Author: SFJ Bible

Going Deeper

Revelation 9-13 (7/27/19)

Grab your Bible, and let’s go deeper into Revelation 12.

Read again Revelation 12:9-12:

And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world—he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him. And I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, “Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God. And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death. Therefore, rejoice, O heavens and you who dwell in them! But woe to you, O earth and sea, for the devil has come down to you in great wrath, because he knows that his time is short!’”

This passage is one of the famous ones used in Scripture to give us insight into Satan. I thought we would take a little time this morning to look to the Scriptures and remind our hearts about who Satan is, the power he has, and how we have victory over him.

First, who is Satan?

Satan opposes God as the chief of all fallen angels by deceiving, tempting, and lying. Satan only has the access and ability that God permits him. He is also known as the devil, the enemy, the tempter, the father of lies, the adversary, and the accuser.

Satan uses things like:

Doubt—to make you question God’s Word and His goodness.

Discouragement—to make you look at your problems rather than at God.

Diversion—to make wrong things seem attractive, so you will want them more than right things.

Defeat—to make you feel like a failure, so you don’t even try.

Delay—to make you put off doing the God-honoring things, so they never get done.

In Genesis 3:1 we see Satan using his tricks to tempt Adam and Eve to sin.

Genesis 3:1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made.

He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?”

Now, I could spend a lot of time focusing on all the things that Satan does to trick us, trip us up, and sway us to sin, but I want to focus more on a right understanding of who we are in Christ and what that means for Satan’s ultimate influence in our lives. Notice in Genesis 3:1, it says that Satan was the shrewdest of all the creatures the Lord God had made. The truth is that all things that are not God are God’s creation—even our adversary, the devil.

God alone is the almighty Creator, Sustainer, and Ruler of everything. There is nothing equal with Him. There is no adversary by which God is frustrated. There is no one that trips God up and makes things hard for him. Everything that is is because God allows it to be. This includes Satan. Satan does nothing that the almighty Creator and Sustainer doesn’t ultimately allow.

We see so many examples of this, but none clearer than Satan’s persecution of Job. Nothing that Satan did to Job was outside of the permission and authority of God.

Often, we see these modern pictures or paintings of Jesus and Satan arm wrestling, with heaven and hell waiting in the background, but the truth of Scripture reveals this to be an inaccurate view of the relationship between Satan and Jesus. Satan holds no authority or power over God. Satan is not God’s contender. Satan is 100% at the mercy of the One who holds all things under His rule and reign—that is God Almighty. The dominion Satan has been given is given by God. The dominion of hell that Satan will eternally suffer in will be held together, not by Satan, but by God.

Our passage says that Satan knows his time is short, so he is vigilant in his attacks and tricks and work. But we must never forget who ultimately sits on the throne and rules over all things—God! We must never give Satan more credit or power than he is due. We are saved, sanctified, and secured by the power of God. It is in God we trust. It is in God we believe. It is in God we rest. It is in God we live and do what we do.

This truth must be correctly understood in our hearts, so we don’t ever see Satan’s hand on our lives as having more power than God’s. Can you choose to give into temptation and sin and thereby give into Satan’s advances? Absolutely! But that NEVER means that he is more powerful than God. We must always see Satan as being under the sovereign and almighty hand of God. Our hope is not in avoiding Satan’s advances; our hope is in CHRIST!

Let’s remember what has happened.

Our passage today says that Satan is conquered. This is a great truth we must rightly understand.

God declared war and victory on Satan all in the same verse: Genesis 3:15.

“I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”

In other words, the Son of God, Jesus, will come and He will defeat you. We who have repented of our sin and trusted our lives to Jesus alone are victorious in Christ.

Colossians 2:13-14 And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.

It is in Christ that we confidently stand up to the devil and yell the words of 1 Corinthians 15:54-56:

… “’Death is swallowed up in victory.” “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Romans 8:31-39 says it so well:

What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

In all these sufferings we are more than conquerors! Conquerors means they are under our feet! They are defeated!

So when we read in our passage, Revelation 12:10-11, “Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God. And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death,” it is saying, “Satan has been conquered, and Jesus has him and death under His feet.”

The accuser has been defeated, because we now have an advocate of the greatest kind—Jesus Christ Himself. The accusers, adversaries, and enemies are conquered by the blood of the Lamb (Jesus)!

Romans 3:25 (NIV) God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood—to be received by faith …

Praise God that our bloodied champion came and conquered the enemy you and I never could. This is what God promised would happen back in Genesis 3:15.

So, we must understand rightly that:

1. Satan is in no way on the same level as God, dueling it out in a cosmic battle. NO! God always has, and always will have, supreme and complete authority over all things—including Satan.
2. Satan has been defeated on our behalf. We are now more than conquerors with Christ. We are no longer enslaved to sin and his rule in our lives. We have a new power at work within us. A new power to fight the temptation of sin we still face.

