War in Heaven
Notes
Transcript
INTRODUCTION
INTRODUCTION
During World War II, the Battle of Normandy, lasted from June 1944 to August 1944. The goal was the Allied liberation of Western Europe from the Third Reich’s control.
The codename was Operation Overlord. The battle started on June 6, 1944—known as D-Day, when some 156,000 American, British and Canadian forces landed on five beaches along a 50-mile stretch of the heavily fortified coast of France’s Normandy region.
The invasion was one of the largest seaborne military assaults in history.
Prior to D-Day, the Allies conducted a large-scale deception campaign designed to mislead the Germans about where they intended to land.
Within two and a half months, all of northern France had been liberated. By the following spring, the Allies had defeated Germany.
Some call the Normandy landings the beginning of the end of war in Europe.
There are very few events in American history that are more remembered and studied and recalled than D-Day.
Just in terms of movies, we have:
Patton
The Longest Day
Where Eagles Dare
Overlord
Ike: Countdown to D-Day
D-Day: The 6th of June
Breakthrough
A Matter of Resistance
The Desert Fox
The Big Red One
36 Hours
Storming Juno
Saving Private Ryan
This is just to name some of the ones that are heralded
There are so many books and movies and blogs
Why?
Because it was a turning point in a war in which the free world was at stake and it captures the essence of American bravery and sacrifice
Because it was such an important moment in history, we go back to and look at it from lots of angles and viewpoints
Understanding that, we can approach Revelation 12:7-17 and understand that it does not take place after Revelation 12:1-6...
Instead, John is giving us a different perspective of the same events that we saw taking place in the first six verses
The first six verses of chapter 12 describe the events that took place upon the earth in redemption history:
Satan brought sin and death into creation
God promised Satan that a child from Eve’s line would step on his head and destroy him
Revelation 12:1-6 describes to us how Christ was born from Eve’s line, coming from her line.
Throughout the Old Testament, the people of God are like a pregnant woman crying out in birth pains—they are the God’s people under the law, waiting for their Messiah
Jesus is born from the lineage of Israel and before Satan the Dragon can devour Him, Christ lives, dies, resurrects and ascends to heaven
The church flees into the wilderness as she is hunted by the Dragon and she is nourished by God there until the Child who Rules the Nations returns
In verses 7-17, we are going to see John give us the heavenly perspective on those events.
Much like we have some D-Day movies showing us the planning that took place beforehand and some that are more focused on the actual invasion, we are getting different perspectives here
Christ’s defeat of Satan in His first advent is the massive turning point in redemption history.
So just like D-Day, it deserves to be looked at from a multitude of angles
Tonight, we get the heavenly angle.
Now war arose in heaven, Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon. And the dragon and his angels fought back, but he was defeated, and there was no longer any place for them in heaven. And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world—he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him. 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. And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death. Therefore, rejoice, O heavens and you who dwell in them! But woe to you, O earth and sea, for the devil has come down to you in great wrath, because he knows that his time is short!”
And when the dragon saw that he had been thrown down to the earth, he pursued the woman 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, and times, 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 the help of the woman, and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed the river that the dragon had poured from his mouth. Then the dragon became furious with the woman and went off to make war on the rest of her offspring, on those who keep the commandments of God and hold to the testimony of Jesus. And he stood on the sand of the sea.
CHRIST ON EARTH, MICHAEL IN HEAVEN (v. 7-9)
CHRIST ON EARTH, MICHAEL IN HEAVEN (v. 7-9)
Verse 7 begins with pretty stunning words— “War arose in heaven.”
Again—this is not sequential. This is a new perspective on the same events from 12:1-6.
As Christ in on the earth, doing the work of the first Advent—living a sinless life, dying an atoning death and rising again, Michael is in heaven battling with Satan.
You may be tempted to read this and think that it is referring to the Fall, the way verse 4 was.
But verses 10 and 11 clue us into the fact that we are actually dealing with first coming of Christ.
Christ has thrown Satan down and enabled His people to conquer by His blood—we are talking about the saving ministry of the Messiah in His life, death and resurrection.
So while Jesus is doing that work on earth, we have a war in heaven where Michael and the angels are fighting against the Dragon.
