Angelic War in Heaven

Transcript

GR 2025
12/10/2017
Angelic War in Heaven
Revelation 12:5-9
Gil Rugh

What a privilege it is to celebrate in a special way the birth of Christ, and as believers in Jesus Christ who appreciate something of the wonder and importance of His birth, that He came to this world to be the Savior of a world, lost and without hope, destined to eternal condemnation. But God became man to be the Redeemer of mankind.

We are studying Revelation 12, and even as we have attention focused on the coming of Christ 2000 years ago, being born in humble circumstances in a little insignificant town called Bethlehem, the book of Revelation is moving us toward the climax of this portion of history when Jesus Christ will return to earth again, but in totally different circumstances. It will be with power and great glory. Every eye shall see Him and He will set up a kingdom which will never end. The book of Revelation is preparing us for that event, the coming of Christ to earth to establish a kingdom. Remember it is built around and on the basis of the 70 weeks of Daniel.

Why don't you put up that chart. This is the backbone of prophecy. I'm reminded, because of reading someone here recently, and he holds a different view of prophecy than I would hold, much of prophecy. And he made a snide remark about teachers with their charts and diagrams, they are still not right he doesn't think, but this one is. The 70 weeks of Daniel give the overview of God's program for the nation Israel, 490 years, 70 weeks of years, seven-year periods not seven-day periods. And this sets it out. The first 69 weeks, 483 years, came to a conclusion just before the crucifixion of Christ. These 70 weeks come out of Daniel 9:24ff where we are told that after the 69th week Christ would be crucified.

Then we have a break and that colored area on the chart called the Church Age does not appear in Old Testament prophecy. So really you jump to this last seven-year period. That's the period of time we are talking about in the book of Revelation, from chapter 6 on we are talking about the 70th week of Daniel. By the time these 490 years are done the kingdom will be established, Christ will be ruling, Israel will be redeemed as a nation. Six things laid out in detail in Daniel 9. That will bring us to chapter 20 in the establishing of Christ's kingdom. Now that 70th week, you see that period on your chart there at the end, this is what the book of Revelation is about. From chapter 6 on we are talking about just this period of time. Part of the confusion on the book of Revelation is people get into it, they don't have any idea what we are talking about, where they are.

Put up the next chart, if you will, on the major events of the tribulation. This just lays out the major judgments. We've looked at these. It starts out with seven seals. Every time a seal is broken a judgment is poured out on the earth. Out of the seventh seal came seven trumpets, and every time a trumpet is sounded a terrible judgment poured out on the earth. We noted by the time we get through six of these trumpets, we are this far along, we noted half the earth's population has died, over 3 billion people. Think of that, dead in a 3½ -year period. Huge destruction on the earth like has never been seen before. When we come to the middle, and this is where we are when we come to Revelation 11. The judgments here, the issues here, are bringing to our attention events that will take place from the middle down until the coming of Christ. So we pick up with this last half, and in chapter 11 we noted that the temple had been rebuilt sometime during this first 3½ years because when you get to the middle, we are measuring the temple in Jerusalem. Then we are told at the end of Revelation 11:2 that “the nations,” the Gentiles “will tread underfoot the holy city Jerusalem for 42 months,” so that these 42 months, the last half of this seven-year period is going to be a time when the Jews are under tremendous pressure and persecution. That's what it means, Jerusalem is tread underfoot for 42 months. During that same period of time in verse 3 God will have two prophets carrying on a ministry in Jerusalem that He supernaturally preserves over this 3½ -year period. And at the end of it they will suffer death.

When we come to chapter 12, where we are in our study, we are still dealing with events that cover this last 3½ -year period, and he is going to pick up what we need to know to understand because the last 3½ years are focused particularly on the nation Israel. Now all 490 years are about Israel and God's purposes and plans for Israel. And the last seven-year period, this whole period is part of that. And we saw the temple will be rebuilt and other things will be going on here, but the middle is a specific purpose for Israel, things change here.

