9/29 Sermon - We Triumph By Blood and Word

We triumph by blood and word

Revelation 12:7-12

1. “When in the world did that happen?” Things happen all the time that we don’t notice, right? A new restaurant opens, we hear about a friend’s new family addition, a business closes, a new road is put in. Has that ever happened to you? You hear news and say, “When did that happen?”

The same is true for the spiritual realm. Look around you! You see people, a building, clothes. Physical things. But we don’t see the spiritual world. But it’s there.

John did. Almost all of Jesus’ disciples were killed. Some were sawed in half, others crucified. Except John. He was exiled on the island of Patmos. On Patmos, he saw a series of visions. That’s the book of Revelation. In one of these visions, he looks up and sees a great battle, spread over the whole sky.

No missiles, drones, or tanks, but angels and demons fighting across the whole sky. I wish I could have seen that vision! It would have won as Oscar for sure! A giant army of angels led by Michael the archangel, locked in battle with a giant dragon, Satan, and his demons.

2. This vision John saw wasn’t just a one-time thing. It wasn’t just looking back to when Satan was cast out of heaven. It pictures for us an ongoing, spiritual battle between God and Satan. We can’t see it, but it’s there. That spiritual battle is our reality.  It happens every day.

Remember his main attack. Satan is real & powerful, and one of his main attacks is to accuse you. His most dangerous weapon isn’t his claws, teeth, or tail. It’s his voice. He worms his way into your heart and accuses you. “You’re not good enough. He doesn’t really love you. She probably doesn’t even care. If they knew what you’ve done, who you really are, they’d be disappointed.” Isn’t that true? We all have this guilt, this shame, this sense of not being enough, always hanging over our heads. That’s because Satan is always, always accusing us, attacking us. We are in the middle of this spiritual war that we can’t even see! Satan, the dragon, is strong and mighty. 

3. But what happens to Satan? “The dragon was not strong enough. He was hurled down to the earth, and his angels with him.” He was hurled down. Not as a dragon, or even a giant snake, but as a worm. Weak and useless. Michael and his angels, God’s forces, cast Satan down.

This awe-inspiring war stretches over the heavens every day. The forces of God and Satan battle. But John shows us who triumphs: God. The archangel Michael and his angels. God wins! And you win too.

4. How do they win?  How did Michael and his angels win? When does this victory take place? This victory already happened on the cross. When Jesus shed his blood for us. Look at Revelation 12:10-11: Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Messiah. For the accuser of our brothers and sisters, who accuses them before our God Day and night, has been hurled down. They triumphed over him by the blood of the lamb and by the word of their testimony.

Jesus established his kingdom! He destroyed Satan! He did that on the cross! With his blood, death, and resurrection. Human armies use guns and tanks. God uses the cross of Jesus and the blood of the Lamb. That’s why the cross is such a wonderful picture of victory. Not just of death, but of Satan.

5. This completely obliterated Satan, that serpent. If you take the fangs out of a king cobra, that snake is harmless, right? That’s what Jesus did with Satan. One of Satan’s main titles is “the accuser.” Satan can no longer accuse you. Our reading tells us two ways that happens.

a) First: That happens because of Jesus’ blood. Jesus’ blood is the single most precious thing in the whole world. Our sins are covered, forgiven, gone only for one reason: because Jesus shed his blood for our sin.

b) Second: This happens in God’s Word. God’s Word is our most precious possession. God’s Word is all about what Jesus has done for me. Satan is defeated, our sin is gone, we have the hope of heaven. We are free from Satan’s accusations. When accuses us, we say, “Yeah, I’m a sinner. So what? My sin is covered by the blood of the lamb.”

We triumph over Satan, with Jesus, by the blood of the Lamb and his Word.

6. There’s a warning: Satan is overthrown, defeated, yes, but he’s still here, and he’s angry and hateful and powerful. Woe to the earth and the sea, because the devil has gone down to you! He is filled with fury, because he knows his time is short.

God warns us in this reading: Don’t underestimate the devil. He’s powerful. Our American culture downplays Satan, doesn’t it” He’s a cute little red devil on your shoulder, or a Halloween costume, that’s it. Or many deny that he’s even real at all. The deny the existence of the most powerful enemy of humankind. That’s not doing anyone any favors. On the other hand, some show too much interest in Satan. An interest with anything about the occult is on the rise: tarot card readings, astrology, and things like that.

Give the devil his due. He hates us. He uses everything in this life to try and separate us from God. I’m not saying don’t dress us for Halloween, we’re not legalistic about it. But don’t underestimate him. He is the enemy! He and his demons work, 24/7, to take you to hell with them. He doesn’t want our job, our house, our possessions. He wants your soul burn in hell with him forever. And this spiritual battle happens every day around, even if we can’t see it without eyes.

Give the devil his due. His voice is dangerous. Don’t even trust your own thoughts or the attitudes of your heart. Just because you think it, doesn’t mean it came from you. Satan is that insidious voice that whispers in our ears, in our hearts. Satan is much more active in his attacks on us, his accusations, than we realize. So many more voices in this world, in our hearts and minds, come from Satan than we realize. Any voice, thought, or attitude that doesn’t come from God’s Word, comes from Satan. This spiritual battle happens in our hearts and in our minds, every day, even if we can’t always identity Satan as the voice. Do you see the importance of God’s Word? Knowing God’s voice over Satan’s is critical.

7. This reading also gives us incredible comfort as well.  

God and his angels have already won. And WE, you and I, win! We triumph over Satan. How? Look at v. 11 again: They triumph over him by the blood of the Lamb, and the word of their testimony. The battle has been won. We have victory. Jesus’ blood covers your sin. God’s Word gives us hope and life. Satan’s accusations can’t reach you. His demons can’t touch you. He has no power over you.

Satan has no power over us. This is the point that Jesus makes in Luke 10. “Lord, even the demons submit to us in your name.” Whenever we read the bible, whenever we come to church, whenever we sing hymns to God, whenever to think about Jesus or pray to him, whenever we share Jesus or invite someone to church, whenever we talk about or meditate on the gospel of Jesus in any way, we participate in that victory over Satan. We triumph over Satan by blood and word.

And we have help. That’s the point our reading from 2 Kings 6 makes. Elisha looked out and saw the hills filled with the army of God. “Those with us are more than those with them.” If God let you, do you know what you would see around you every day? What is around us right now? Angels. Angels always surround us, they guide, protect, and guide us.

There is a spiritual battle happening in our lives every day. It’s deadly. There’s a giant dragon out there. But Jesus won this battle on the cross. And you triumph every day by his blood and his word.