Saint Michael And All Angels

Let's pray. Lord Jesus, again, as we open up your Word, we ask your Holy Spirit to help us to rightly understand what is revealed there, so that we may properly believe, confess, and do all according to your Holy Word, we ask in Jesus' name.

Amen. Alright, so I don't have the ability to show you what's on my screen, which is kinda nice, you know. So, if I pull up some heresy, you won't be scandalized by it. But today is also the observance of St. Michael and all angels.

And I'm hoping that the next time this comes around, where it falls on a Sunday, that I'll be at Kongsvinger. And despite the fact there was a lot of confusion this year as to whether or not Missouri was going to be observing it, because in the little introits, when you purchase introits.

From.

Concordia, if they're gonna celebrate it, they oftentimes will have it in there, and they didn't this year. And so there was a lot of confusion. But that doesn't mean that we can't also.

Look.

At the texts related to St. Michael and all angels, because you'll note that that is the one observance that we have that sounds almost Roman Catholic, right? And the reason being is we're calling Michael, the archangel, Michael in Hebrew, we're calling him a saint, okay?

Well, are you saying that Michael is a saint? Well, yes, but it's because of reasons that you may not have considered. Okay, so for instance, those of you in my catechism class, you know the answer to this, but it's worth repeating and remembering the word saint, what is it in Greek?

Hagias. There's one of my Greek students. Okay, now for those of you who don't know Greek, I'm sure that cleared everything up, right? Okay, what's a hagias? Okay, so that's the singular, the plural is hagioi, and the word is the holy ones, okay?

So you'll note that when you read the New Testament in Greek, the saints, that, I hate to use that word because in English it just doesn't quite have the same punch. In Greek, it's the holy ones. So you'll note that Michael, the archangel, is he not a holy angel of God?

Indeed he is. And so it is appropriate to refer to angels as holy ones, as the hagioi, just as it is appropriate for Christians to be referred to as hagioi as well. And you'll note that we have all been made holy.

It is not something you are required to do on your own, and if you were required to do it on your own, you wouldn't be able to achieve it anyway. So the idea then here is that when we take a look at the readings for this particular day, they are a little bit ponderous.

They are not easy to understand, but they do tell a very important story. So let me read to you the Old Testament text for Saint Michael and all angels. It's from the book of Daniel, chapter 10. In fact, I'm going to read both of the pericopes.

I'm going to read Daniel, chapter 10, verses 10 -14, and why not throw in 12, 1 -3 as well? I mean, is that too much Bible for you guys? Are you guys going to set one of those sundials or whatever and tell me that I need to hurry up?

Because I'm not. No one's been able to get me to shorten things. So here's what Daniel 10 says, Behold, a hand touched me. So this is Daniel talking, and he had just fainted in the presence of the Holy God, the Holy Angel, and it touched me and set me trembling on my hands and my knees.

And he said to me, O Daniel, man greatly loved, understand the words that I speak to you and stand upright, for now I have been sent to you. And when he had spoken this word to me, I stood up trembling.

So Daniel is in the presence of a bonafide Holy Angel of God. Have any of you ever heard some of the wingnut wackerdoodles in like the NAR and like Patricia King and stuff like this? I recently, has it even come out yet?

Probably hasn't even come out yet. I'm preempting myself here. Spoiler alert, this may be in a future episode of Fighting for the Faith that I may have already recorded. But Katie Sousa, I have an expose I'm going to be doing on her very shortly, and I've already recorded it.

And in this, she went and spoke at some church in Phoenix, Arizona or something, and she claimed when she got on the stage that she brought two angels with her. Two. I'm thinking you slacker. I brought at least a thousand.

What were you thinking? You know, but it's just nonsense. It's utter complete nonsense. And these people who talk about angels like, oh yeah, you know, I went to Starbucks last week, and there were angels there, and I got to meet the angel of breakthrough, and the angel of suddenlies who is the patron saint of those who suffer from Montezuma's revenge.

You know, it's just nonsense. It's just absolute gobbledygook. And the thing is is that the normal procedure when you are in the presence of a holy angel is to almost wet yourself. I mean, to tremble, to shake, to fall over dead.

