The War of the Ages, Part 2
Revelation 12:7-12
We have the great privilege tonight, and indeed it is to
open the Word of God to hear the very voice of God speaking to us out of Revelation chapter 12. Let's look together to Revelation chapter 12. And I want to acknowledge to you that it's very difficult in one sense to sort out this chapter and put it into sermon form. There is so much that is overlapping and interwoven and recapitulates what is said earlier in the chapter that it's not as simple as just taking a few verses and then another few verses and another few verses as we are wanting to do generally. And so we tend to cycle back and pick up pieces and look ahead and pick up pieces as we work through.
It is also true that this chapter, while only containing seventeen verses, is so sweeping in its content that it goes all the way from the past, clear back when Satan fell, all the way to the future in the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. It embraces, in fact, all of human history. It is sweeping in its content. And though it does not give great detail, it gives us enough information to sweep us all throughout human history to understand the great raging war of the ages that has gone on between the forces of God and the forces of Satan.
Because that is the case, it is equally to know what to say and what not to say because you can literally dig in to any one of these areas of truth and expand it on and on and on, just a study of Satan alone or a study of his angels alone or the holy angels or of Michael or of Israel or all of the various characters in this great drama would and could take us months and months.
We also note here that there are things which bring us terror and there are things which bring us joy. There is the response of the wicked. There is the response of the righteous. Just so much is in this chapter. We're trying our best to give you a feeling for it, a flow of it, the sense of it and some kind of an expanded understanding which will properly enrich it as the Spirit of God would have it done.
Let's look tonight at verses 7 to 12. "And there was war in heaven. Michael and his angels waging war with the dragon and the dragon and his angels waged war. And they were not strong enough and there was no longer a place found for them in heaven. And 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 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 brethren has been thrown down who accuses them before our God day and night. And they overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb and because of the word of their testimony, and they did not love their life even to death. For this reason rejoice, O heavens, and you who dwell in them. Woe to the earth and the sea because the devil has come down to you having great wrath knowing that he has only a short time.'"
Now we're going to do our best to take you through this tremendous and searching text. But let me begin, if I can, with something that may get your attention. Did you know that at the present time Satan is not in hell? In fact, did you know that he has never been to hell? And did you know that when he finally does get to hell, he's not going to be in charge? In fact, when the devil gets to hell, he will be the lowest being there. He will be assigned the most horrible punishment of any creature ever made. He is not the king of hell. He is not in hell. And he's never been there.
In fact, he spends most of his time, according to this text, where? In heaven. Did you know that Satan who was once the anointed cherub, exalted above all other angels living in heaven with God, even now still spends most of his efforts before the throne of God? It tells us in the very text which I just read, verse 10, that he's there day and night. He still has access to heaven and he's not yet sentenced to hell. That doesn't come yet. In fact, as I said, he's never been to hell.
Now what this text tells us is that soon he's going to be sent out of heaven to earth and ultimately after that he will be sent to hell, which is defined in the book of Revelation later on as the lake of fire prepared for the devil and his angels.
Now his reason for spending so much time in heaven now and for orchestrating his demons to propagate their deceptive lies is to accomplish what he has always wanted to accomplish and that is the overthrow of God, the overthrow of God's purposes, the overthrow of God's plan, and the overthrow of God's people. He has his devices. He has his schemes. But they all have the same basic intent...defeat God, destroy His plan, wipe out His people one way or another. And one of the things that he does is this endless harangue that he carries on in heaven. He's there day and night accusing believers before God, haranguing in the ear of God, as it were, about the unworthiness of believers. He is there reminding God of our sin and our failure and telling God He ought to let us go to hell, He ought to let go of us because we aren't worthy. There is a certain kind of hypocrisy in all of that, appealing to the righteousness of God while he himself only seeks that which is unrighteous. He wants to capture us for his own dominion of darkness in his own domain. And more than that, he wants to show that he can destroy salvation. He wants to show that he can break salvation. He wants to show that in fact he can take someone out of the hand of God. He wants to show that he can find a suitable condemnation for which God will indeed remove the salvation He once gave, he wants to obviate the promise of God, show that God's saving power can be broken, show that the sacrifice of Christ as formidable as it was can be shattered and somebody can have been saved and then lose it.
In addition to this endless harangue of accusations that goes on day and night before the throne of God against believers, he is also engaged in battle with holy angels. He and his demons over whom he rules in his kingdom are waging ongoing and incessant war with Michael and the holy angels. Satan has been identified as the prince of the power of the air. He is also the god of this world. So the theater of his operations descends from the air, the heavens where there's a celestial warfare with Michael and the holy angels, right down to earth where Satan and his demons are engaged in controlling world systems of religion and government.