Come back to Matthew 24:9. Jesus is giving instructions on future events. He says “Then they will deliver you up to tribulation, will kill you and you will be hated by all nations because of My name.” That’s what we read in Revelation 11 when Jerusalem is “trodden underfoot for 42 months.” Down in verse 15, “When you see the abomination of desolation of spoken of through Daniel the prophet standing in the Holy Place, then those who are in Judea must flee to the mountains.” That takes place right here in the middle. Then we are told in verse 21, “Then there will be great tribulation that has not occurred since the beginning of the world. And if those days had not been cut short, no life would be saved.” So this last 3½ -year period is of special significance and the devil, Satan, will be putting all his attention into attempting to destroy the Jews. So that's why this is such a terrible time. So if we are going to talk about Israel during this period of time, we're going to talk about the devil's activity during this period of time, we're going to talk about the persecution of the Jews during this period of time. When we get to Revelation 13 we'll talk about the rise of the western world ruler who will lead the persecution of Israel. All this will then culminate at the coming of Christ. When we get to Revelation 16 we will see the bowls of judgment that are poured out on the whole world.

So it is important as the judgments are poured out that we understand what God is doing to bring the nation Israel to its knees. Remember there are two key purposes in this seven-year period—#1, to pour out God's wrath on an unbelieving world. We can see the world becoming even more open and blatant in its rebellion and prideful arrogance of rejecting the living God. God is going to pour out His judgment, that's where we saw 3½ billion people die just in 3½ years. And the last, the worse is here. These are the worst of the judgments for the world, the bowls. And along with this, this is the worst time Israel will have ever experienced in all its history for persecution and suffering so that by the time you get here, the nation as a nation finally bows before God and acknowledges that Jesus of Nazareth is their Messiah. It's not a complicated book as long as we take it at face value and follow the pattern.

Come to Revelation 12. I remember someone sharing with me a criticism of a pastor I know, some of you would know him, he said I only have to go to his church every other week because he spends the first time telling me what he told me last week. So if I come every other week, I don't have to listen to all the repetition. Well, if you weren't here last week, this is new to you. Revelation 12 opens up, first we want to put in perspective the nation Israel. So we've looked at the first six verses and you have this “sign in heaven of a woman clothed with the sun and the moon under her feet, on her head a crown of twelve stars.” Now some, like the Roman Catholic church and others, say this is Mary. But it's not Mary, it is representative of the nation Israel. If you put up that chart on the woman in Revelation 12, we went over these five reasons why this woman is Israel. The foundational reason is Genesis 37:9-10 where Israel is clearly represented by a woman. The man is the sun, the woman is the moon, so this woman is pictured there and has the twelve stars, representing the twelve tribes of Israel. And the man there is Jacob, then his wife, Joseph one of the sons and then the other eleven sons. So it is the nation Israel that is in view, and then there are other reasons we looked at as well.

“She was with child and she cried out being in labor and pain to give birth.” This is Israel who, through its history, has been looking toward the coming of the Messiah. All the suffering, all the difficulty, all the persecution and now being dominated and controlled by the Romans, being ruled by a man called Herod who had been appointed by the Romans to rule Israel. And he is not even a Jew. And in this pain and agony, anticipating the birth of their Messiah.

Now we take a break, verses 3-4. we have to understand who the great opponent of the nation Israel is. “There appeared another sign in heaven, behold a great red dragon having seven heads and ten horns and on his heads were seven diadems, his tail swept away a third of the stars of heaven. And the dragon stood before the woman who was about to give birth so that when she gave birth he might devour the child.” And as we see when we look in detail shortly in verse 9, the great red dragon represents the devil, his fierceness. He is blood thirsty, he is red, he is a bloody, fierce adversary. He has seven heads and ten horns, and if you would put that slide up that we did last week on the empires, major empires in biblical history. And we went back and looked in Daniel and Daniel covered four of these. He started with #3 here, Babylon, then we come down to Persia, #4, #5 Greece, #6 Rome because Daniel started from his day. The revelation given to him began with Babylon.