This is the normal procedure. I remember, if any of you are into British comedy, the Blackadder series that was out, you know, decades ago was absolutely hilarious. They did this one on World War I, and so somebody asks Blackadder, what is the procedure should one step on a landmine?

You know, the British being as tightly wound as they are, they always have policies and procedures for everything. And so the dry answer was, well, when one steps on a landmine, the normal operating procedure is to throw yourself 200 feet into the air and then spread yourself over a wide area.

You know, it's a great joke, but here we have Daniel in the presence of a holy angel. He falls over trembling to the bones, falls over dead, and this angel says, I have been sent to you, but note the words here that I think are really amazing.

Man greatly loved. Now, I assure you, Daniel is dead. Dead as a doornail. We do not know where he's buried. Full stop. It's questionable as to whether or not he lived long enough to get back to Israel, to see Israel again.

That being the case, we don't know where his tomb is. Nobody venerates it. Nobody visits us to this day, but the fact that he died is proof positive of one very important thing regarding Daniel. The wages of sin is death.

Daniel, like you and I, is a sinner. In fact, in this section of Daniel, Daniel prays this great prayer of repentance of his own sins, of the sins of his people, and you'll note then that Daniel not only knew the law, he also trusted in the mercy of God.

And he prayed exactly for that, God's forgiveness and mercy, and you'll note that Old Testament saints, New Testament saints, they're all alike. Everyone who trusts in the promises of God, their faith is reckoned to them as righteousness.

Daniel now being loved by God, and not just a little bit, he's greatly loved by God. And so are you in Christ. I know that we all live pretty ordinary 21st century lives, right? I don't know anybody among us that is doing...

Have you noticed that CNN and Fox News don't come to interview me? Right? And same with you guys too, you know. Any of you movie stars? No, no? Oh, I see. So you'll note then that we all are just living in pretty much obscurity.

Now granted, I mean, a few more people might know me because of my YouTube channel, but I assure you that once I stop producing those videos, no one's going to watch them. There might be people for, you know, who will, oh remember that that weird guy who had Prophecy Bingo?

They might, you know, have a feeling of nostalgia or something like that. But the thing is, is that you'll note that today I didn't preach Martin Luther. Martin Luther wouldn't have preached himself. I preached Christ.

And so the idea here is, is that we are all gathered not because we have some something great in and of ourselves, but we have Christ who is great for us. We're here to worship and focus on Him, the things that He has done.

And even the words of an angel sent to Daniel, man greatly loved, speaks to the fact that we are greatly loved in Christ. God so loved y 'all, loved us, that He sent His only Son, that He should die for our sins, that we believing in Him should be reconciled with God.

So He continues. So the angel says, I can't think of a better text to preach on when it comes to prayer. Do y 'all ever feel like your prayers just bounce off the ceiling? Where are you, God? I've noticed that God is never late, but He's never early either.

Oftentimes God will keep me on the line until the last possible second, and then He'll answer my prayer and deliver me. And just to remind me that I was delivered not by my own shrewd strategic thinking, I've got to tell you as a pastor, I've bumbled my way through the pastoral office, bumbled my way through it.

It is only by the grace of God that I'm still here. I am not here because of anything great or anything strategic on my part. Everything I learned in the universities and even in my master's degree completely didn't help me at all.

Right? So note that God answers prayer, and He answers speedily by His standard. But you're going to note that Mikael, although he was dispatched immediately, he didn't arrive immediately. And this is a text that reminds us that there's far more going on than meets the eye.

We confess in the Nicene Creed that we believe in things visible and invisible that God has created. And so he says these words, which just sound ominous. The prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me for 21 days, but Mikael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, for I was left there with the kings of Persia.

So I think this is Gabriel talking. And came to make you understand what is to happen to your people in the latter days, for the vision is for days yet to come. And here's the thing, there's no explanation given about this.

None. Okay, who is the prince of Persia? And how is he able to stop a messenger of God? And who is this Mikael person? And where did he come from? And how is it that his help was able to break the back of the king of Persia, who was opposed?

