TITLE: “The War”

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. Our text for today, St. Michael and All Angels, is from Matthew chapter 10, Take heed that you do not despise one of these little ones, for I say to you that in heaven their angels always see the face of My Father who is in heaven. (Matt. 18:10)

War is hell. So said General Sherman from the Civil War. He’s right, of course. War is the inevitable result of sin and evil in the world, and war, with it’s fighting and death and carnage, drives home the reality that the wages of sin is death. War is hell, as the general said, and it should not be portrayed in any other way.

But not everyone who fights in a war is from hell. Far from it. We believe, as the bible teaches, that men and women who fight and die to preserve the lives and freedom of their families, and their extended family in their country, that these people do not a necessary evil, but a very good thing. Fighting in a war too save lives is exactly what God would have us do.

But in our culture, war and fighting war is often portrayed as the sort of thing that only bad people have any part of. War is by definition from the machine of politics, and that if everyone would simply work harder to get along, then everything would be okay.

Now when you start talking about war and what is right and wrong in war, you begin to get some pretty strong opinions, because many people know that war is about real lives, real sacrifice, and that there is a terrible cost to war. This is good, for war should be taken seriously.

But today, dear friends, we are not talking about Iraq or terrorism, or Vietnam or the Civil War or any other of the wars our country has fought in her history. We are talking about another war. We are talking about the war between the forces of good and the forces of evil. We are talking about the war between God and Satan. In this war there is right and there is wrong. In this war there is sacrifice, and there are terrible costs to be paid for winning and for losing. But most importantly, in this war we have a champion.

Our Epistle text from Revelation speaks of this war between Michael and his angels and Satan and his minions. Hear again this depiction of the war between heaven and earth:

And war broke out in heaven: Michael and his angels fought with the dragon; and the dragon and his angels fought, but they did not prevail, nor was a place found for them in heaven any longer.

So the great dragon was cast out, that serpent of old, called the Devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world; he was cast to the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.

Then I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, "Now salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of His Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren, who accused them before our God day and night, has been cast down. And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives to the death.

"Therefore rejoice, O heavens, and you who dwell in them! Woe to the inhabitants of the earth and the sea! For the devil has come down to you, having great wrath, because he knows that he has a short time."

Many years ago, at the dawn of time, this battle, this war began. The war, of course, was over your soul. Heaven and earth do battle to see whether you will gain heaven or be cast into hell. In fact, your champion, the one who is like God, indeed God-in-the-flesh, Jesus Christ himself, he came down to earth to do battle. The battle that he waged for you, though, was not with swords and armor, guns and the like. The battle he waged for you was over the Law. For you see, He kept the Law whole and undefiled for you. He did what you could not, because you are in the clutches of the enemy, even though you may not know it. He kept the Law, and He paid the price for your sin, so that you would be free.

For freedom, you see, is never free. It always carries a price. But our Lord paid that price for you on the cross and rose victorious on Eastern morning. This is why the angels of God are always showing up in the story of our Lord. Gabriel at His incarnation; the angels sing GLORY TO GOD IN THE HIGHEST at his birth, and as one of our hymns puts it, weeping angels hid their eyes as the priest became the sacrifice.

The angels of God know how important this war is. They, you see, are God’s messengers proclaim the message to heaven and earth. They are God’s heavenly choir that sing his praises with the church in heaven and earth. They are God’s heavenly armies, the hosts of power and might, who do his bidding, and who protect you from all harm and danger. They do all this at His bidding, following their captain, our Lord Jesus Christ.

We may not see this battle happening around us dear friends. WE may look at our dreary lives at times and wonder if God is paying attending at all. But rest assured, He is. His work of bringing you to heaven is His greatest work. He cares more for you, His children, than all of heaven and earth combined. You are His joy and His everlasting desire. That is why the angels of heaven rejoice over one sinner who repents. For at repentance and faith, brought by the Word of God, Satan is crushed again and again, and you are brought into the very kingdom of heaven.

War isn’t hell, despite what General Sherman said. Hell is hell, and the war that God fights to defend you he does so that you will never know hell. He will guard you and protect you all the days of your life, and He sends His holy angels to defend you and keep you in all your ways. We close with the ancient prayer of the church for peace:

Grant peace, We Pray, in Mercy, Lord

Peace in our time, oh, send us!

For there is none on earth but you,

None other to defend us.

You only, Lord, can fight for us. Amen. (LW 219)

The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in true faith, unto life everlasting. Amen.