Now Satan's plans are, as I said, rather simple. He wants to eliminate anybody who works for the purposes of God whether they be Jews or believers. If he could, he would kill them all. Better yet, he would destroy their faith were that possible. He also wants to bring about the unification of the whole world under his rulership. He wants to be what in fact he is only temporarily, and that only over an unrighteous world and that is the god of this world. He wants the entire world to worship him. He wants to prevent Christ from coming back and establishing His kingdom...both spiritually in the hearts of men, millennially on the earth and eternally in the new heavens and the new earth.
So he has worked ever since his fall to endeavor to thwart the purposes of God, whether they were being effected through angels or men. His efforts have been certainly to destroy the work of the holy angels, that's why they engage in battle with he and his forces so consistently. His efforts have been to destroy men, particularly those who name the name of God and are identified with Him or with Christ, namely Israel and the church. He wants to do anything he can to wipe them out, destroy them, shatter their faith. He is relentless and he never gives up. He can read the Bible just like you and me, he knows perfectly well how to interpret it. In fact, he knows the right interpretation of everything because he was the covering cherub, Lucifer, before his fall. He knows exactly what is the mind and the heart of God in these matters. He can read it just like you can. He knows he's headed for the lake of fire to burn there forever and ever. But he is not going to take that lying down. He is not going to give up. He is relentless. And even though he can read the Bible that he's not going to win, he can read his destiny as clearly as any of us can and understand it better because he understands the working of God better than we do, he still fights. And that is the war of the ages. It is this ongoing incessant relentless war between good and evil, sin and righteousness, the forces of God and the forces of Satan.
Now this battle which continually goes on and it goes on on a supernatural level between the angels and it goes on on the earth on a moral level and an ideological level and a theological level and a philosophical level, it is going on at every conceivable level in the human and superhuman realm. That whole war is going to reach its...its great climax in the future day known as the Tribulation. There is coming a day in the future after the church has been caught away in which the world will receive seven years of the wrath of God. We've been learning about it from Revelation 6 through 11. Daniel spoke of the same period of time in the prophecy of Daniel in chapter 9 and Jesus spoke of it in Matthew chapter 24 and then again in Luke.
And so, that time is coming in which God is going to pour out judgment on the world. Well when He does that, the battle isn't going to end, in fact Satan is going to be active during that seven-year period as well. In fact, he's going to be more devastatingly active on earth than at any other time because the theater of his operation is going to be confined to the earth. You will notice in the text it says the great dragon, verse 9, was thrown down. He was thrown down. Down means down to earth, it says at the end of verse 9, "And his angels were thrown down with him." And what makes the Tribulation in part so horrible is not just the judgment of God, but it is the arrival of Satan and all of his fallen minions landing on the earth. That spells really the end of his time as prince of the power of the air and his whole operation is confined to the earth. And, of course that means that all the demons are fully occupied here in this very place. That horrifying, indescribable and unbelievable epoch of time is waiting the world of unbelieving men and women.
Now in chapter 6 through 11 we looked at that seven-year period from God's side, and in chapters 12 through 14 we look at it from Satan's side. We've already spent a great amount of time going through the structure of chapters 6 through 11 and seeing precisely what it is that God is going to do by way of His judgment. We saw that in the seven seals and the seven trumpets, and there is yet to come seven-bowl judgments that we'll get to when we get over to chapter 15. But until we get to that particular point, there's a little respite and a recapitulation of the same seven-year period only from the vantage point of Satan. And it is a fierce, fierce battle that he carries on. God is pouring out judgment but Satan is on the earth confined here, all his demons are confined here, and the conflict reaches a fever pitch.
Now somebody might ask the question, "Is not Satan already a defeated foe? I mean, wasn't he destroyed at the cross and through the resurrection of Jesus Christ?" And of course the answer to that question in a sense is yes. In John chapter 12 and verse 31 Jesus said this, "Now judgment is upon this world, now the ruler of this world shall be cast out." Jesus anticipating the cross, His triumph over sin, anticipating the resurrection, His triumph over death was saying...the ruler of this world shall be cast out and I if I be lifted up will draw all men to Me. So Jesus is saying in the cross is the defeat of Satan. The fact of his defeat occurred at the cross, the actual execution or sentencing is yet to happen.
Also in Romans 16:20 it says, "The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet." He is already defeated by the cross, the resurrection, but the execution hasn't taken place yet. It's as if he were an incarcerated criminal waiting for the gas chamber. In Hebrews also chapter 2 and verse 14 again reminds us that Jesus Christ has destroyed his power. It says that through death Christ rendered powerless him who had the power of death, that is the devil. So he is to be cast out. He has been rendered powerless. The triumph has been accomplished. The sentencing is yet future. First John 4:4 should be added to that. It says, "You are from God little children and have overcome them because greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world." He is a defeated foe, the defeat has taken place but he still awaits the sentence. And until the final sentence comes, he is running around loose, doing everything he can to overturn the triumph of Christ.