What's going on here? You're going to note, we just get a glimpse into heavenly warfare. And God is not going to give us any more information. We know, therefore, that there are principalities, demonic principalities.

Satan is organized, unlike a lot of churches, right? He's well organized. And it reminds me of a passage here, hang on a second here, Colossians, book of Colossians, chapter 2, my favorite section of Colossians.

But listen to what these words say. I'll start in verse 8 because it gives me an excuse to preach the gospel again, okay, because I'm always looking for that. See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ.

For in Christ the whole fullness of the deity dwells bodily. I can't think of a better passage that talks about the incarnation of Christ. You want to know what Jesus is? God in human flesh, the whole fullness of the deity dwells bodily in Christ.

And you have been filled in him who is the head of all rule and authority. And in him y 'all were circumcised with circumcision made without hands by putting off the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God who raised him from the dead.

That's a pretty important biblical passage. It says that we are buried with Christ in our baptism and that our hearts are circumcised by none other than the hand of Christ when we're baptized. I assure you when I went to seminary they never showed me how to circumcise somebody's heart and I'm pretty sure that I couldn't get the medical certifications to pull it off if I wanted to.

So I'm 100 dependent on Jesus doing that part, right? I just get to pour the water and say the words. But then he says these words, you were dead in your trespasses and in the uncircumcision of your flesh and God has made you alive together with Christ having forgiven us all of our trespasses.

Not some, all. By canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands, this he's set aside nailing it to the cross. And then here's the verse, verse 15. By the cross then Christ disarmed the rulers and the authorities and put them to open shame by triumphing over them in him.

Wait, what? He's starting to see it, right? It's like what rulers? What authorities? Was he talking about Caesar? No. So here we get another text, this other data point that just stands by itself that is true.

That Christ's death on the cross disarmed the rulers and authorities and put satanic and demonic authorities to open shame and by the cross he triumphed over them. So I love the fact that some of the paintings, I made reference to this in my sermon, some of the paintings that we've seen here in Germany on this Luther tour depict Christ with this flag of victory who's standing with his neck, his foot on the neck of a serpent and Satan and stuff like that.

I feel like the medieval people got it a little better than we do, right? Christ's death on the cross was legitimately a victory and the question is, is that what does that victory exactly look like? And so when we get to our gospel text you'll see how that gets answered, okay?

So chapter 12, which is the alternate reading here, says at that time shall arise Michael the great prince who has charge of your people. Now important, I got to point this out, is that this figure in Daniel, Michael, is enigmatic and unfortunately heretics have used this this imagery to argue that Jesus is not God in human flesh.

So if you were to ask the Jehovah's Witnesses, which are today's repository of the Arian heresy, they deny that Jesus is God in human flesh. If you were to ask them, well then who is Jesus? They'll say Jesus is Michael the archangel in human flesh.

And you sit there and you go, did your mama drop you on your head? What are you thinking? Okay, the issue is this, is that this passage is somewhat enigmatic and it's and Michael, here's the weird bit, may actually be Christ.

But you can't then surmise from this that he's a creature. This might actually be another name for Jesus. You know how he's king of kings, lord of lords, alpha and omega, beginning and the end. And if that is true then, Michael is kind of another appearance of the pre-incarnate Christ.

But the thing is, you can't push on it too hard or you end up in the Arian heresy. You know, so a similar thing happens, by the way, in the book of Proverbs. You'll note that Proverbs depicts wisdom as what?

A woman. Here's the issue, okay. The things that are being described regarding this woman wisdom sound ridiculously like they should be applied to Christ. And they do. And the issue then is, is that you can't then somehow turn Jesus into a woman.

That makes him trans and his pronouns get weird, okay. The point is, is that sometimes in scripture, especially in the Old Testament, Jesus hides behind masks is the best way I can put it. And this is legitimately how the Lutheran Reformers would talk about it.

The God who wears masks. And so Jesus comes to us in this text in kind of an enigmatic way. And when he shows up, all of a sudden Gabriel, he's able to win this battle against the Prince of Persia. But the issue is, is that this is as clear as mud in the Old Testament.