Romans 6:5-11 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

It is on this foundation that we put on our spiritual armor and fight sin and Satan every day until God determines his time on earth is finally done and calls it all to an end and calls us home.

Soldiers, we must know God is God and there is no equal. Jesus has conquered Satan and death, and we will join Him in that victory. We must also know that we are still at war as we testify of Christ to the lost. Our adversary is still on the hunt to trip us up in order to make our testimony weak or our faith in God less. While his efforts are futile in the end, they still can cause great damage to our lives and mission.

This is why Peter says, “Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8).

This is why James says, “Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you” (James 4:7).

Are we at war? Yes. Has that war already been won? Yes. Do we armor up and fight on because our Commander has saved us and called us to it? Yes.

We must have a right view of Satan and God. We must have a right view of Christ’s victory over sin and death on our behalf.

We must know that Satan loses! He has been conquered and will be conquered in another final way on the day that God has decided! Soldier up, men!

I leave you with the words of the apostle Paul found in Ephesians 6.

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm. Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and, as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace. In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one; and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints, and also for me, that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains, that I may declare it boldly, as I ought to speak.

By His grace and for His glory,

-Shepherd

Soldiers for Jesus MC

Revelation 13

The First Beast

13:1 And I saw a beast rising out of the sea, with ten horns and seven heads, with ten diadems on its horns and blasphemous names on its heads. 2 And the beast that I saw was like a leopard; its feet were like a bear’s, and its mouth was like a lion’s mouth. And to it the dragon gave his power and his throne and great authority. 3 One of its heads seemed to have a mortal wound, but its mortal wound was healed, and the whole earth marveled as they followed the beast. 4 And they worshiped the dragon, for he had given his authority to the beast, and they worshiped the beast, saying, “Who is like the beast, and who can fight against it?”

5 And the beast was given a mouth uttering haughty and blasphemous words, and it was allowed to exercise authority for forty-two months. 6 It opened its mouth to utter blasphemies against God, blaspheming his name and his dwelling,¹ that is, those who dwell in heaven. 7 Also it was allowed to make war on the saints and to conquer them.² And authority was given it over every tribe and people and language and nation, 8 and all who dwell on earth will worship it, everyone whose name has not been written before the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb who was slain. 9 If anyone has an ear, let him hear:

10   If anyone is to be taken captive,
    to captivity he goes;
  if anyone is to be slain with the sword,
    with the sword must he be slain.

Here is a call for the endurance and faith of the saints.

The Second Beast

11 Then I saw another beast rising out of the earth. It had two horns like a lamb and it spoke like a dragon. 12 It exercises all the authority of the first beast in its presence,³ and makes the earth and its inhabitants worship the first beast, whose mortal wound was healed. 13 It performs great signs, even making fire come down from heaven to earth in front of people, 14 and by the signs that it is allowed to work in the presence of⁴ the beast it deceives those who dwell on earth, telling them to make an image for the beast that was wounded by the sword and yet lived. 15 And it was allowed to give breath to the image of the beast, so that the image of the beast might even speak and might cause those who would not worship the image of the beast to be slain. 16 Also it causes all, both small and great, both rich and poor, both free and slave,⁵ to be marked on the right hand or the forehead, 17 so that no one can buy or sell unless he has the mark, that is, the name of the beast or the number of its name. 18 This calls for wisdom: let the one who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man, and his number is 666.⁶

Footnotes

[1] 13:6 Or tabernacle

[2] 13:7 Some manuscripts omit this sentence

[3] 13:12 Or on its behalf

[4] 13:14 Or on behalf of

[5] 13:16 For the contextual rendering of the Greek word doulos, see Preface

[6] 13:18 Some manuscripts 616

(ESV)

Revelation 12

The Woman and the Dragon

12:1 And a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars. 2 She was pregnant and was crying out in birth pains and the agony of giving birth. 3 And another sign appeared in heaven: behold, a great red dragon, with seven heads and ten horns, and on his heads seven diadems. 4 His tail swept down a third of the stars of heaven and cast them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman who was about to give birth, so that when she bore her child he might devour it. 5 She gave birth to a male child, one who is to rule¹ all the nations with a rod of iron, but her child was caught up to God and to his throne, 6 and the woman fled into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God, in which she is to be nourished for 1,260 days.

Satan Thrown Down to Earth

7 Now war arose in heaven, Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon. And the dragon and his angels fought back, 8 but he was defeated, and there was no longer any place for them in heaven. 9 And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world—he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him. 10 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 brothers² has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God. 11 And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death. 12 Therefore, rejoice, O heavens and you who dwell in them! But woe to you, O earth and sea, for the devil has come down to you in great wrath, because he knows that his time is short!”