Remember Daniel has been taken captive and is in Babylon. The southern two tribes, Judah, had been carried away in captivity; the northern ten tribes had been carried away captive earlier by Assyria in 722 B.C. This is 586 B.C. when Babylon takes them. Now when John sees in his revelation, he goes back to the beginning, and we noted he starts with the first major empire to impact Israel. The Bible is only concerned about the nations that have an impact on Israel, that intersect with Israel. People say what does the Bible say about China or other nations? They are not important unless they have a relationship with Israel. Egypt is the first nation, it was in Egypt that Israel developed from just a large family of 70 or so people to a nation of 2 million, and they were enslaved by Egypt. So John goes back in Revelation 12 in what he sees because what is revealed here is the dragon that appears has seven heads, indicating it is the devil who is the power and authority behind these earthly empires. And it explains something of why they are all anti-Semitic, because he hates Israel because God has chosen the Jews to be His people.

So we have these, then we add Egypt and Assyria, you have six but the seventh head are the ten nations that we have noted. And we noted these last three can be called Rome because they come out of the Roman Empire. We looked at that in Daniel 2 and in Daniel 7, and we'll see it as we move along in the book of Revelation. There is a ten-nation confederacy of what we call a revived Roman Empire, that will be the seventh empire. And then there will be an eighth, this individual, these will primarily be in power, the ten, the seventh nation during the first 3½ years and the dominant power in the last 3½ is #8, the Antichrist. And we touched on that last week, we'll see it when we get into chapter 13 where we will get a lot of information about #8, the Antichrist. And then in chapter 17 we will see it all put together as well. That gives you the picture here.

So we want to see Israel brought into existence and made a nation by God. The opponent of Israel is the devil. We left off with the nation Israel anticipating the birth of their Messiah to be their deliverer. Now after talking about the devil and that his tail sweeping a third of the stars refers to a third of the angels following him in his rebellion, you come back to the nation Israel in verse 5. “The woman gave birth to a Son,” a male, “who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron.” And that's in connection with the prophecy given in Psalm 2, that He would rule the nations with a rod of iron. “And her child was caught up to God and to His throne.” Now you see there is a huge gap here. At the end of verse 4 the dragon was ready to devour the woman's child. What happened when Christ was born? Herod was on the throne in Israel and he attempted to have Christ killed by having all the babies, the male children that had been born within a certain time period in Bethlehem, have them executed. That's the devil at the end of verse 4, trying to devour the Child. Kill him, destroy Him at the beginning. Now He is going to die but He'll die according to the plan of God, being a Savior, 33 years later on a cross. But here the devil attempted to kill Him but failed.

So in verse 5, “She gave birth to a Son who is to rule the nations, her child was caught up to heaven.” You'll note there is no rule. Now some who don't take prophecy literally say He was caught up to heaven, He is ruling spiritually and it's a spiritual kingdom in hearts. And that's what we have. No, no, no. You just can't bail out, there is no parachute. It makes no sense. That's why people get so confused in the book of Revelation. All of a sudden we are out floating around here. We're consistent with what the Old Testament promised. Her child was caught up to heaven. He didn't set up the kingdom, He didn't destroy the Romans, He didn't put an end to earthly empires as Daniel 2 and Daniel 7 prophesied He would. Not at His first coming.

So really you have a gap between verse 5 and verse 6, the whole church age, that period of time we had on our chart between the 69th week and the 70th week. What fit in there? Christ ascended to heaven in Acts 1, we haven't entered that last seven-year period of Daniel's 70 weeks even yet. So there is a gap there. Christ ascended to heaven. Well, remember this is about Israel, not about the church; the church is not on earth so we are just giving an overview of God's working with Israel and His focus on the nation Israel ended with His ascension to heaven in Acts 1, the establishing of the church in Acts 2. Now He will resume His focus on Israel. The rapture of the church will occur followed by the seven years.

Now we can pick up in the middle of that seven-year period. “Then the woman fled into the wilderness.” So you see the woman of verse 1 who gave birth to the Messiah, the nation Israel is now fleeing because the persecution that we read, that Christ prophesied in Matthew 24, then there will be persecution like the world has never seen. “Where she had a place prepared by God so that there she would be nourished for 1,260 days,” 3½ years. Three hundred sixty days is a prophetic year, that's the number of days Scripture uses rounding off, of a year. We know it's the same because we saw 42 months back in chapter 11, 1,260 days. So the persecution of Israel, has to flee from Jerusalem, from the land of Israel to wilderness area, probably in what we know as the region of Jordan today. Perhaps where the rock city Petra is. But she is fleeing to get away from persecution. Remember Christ said “don't even go down into your house,” in Matthew 24, “to pack a bag.” Just go. Persecution will break out and be so severe so quickly. So the woman fled.

