As we pick up in our preaching journey through Luke, let me review for just a moment.
Recently, we looked at the passage from Luke 9, verses 57-62. It was the story of Jesus’ encounter with three different men and their discussion about what it meant to be a follower of Jesus. Jesus spoke demanding words to all of them, concluding with that dramatic exhortation: “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”
But there is another side to the story. A man was complaining to a friend about the woman he had married and recently divorced. They were only married about nine months. “That woman made me a millionaire,” he said. That surprised the fellow. “Why in the world then,” he asked, “would you have divorced her if she made you a millionaire.” The first man replied, “Well when I married her I had nine million dollars.”
It is always important to get the whole story. With verse 17 of our scripture lesson, the other side of the story begins—the side that is bright with exultant joy and wonder at being a part of Jesus’ mission and ministry, of witnessing the triumph of his work of redemption, of traveling with him the road to Glory.
That is our focus for the message today.
I want us to center on verse 18. How suggestive is that word of Jesus: listen to it. “I saw Satan fall like lightening from heaven.”
Jesus is reflecting on the ministry of the seventy. They went out, following Jesus’ instructions, and were amazed at what happened. They returned with joy saying, “Lord, even the demons are subject to us in your name!” It was then that Jesus said to them, “I saw Satan fall.”
That is the image for the sermon today. “I saw Satan fall.” And this is the question: Has there been a time in your life when Jesus, looking at your life and ministry, has said, “I saw Satan fall?”
I want you to close your eyes—would you do that? Close your eyes and ponder that question in silence for just a moment. Has there ever been a time in your life when Jesus, looking at your life and ministry, has said, “I saw Satan fall?”
Not an easy question to answer, is it? But am I wrong in suggesting that indeed that should be the result of our ministry—the fall of Satan.
Maybe you can answer the question better after the sermon is over, after I remind you of when Satan falls. We will take our cue from the ministry of the seventy, and some of the expressions of that ministry that we find in these verses of our text.
I.
Note this as a beginning point: Satan falls when a person trusts Jesus with his life. Look at verses three and four:
vs. 3 Go on your way. See, I am sending you out like lambs into the midst of wolves.
vs. 4 Carry no purse, no bag, no sandals; and greet no one on the road.
What a trust! And that kind of trust is what made Satan fall.
It is a radical trust Jesus is calling for. His tactic was to send his disciples out utterly defenseless, totally dependent on him, and on the reception of the people to whom he sent them. They were to carry no cash, no spare clothes or provisions. Jesus was not only testing them, he had something else in mind as well. To be confronted by these servants of Christ, the people to whom they went would be forced to make a decision as to what they should do with them.
“If the missionaries had enough money to support themselves, then letting them hire a room in a hotel would be a simple commercial transaction carrying no spiritual implication. But if the people were faced with penniless, destitute men, claiming to be Messiah’s own ambassadors, they would be forced to decide whether they would receive and entertain them as such, or reject them.” (David Gooding, According to Luke, p. 197)
Earl Davis, Pastor of the First Baptist Church in Memphis, tells a precious story that speaks to us here. A pastor and his wife drove up to the church a bit early for the evening activities one Sunday and noticed one of the little girls of the church, perhaps seven or eight years old, sitting on the front steps with a big suitcase. The pastor’s wife figured that the little girl had run away from home, so she went over and sat down beside her and began a conversation. A few general questions revealed that the little girl was not running away from home. “Well, why do you have this suitcase with you?” asked the pastor’s wife. The little girl responded, “This morning the pastor asked who would follow Jesus wherever he went, and I said I would.” She had come prepared.
Now the primary contradiction is that we cease trusting things and our own resources and we begin to radically trust Christ.
A chaplain was visiting with a man in the hospital. He had had a close call. His recuperation was going to require a long time and much discipline. “It has been a saving experience,” he said. “I have learned that I am not invincible.” Then tears came to his eyes as he said, “I have confessed to God and I want you to hear my confession also. I have trusted too much in myself and my money. I am praying every day that the Lord will forgive me and I am seeking to put my total trust in him.”
The chaplain saw Satan fall in the hospital room that day, because Satan falls when a person trusts Christ with his life.
Another minister of the Gospel recalled visiting some patients when he heard the cardiac emergency team being called. For anyone who has experienced that alarm, it is chilling to see the doctors and nurses run into the room where some person trembles on the border between life and death. He said a prayer for both the patient and the family and reflected on his own life. He thought about how every time we try to die to self, the devil calls in his spiritual emergency team and they work like the devil, to keep the old man, the carnal man, the man who trusts in his own self alive. So it is an ongoing experience. It is an ongoing effort, a never-ending struggle—to deny ourselves, to cease trusting things and our own resources and to trust Christ completely. When we do that Satan falls.
II.
Now, a second word. Satan falls when a person stands firm against evil in whatever form evil may take. Look at Jesus’ instruction to his disciples in verse 10 and 11.
vs. 10 But whenever you enter a town and they do not welcome you, go out into its streets and say,
vs. 11 Even the dust of your town that clings to our feet, we wipe off in protest against you. Yet know this: the kingdom of God has come near.
Public demonstrations have been a positive force in the past thirty years in some of the most important social issues of our time. Demonstrations fired and kept the Civil Rights Movement alive. Demonstrations played a significant role in bringing the Vietnam War to a close. Jesus was calling for a demonstration from his disciples. He is telling them that they are to shake the dust off their feet if people refuse to hear the gospel.