In Daniel, Michael is described as having an authoritative role within the ranks of heavenly angels in three different verses (10:13; 10:21; 12:1)
He is called God’s prince and he is depicted as the captain of God’s angels
His name literally means “one who is like God”
There are only three angels named in the Bible. We have two of them fighting here—Michael and Lucifer. The other is Gabriel—not mentioned by name here, but I like to think he is present here.
Notice that this fight is not long. The result is never in question.
And that is because Satan and Michael are not equals.
While they are both angels, Michael is a representative of Christ.
As Jesus is winning the war on earth, Michael represents Him in heaven, but the battle is brief because victory is still dependent upon Jesus and not Michael.
That means that, as the representative of Christ, Michael is superior to Lucifer.
Verses 8-9 tell us that the efforts of Lucifer and his rebellious angels amount to defeat.
It doesn’t take long. It is time for him and demonic legions to be tossed out of heaven.
Now, some of you might be thinking, what was he doing in heaven in the first place?
Well in the Old Testament, we got glimpses of these Old Testament tribunals where Satan would come and stand before God, bringing accusations against God’s people.
Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came among them. The Lord said to Satan, “From where have you come?” Satan answered the Lord and said, “From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking up and down on it.”
Again there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came among them to present himself before the Lord. And the Lord said to Satan, “From where have you come?” Satan answered the Lord and said, “From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking up and down on it.”
There is another scene like this in Zechariah where accusations are being brought against the Joshua, the high priest after Israel returns from Exile
Then he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the Lord, and Satan standing at his right hand to accuse him. And the Lord said to Satan, “The Lord rebuke you, O Satan! The Lord who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you! Is not this a brand plucked from the fire?” Now Joshua was standing before the angel, clothed with filthy garments.
If you keep reading in that passage, God responds to the accusations by taking the priests filthy garments away and giving him clothes of purity.
And God goes on to say that He does this for Joshua as a sign of the Branch who will come from the priestly line in the future.
We know that is Jesus.
And when Jesus the High Priest comes, He puts an end to these accusations of Satan against the people of God.
He sees to it that Satan is cast out of the heavenly tribunals.
The trials are over. God’s people have been declared, “Not guilty.”
And this is why these verses resemble Satan’s fall from heaven.
The war he started in his initial rebellion has taken a major turn here.
This is D-Day. Christ has invaded Satan’s territory. He has come into the world that lies in the power of the evil one.
He has lived and died for sin. He has rose again.
He has removed the sting of death and the hot breath of condemnation from His people.
And so yes—Satan has been thrown down from the heaven tribunals and there is now no accusation that he can bring.
Christ’s Cross and Resurrection and ascension to the place of highest exaltation at the Father’s right hand has seen to it.
Jesus spoke about His own first coming in this way:
Now is the judgment of this world; now will the ruler of this world be cast out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.”
LOUD WORSHIPING VOICES (v. 10-12a)
LOUD WORSHIPING VOICES (v. 10-12a)
As we turn to verses 10-12, we see that there are these loud voices in heaven who are rejoicing over Satan being thrown down.
And they are rejoicing over the salvation, power and kingdom of our God.
They are rejoicing over the authority of Christ that has been displayed
They rejoice that Satan’s accusations of God’s people in the heavenly council are over
They rejoice that the people of God have conquered by the Lamb’s blood and by the Gospel they proclaim.
Even the martyrs who loved the Lord and His Gospel over their very lives.
Satan thought he has finally defeated God when His Son was crucified at Calvary.
But in truth, those who were doomed for being deceived and breaking God’s laws are now saved.
Satan thought the whole world was his through death, but the resurrection of Christ showed the superior power of God over every enemy, including Satan and death.
Satan thought the kingdoms of this world and the kingdom of God was finally his, but the Kingdom of God was confirmed with the covenant-sealing blood of Jesus and the Kingdom will be consummated when Christ returns.
Satan thought all authority belonged to him now, but Christ ascended to the right hand of the Father and sat down and He received the title of Lord once and for all and His authority in shown in how every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Christ is Lord.
So that is what lies at the heart of the rejoicing from the worshiping voice. They are loudly proclaiming the fact that the Accuser has lost his power to bring accusation against God’s people.
And without accusation, there is nothing to separate us from God. Christ has seen to it that we would eternally know God as our Father, without guilt and condemnation.