So we have just an overview of Israel and the Messiah being born. The opposition to Israel that goes back to the beginning when they were being formed as a nation in Egypt, behind all of that the devil, the empires of the world under the control and domination of the devil and his angels, those who followed him in his rebellion.

Then we come to verse 7, back to the devil again. So we have Israel, then we have the devil, then we're back to Israel, now we are going back to the Devil. “There was war in heaven, Michael and his angels waging war with the dragon and the dragon and his angels waged war. They were not strong enough, there was no longer a place for them in heaven. The great dragon was thrown down, the serpent of old who is called the devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world. He was thrown down to the earth, his angels were thrown down with him.” And that would connect verse 4, “His tail had a third of the stars.” Now we're not talking about the same event, where his tail swept away a third of heaven and threw them to the earth, those angels followed him, but what we really have connected here is a past event and a future event. You'll note when Christ was born, the devil was also already a followed being who wanted to destroy Christ. He had already been the power behind earthly empires like Egypt, Assyria, Babylon and so on. So his fall taking a third of the stars, angels, with him was an earlier event.

And we looked at this but just jump back again to Ezekiel 28. As happens in prophecy, sometimes God takes an event and then uses that event to tell us about something in the future. So in Ezekiel 28 he is giving a prophecy about the king of Tyre, a godless king. But remember the power behind all these earthly authorities is the devil. That's why he came out as the dragon with the empires on his head. He is the spiritual force behind these earthly empires. So the king of Tyre is one of his servants, one of his rulers. That being the case, God will direct the prophecy about the king of Tyre that really is directed to the devil behind him. Similar to what happens in Genesis 3. Remember Satan used the serpent as his vehicle for communicating to Eve and then deceiving Eve and Adam. When God gives the prophecy, He also says, “you will bruise him on the heel, he will crush your head.” And most take that to be a prophecy of Christ ultimately defeating the devil. But that's in the context of something for the serpent who continues to eat dust today, reminding us of his being the vehicle.

So the king of Tyre is a vehicle for prophecy concerning the devil and truth revealed concerning him. So “son of man, take up a lamentation over the king of Tyre, say to him thus says the Lord.” Now you note what he says here to the king of Tyre goes to the spiritual power behind the king of Tyre. “You have the seal of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. You were in Eden, the garden of God.” Now the king of Tyre had never been in the Garden of Eden, the devil was in the Garden of Eden. He was there in Genesis 3 to deceive and lure Adam and Eve into sin. So when he says you were in Eden, the garden of God, clearly he is talking about the devil. And this being is full of wisdom, perfect in beauty. You can have him described as a fierce dragon, and that's what he is in his character. But if he would appear we would probably be awestruck at his beauty. In his character he is a fallen being, but he was perfect in beauty.

And then describes, “he is adorned with all kinds of precious jewels.” Down to verse 13, “On the day that you were created they were prepared, you were the anointed cherub that covers.” That wasn't the king of Tyre, but that was the devil who was the spirit power behind the king of Tyre. He was perhaps the most exalted authoritative angel. Remember when Michael the archangel had a disagreement with the devil, recorded in the book of Jude. It said “Michael did not dare bring a railing accusation against the devil, but said the Lord rebuke him. Even though he is a fallen being, he is given respect because of the position he was created for. A reminder to us, remember we are told all authorities have been appointed by God and when you rebel against authority you rebel against God. Doesn't matter if they are fallen beings, doesn't matter if the rulers that we are under are fallen people, we still respect and obey them because of the position God has given them, even though they are fallen in character. That is true of the devil.

