We're still in chapter 12 of Revelation looking at this panorama of spiritual warfare where we started last week. We know that evil is pretty evident. It's everywhere you look. And some people say there is no devil, my question is than who's doing his work? Because it's very, very obvious. Dwight Moody once said that he believed in the devil for two reasons. Number one, because the Bible said so and number two, because he did a lot of business with him. And if you're a Christian you know what that means--you do business with him. There is so much visible evil because there's an invisible war that has been taking place for many, many years, thousands of years. It started in heaven, it made its way to the theatre of the earth, it's an invisible war on many fronts and yet at some points in history we see it manifest in the physical plane, the physical reality. It's sort of like radio waves and television waves. Right now, in this room, there are hundreds, thousands, of pictures and music, there's jazz, there's hard rock, there's alternative, there are all sorts right here, right now. If you had the right receiver with the right antenna you could pick up on those wavelengths and make them visible. Their effect made visible. And so it is with this war that's been going on in the heavenly realms.

Job was made aware of this. He didn't exactly know why things were happening as they were happening until much later on. But the devil and God were having a conversation, it was invisible to Job. It made manifest itself in the physical realm as Job lived out his life. Then there was the time when Jesus came to Peter and said, Peter, Satan has been asking for you. He wants to sift you like wheat. Now Peter got a flash of insight into an invisible war from the lips of Jesus. Chapter 12 then gives us a rare behind-the-scenes look at this invisible supernatural world with the devil and his unholy mafia, a host of angels fighting against the angels of God. It's between the forces and light and darkness. And we're going to look this morning at verse seven all the way through verse seventeen and point out a few things the devil doesn't want you to know about a very important effective tactic against people, against God's people, and how to overcome it. You may say well Skip you don't really have to bother with all this because I'm never hassled by the devil. Well that is not a good sign. It's a good sign if you are. If you have him as your enemy. I heard about a young Christian who went to work for a guy. The guy was his boss and the young Christian was always telling this boss about God's love and the activity of God in his life and spiritual warfare. He said there's a devil and he's always hassling me. And I always overcome him by what God provides. And his boss said, well you know I'm never really bothered by the devil. I'm not hassled by him. I really wouldn't worry about it. I just think you make too much of this. One day they went out hunting and the kid's boss aimed his gun at a bunch of wild ducks and shot them and said, quickly go after the ones that are wounded lest they get away. Well when the kid came back it was like a flash of insight. He said, hey, I know the answer to your dilemma; I know why Satan doesn't hassle you. You're a dead duck. He's only interested in the live ones. Those are the ones he goes after.

Now if you are a living duck, a growing, thriving Christian, that also means that you're a target of the enemy and today we're going to get some more insight into this malevolent being's personality--his character. We see here in chapter 12 that he always seems to be fighting, accusing, and exalting himself. Now think of those three things. He's always fighting--filled with strife. Always making accusations and he's always puffing himself up in his pride which should be a warning to any of us who exhibit those characteristics. If we are like that, we're simply reflecting the personality of the devil. That's his character. The rest of chapter 12, beginning in verse seven, I've sliced it into two sections: war in heaven and wrath on the earth. War in heaven from verses seven to twelve, the announcement is made of great wrath and then verse thirteen has that wrath onward. Let's read it. "And war broke out in heaven: Michael and his angels fought with the dragon; and the dragon and his angels fought, but they did not prevail, nor was a place found for them in heaven any longer. So the great dragon was cast out, that serpent of old, called the Devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world; he was cast to the earth, and his angels were cast out with him. Then I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, "Now salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of His Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren, who accused them before our God day and night, has been cast down. And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives to the death. Therefore rejoice, O heavens, and you who dwell in them! Woe to the inhabitants of the earth and the sea! For the devil has come down to you, having great wrath, because he knows that he has a short time. Now when the dragon saw that he had been cast to the earth, he persecuted the woman who gave birth to the male Child. But the woman was given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness to her place, where she is nourished for a time and times and half a time, from the presence of the serpent. So the serpent spewed water out of his mouth like a flood after the woman, that he might cause her to be carried away by the flood. But the earth helped the woman, and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed up the flood which the dragon had spewed out of his mouth. And the dragon was enraged with the woman, and he went to make war with the rest of her offspring, who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ."