It is what you see in the heart of Paul in Romans 8:35-39
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written,
“For your sake we are being killed all the day long;
we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Satan has meant to use all of those things to ensure that we would not know God’s love.
He wants the tribulation to cause us to walk away from Christ over discomfort.
He wants distress to cause us to give up in despair.
He wants persecution to cause us to walk away despondent.
He wants suffering to cause to give up on our race in defeat.
But we are double-conquerors through Christ.
Because of the salvation and power and kingdom of God has come...
Because Christ has shown His authority in His death and resurrection...
There is nothing in this life or the next that can separate you from the Father.
There is nothing that anyone can do to you to separate you from the Father.
There is nothing in or out of this world that can separate you from the Father.
The Father has seen to it through the obedient life, death, resurrection and ascension of the Son.
The end result of this is that the heavens should rejoice. That is the only perspective that heaven can have.
Satan the Accuser has lost to Christ the King. The heavens and all who dwell in them, rejoice!
But the earth should have a different reaction.
Satan will rage on the earth with all the more anger and hatred now that his fate is sealed.
His domain is done. It is crumbling by the day. He wants as many as he can get to go down with him in this epic battle for God’s glory.
He is not as in control of that as he thinks, but he is dangerous nonetheless.
THE DRAGON AND THE WOMAN (v. 13-17)
THE DRAGON AND THE WOMAN (v. 13-17)
Now, let’s look at verses 13-17. In these verses, you are getting the same story of verse 6, but now you are getting more detail.
and the woman fled into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God, in which she is to be nourished for 1,260 days.
We determined that this meant the New Testament church, the church under grace, is now being hunted by Satan in the wilderness of the world.
He couldn’t kill the Bridegroom, so he comes for the Bride.
But wherever the church is, doing her kingdom work, God is there nourishing her and protecting her.
And this is taking place for 1260 days, which is a reference to the back-half of Daniel’s 70th symbolic week.
In Daniel 9, there is a prophecy about 70 weeks or “seventy weeks of years.” Seventy sevens.
I taught that we should interpret the first 69 weeks of the prophecy literally, as the time in between Nehemiah and Christ. This is 483 years.
But the 70th week, I believe we interpret symbolically.
The first half of the week is Jesus’ life, death, resurrection and ascension.
Daniel 9:27a (ESV)
And he shall make a strong covenant with many for one week, and for half of the week he shall put an end to sacrifice and offering.
The last half of the week is the age of the New Testament Church. The time in between Jesus’ ascension to heaven and His ultimate return.
So in Revelation 11, we saw the last half of Daniel’s 70th week being talked about symbolically with different numbers:
but do not measure the court outside the temple; leave that out, for it is given over to the nations, and they will trample the holy city for forty-two months. And I will grant authority to my two witnesses, and they will prophesy for 1,260 days, clothed in sackcloth.”
Forty-two months and 1260 days are both ways of describing “three and a half years”—the time of the church age
For three and a half days some from the peoples and tribes and languages and nations will gaze at their dead bodies and refuse to let them be placed in a tomb,
Three and a half days = the back half of the 70th week…The church age
11:11 tells us that after the three and a half days, they resurrect—when Christ returns at the end of the church age
This is the time period being talked about in Revelation 12:13-17—it is an enlarged view of Revelation 12:6...
The camera angle is showing us more of the play.
We know this because of Revelation 12:14
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, and times, and half a time.
“Time, and times, and half a time” is another way of describing the age of witness for the church.
Here is Michael Kuykendall on this:
“The number three-and-a-half is half of the perfect number seven. It is a bad number because alongside its other matches (42 months, 1260 days, time, times and half-a-time).”
Verses 13-17 depict an enraged Dragon reacting to his defeat.
He wanted to eat the child who was born from Eve’s line, who will stomp on his head, and he failed.
And now he is going around trying to breathe his demonic fire on the Bride that the Child will marry.
That is what verse 13 shows us. He is pursuing the mother of the male child.
This is the church.
Christ was born from the lineage of the Old Testament church—the church under the law.
So while He is born from the people of God, He is also the Groom to the people of God in the beauty of the Gospel.
And we should have no problem with using those metaphors interchangeably because the Bible does side by side in Revelation 12...