So he was perfect in beauty. “You were the anointed cherub who covers.” Evidently that exalted place over the throne of God. “I placed you there.” He was created for that. “You were on the holy mountain of God, you walked in the midst of the stones of fire,” which are often associated with the presence of God, the fire. “You were blameless in your ways,” that would not be true of an earthly king because we were conceived in sin, we were born sinners. He was “blameless in your ways from the day you were created until unrighteousness was found in you.” In light of what the Bible says, and we're not going into all this, I take it the devil was created as part of the original creation that we have in Genesis 1, he was created perfectly. And he was in the Garden of Eden. Some writers think that he would have had authority there as part of God's creation. He was perfect, God didn't create him as a fallen being. There came a point in time when he sinned, we'll talk more about that in a moment. At the end of verse 16, “I have destroyed you, O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire. Your heart was lifted up because of your beauty, you corrupted your wisdom by reason of your splendor.” That is key.

Come back to Isaiah 14, and we get more detail. Here it is the king of Babylon that is being addressed, but then God goes beyond the king of Babylon to address Satan who is the spiritual power behind the king of Babylon. And this is in the context, Isaiah 14 opens up, “When the Lord will have compassion on Jacob and again choose Israel and settle them in their own land,” and so on. We're talking about yet future, what will happen at the end of the seven years when Christ comes and establishes the kingdom. But then come down to verse 12, after talking about what happens with the king who has been so merciless in his treatment of Israel. Now we go behind that king. Verse 12, “How have you fallen from heaven, O star of the morning, son of the dawn.” You see something of the exalted, glorious position that Lucifer, Satan, was created to have. Splendid in his wisdom, in his beauty. “You have been cut down to earth, you have weakened the nations. But you said in your heart,” and here are the 5 'I wills'. Remember when Satan corrupted himself because of his beauty, because of his wisdom, we read in Ezekiel. “You said in your heart I will ascend to heaven, I will raise my throne above the stars of God, I will sit on the mount of the assembly in the recesses of the north, I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will make myself like the Most High.” Satan got so absorbed with his magnificence that he decided he should replace God. And that has been the battle of the ages ever since.

So that's what we talked about when the dragon drew a third of the stars of heaven with him in his fall. And that's the battle. In his opposition against God he must oppose all those who are the people of God. So the battle is waged in that realm. “Nevertheless you will be thrust down to Sheol to the recesses of the pit.” We'll get to that when we get ultimately to Revelation 20 and we'll have finally the sentencing of Satan to hell.

Come back to Revelation 12. We talked about the fall of Satan and that he lost his position but he did not lose his access to heaven. So, strange as it seems to us, the devil and the demons still have access to heaven. In fact there are times when God summons the angels, fallen and unfallen, to appear before Him, evidently on regular occasions.

Come back to 1 Kings 22. These are the days when Elijah the prophet is carrying out his ministry, the days when Ahab and Jezebel are ruling. Ugly times. And God is about to bring judgment on Ahab and he has Micaiah the prophet give a prophecy. The context, Jehoshaphat from the southern kingdom has come to join forces with Ahab and the northern kingdom, and Jehoshaphat should not have been doing that, but it is time for Ahab to die. So verse 19, Micaiah is the prophet who has been brought before them. “Micaiah said, ‘therefore hear the word of the Lord. I saw the Lord sitting on His throne,’ now note this, ‘all the host of heaven standing by Him on His right and on His left.’ Then the Lord said, ‘who will entice Ahab to go up and fall at Ramoth-gilead?’” And there are different responses. “Then a spirit came forward and stood before the Lord and said, ‘I will entice him.’” How? “I will go out and be a deceiving spirit in the mouth of all his prophets.” Then God says you are to entice him and prevail, go. Then Micaiah tells them, “your prophets are deceiving you, the Lord has put a deceiving spirit. That's not an unfallen angel, unfallen angels are not deceiving spirits, they are not liars.” So you see here an assembly of an angelic group, you see how sovereign God is over it all. So Satan has a subjected authority and that is what he is fighting against, to try to replace God. But here I want you to see the fallen angels still have access to the presence of God.