The first scene is war in heaven and I want you to notice the origin of this war. It is in heaven. That's where it takes place. We don't think of heaven in terms of a battlefield much, do we? Most people have a view of heaven with soft lights and soft music and clouds and people with white robes playing harps. But this war takes place in heaven. That's what John saw. Scripture makes it clear that Satan still has some kind of access to heaven. And this might come as an absolute shock to some of you but Satan is not in hell. In fact, Satan has never been to hell. He won't be there till we read about it later on at the end of the book of Revelation after all this is done. And when Satan is consigned to hell, he won't be the king, he won't be like the guy over in charge of everything, he'll be the chief victim, the one who's tormented the most. In fact, Satan spends most of his efforts before the throne of God. You say no, no, he's on earth. Well he's got lots of people that work for him. You say, well he's after me and you might feel that way but I wouldn't flatter yourself too much. He's before the throne of God doing other things; probably most of the time having his minions carry out his work elsewhere. Couple insights into this. Job chapter one tells us this: one day the angels came to present themselves before the Lord and Satan also came with them. Then in the second chapter, it's a very similar scene: on another day the angels came to present themselves before the Lord and Satan also came with them to present himself to Him. You may recall the conversation. What Satan was doing, he was accusing Job before God. In fact, God said, where have you been, Satan? He said I've just been cruising through the earth. Well have you considered Job my servant, he's a complete, perfect man, he shuns evil, he loves good? And Satan went on to accuse Job of several things and asked permission to hassle him. Then we come to the book of Zechariah where the prophet sees a vision, a very true, real vision, of Joshua the high priest standing before the Angel of the Lord and Satan standing at His right side to accuse him.


So Satan has some access to heaven. He hasn't yet been consigned, or sentenced, to hell. You say well wait a minute, I thought Satan was defeated at the cross! You're right. He was defeated at the cross and you can have victory over Satan now when you turn your life over to Jesus Christ. However, though he was defeated at the cross and the sentence was sealed, it's sort of like a prisoner incarcerated. The sentence has been given but the sentence will come later on and it will come in stages. It seems that at some point during the tribulation, there's another attempt to usurp authority in heaven, a war takes place, Satan is cast to the earth, later on Satan is bound for a thousand years. But even after the millennium, he is released again for a period of time. He continues his deception until finally, ultimately, he is cast into the lake of fire. And we'll read about that at the end of the book. This guy is a die-hard. He's relentless. He's always fighting, always after some kind of authority and he makes one last attempt to take over heaven. Now notice the opponents. The opponents are Michael and his angels against the dragon and his angels. Please notice it's not Satan against God personally. It's not God with His sword and the devil with his sword and they're going at it and we're wondering who's going to win. It's two created angels and their forces battling one another. One of the biggest lies that Satan has sought to perpetrate on mankind is that he is God's opposite. And a lot of people still view Satan as God's opposite. There's God--He's good. There's the devil--he's the opposite of God, he's bad. He's not God's opposite. Satan is not omnipresent. He is not omniscient. He doesn't have the same attributes that God has. The devil is a created being. His opposite would be more like Michael. In fact, the devil couldn't go one round with the Champ. It wouldn't be a battle at all. Here he is battling the forces of Michael and because he's a created angelic being fighting against God, ultimately he must fail in his endeavor.