Chapter 20 of Revelation and verse 3 tells us that an angel comes down from heaven, has a great chain, lays hold of the dragon and throws him into the abyss, or the pit, shuts it and seals it over him so that he can't deceive the nations any longer for the period of the thousand year kingdom. And after that, of course, he is cast into the lake of fire, down in verse 10, where he is tormented day and night forever and forever.
And even though he was defeated at the cross, he is still alive. He is still moving around until the actual sentence of execution and the battle still rages. The battle will go on until Jesus comes to incarcerate him, and then to incinerate him on his first and last trip to eternal hell, the lake of fire.
Now all of this epochal supernatural war comes to its climax in this profound passage. We know who's going to win, chapter 11 indicated it, verse 15, "The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ and He will reign forever and ever." It's very clear who is going to win, verse 17 basically says the same thing, "Thou hast taken Thy great power and hast begun to reign." That anticipates the triumph of Christ even though the final battle has not yet been waged.
So the seventh trumpet is blown in chapter 11. Then we go back in chapters 12 to 14, as you know, and look at the same period of seven years from the vantage point of Satan. Now remember in the first six verses, just a brief review, this scene that plays out in this twelfth chapter, this look at the seven-year Tribulation period and the great battle that Satan is engaged in, involves a number of very important characters. We've already met three of them. First of all, we met the woman, you remember, in verse 1, a woman clothed with the sun, the moon under her feet, her head was crowned with twelve stars. We noted that in verse 6 she was fleeing into the wilderness to a place prepared for her by God where she might be nourished for twelve hundred and sixty days, or three and a half years, half of that seven-year period. The woman, we said, is Israel.
Then we met the dragon, the dragon, of course, clearly is Satan. The dragon who is a great red dragon with seven heads and ten horns showing his great ruling power and authority. He is the one who wants to destroy. He not only wants to destroy the woman but he wants to destroy the third character in the first six verses, the male child, that refers to Christ. So Satan tries to destroy Israel and tries to destroy the Christ, the Messiah that is born of the nation Israel.
That takes us into the time of the Tribulation. By the way, we said that Satan has been trying to destroy Israel since the beginning and he tried through many different ways to do it in the past. He tried to destroy the birth of Christ and when Christ was finally born he tried to get Herod to murder him. And then he tried to get the people of Nazareth to kill Him. And he tried a number of different things to destroy Christ, all unsuccessfully. Now as we come in verse 6, we see we're moving in to this period of Tribulation. He is still chasing the woman. Still trying to destroy Israel, the people of God, still with the same agenda.
But there's more to the battle than just the dragon chasing the woman during the latter half of the time of Tribulation, and the more is what we find in verse 7. And it explains why verse 6 takes place. Now let's start with the point that will be just a simple point, war in heaven. And then we'll move to a second point, war on earth. War in heaven, verse 7. "And there was war in heaven, Michael and his angels waging war with the dragon and the dragon and his angels waged war and they were not strong enough and there was no longer a place found for them in heaven."
It's been going on for a long time. And that state of war is still continuing in to that period known as the Tribulation. That's been going on since the fall of Satan back in verse 4, when he swept away a third of the angels with him in his rebellion and they were thrown, as it were, out of heaven down to earth where he became the ruler of this world. He still has access to God's presence at this time, he did then from the time he was cast out, but his domain is the earth and the air around the earth. That's why he's known as the prince of the power of the air, that's why the Bible says in Ephesians chapter 6 verse 12 that his demon hordes are called spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenlies. And so we note that he operates in heaven as well as on earth. And he operates in heaven in a warfare against the holy angels.
Now Hebrews 1:14 says the angels are sent to be ministers of the people of God, or the children of God. And what he wants to do is thwart the angelic ministry. Whatever purposes God wants to carry out on behalf of His own, Satan wants to stop. So when God dispatches holy angels to assist Israel in the Old Testament, Satan interferes. When He dispatches holy angels to aid the children of God in the church in the New Testament dispensation, Satan wants to interfere with that operation any way he can. And so he even engages in battle with his demons in the air against these holy angels, as well as engaging himself in the development of false religion and governments that are corrupt and human philosophical systems that espouse his theology on the earth. So he roams the heavens with his demons and he roams the earth. Peter says he goes about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. Matthew 13, Jesus said, "He comes along where the gospel is sowed and he snatches it away." As we saw this morning in Acts chapter 5, he tries to fill the heart of someone to make them lie to God, to cause them to sin, to disrupt the church, to destroy it, to bring sin and to pollute it. Paul says to the Corinthians in his second letter, a very important note, chapter 2 and verse 11, he says that no advantage be taken of us by Satan for we're not ignorant of his schemes. He's got all kinds of them by which he endeavors to entrap believers. First John 5:18 and 19 says the whole world lies in his lap. The whole world system, he controls it.