Come over to Job, this is the most familiar, and you come to Job 1. Note verse 6, “Now there was a day when the sons of God,” referring to the angels here, “came to present themselves before the Lord and Satan also came among them.” You would think there would be somebody at the gate of heaven saying no, no, no. You are not invited. But he still has access to heaven, similar kind of scene we just saw in 1 Kings 22. Now this day when the angels are summoned before God, that includes the fallen angels. God is still in control. Satan came among them and then God raises the issue of Job. Satan doesn't raise it, God raises it because God is going to use Satan in his evil desires to accomplish His purpose again. Just like He used that fallen angel in his evil desires to accomplish the purposes of God in removing Ahab.

Look how Job 2 opens up, “Again there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord and Satan came among them to present himself before the Lord.” The Lord summons the angels. Can you imagine that gathering? We already noted there have to be billions of angels because Satan rules the world and he is not omnipresent like God is. So he has to do it through the angels who have joined him. One-third of the angels followed him and he is able to manage the world and influence individual people in the world. And calls these angels and they appear before Him and present themselves. It's put in Job 2:1, “to present himself before the Lord.” Evidently the Lord has a time they are required to appear. He is not causing fallen angels to sin, they have chosen, they are corrupted. You'll note with the destruction of Ahab, Satan has no friends, he is a destroyer. What does he want to do? When God says it is time for Ahab to die, I'll see he is killed. The demons,… sure, we don't have any love for Ahab. We'll wipe him out and we'll replace him with another of our men. That's the way it goes.

The same thing is in Zechariah, we've been here a number of times. Zechariah 3:1, “Then he showed me Joshua the High Priest,” and here is a vision in heaven that Zechariah the prophet is having. “Joshua the High Priest standing before the Angel of the Lord,” who is the pre-incarnate Christ, “and Satan standing at his right hand to accuse him.” So here we have this scene in heaven and Satan is accusing Joshua. And do you know what his accusation is? Joshua is unfit, he is ceremonially unclean, he shouldn't be High Priest. You know we are always experts in other people's sin and how terrible it is. Now here Satan has the audacity to stand in the presence of God and bring an accusation against Joshua the High Priest that he is unfit. If anyone is unfit, it's the angel making the accusation, but he is the accuser. We'll see that more fully as we move along in Revelation.

Come back to Revelation 12, it's in verse 10. So we come to verse 7, all this is the background. We see “There was war in heaven, Michael and his angels waging war with the dragon. And the dragon and his angels waged war.” There is war in heaven. Now comes the time where Satan and his angels who have followed him are going to lose access to heaven. And you see Michael leads the war, good angels against fallen angels, and we're cleaning out. You no longer have access to heaven. That's a future event. As we move along in this chapter we find out Satan realizes time is running out. He has a short time, in fact to be certain he has 1260 days; a time, two times and a half time; or down in Revelation 13:5, 42 months. So you see we've gone to the future now. He lost his position, we saw that in the Old Testament, and he has been acting in rebellion against God ever since.

That's the explanation for all that is going on. We have spiritual warfare and conflict going. So “there is war in heaven, Michael and his angels waging war with the dragon. The dragon and his angels waged war, they were not strong enough. There was no longer a place found for them in heaven.” And this is going to be the trip, and Satan realizes we are getting nearer the end. I have to make an all-out effort here. We'll be told down at the end of verse 12, Satan realizes he only has a short time. So the devil is aware, he was full of wisdom. You say if he is so smart, why doesn't he read the last chapter? He loses. You know sin makes no sense. Why would he rebel against the God who created him, thinking he could overthrow Him in the first place? Why do people persist in rebellion against God when they are told that Christ came to earth and died to pay the penalty for sin and unless you believe in Him, you will spend eternity in hell. They put their fingers in their ears and say go away. Does sin make any sense? I often say sin makes you stupid, and I say with all due respect. The devil, because of sin, is stupid in the sense he can't win. What's going to happen to him after he spends a thousand years bound in the abyss? He has to try one more time. But you understand there is no salvation for demons, so he has nowhere to go but to persist in his sin. And he doesn't want to go anywhere else.

Michael and his angels, we have to mention Michael since he is mentioned here. Michael is an angel of great power. Come back to Daniel 10 and you see something of the order, we have talked about this. Daniel has prayed, he is waiting for an answer. And an angel is sent with an answer, Gabriel, an angel we know by name. Now the Babylonians have since been conquered by the Persians, Medo-Persian Empire, we saw that on our list. But Daniel is still alive and his ministry continues over. Verse 12, “when the angel appears to Daniel he says, ‘Do not be afraid, Daniel, for from the first day that you set your heart on understanding this and humbling yourself before God, your words were heard. I have come in response to your word. But the prince of the kingdom of Persia was withstanding me for 21 days.’”