Now why the incessant battle? Why the war? Why when we read about the devil is he always at arms against God's people, against God, against God's angels? I think simply he wants to eliminate God's people here. He was after the woman, Israel. He was after the male Child, Christ, we saw last week, throughout history. But now let's destroy the people of God, the nation of Israel, so that God cannot fulfill His promise to come again and to establish a Messianic kingdom. Moreover, he wants the world to worship him. That's what he wanted in the beginning when he was kicked out of heaven. He was brought to the earth. He's been the prince of the power of the air. But he always wanted worship. And in the tribulation period, he will enforce a worship system. Paul said it, Jesus said it, John says it, and get the world to come and worship him. But it's Michael and his angels against the dragon, or Satan, and his angels. At one time, Michael and Lucifer, the devil, were on the same side. Before the rebellion in heaven, they were like angels serving God in a like manner. Then Satan rebelled and Michael and Lucifer became mortal enemies. And this isn't the first time they square off. In fact, in the Scripture we read about this battle. Remember Jude talks about it. He said that Michael, the archangel, disputed, or had a conflict, with Satan over the body of Moses. And when Moses died we don't know where he died, we don't what happened to his body, but in the heavenly realm there was some dispute and the conflict was between Michael and Satan over the dead body of Moses. Then there's a wild Scripture and insight into spiritual warfare, by the way, in Daniel chapter 10. Daniel prays. He prays for three weeks. The answer doesn't come for three weeks. But an angel is dispatched to give him an answer to his prayer and the angel says, you know, as soon as you prayed three weeks ago I was dispatched. It's taken me three weeks to get to you. And he tells him why. He said, but the prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me for twenty-one days and behold, Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, for I had been left alone with the kings of Persia. Whenever you read about Michael, Michael is the defender of Israel. He's called that in Daniel chapter 12 verse 1, he's the one who stands up and defends and fights for the sons of the nation of Israel. And so whenever there's Michael, there's some dispute over Israel. And Satan has been roused and he attempts this coup but there is Michael here to withstand him as he did in the Old Testament. But it's wild that the angel said, hey I was coming, I was on my way, Daniel, but there was the prince of the kingdom of Persia who stood me at bay for twenty-one days. I finally had to get Michael's help just to withstand him. The idea in context is this prince of Persia is not a man, there was a king of Persia, we know that, but the prince was like the prince of the power of the air. Some demon dispatched by Satan, ruling over the affairs of Persia, coming against the people of God, the nation of Israel. Now he must have been pretty tough if he had to call Michael in and fought him for twenty-one days. And as I read that and think, man, the prince of Persia, he was powerful, what must the prince of San Francisco be like? Or Amsterdam? Or other great cities around the world?

Apparently then the devil's hatred will motivate him, in the tribulation period, to attempt some final assault against the throne of God that causes him, in verses nine and ten, to be cast out. Now Satan is God's enemy, certainly, and he's opposing Michael, certainly, but because, as we said last week, God loves you and you love God, he doesn't love you--the devil hates you. The devil's your enemy. The devil is your opponent. And notice some of the names that are given your opponent. He is called the dragon because that's his character in the tribulation period. It's as if he pulls off the mask of who he really is to the nation of Israel during the abomination of desolation, the midpoint of the tribulation. And he shows himself for whom he really is--a dragon wanting to devour, to destroy the people of God. Then he's also called the serpent of old. Of course, that's a reference to the Garden of Eden, the snake that deceived Eve and Adam. He's called the devil. In Greek diablos. We get the term diabolic from it and that word means slanderer. He comes and slanders or defames you. And he's also called Satan, which means adversary or enemy. The devil is your enemy. Now that ought to make you happy. You say what do you mean make me happy? I mean it ought to make you happy. You want the devil as your enemy not as your friend. Charles Spurgeon put it this way, "There is something very comforting in the thought that the devil is an adversary. I would sooner have him for an adversary than a friend. Oh my soul it were dread work for you if Satan were a friend of yours for then with him you must forever dwell in darkness, shut out from the friendship of God." And if you're going to have any relationship with him at all, and everybody does, the best relationship is that he's your enemy. The worst enemy is not the devil. Your worst enemy would be God. The writer of Hebrews said it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. Apart from Christ, to have God as your enemy would be the worst. I'd rather have the devil as my enemy and God as my friend than God as my enemy and the devil as my friend. He's your adversary. He is your enemy.