It doesn't get clearer. It just kind of hangs out there and it leaves you asking the question, what just happened? What did I just read? So let me continue reading. So, at that time shall arise Michael, the great prince who has charge of your people.

And there shall be a time of trouble such as never has been since there was a nation till that time. But at that time your people shall be delivered. Everyone whose name shall be found written in the book.

Fascinating portion here because what's being prophesied about here is the time of the end and the rise of what we call the man of lawlessness or the Antichrist. The one who doesn't just fill the office of Antichrist.

The one who is the Antichrist filling that office. And so talking about a time that's to come. But you'll note then that the angel has really good theology here as he's communicating to Daniel because he says that in that time of trouble that your people shall be delivered.

And he doesn't say your people who are genetically descendants of Abraham. He says your people, everyone whose name shall be found written in the book. And so everybody whose name is written in the Lamb's book of life, they are Daniel's people.

Whether they be Gentiles, Europeans, Chinese, Africans, it doesn't matter. Everybody whose name is written and found written in the book of life, they are Daniel's people. Since our names are written in the Lamb's book of life, Daniel is our people.

He's ours. We're his. You get the point. Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth, they shall awake, some to everlasting life, some to shame and everlasting contempt. Does Daniel teach the doctrine of hell here?

Yes. And so you're going to note, similar to what Jesus does in Matthew chapter 25 when he gives the parable of the sheep and the goats, which is a one of Jesus's most thinly veiled parables. You know, it pretty much is going to go down the way he describes it.

The only thing different is that there's going to be people rather than sheep and goats. You know, that's kind of how this is going to go down. But at the very end, he talks about the fact that the righteous go to everlasting, go to life everlasting, and the damned, they go to eternal damnation, eternal fire.

And so Daniel here is teaching that same thing. Actually, it's the angel who's revealing it, and Daniel's just recording the words. Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, some to shame and everlasting contempt.

How long will the contempt last? As long as the everlasting life bid, right? And those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the sky above, those who turn many to righteousness like the stars forever and ever.

It's gonna be hard to sleep in my room, so, in the new earth, right? We're all going to shine. So there's our Old Testament text. Great stuff. Now, here's the cross reference in the epistle, which is from the book of Revelation chapter 12.

Here's my question. When did that take place? When was Satan and his angels thrown down to the earth in defeat? Remember when you read in the book of Job, the opening portion of Job, there are the angels presenting themselves before God.

Who shows up? Satan. And he presents himself along with the holy angels. He ain't holy. And he has access to God. And we learn from the book of Revelation, and you'll see this in the next part of this text, that Satan was the most litigious creature in all of existence.

And I have to say it that way because I'm not sure how else to describe it. And litigious in this way. He was constantly accusing the saints. He accused Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and Joseph, and Moses, and Joshua, and just the list goes on and on and on.

Did you see what they did? Constantly. In fact, to basically put it this way, it sounds like he was constantly filing lawsuits in the courts of heaven. I had to do it. Okay, I had to do it, right? So the idea then here is that what Revelation 12 in this epistle text for this week is showing us is that Satan himself, with Christ's death, burial, resurrection, and ascension, no longer has a way to accuse us.

And as a result of it being thrown down, basically says you get to shut up because Christ has answered all charges. So that's what's being discussed here. So then the text says this, and 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 brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God. So note here, Michael is referenced, the dragon is thrown down, he's utterly defeated by Christ's angelic army, he no longer has the ability to be the accuser of the saints day and night, and as a result of that, he's got to find a new vocation.

And here's where I'm going to tie this in to what we saw yesterday. Geraldine, I'm kind of jealous you.

Didn't see this.

But yesterday, we went to the new palace the new palace of Frederick II, I think, is it the second or third? It's one of those guys. Third, okay. Frederick, we'll just call him Freddie, right? And one of the things we noticed before we got into the palace was the sheer number of images, of statues, of pagan deities.

Zeus was there, Demeter was there, Persephone was there. I mean, they were all in representation and organized in a most notably curious fashion, if you know what you're looking for, and that was just on the outside.