But as much as the Dragon wants to destroy the woman, he cannot.
In 12:6, she fled into the wilderness, but here in verse 14, we find out how she fled.
She was given the two great wings of the eagle so that she could fly from the serpent into the wilderness of the world and be nourished by the presence and provision of God, wherever she is.
The “two great wings of the great eagle” are not the eagle who pronounced woe from in the cycle of the trumpets. That eagle is not called the great eagle.
Instead, I believe we are meant to recall the way God delivered the people of God in Exodus.
‘You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself.
And while the nourishment for three and a half years certainly refers to the church age, it also makes us recall Elijah under the broom tree.
Pursued by Jezebel after the prophets of Baal were thrown down
But he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness and came and sat down under a broom tree. And he asked that he might die, saying, “It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life, for I am no better than my fathers.” And he lay down and slept under a broom tree. And behold, an angel touched him and said to him, “Arise and eat.” And he looked, and behold, there was at his head a cake baked on hot stones and a jar of water. And he ate and drank and lay down again. And the angel of the Lord came again a second time and touched him and said, “Arise and eat, for the journey is too great for you.” And he arose and ate and drank, and went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights to Horeb, the mount of God.
Like Elijah, God’s prophets—His witnesses—the Church, are being hunted by the Dragon, who is enraged over his defeat.
And like Elijah, it is the nourishment of God that will carry us on.
We will go in the strength of the Lord.
But the Dragon will not relent. He is ready to employ his greatest weapon—lies and deceit.
You see that in verse 15 as he pours water from his mouth like a river. He is seeking to sweep her away like a flood.
In Revelation, what comes from the mouth is symbolic of words and the power they hold.
For example:
In his right hand he held seven stars, from his mouth came a sharp two-edged sword, and his face was like the sun shining in full strength.
That sword symbolizes the power Jesus has to bring judgment—particularly on false teachers, unless they repent:
“And to the angel of the church in Pergamum write: ‘The words of him who has the sharp two-edged sword.
Therefore repent. If not, I will come to you soon and war against them with the sword of my mouth.
The sword shows the authority Christ has to bring judgment.
There is a similar idea back in chapter 11. The two witnesses preach the message of the Kingdom and if anyone comes against them and their message, they will get fire from the mouths of the witnesses in return:
The power in the witnesses was the Gospel in their mouth.
And if you come against that Gospel, you will get the same sort of judgment as the false prophets of Baal got in the days of Elijah
And if anyone would harm them, fire pours from their mouth and consumes their foes. If anyone would harm them, this is how he is doomed to be killed.
When we get to the bowls in chapter 16, we see all sorts of evil coming from the mouths of God’s enemies:
And I saw, coming out of the mouth of the dragon and out of the mouth of the beast and out of the mouth of the false prophet, three unclean spirits like frogs. For they are demonic spirits, performing signs, who go abroad to the kings of the whole world, to assemble them for battle on the great day of God the Almighty.
So what comes from the mouth of the Serpent here in chapter 12?
Well, it isn’t truth. It isn’t God’s Word. It’s lies and deception.
This has always been the weapon used by the Serpent.
From “Did God really say?” to whatever lie he tried to tell you this morning.
He wants to wash the church’s witness away with a flood of lies.
You see Satan doing this early in Revelation as Jesus addresses the seven churches.
He commends Ephesus for resisting false teaching and promises that if they continue to reject this teaching and hold fast, they will eat from the tree of life.
On the other hand, He rebukes Pergamum for holding to false teaching and he says that if they do not repent, He will war against them with what? The sword of his mouth—His judgment according to His Word.
And then the rebukes over false teaching reach a culmination when He comes down on Thyatira for bowing down to a false teaching that is so bad, it is characterized by Jezebel—the most evil female figure of the Old Testament:
But I have this against you, that you tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess and is teaching and seducing my servants to practice sexual immorality and to eat food sacrificed to idols.
And then, if you read about early church history, the attacks from false teachers continued:
Whether it was the Docetists saying Jesus wasn’t fully human
Or the Gnostics arguing that God could never become man because all physical is evil
Or it was as Arius running around convincing people that God created Jesus
People like Ignatius and Iraneaus and Athanasius and Justin Martyr took up arms against this stuff. They fought against it with the truth because they knew that Gospel was at stake and Satan was trying to wash the church away with his lies.