Then it says about him in that verse that he deceives the whole world. Evil is bad enough but the worst form of evil is when it is covered with a veneer of goodness. You know you can look at an evil act or an evil person that's blatantly, unmistakably evil and go, evil! Ok, well, that's a no brainer. But when evil has a veneer and it comes deceptively, packaged in a shiny package with a nice bow on it, you go, oh this is nice! Until you open it up. And Satan is the one who deceives the world. He's called the deceiver in many different texts of the Scripture. Now how does he deceive? Well, he's a liar. Jesus said he was a liar from the beginning. He tells you lies about God, about yourself, about life. He deceives people. He tells lies by raising up false religious systems and telling people, just pick one, any of them! He lies by telling nominal Christians, hey, you're fine the way you are, you don't need anything else, just come to church every now and then. When people mention God, nod your head. That's all you need! That's deception. He deceives people by false doctrines. He spreads his lies throughout the world to make people impotent when it comes to the truth. There's a couple of Scriptures that give insight into his deception. Toward unbelievers it says in 2 Corinthians 4 verse 4, the god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers so they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ. Unbelievers have like a shroud that keeps the light of the gospel away; they don't see it. And then in 2 Corinthians 11, Paul said the devil can masquerade as an angel of light. He is a deceiver and so he goes on to say, therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also transform themselves into ministers of righteousness. Deception. Today Satan's greatest attack, I think, is in this area of spiritual deception, keeping people away from the Word of God, from the truth of the gospel. In fact, John, one of the closest apostles of Jesus, when he wrote the letter 1 John, at the end he said we know that we are of God, little children, and the whole world lies under the sway of the wicked one. That's quite a statement. There's John the apostle saying the world is wrong and we know it. You know, people think, well the majority's got to be right, right? No. Wrong. The whole world lies under the sway of the evil one.

By the way, the wording there, to lie, is the same word used of a ship who would lie on a sandbar--stuck. Or an animal lying in a swamp and it would feel warm and comfortable to the animal, but the animal is stuck. The world lies in the lap of the devil. He lulls it to sleep. The devil is the world's pastor and guide to keep people away from Jesus Christ. They lie under the sway of the wicked one. So the devil has duped people through history. He will continue his duping throughout the tribulation period. By deception. I heard a cute little story of a dad who went camping with his daughter at the ocean. They set up the tent and the next morning he ran into the ocean and went swimming. It was chilly water and he invited his little girl, come on in, let's go swimming. She said I'm not coming in, it's too cold. So the dad did an interesting thing. He got out and heated up a tea kettle full of water until it was boiling and he went over and he poured the hot water into the ocean. He said, now come in! She said alright and without hesitation she ran in after him. You know, thinking, daddy fixed it! He added enough hot water. Now that's a harmless trick but it illustrates how the devil works. He pours a little bit of truth into an ocean of falsehood. And people go, oh, it's good. It'll work. It's all better now. They're all sincere. It doesn't matter what you believe. 2 Thessalonians kind of describes, I think, what is taking place here that we just read. This deceiver who deceives the world will deceive people into thinking that he is God and demand worship. It says in that text, 2 Thessalonians, the working of Satan with power and lying wonders. That's how he will deceive ultimately under that period.