All of that is to emphasize that Satan is very active. He's been very active since his fall, very active trying to thwart the purposes of God. And usually he's not engaged in blatant evil alone, but it's always religion that occupies him. He appears most frequently disguised as an angel of light, according to 2 Corinthians 11:13 to 15. So the spiritual war rages in the heavenlies and it rages on earth. But as we come in to verse 7 we are now in the time of the Tribulation or at least right at its beginning and we're going to see what particular form the war takes then. Very interesting.
Verse 7, "There was war in heaven. Michael and his angels waging war with the dragon and the dragon and his angels waging war..." Now what triggered this? That's the interpretative question, folks. We know there's always been war between the holy angels and the fallen ones. But what triggered this? Because there's a very interesting Greek notation here that would be worthy of consideration. The grammar, the structure of the Greek here lends to the conclusion that Satan started this. You could translate it, "There was war in heaven, Michael and his angels literally had to fight. They were drawn into a battle, they were compelled to fight."
Now there are a number of things that might have caused them to fight. But let me make an interesting suggestion. Could it be that what initiated this particular battle was the Rapture of the church? You see, we have been following through the book of Revelation and in our other studies of 1 Thessalonians, concluding that the Rapture of the church takes place prior to the seven-year Tribulation, the seventieth week of Daniel, that the Lord snatches the church away and then begins to pour out His judgment on the earth. And the church is in heaven represented by the twenty-four elders. So they're in heaven while this is going on. More people are being converted to Christ and a new assembly of believers is called together that really are one with all the rest throughout all of redemptive history. But uniquely the church is raptured. And could it be that as Jesus Christ raptures His church to take them to heaven, according to 1 Thessalonians 4:13 to 18, as they pass out of this earth in the twinkling of an eye and go through the domain of the air, they are passing through the kingdom of darkness, could it be that Satan and his demons are aroused to hinder that trip to heaven? It's an interesting thought.
Now I can't be dogmatic about that, but it does pose a possibility. In Daniel chapter 10 and verse 13, and I'll try to give you a little bit of a defense of that particular interesting viewpoint, in Daniel 10 and verse 13, it says...well, we have to go back to verse 12, he said to me, "Don't be afraid, Daniel, for from the first day that you set your heart on understanding this and on humbling yourself before your God, your words were heard and I have come in response to your words." Here's an angel and he's coming to Daniel. Why? Daniel prayed in chapter 9, he poured out his heart in prayer the first half of the chapter. And God sends him immediate answer. And God is in the business of answering His saints immediately.
You come in to chapter 10 and Daniel is praying again and he's mourning and he's in very sad condition as he pleads the case of his people. And here comes this fantastic angelic being that is described in a most remarkable way. I mean, he's a man dressed in linen, girded with a belt of pure gold of Uphaz. His body like beryl, his face...verse 6...the appearance of lightning, his eyes like flaming torches, his arms and feet like the gleam of polished bronze, and the sound of his words like the sound of tumult." And so here he comes, and he's bringing Daniel a word from God. And he says Daniel from the first time, verse 12 again, that you set your heart to understand and humbled yourself, your words were heard and I've come. But, look at verse 13, interesting, "The prince of the kingdom of Persia was withstanding me for twenty-one days." Who is this? This is a demon associated with the human system of Persia. Listen, friend, you must know this, human governmental systems while government has an entity as ordained by God to control people, that's the perfect place for Satan to infiltrate with his demons because then he can, in effect, rule. And so even in the land of Persia some demon, some higher power, some wicked demon in high places had moved in to the controlling influence of Persia and is here called the prince of the kingdom of Persia. And he stops this amazing angel who is described in these incredible terms, a very glorious and powerful being, and he's able to hold this angel up for twenty-one days.
Then it says, "Then behold...who came?...Michael...Michael, one of the chief princes came to help me for I had been left there with the kings of Persia." Michael is always associated with war and conflict. He is not a messenger angel, he is a warrior. He is super-angel. Now that guy, can't call him a guy, that angel who got stuck, that angel who got stuck for twenty-one days was some kind of angel. I mean, even his voice was like the sound of a tumult, his arms and feet were gleam of polished bronze, his eyes were like flaming torches. I mean this is just some amazing creature. Well that will tell you how powerful the prince of Persia was who could hold him up for twenty-one days from delivering a message, this is a real conflict. And who comes to his rescue? Michael, super-angel comes, always the task of a warrior, never a messenger, always a defender of God's people.
Why does he come? Because he wants to send this other angel on the way to Daniel. He is concerned about God's people Israel of whom Daniel represents. Such an important matter.
Over in chapter 12 of Daniel, again we run in to Michael. "Now at that time Michael the great prince who stands guard over the sons of your people will arise." Wow, at what time? At that time. What