There is a demonic being in the organization and over the empires. And this angel, demonic angel, fallen angel has such power that he was able, he has greater power than the angel who was sent, even though he is fallen. The order is still recognized. This angel from God could not proceed into the kingdom of Persia to give Daniel his answer, that demonic angel had greater authority. And so verse 13, the middle of the verse, “then behold Michael, one of the chief princes,” he is an archangel, “came to me for I had been left there with the kings of Persia.” There you have kings, plural, I take it talking about these demonic rulers, those who had this power. I couldn't proceed into Persia. So much going on in the spirit world, we get these little windows. We forget, we get caught up in our mundane things that seem so great. This is a spiritual war going on and we are part of it.

So here Michael, he is the one, come down to verse 21, the end of the verse, “No one stands firmly against these forces except Michael your prince.” And Michael the archangel is identified as being the angel with major responsibility for the nation Israel. And you see he has extraordinary authority in the angelic realm, he could overrule the demonic being who is in charge of Persia. So you see he is connected to Israel, God's working God's purposes for Israel. Come to Daniel 12:1, “Now at that time Michael the great prince who stands guard over the sons of your people.” Daniel is a Jew, when he is talking to Daniel about your people, it is clear he is talking about the Jews. He is the great prince who stands guard over your people. In the plan of God one of the reasons the nation Israel has not been destroyed is God has assigned Michael the responsibility of oversight and preservation, even in the midst of their suffering they won't be destroyed. God is ultimate, the power in everything, of course. And you'll note what happens, “There will be a time of distress such as never has occurred since there was a nation until that time.” And the deliverance of Israel, the resurrection and so on. So this carries over from Daniel 11 because from Daniel 11:36, we're going to talk about that man when we get to Daniel 13, he's the eighth empire. So it is in that context that Michael stands up to protect Israel, preserve them through their suffering.

Come back to Revelation 12. So there is war in heaven, there was conflict in heaven back at the time of the Garden of Eden, before Adam and Eve sinned. Satan evidently perhaps had authority over all creation at that point. He was in the garden with his majesty and greatness, decided he ought to be God. There was that fall, now there is war in heaven to close off access for the devil. “There is no place found for them,” verse 9, “the great dragon,” we noted that denotes his fierceness, the red perhaps is bloodiness. The devil is no friend, the going along with the devil doesn't make you a friend. Ahab, as godless as he was, was no friend of the devil. Sure, one of the devil's demons, I'll lead him out, I'll lie, lure him to destruction. He is the dragon. His great enemy is anyone who belongs to Christ, God's people. And the nation is Israel, his enemy.

“He is called the devil.” The devil translates from the word diabolos. I mentioned in my first hour class, one of the old cowboys had a horse named Diabolos. And afterward somebody ran it on the internet and said it was the Cisco Kid. This is all about diabolos, it has nothing to do with horses. It means a divider, a slanderer, an adversary. Do you wonder why there is so much lying, so much slandering, so much false accusations going on? That's what the devil is by name, that's his title. That's why James 3 says the tongue is a great adversary against us, because with our own fallen sin nature and the devil whispering in our ear, go ahead and say it, it sets great fires going. We have seen fires burning, you see why James uses that analogy, just sweeps and destroys. That's what he is, he is the slanderer, the defamer, the accuser of the brethren in verse 10. He uses this in a great way against believers. It's not like this is why the world has . . . No, it happens to believers and he accuses them before the throne of God. He lures them to sin and then he goes before God and says, look what they did, you ought to punish them. Amazing.