Notice he's called something else. Verse 10 he is the accuser of our brethren who accuse them before our God day and night. He has been cast down. The devil is the ultimate critic of God's creation. And that tactic of accusing God's people has been one of his most effective tactics throughout history. You call yourself a Christian? You think God's going to answer that prayer? What are you doing in church? You shouldn't be here around all these good folks. He accuses you. And he's such a creep, he's such a hypocrite, you know he'll come before you sin and he'll tempt you. And in the tempting process, he'll whisper things like, go ahead, do it, do it, you can get away with it! And then as soon as you do yield to it, he'll come and he'll make you feel guilty for doing it and say you'll never get away with this! It's like a two-pronged approach. Inciting you to do it and once you do it, accusing you because you've fell to that temptation. Whenever the devil talks to you about God, he lies. That's why it's important not to just say, well, you know, I sort of feel right now, my impression is... you've got to read the Bible to get God's truth not just some emotional feeling of the moment. And whenever the devil talks to God about you, he doesn't have to lie. He just produces the evidence. In fact, often the devil before God will tell the truth. What are you going to try to lie to God? He's not that dumb. He will just accuse you before God finding all of probably the evidence he can, and think about it, the devil's been around longer than you have and all of his demons have been around longer than you have, and they've studied humanity for many thousands of years and there are certain patterns they see in us all and they, no doubt, study our lives to find evidence that they might present before God, or that the devil might, before the throne of God to give God cause not to love us or accept us. And for that reason, it's important that you and I learn to distinguish between the conviction of the Holy Spirit, which comes from God, and the condemnation of Satan and his accusations. They're two very different things.

Now sometimes you'll do something or think something or be something and you feel very guilty because of it. And some people say, guilt is wrong. No it's not. It's very, very good if God imposes it to bring you back to Him. But it can also be dangerous if the devil uses it to draw you away from God. I hate the fact that many psychologists are saying we've got to get rid of guilt. I think we need to revive it in many cases. If it will bring you to God. The devil uses to keep you away from God. You see, when the Holy Spirit comes to convict your heart He uses the Word of God in love to bring you to repentance, to bring you back to God. The devil comes and he will accuse you but he will use your own sin in a very hateful to drive a wedge between you and God. So you think I better not go to church, I better not read, I feel so unworthy--all of that nonsense. Think of Judas. Judas betrayed Jesus Christ and he listened to the devil and he went out and he hung himself. Peter also betrayed Jesus Christ but Jesus looked into his face and it brought conviction. No doubt, a look of great love and compassion and later on Peter came back in fellowship with Jesus Christ. Well let's look at the outcome of this great war in heaven. Verse 9: "So the great dragon was cast out, that serpent of old, called the Devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world; he was cast to the earth, and his angels were cast out with him. Then I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, "Now salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of His Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren, who accused them before our God day and night, has been cast down."

Satan loses this coup attempt in heaven. He is kicked out and he is cast to the earth. A question would arise at this point: why would the devil even fight if he knows he's going to lose? It says over and over again he's going to lose. Can't he read? Well history is littered with rulers who have persisted in their cause and fought for their cause even knowing they were outnumbered or even knowing that they would lose, either because they believed strongly in their cause or because they were deceived beyond measure. Bent, angry, persistent. The devil is the deceiver and he is very, very persistent. But it says that they're cast to the earth and this happens during the tribulation period. And this is what makes the great tribulation such a great tribulation. We often think well the tribulation is bad because God judges the earth. In part that's true. But the other part is that Satan and his demons are cast out of having any access at all before the throne of God and they're now confined to the earth for the last three-and-a-half years and millions of these demons land on the earth and we read about them in chapter 9, don't we? About this door of the abyss opening up and millions of demon hordes coming on the earth to torment men in fury. And then the demons down by the river Euphrates, the four who have been bound, are released during the tribulation period. So the battle in heaven now becomes a battle on earth during this time, the second half of the tribulation.