Nothing has changed in terms of his tactics. During the age of the church, he will seek to wash us away with deception.
Even today we have people who run around the church and:
Teach that God the Father chooses not to know the future -OR-
Teach that Jesus’ cross is a means to health, wealth and prosperity -OR-
Teach that God’s Spirit should be understood to be like the genie from Aladdin
Actual quote from Bethel Redding’s Jenn Johnson—a woman who writes songs about the Holy Spirit that are sung in churches all around the country every Sunday
What this shows us is that Satan is still hunting God’s Bride—trying to wash her away with a tidal wave of deceit and falsehood.
And that means we should be vigilant in seeking to discern the truth from the error and to love the truth and despise the error.
Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already. Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. They are from the world; therefore they speak from the world, and the world listens to them. We are from God. Whoever knows God listens to us; whoever is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the Spirit of truth and the spirit of error.
We test the spirits so that we would know if it is the spirit of truth or the spirit of error behind it.
Is it Christ or antichrist?
Thereare words written by a guy named Derek Webb from back in 2003 in a song called Beloved that I love. It is spoken from the perspective of Christ:
Beloved these are perilous days
When your culture is so set in its ways
That you will listen to salesmen and thieves
Preaching other than the truth you've received
Because they are telling lies
For they cannot circumcise your hearts
Beloved there is nothing more
No more blessings and no more rewards
Than the treasure of my body and blood
Given freely to all daughters and sons
The tragedy of it is that Webb did not heed his own words. By 2018, he started calling himself an ex-Christian and now works for an organization where he helps people leave the faith
That is what happens if we are not vigilant in discernment.
The flood will wash us away.
But praise God that the truth of Jesus will never let Satan wash away His church
Individuals may fall away, proving they were not of us to begin with, but the church will never be taken away with the flood of Satan’s lies
Then we get this scene in verse 16 that is both relieving and scary.
The earth comes to the aid of the woman and swallowed the river that the dragon poured out from his lying mouth.
This speaks to God’s judgment and refers back to when the earth opened up and devoured Korah, Dathan and Abiram.
And as soon as he had finished speaking all these words, the ground under them split apart. And the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up, with their households and all the people who belonged to Korah and all their goods. So they and all that belonged to them went down alive into Sheol, and the earth closed over them, and they perished from the midst of the assembly.
In the same way that God protected Israel by swallowing up these false teachers in Moses’ generation, He will swallow up false teachers in the generations of the church.
He will not allow us to be overcome by the devil’s lies.
And then, in verse 17, with the dragon angry that he is unable to wash the woman away with lies, he will come for her offspring.
This is anyone who is born of God under the ministry of the New Testament church.
He will try to eat up every new convert and make shipwreck of their faith
Anyone who obeys Christ and preaches the Gospel is in his cross-hairs.
That is all of us.
And the chapter ends with him standing on the sand of the sea ominously.
And come chapter 13, the Beast will rise from the sea and Satan will use the Beast to try and destroy the church.
The Beast will be representative of oppressive government that persecutes the church, meaning—once the Dragon fails with his deceit, he is trying a different tactic.
TENSION THEOLOGY
TENSION THEOLOGY
In the end, I think that Revelation 12:7-17 presents us with a bit of what I will call “Tension Theology.”
There is lots of Tension Theology in the bible.
For example—we are saved now, but in a sense, we are waiting on our ultimate salvation in Christ’s return.
Already, but not yet. Do you see that tension there? We are holding these two truths at the same time.
I’ll show you another example in Paul talking about his pastoral ministry.
After Paul talks about people are being saved through his ministry and to believers, that is the aroma of life, but to unbelievers, the aroma of death.
For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing, to one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life. Who is sufficient for these things?
Who is sufficient? Not Paul.
And yet, on the other hand, what else did Paul say to Corinth?
Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ.
Paul cries out about his insufficiency, and yet at the same time, he calls on people to imitate him as he imitates Jesus.
That is some Tension Theology. As a pastor he holds these truths at the same time:
I am insufficient
I call on people to follow me
This text gives us a solid dose of tension theology. It shows us undeniable truths that must be held in tension with one another everyday in our living. First we have this:
1. Satan is a dangerous, but defeated enemy.
1. Satan is a dangerous, but defeated enemy.
Satan is called a lot of names in this passage.