But when we got into the inside of it, one of the very first rooms that we saw was a grotto. It was a party room, if you would. How many dragons did you all see? The whole thing was done, it looks like it was done by Ariel's interior designer from the Little Mermaid.

Okay, shells and things like this. So it was an under the sea kind of theme, but the whole, every single piece of artwork contained numerous dragons. And I'm sitting there going, what are we looking at here?

And the fact that it had the sea as kind of its focus, I don't think was accidental. I personally think that all of the artwork in that particular palace was designed as a big middle finger to Christ, because it was so pagan.

And the fact that a dragon made such, dragons made such notable appearances, well, I think it was fascinating. But watch this. So the text says, so now salvation and 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, and they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they love not their lives even to death.

So how do you conquer Satan? By the blood of the Lamb, right? Therefore rejoice, O heavens, in you who dwell in them, but woe to you on the earth and the sea, for the devil has come down to you in great wrath, because he knows that his time is short.

Have any of you ever upset a dragon? That sounds like a really stupid thing to do, right? So your note that Satan has come down to us in great wrath on the earth, he knows his time is short. Now here's where you have to kind of add a second piece.

In the end of the book of Revelation, it talks about the thousands years. I know it says thousand years in your in your ESV translations and stuff like that, but the Greek word is thousands, plural, okay?

During the thousands years, it says that Satan is bound with a chain and will be released at the end of the age. So that being the case, you have to think of it this way. When we talk about angelology, you have to deal with the demonic aspect of it, and there are legitimately fallen angels, demonic angels, and Satan himself, who was formerly an angel of God, who do not mean you well.

They wish your total destruction and they hate you for the sake of Christ. And Satan himself, during the time from Christ's ascension until right before Christ returns, has had his his powers severely limited.

It's like being on the Autobahn and it says 60 kilometers per hour and you want to get to 150, and you can't because you're in the no speeding zone. So there's Satan, he's in the no speeding zone right now, and eventually he's going to be released.

So you have to kind of work that in as as part of this. So that being the case, if Satan is going to have his powers limited and he's going to be bound for a while, he has to wage warfare against the church via proxies.

That's how this works, right? This will also then play into what we saw in the Palais. So when the dragon saw that he had been thrown down to earth, he pursued the woman, that's the church, who had given birth to the male child.

But the woman was given the two wings of the great eagle so that she might fly from the serpent into the wilderness to the place where she is to be nourished for a time, time and half a time. The serpent poured water like a river out of his mouth after the woman to sweep her away with a flood.

But the earth came to help the woman and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed the river so that the dragon had poured from its mouth. And then the dragon became furious, as if he wasn't angry already, with the woman and went off to make war on the rest of her offspring, you know, us, and on those who keep the commandments of God and who hold to the testimony of Jesus.

And so he stood on the sand of the sea, okay? Watch the connection, okay? So there's the dragon on the sand of the sea and he's going to conjure up out of the sea. And here's where you have to recognize this.

The way the ancient world saw the ocean is that that was chaos, okay? They didn't say, they didn't sit there and go like, dude, did you catch the waves? Oh man, I got into the barrel of that one, man.

Dude, wow, that was so awesome. Totally tubular. No, they didn't do that, okay? They legitimately thought of the sea as like complete chaos. It was in how many people lost their lives on the sea and stuff like this.

So that's the imagery. The sea is chaos and when you put the sea and dragons together, it's like doubly satanic. It's like on purpose, right? So then I saw a beast rising out of the sea with 10 horns, 7 heads, 10 diadems on its horns and blasphemous names on its heads.

And the beast that I saw was like a leopard. Its feet were like a bear's, its mouth like a lion's mouth. And to it, the dragon gave his power and his throne and his great authority. Wait, what? A dragon conjures this beast out of the sea and because Satan's bound, he gives his authority to that beast, okay?

One of its heads seemed to have a mortal wound, but its mortal wound was healed and the whole earth marveled as they followed the beast. So they worshipped the dragon for he had given his authority to the beast and they worshipped the beast saying, who is like the beast and who can fight against it?