Move down to verse 11 and let's look at the overcoming in this war: "And they overcame him". Who are they? They are the people referred to in verse 10. Our brethren. Satan is the accuser of our brethren. They overcame him. It probably refers to the tribulation saints who suffer martyrdom for Jesus Christ but they overcame him. It says, "By the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their loves to the death." How did they overcome Satan? By incantations? No. By a formula? No. By rebuking him? No. By binding him? No. They overcame him by three things. First of all, the blood of the Lamb. What does that mean? Simply this. They are covered, their sin, their wrongdoing, their failures, have been covered by the blood of Jesus Christ so no accusation can stand before God. They're covered in the blood of Jesus Christ. You know, be honest here. Satan has a lot of evidence on you. He's got a lot of dirt on you. He doesn't have to manufacture things about your life before God or my life. All he has to do is read the record. And some even believe that at this Judgment Seat of Christ, at the rapture of the church, as the church is instantly in heaven and we are standing before the throne of God to receive our rewards, as Paul said in Corinthians, at this time Satan will be there because it's before the tribulation, the great tribulation period begins, and he will accuse the saints before God. If that's the case, all he has to do is read the record. This is what Skip thought and said on this day and this is what he did and this is what he didn't do. And there's enough evidence right there to incriminate. Aren't you glad then that while there's an accuser there is an Advocate? The Bible says Jesus is our Lawyer. Our Advocate. In fact, listen to what Paul says in Romans 8: If God is for us, then who can be against us? And who shall bring a charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died and furthermore has risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us. You can't lose with a Lawyer like that. Satan might say this is what Skip's life is all about. He is a creep. And the Father could say well I already knew that. There's nothing new about that. That's not news to Me. I saw it deeper than you could ever see it. And Jesus will be there as your Advocate. Your Lawyer.

In the New Testament, the concept of the love of God is mentioned 290 times. But over 1300 times, atonement by blood is mentioned. Because your standing before God is on the finished work of the shed blood of Jesus Christ. Not on your own works. You don't stand before God and rattle off your list of accomplishments. We stand before God and we have standing now before God and we defeat Satan by the fact that a finished work on Calvary 2,000 years ago has forgiven us of our sins and we have great boldness. That's the first step in defeating him--overcoming him. Charles Spurgeon said, "Nothing provokes the devil as much as the cross." Why? Simply when you apply the cross to your life, when you make Jesus Christ your Lord, you're forgiven of your sins. No accusation can ever stand at that point. And Satan loses his grip on you. How about you? Have you received Jesus Christ as your Savior, as your Lord? Can you say today, I am standing firm, overcoming the enemy, because whatever accusations, they're not founded because the blood of Jesus Christ has covered me and I'm firm in that foundation? Now the devil will come and say God will never forgive you. That's a lie. The blood of Jesus Christ shed ensures that God will forgive you. You must apply it. Secondly, the word of their testimony. This is the second step in overcoming the accusations, in overcoming the grip of Satan, is the word of their testimony. In other words, they were faithful to share this. I've found that when a person starts to realize, God loves me, God will forgive me of everything, I can have a new start right now if I confess my sin to Him and make Him my Lord and Savior and follow Him, it's all washed away! When a person realizes that he wants to tell other people about it. It's such good news. And so he starts evangelizing people and telling people what God has done in his or her personal life. Whenever you do that, you now invade Satan's territory. You're not defending yourself against the attack by saying, Jesus died for me, that's one thing, but now you're on the offensive, you're moving into his territory by telling his children, unsaved people, that they can be forgiven and come to heaven. And that's very intimidating to the devil who has a grip on their lives and doesn't want to lose that battle. Your testimony is powerful. People may argue philosophically all about the existence of God and the presence of evil but when you come and say, yeah but let me tell you what God did in my life personally by changing it, you can't refute that. They're not going to say, no He didn't. Well you're not me, you don't know what He did, let me tell you what He did. Your personal testimony is intimidating to the enemy because it brings conviction of heart. They see the evidence of a changed life.

