Fourth Sunday after Pentecost

Fourth Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 9C)

July 3, 2022

Text: Luke 10:1-20

            “I saw Satan fall like lightening from heaven” (Luke 10:18; ESV).  This is not simply a reference to what happened in the beginning, when the angel, Lucifer, originally created as a holy angel, along with those lesser angels who followed him, rebelled against God and fell from their exalted position.  In our text, Jesus says He saw Satan falling like lightening in response to the preaching of the Gospel.  As the 72 went from village to village, preaching that the Kingdom of God had arrived in the Person of Jesus Christ, it was a full-force attack on Satan’s kingdom.  Every sermon is, in some sense, an exorcism.  Satan loses his influence as God’s Word is proclaimed.  He loses ground.  He loses souls.  People are freed from his tyranny.  Sinners are forgiven.  Temptations are thwarted.  Diseases are healed… in particular, death, as Christ’s resurrection is imparted.  Brokenness is mended.  Hearts are comforted.  Relationships are restored.  And above all else, the preaching of Jesus robs Satan of his ability to accuse you before God.  Because Gospel preaching is Absolution.  It forgives sins, and it imparts the righteousness of Christ to the sinner.  It is your justification before the Father, the objective justification won by Jesus Christ in His death and resurrection, now subjectively applied to you, here and now, in the powerful Word of Christ.

            And so, if preaching does that, well then, this means some very important things in terms of our regard for preachers and for preaching.  It means, first of all, that we should ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest field.  That is, we should pray for more pastors.  We should encourage young men to consider attending the Seminary.  We should support seminarians in their studies financially, and with our prayers.  The Church needs pastors.  The fields are white unto harvest (Cf. John 4:35).  Now, this does not mean that a faithful Christian sermon will always harvest three thousand souls, as Peter’s sermon did on Pentecost (Acts 2:41).  But then, faith comes by hearing, and hearing through the Word of Christ (Rom. 10:17).  And how can they hear unless someone preaches to them?  And how can there be preaching unless someone is sent (Rom. 10:14-15)?  So we pray that the Lord would prepare and send preachers, and we as the people of God call preachers to our congregations, and we support those preachers, that they may preach, and we may hear, and so believe. 

            Now, the support aspect is important.  We must support our preachers, because Jesus does not promise them an easy life.  Quite the opposite.  He promises the 72 that He is sending them out as lambs in the midst of wolves (Luke 10:3).  In case the illustration isn’t obvious, that is a rather perilous situation.  And the point is, preachers must be ready to suffer, and even shed their blood, for the preaching of the One who suffered and shed His blood for them. 

            They are to carry no moneybag or knapsack or extra pair of shoes (v. 4).  This is not to say, dear Lutherans, that clergy take some sort of a vow of poverty.  What it is to say is that the preacher is not to be worried about money or other material concerns.  After all, as we know, you cannot serve two masters.  You cannot serve God and money, Jesus teaches us (Luke 16:13).  The preacher is to serve God.  And, as far as it goes, this applies to every Christian.  But particularly in this sense to the preacher: He is not to carry a moneybag, because he is to trust in the Lord, and he is to rely on the people of God to whom he preaches for his wages and daily bread.  The laborer deserves his wages (10:7).  God provides for His preachers through the generosity of those who hear and believe.  As St. Paul puts it, quoting Moses, “You shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain” (1 Cor. 9:9; 1 Tim. 5:18; Deut. 25:4).  So you may call your pastor an ox.  That’s in the Bible.  But you also have to pay him.  That’s in the Bible, too. 

            And the preacher, for his part, is not to go looking around, house to house, town to town, for a better situation, something more comfortable, or more lucrative, less risky, with less pain.  If he enters a house, in the case of the 72… or, let’s say, if he enters a congregation, in the case of a preacher today… he is to announce the Gospel.  He is to preach: “Peace be to this house!” (Luke 10:5).  Divine peace.  Forgiveness of sins.  Shalom: Healing, restoration, wholeness, and the like.  And if a son of peace is there… that is, if there are those present who receive this preaching of the Gospel and believe it, he is to stay put (v. 6).  He is to man his post.  His peace, the peace of the Gospel, is to rest there in that place as the preacher preaches, until the Lord calls the preacher somewhere else.  He is to eat and drink what they provide.  He is to be content with his wages, relying on the people sharing all good things with the one who teaches them the Word, as St. Paul says in our Epistle (Gal. 6:6). 