He is the Accuser.
He is the Devil.
He is the Dragon.
He is the Deceiver.
He is Satan.
He prowls around the earth, seething over his eternal loss and the victory of God.
Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.
He comes deceiving as an angel of light, convincing you he is for your good, when really is he is seeking to murder you and kill you and destroy you
He comes teaching new gospels with the old lie at the center—
“You can be happy without God.”
For if someone comes and proclaims another Jesus than the one we proclaimed, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or if you accept a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it readily enough.
All of that is true of him. He is a dangerous and powerful enemy.
So powerful that in his original fall, he took a third of the angels with him out of heaven.
So powerful that he calls the Beast up from the sea in chapter 13
So powerful that there is woe to the earth and sea because the devil comes to them in wrath
And yet, we also must hold in tension with that reality, the fact that he is defeated. His end is decreed. His future is fixed.
We know what will happen to those who come against Christ’s witnesses in the world. They will be consumed by fire. That is what 11:5 showed us.
Well that is just a preview of the divine justice that will come down upon Satan and the Beast and the False Prophet in Revelation 20:10
and the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur where the beast and the false prophet were, and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.
And the same will happen for all who follow him.
And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.
So what this means is that when we deal with Satan, we must keep both realities in mind.
We cannot be lulled to sleep by Satan.
We cannot think he is not concerned with us.
We cannot think he is not a devouring lion and a lying angel of light
Joel Beeke says it this way: “He knows where to slither in to push us into sin. We must be on guard against Satan by watching and praying. We must be equipped to face the fury of an enraged enemy and, by grace, overcome him.”
But Beeke gives us the tension-creating truth on the other side, doesn’t he?
By grace, we overcome Him!
By the grace of who? By the grace of the male child who was born from the woman.
The male child whose authority has come to earth and thrown Satan down out of heaven.
He is dangerous, but he is defeated.
You are aware of him, but we do not fear him. We fear the One who crushed him.
That leads us to the second truth that we will close with.
2. The Church is a pursued, but protected Bride.
2. The Church is a pursued, but protected Bride.
Throughout the 1260 day, 42 month, 3 and 1/2 day age of the church, we have safety in Christ.
Verse 6—God is nourishing His bride
Verse 14—the same thing is happening
The Dragon is angry and on the warpath, but God is His people’s refuge and where they seek shelter, He is there
Satan will come with his idols and temptations. His attacks and his slander.
But ultimately, you have God on your side. You have the Spirit dwelling within.
He brings no power against you greater than the power in you and above you.
And throughout the 1260 day, 42 month, 3 and 1/2 day church age, we do not just have safety in Christ, but victory in Christ.
We may not have received that victory in full yet, but even now we are spiritual victors by the blood of Jesus.
And when we trust in His blood, we put ourselves beyond the reach of Satan condemnation and from eternal hell.
ILLUSTRATION: In Michael Greene’s book “Satan’s Downfall,” He has this brilliant illustration that he uses to talk about the Cross.
He said that he read about someone in the middle of a wheat field and it catches on fire.
The flames are all around and there is no way out, but he remembers a tip from a friend.
He lights a fire at his feet and let the wind blow it until there was a significant burn area around the man’s feet.
As long as he stood on the burnt ground, he would be fine. The fire would rage around him, but he would be safe.
And this is a word picture for how we stand firm against the Dragon and we stay faithful to our Gospel testimony.
We must put our faith in the blood of Christ like that man put his faith in the burnt ground.
It is the blood of Jesus that satisfied God’s wrath.
It is the blood of Jesus that was poured out for me.
And He will not die again. He doesn’t need to.
He has provided burnt ground for all of us to stand on.
If you are on the burnt ground of Jesus’ cross, you are eternally victorious.
So holding all of the truth of Revelation 12:7-17 together, we would say, “No—we cannot defeat this Dragon.”
He is too powerful.
He is too deceitful.
He is too angry.
But we are not trusting in our own strength.
We turn to God and find that in Christ, He has already dealt with all of this.
We simply need to trust in Him for safety and victory.
And remember—the devil’s time is short. The God of Peace will soon crush Satan under our feet. Let’s pray.