Now you have a testimony. If you're a believer, you have a testimony. Get it out of the closet! Dust it off, polish it up, make it ready to use. It's very, very powerful. During the reign of Oliver Cromwell in England, currency was hard to find and so Cromwell sent out his troops around the British Empire to find as much silver as they could find to mint coins with. They came back with this report, "We have searched the Empire in vain to find silver. We found none anywhere except where the statues of the saints are made out of choice silver in the cathedrals of the country." Cromwell's reply was classic. He said, "Then go and melt down the saints and put them back into circulation." Make them useful not just little statues. We need coinage. Let's use them. oh, would to God that our lives would be melted down and useful, not enshrined but our testimonies would be the effective tool that God uses, an offensive tool in Satan's camp to bring others to Jesus. Thirdly, they did not love their lives unto the death. They were prepared to die. In other words, they did not consider life more valuable than loyalty to Jesus Christ. And they were willing to pay the ultimate witness price and that is the martyr's death. Jesus said whoever loves his life and seeks to keep his life will lose it but whoever loses his life for My sake will find eternal life and keep it forever. There's a book that you may want to get if you don't have it already. It's called Foxe's Book of Martyrs. And the next time you feel down or persecuted, challenged in your faith, read that book. It's documented account of 19 centuries' worth of people, men and women, who went and died in their testimony. And you think well that's depressing reading. No it's not! It's encouraging. You read about John Huss who made a stand for Jesus Christ and they burned him at the stake and he died singing worship songs. Filled with joy, he said. Then there was Jerome. And Jerome was also tied to the stake and they were burning him, they put the sticks around his body and they put the faggot of fire behind him so that he wouldn't see it and be afraid, and he said, "No, no, no. Bring the flame in front and set it before my eyes for if I had been afraid I wouldn't be here." They loved not their lives to the death.

Summing it up then, how do they overcome? Simply this. They have a true faith--a genuine faith. An ongoing testimony and they endure. They endure. That's real Christianity. It's just authentic stuff. When you live that kind of authentic life based on the blood of Jesus Christ with an ongoing testimony and you endure, you overcome the enemy. As John said, and the wicked one touches him not. There was a prayer meeting in one church every Wednesday night, a few people attended. And one deacon who always showed up for many, many years was fond of praying and then at the end of his prayer he would always say, and God please remove all of the cobwebs out of my life, Amen. What he meant by that is all of the junk that I've allowed to come in my life that is destroying my testimony, just clear out the cobwebs. And this, for some reason, bugged one guy who always came also every week and heard this prayer. So at the end of the prayer meeting, the deacon said, and Lord just take out all the cobwebs, remove them from my life. And this guy couldn't hold back any longer and he said, no Lord don't do it, kill the spider instead! And as Satan weaves his junk into your life you can just say, well just remove it, just remove it, just remove it. Or you can overcome Satan, his accusations, his defaming, his slanders, by the blood of the Lamb, the word of your testimony, and the endurance loving your life not unto death.

Let's move quickly now to the second phase of this beginning in verse 13. We touched on it last week, we'll touch on it again this week. The wrath on earth. "Now when the dragon saw that he had been cast to the earth, he persecuted the woman," we identified her last week as Israel, "who gave birth to the male Child," identified as Jesus Christ. Now go back to verse 12 because an announcement is made: "Therefore rejoice, O heavens, and you who dwell in them! Woe to the inhabitants of the earth and the sea! For the devil has come down to you, having great wrath, because he knows that he has a short time." On one hand, heaven rejoices. Yay! Devil's been cast out! But woe to you guys down on earth because that's where he's been cast to and he's really ticked off because he has only a short time. He has three-and-a-half years. 1,260 days. A time and times and half a time. And that's the time he has left before the final doom of Satan is sealed and moreover he is not allowed into the presence of God to make accusations, he's now confined only to the earth realm. And he turns his stuff up to fever pitch during the great tribulation period and attacks. He goes after, first of all, the woman, Israel, a new wave of anti-Semitism arises. Satan has always hated Israel and now it's his attempt to prevent the establishment of the kingdom. So you might say he goes for the jugular here. And you'll see what that is in chapter 13 as the unholy trinity with Satan, the dragon, the Antichrist, and the false prophet. They try to control the world by its worship system in chapters 17 and 18, by a monetary system mentioned in chapter 13 and others, just trying to gain control of everything including the armies of the world.