So a good way to think of it is this way, is that this first thing, this first beast that the dragon conjures out of the sea is governments that are tyrannical. And here's the thing, if you just read history from a secular point of view, you're missing the whole point.

You have to read human history through the lens of scripture. Theology interprets history. So think of it this way, so in our day we're noticing the rise within western civilization of governments who are becoming more and more overtly hostile to Christians.

And we can point to governments that exist right now that are legitimately hostile to Christians. That being the case, the whole point of those governments is this first beast. It's a multi-headed beast.

It doesn't have just one form. It takes on multiple forms. And one of its heads dies and comes back to life. It's so volatile, right? But the whole point is, is that Satan is waging war against Christianity through totalitarian governments.

So when the government goes south, the reason it's going south is because Satan is trying to shut you guys up. He's trying to stamp out the church. That's the right way of looking at it. So when governments go totalitarian and then they are no longer tolerant of Christians and put them in jail or put them in prison, it doesn't matter what form it takes, whether it's communism or the old fascist regimes or whether it's Sharia law in certain nations or in India.

Those governments exist with the authority of the dragon for the purpose of waging war against the saints. It's not about economics. It's not about the rich and the poor, the haves and the have-nots.

It's not about the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. It's about Christ. That's the right way to interpret this. So the beast was given a mouth uttering haughty and blasphemous words. It was allowed to exercise authority for 42 months.

It opened its mouth to utter blasphemies against God, blaspheming his name, his dwelling, that is those who dwell in heaven. Also it was allowed to make war on the saints and to conquer them. We can point to regimes throughout the last 2000 years that have successfully martyred many a saint.

So you'll note that if we ever find ourselves where the winds of politics have changed and we no longer have the ability to speak openly about Christ and we do so at the risk of losing our lives, that note this text says that this beast has been given authority to make war on the saints and to conquer them and to kill them.

And the authority was given over every tribe and people and language and nation. This is a global thing. All who dwell on the earth will worship this beast because it has the power of the dragon. Everyone whose name has not been written before the foundation of the world and the book of life of the lamb who was slain, if anyone has an ear let him hear.

If anyone is to be taken captive to captivity he goes. If anyone is to be slain with the sword, with the sword he must be slain. So here's a call for the endurance and faith of the saints. You find yourself in this predicament.

The call of book of Revelation is patient endurance. Don't worry. I've already kind of worked out my speech if somebody wants to, you know, put me to death because I'm no longer politically correct or something like this.

I will basically say to the person, you do understand that you're fulfilling the words of Christ by doing this, don't you? And that he'll be here in about five minutes. So go ahead and do your worst because all of this stuff, all of this new world that you're you're building, it's going to come crashing down when he shows up.

Which might make them want to kill me faster, which I'm kind of hoping will be the case. Now the second beast we have to pay attention to. So another beast rising out of the earth, it has two horns like a lamb and it spoke like a dragon.

This is the beast of false religion, of counterfeit forms of Christianity. Satan comes to us dressed as an angel of light and so do his so do his servants. And so the second beast that wages war against the saints is this lamb that talks like this, okay?

You know, something wrong with that sheep, okay? My, what big eyes you have there, little lamby. What big teeth you have, little lamby, okay? If you find a lamb with teeth and sharp claws and things like this, run, okay?

That's kind of the point. And so you'll know it exercises all the authority of the first beast in its presence, makes the earth and its inhabitants worship the first beast whose mortal wound was healed.

It performs great signs, even making fire come down from heaven to the earth in front of the people. This is what Christ was talking about when he says that in the days before his return that that these false prophets would be able to perform great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect.

Remember the ability to perform a miracle is not the proof that the message is true, okay? The proof that the message is true is whether or not it squares with scripture. That's the proof. So there's coming a time when God is going to permit.

One of these days, let me give you an analogy. One of these days, Todd White will legitimately no longer do a parlor trick where he lengthens people's legs. He'll actually be able to command something to happen and it will happen and it will be undeniable.

And he's going to crow like a rooster when it happens, right? And everyone's going to say, see, you were wrong. You were wrong. He could do all these things. And Patricia King, she'll be able to call fire down from heaven.