            Finally, this may be stating the obvious, but it is, nevertheless, the main point of our Holy Gospel this morning: If the preaching of Jesus Christ causes Satan to fall like lightening from heaven… If it defeats Satan’s attempts to tear us away from Christ and drag us down to hell with him… then we should eagerly hear such preaching at every opportunity, and believe that this preaching applies to each one of us.

            And if we don’t… Woe!  When a town rejects the 72… when a congregation rejects a faithful preacher… this is serious business.  The preacher is to wipe the dust of the place off his feet as a testimony against them (Luke 10:11).  And now his preaching of the Gospel actually becomes Law to them.  The Gospel is, finally, Law to the devil and those who reject Gospel preaching.  The preacher is to say, “Nevertheless know this, that the kingdom of God has come near” (v. 11).  That is eschatological language… End Times language.  It is conquest language.  It proclaims to the defeated kingdom that, in the end, God wins.  You may continue in the illusion, for a time, that you are independent of His Kingdom, but on that Day, you, and the very devil, will confess that Jesus is Lord to the glory of God the Father (Phil. 2:11).  And it will be more bearable on that Day for Sodom than for those who had the Gospel and rejected it (Luke 10:12).  And you remember the fate of Sodom (Gen. 18-19).  In fact, if Tyre and Sidon, those great Gentile, pagan cities, had the benefit of Jesus’ signs and the preaching of the New Testament, Jesus says they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes (Luke 10:13).  And Capernaum, Jesus’ home base, witness to so many of His sermons and miracles… For their rejection of the preaching, they will not be exalted to heaven, but brought down to Hades (v. 15).  And these words of our Gospel are a reference to the passage from Isaiah that describes the fate of the devil: “How you are fallen from heaven, O Day Star, son of Dawn! … You said in your heart, ‘I will ascend to heaven; above the stars of God I will set my throne on high… But you are brought down to Sheol, to the far reaches of the pit” (Is. 14:12-15).  Those who reject the Gospel share in the devil’s eternal destiny.

            Why is Jesus so pointed in His words of condemnation?  Why so blunt, so intolerant of alternative ways?  For the sake of those He is calling to repentance.  It is a dire warning, a matter of eternal life and death.  Those who hear the preaching, hear Jesus Himself, and receive Jesus’ very life.  But those who reject the preachers and their preaching, reject Jesus Himself.  And in so doing, they reject not only Jesus, but the One who sent Him.  And that is the Father.  That is God (Luke 10:16).  If you reject the preaching, you reject God.  It is not a minor matter to reject what Jesus says, what is written in the Bible, what the preacher preaches.  It is rejection of God Himself, and that rejection results in death. 

            So… hear the preaching!  Believe it.  Fear and love God so that you do not despise preaching and God’s Word, but hold it sacred, and gladly hear and learn it.  When you hear preaching in Jesus’ Name, the very demons are subject to it.  And they must flee.  They are cast out.  Satan falls like lightening from heaven.

            Now, the preacher is not to exult in such power as though the demons are subject to his own authority.  That is the reason Jesus redirects the 72.  But they are to rejoice that the demons are subject to the Name of Jesus.  That is, to His authority, His Gospel, His preaching… His Kingdom.  You are to rejoice in this, too, because here you are, receiving this very gift at this very moment.  But this is simply to say, rejoice in the content of the preaching, and what it does in you, the Gospel that robs Satan of his power.  That is, your name, dear Christian, is written in heaven.  It is written in the Book of Life.  It is written in Jesus’ wounds.  You belong to God, holy, and precious.

            And how do you know that?  Jesus sent a preacher to preach it to you.  You believe because you hear.  You hear through the Word of Christ.  That is, the Word of Christ gives you ears to hear.  And it is that Word that I now preach to you.  Jesus died for your sins.  Jesus is risen from the dead.  Jesus forgives your sins and gives you eternal life.  Jesus sent me to preach that.  And when you hear and believe that preaching, Satan falls like lightening from heaven.  In the Name of the Father, and of the Son X, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.