"But," it says verse 14, "the woman was given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness to her place, where she is nourished for a time and times and half a time, from the presence of the serpent." During this last three-and-a-half years persecution and protection for Israel. "So the serpent spewed water out of his mouth like a flood after the woman, that he might cause her to be carried away by the flood. But the earth helped the woman, and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed up the flood which the dragon had spewed out of his mouth. And the dragon was enraged with the woman, and he went to make war with the rest of her offspring, who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ." Now some have suggested that this place in the wilderness where they are protected is a place called Petra today. It is the rock city of Petra in ancient Edom, in modern Jordan, south and east of the Dead Sea. It's an interesting place. It's a valley capable of holding many thousands of people protectively. It has a narrow entrance, in some cases the canyons go so narrow that about two shoulder lengths is about all you could fit in there, and it says, "with the wings of a great eagle," they are gathered there and protected. Now some have made the suggestion that because the word eagle is found here that this is the United States airlifting them in. Now I don't know, that may be true, but I don't think you need to spend a whole lot of time digging that one out. in fact, one book I read said that it's probably the airlift of the six fleet station in the Mediterranean Sea. Well, it might be but I don't know. What I do know is the Bible often uses the same analogy of simply God's protection over Israel. That's the metaphor used. Example: in Exodus chapter 19 when God delivered them out of Egypt, He said, I bore you on eagle's wings and brought you to Myself. In Deuteronomy chapter 32 He says I cared for you out in the desert, by saying, like an eagle that stirs up its nest and hovers over its young. He protected them. Same image when God brings them back from the Babylonian captivity after 70 years, takes them to Israel, He says that they would mount up with wings like eagles and they'd run and not be weary, they'd make it all the way back to Israel without fainting--supernatural strength.

Well the long and short of this chapter is simply this. Satan has waged war against God. It took place eons ago back in history. He rebelled against God, he and a third of the demons were cast out of that position in heaven, Satan has had some kind of access before the throne of God, and he loves to tell on you and on me and on the saints of God like Job and other prophets and other people throughout history. One day he will attempt another coup during the tribulation period. He is cast to the earth. It makes the tribulation worse than ever before as demons are all over the landscape on the earth. But this begins a downward spiral of being cast down until ultimately he is cast out forever. We'll read about it in Revelation 20, out of God's presence, into the lake of fire. But here's the main point. He's going down but he's not satisfied until he can take as many with him as possible. Probably that's his only satisfaction. He reads the Bible, he knows he's going to lose, but well if I can take millions of people with me, keep them from Jesus Christ, keep them from the gospel, have them come to hell with me, it'll bring me a little satisfaction. Are you one of them? are you standing on anything other than the testimony of the blood of Jesus Christ shed for your sins? You could say I know I'm forgiven, I've overcome the devil by the blood of the Lamb. That's my testimony. It's an ongoing one. I'm ready to live as His witness to the end. I read a little article that came from Kilgore, Texas. I don't even know where Kilgore is but it's in Texas. It seems a guy was driving through Kilgore and he hit some pole. His car swerved out of control, he had an impact, his car was on the side of the road, he was rendered unconscious, somebody found him, dragged his body out, he was still alive, to the nearest gas station, tried to revive him. when he woke up he just violently shook and his eyes were wide as saucers. He tried to get away and so they carted him in the ambulance and took him to the hospital and there after he came to and could talk, they discovered what the problem was. The gas station they had taken him to was a Shell station but the S had fallen off and the first thing after waking up from that accident that he saw was that sign. Hell--open 24 hours. You know what? Hell is open 24 hours. But so is heaven. Heaven is open 24 hours and God would do everything that He can, short of forcing a person, to get to that heaven that He made. In fact, He would go to the extreme of telling you in advance what's going to happen before it happens so that the intelligent person would make the intelligent choice and escape and overcome the serpent, the dragon, and come to Christ.