm ourselves by taking Holy Communion. We do damage to the kingdom of evil when we hallow God’s name, when the kingdom comes among us, when we do God’s will here on earth as it is in heaven, when we thank God for daily bread, when we are forgiven and when we forgive, when we pray for deliverance from temptation and from the evil one himself.
Too often we forget that we are at war. For live in the illusion that we are at peace. We cannot see the devil. We don’t typically see angels or demons. We don’t hear gunfire or swords clashing. We don’t hear the gallop of horses or the rumble of tanks. For this is spiritual warfare. But it is warfare just the same. And the stakes are higher, dear friends. For our eternal life hangs in the balance.
But thanks be to God that God Himself entered the fray: our Lord Jesus Christ. He defeated the devil by deceiving the deceiver. Satan’s strategy was to get Jesus to the cross – not realizing that this was God’s plan all along: His sacrificial death to pay for our sins by means of His blood, bearing our guilt so that we might bear His righteousness.
For we who have been tormented and accused by Satan have joined in the Lord’s victory “by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of [our] testimony.” And we overcome death, dear friends, because we “love not our lives even unto death.” Satan wished death upon us, but our willingness to die for the sake of truth, and our Lord’s willingness to die for the sake of our salvation because of His love – destroys both death and the one who wishes our death.
Satan did not count on our Lord’s death to atone for our sins, nor did he foresee the resurrection of Jesus: the enemy that he thought he had killed and conquered. Now death has no dominion over our risen Lord. And furthermore, dear friends, Satan did not foresee our resurrections to come. For like the valley of dry bones that the prophet Ezekiel saw in his vision, we will all be restored to life, “an exceedingly great army.” It is no accident that the Word of God describes these risen believers using military imagery.
We Christians are soldiers in this cosmic war. While we are on this side of the grave, we are known as the church militant. And as St. Paul says, our fight is not against flesh and blood. We are part of this spiritual battle waging war “against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.”
For too often Christians and non-Christians alike completely miss the point of what it means to be a Christian. We are engaged in battle. We fight for our children and our parents, for our countrymen, and for our fellow Christians around the world, for people yet to be born, and for the honor of those who have gone before us. We resist the work of the devil, who “prowls around like a roaring lion,” seeking someone to devour.
But more importantly, our Lord fights for us. And our Lord employs angels to defend us and fight by our side though we cannot see them. We have no idea how many times disaster has been averted by these faithful unseen servants who do the Lord’s bidding. How many times have we been saved from hell because an angel protected us?
Let us give thanks to our victorious Lord, the conqueror of the devil, who has destroyed death and saved us from destruction, who commands legions of angels, including the holy archangels Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael, the cherubim and seraphim, the watchers and the holy ones, the guardians of the children, and the messengers who bring Good News to mankind that our Lord has defeated the devil once and for all.
And when the war is finally ended, when peace comes never to be interrupted, when the dead in Christ are raised, when the new heaven and the new earth are brought to being – we will sing with the angels, praising God for all eternity: “Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of His Christ have come.”
Amen.
In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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