He is Satan, this is a similar word in meaning to the devil. It comes from the Hebrew word, it just transliterates over. Satan is an adversary, he is an opposer, he opposes everything that is true to God. There is no truth in him. God is the God of truth who cannot lie, Satan is a liar who cannot tell the truth. He is an adversary. It's a name used over thirty times in the New Testament, Satan. You'll note “he deceives the whole world.” He deceives the whole world. “The whole world lies in the evil one,” 1 John 5 says. He is a deceiver, that's what he does. Throughout the world he is deceiving people. It started back, remember what Paul wrote to the Corinthian church in 2 Corinthians 11:3? “He says, ‘I am afraid lest as Satan deceived Eve by his craftiness, you, too, would be deceived from faithfulness of devotion to Christ, your purity of devotion to Him.” He's not just out there deceiving the unbelieving world, he is at work attempting to delude and deceive God's people. That's Paul's concern for the Corinthians when he wrote, Satan masquerades as an angel of light, his followers masquerade as an angel of light. Pay attention. But we don't.

And the church still has the same problems the Corinthian church had, the Galatian church has, the conflicts, the divisions, the deceit, the delusions, the slander. It just keeps going on. Why? The devil doesn't stop, and we as believers don't pay attention. When I list to the devil's lies, pretty soon I'm becoming the devil's mouthpiece. Do you remember what Christ had to say to Peter? Get behind Me, Satan, because your saying comes from Satan and not God. A terrible thing. How would you like the Son of God to say to you as a child of God, get behind Me, Satan. Satan was using Peter's mouth to spout his lies. We surely don't want to do that.

He is “deceiving the whole world, he was thrown down to the earth, his angels were thrown down with him.” That means they no longer have access, they are thrown down to the earth, no longer have access to heaven. There is celebration in heaven because this is an indication in heaven, we've reached the final stage. There is furious activity on earth by the devil stirring up all his followers, demonic and human, to give an all-out push to try to win this conflict. He knows the time is short. The persecution of Israel, we go back to World War II when the Jews were . . . That's nothing to what is coming. Take God's Word for it, He said there is nothing like this that has ever happened since the beginning of the world. We have seen 3.5 billion people die and now the worst like you've never seen before is going to pour out. And for Israel, but for the grace of God they wouldn't be left, there wouldn't be anybody else left, either. So we'll pick that up with verse 10.

We see the spiritual war that is going on and the focal earthly people is the nation Israel. The church has been raptured to heaven. Now there are other Gentiles being saved and they are being martyred, but the focal point of the devil's wrath is the Jews. Do you know why? The kingdom was promised to Israel. He tried to kill the descendant of David who could rule on the throne, he couldn't. But if he wipes out the Jews there can be no Jewish kingdom, so God fails. If God fails, Satan wins. Now we know, we've read the last chapter, it can't happen. But sin has a way of blinding you.

Some of you can sit here and you are blinded. You say the devil . . ., I can't believe it. But you sit here and hear the Gospel and still haven't believed it. Why would you do that? You are going to hell, the last chapter has been written, we'll get there in Revelation 20. You will end up in hell if you don't place your faith in Christ. Why would you sit here and not believe it? It is easy to be amazed, I can't believe the devil would be so foolish. I can't believe you would be so foolish. I can't believe but by the grace of God that I would have been so foolish. Why will you not believe? Do you know why? The devil is whispering in your ear, it is getting late, you have other things on your mind, let's get out of here. I heard that, my parents told me that. I talked to a man this week, he says my grandmother told me that. I said now it is time to believe it, God sent me here to tell you believe what your grandmother told you. I hope he does, I hope you do.

Let's pray. Thank You, Lord, for Your grace and mercy down through the ages of history. Lord, as we look over and You talk about empires coming and going, Lord, we are in awe. We know so little and yet what we know is true from your Word. The spiritual forces of wickedness battling against you and us as your people, the forces of Satan moving in the affairs of the world. But in all their rebellion You are sovereignly moving it all to the appointed climax of the coming of Your Son to establish a kingdom for which there will be no end. Lord, judgment that will separate all living beings for heaven or hell, how gracious You are, how patient You are to continue to give opportunity to hear and believe the message of truth. Lord, may we who have believed be careful to keep our perspective in line with the Word you have revealed, not to become careless and lax and indifferent, but realize our enemy the devil goes about as a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. We are to be on alert, we are to be faithful in our stewardship. We pray in Christ's name, amen.