Whether public demonstration or not, public action is called for from the church and individual Christians.
Winston Churchill was great with words. He was always able to put in brilliant succinctness, expansive ideas and challenges. He said of the slow Allied response to Hitler’s onslaught at the beginning of World War II, “Virtuous motives, trembled by inertia and timidity, are no match for armed and resolute weakness.” (The Gathering Storm, p. 171)
III.
Closely akin to a stand against evil is this dynamic: when a person exercises the power of Christ obediently in faith believing, then Satan falls. Let’s read verses 8 and 9.
“Whenever you enter a town and its people welcome you, eat what is set before you;
“Cure the sick who are there, and say to them, ‘The Kingdom of God has come near to you.’”
Don’t get hung up here with the ministry of healing which Jesus obviously gave to his disciples. You don’t have to jump off the deep end of a pool to get into the water. You can walk in from the shallow end. But to get in, you have got to step or jump in somewhere.
Ray Sexton, a psychiatrist, tells about a troubled man who went to see a psychiatrist.
After customary introductions, the psychiatrist asked him to tell him his problem.
Embarrassingly, the patient reported that he had difficulty when he arrived in his home. He would walk into his bedroom thinking that something was under his bed. Consequently, he would crawl under his bed, look thoroughly and seeing nothing, and would then be hit with the idea that something was on top of his bed. Quickly, he would look to the top of his bed closely and see nothing. Again, the idea would hit him that something was under his bed. He would then drop down under his bed looking thoroughly and see nothing. He would feel that something was on top of his bed again. This would go on over and over. Top, underneath, top, underneath, top, underneath. The gentleman told the psychiatrist that this was driving him crazy. He needed some relief in order to carry on his other business.
The psychiatrist reassured him that he had a correctable problem but that it would require weekly visits to dig out the deeper rooted conflicts. The cost would be $100 per visit, per week over a period of about two years.
Somewhat dazed, the patient left the office without making his appointments. He was not seen or heard from by the psychiatrist for about six months. The psychiatrist accidentally ran into him at a neighborhood restaurant. The psychiatrist asked him, “Joe I haven’t heard from you, whatever happened?”
The patient said, “Well when you told me how long it would take and the expense, I was devastated. I immediately went to the bar to drink away my despair but the bartender cured me in one session for ten dollars. I haven’t had a problem since.”
The psychiatrist asked him, “What in the world did the bartender do?”
Joe happily responded, “The bartender told me to go home and saw the legs off of my bed.”
So we can do something, and we must do something. We’ve got to step or jump in somewhere.
We can get in there, can’t we? Making sure that where we are, God is. Making sure that we obey Christ in giving cups of cold water and feeding the hungry and visiting the sick and prisoners. We can get in somewhere. And when we get in—taking a step of faith and attempting what we know we could never do in our own power alone, Satan will fall.
IV.
Now this final word. Satan falls when a person is so at one with Christ that Christ lives and acts through that person. Look at verse 16.
“Whoever listens to you listens to me, and whoever rejects you rejects me, and whoever rejects me rejects the one who sent me.”
That is a pretty radical picture isn’t it? He who hears you hears me—and he who rejects you rejects me—a radical picture of oneness with Christ. But it is consistent with all of Jesus’ teaching. You remember his metaphor of the vine and the branches in chapter 15 of John’s gospel in which Jesus tells us who God is, and who he is in relation to God, and who we are in relation to him:
I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine dresser . . . I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in me, and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.
And do you recall his petition in what we have come to call the “High Priestly Prayer” in John 17. Not the prayer he taught us to pray, but his own last anguishing prayer for his disciples and us. Listen to him as he prays:
“I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.
The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.”
I in them and thou in me . . . that the world may know that thou hast sent me and has loved them even as thou hast loved me.
Satan falls when that happens—when a person is so at one with Christ that Christ lives and acts through that person.
One of the best letters of reference ever received at the University of Alabama Medical School, according to the Director of Admissions, came from an old mountaineer. The letter read:
“I know’d this kid from the day he was born. He played with my kids, helped me with the chores. I don’t know if he has sense enuf to make it in medical school, but I know he will be the kind of man I’d like to come here to take care of me and my folks.” (Don Shelby, Final Evaluations)
Isn’t that beautiful? And it hints at what I am saying. We can be so at one with Christ that Christ will live and act through us.
Go back to my original question now—the question with which we began: Has there been a time in your life when Jesus, looking at your life and ministry, has said, “I saw Satan fall?” Maybe you can begin to answer the question now. For Satan falls when a person trusts Jesus with his life. Satan falls when a person stands firm against evil. Satan falls when a person exercises the power of Christ obediently in faith. And Satan falls when a person is so at one with Christ that Christ lives and acts through that person.
Final closing: There was a significant verse in our scripture lesson —it was the closing verse of the lesson—verse 20. Jesus told his followers that it was wonderful that they discovered that all the demons were subject to them in Jesus’ name—and that was something to rejoice over—but he said to them the most important thing for you to rejoice about is that your names are written in heaven. We can go on that, can’t we—we can rejoice even when we are failing in ministry, even when we feel ourselves a failure—if we know our names are written in heaven.