13 And when the dragon saw that he had been thrown down to the earth, he pursued the woman who had given birth to the male child. 14 But the woman was given the two wings of the great eagle so that she might fly from the serpent into the wilderness, to the place where she is to be nourished for a time, and times, and half a time. 15 The serpent poured water like a river out of his mouth after the woman, to sweep her away with a flood. 16 But the earth came to the help of the woman, and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed the river that the dragon had poured from his mouth. 17 Then the dragon became furious with the woman and went off to make war on the rest of her offspring, on those who keep the commandments of God and hold to the testimony of Jesus. And he stood³ on the sand of the sea.

Footnotes

[1] 12:5 Greek shepherd

[2] 12:10 Or brothers and sisters

[3] 12:17 Some manuscripts And I stood, connecting the sentence with 13:1

(ESV)

Revelation 11

The Two Witnesses

11:1 Then I was given a measuring rod like a staff, and I was told, “Rise and measure the temple of God and the altar and those who worship there, 2 but do not measure the court outside the temple; leave that out, for it is given over to the nations, and they will trample the holy city for forty-two months. 3 And I will grant authority to my two witnesses, and they will prophesy for 1,260 days, clothed in sackcloth.”

4 These are the two olive trees and the two lampstands that stand before the Lord of the earth. 5 And if anyone would harm them, fire pours from their mouth and consumes their foes. If anyone would harm them, this is how he is doomed to be killed. 6 They have the power to shut the sky, that no rain may fall during the days of their prophesying, and they have power over the waters to turn them into blood and to strike the earth with every kind of plague, as often as they desire. 7 And when they have finished their testimony, the beast that rises from the bottomless pit¹ will make war on them and conquer them and kill them, 8 and their dead bodies will lie in the street of the great city that symbolically² is called Sodom and Egypt, where their Lord was crucified. 9 For three and a half days some from the peoples and tribes and languages and nations will gaze at their dead bodies and refuse to let them be placed in a tomb, 10 and those who dwell on the earth will rejoice over them and make merry and exchange presents, because these two prophets had been a torment to those who dwell on the earth. 11 But after the three and a half days a breath of life from God entered them, and they stood up on their feet, and great fear fell on those who saw them. 12 Then they heard a loud voice from heaven saying to them, “Come up here!” And they went up to heaven in a cloud, and their enemies watched them. 13 And at that hour there was a great earthquake, and a tenth of the city fell. Seven thousand people were killed in the earthquake, and the rest were terrified and gave glory to the God of heaven.

14 The second woe has passed; behold, the third woe is soon to come.

The Seventh Trumpet

15 Then the seventh angel blew his trumpet, and there were loud voices in heaven, saying, “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever.” 16 And the twenty-four elders who sit on their thrones before God fell on their faces and worshiped God, 17 saying,

  “We give thanks to you, Lord God Almighty,
    who is and who was,
  for you have taken your great power
    and begun to reign.
18   The nations raged,
    but your wrath came,
    and the time for the dead to be judged,
  and for rewarding your servants, the prophets and saints,
    and those who fear your name,
    both small and great,
  and for destroying the destroyers of the earth.”

19 Then God’s temple in heaven was opened, and the ark of his covenant was seen within his temple. There were flashes of lightning, rumblings,³ peals of thunder, an earthquake, and heavy hail.

Footnotes

[1] 11:7 Or the abyss

[2] 11:8 Greek spiritually

[3] 11:19 Or voices, or sounds

(ESV)

Revelation 10

The Angel and the Little Scroll

10:1 Then I saw another mighty angel coming down from heaven, wrapped in a cloud, with a rainbow over his head, and his face was like the sun, and his legs like pillars of fire. 2 He had a little scroll open in his hand. And he set his right foot on the sea, and his left foot on the land, 3 and called out with a loud voice, like a lion roaring. When he called out, the seven thunders sounded. 4 And when the seven thunders had sounded, I was about to write, but I heard a voice from heaven saying, “Seal up what the seven thunders have said, and do not write it down.” 5 And the angel whom I saw standing on the sea and on the land raised his right hand to heaven 6 and swore by him who lives forever and ever, who created heaven and what is in it, the earth and what is in it, and the sea and what is in it, that there would be no more delay, 7 but that in the days of the trumpet call to be sounded by the seventh angel, the mystery of God would be fulfilled, just as he announced to his servants the prophets.

8 Then the voice that I had heard from heaven spoke to me again, saying, “Go, take the scroll that is open in the hand of the angel who is standing on the sea and on the land.” 9 So I went to the angel and told him to give me the little scroll. And he said to me, “Take and eat it; it will make your stomach bitter, but in your mouth it will be sweet as honey.” 10 And I took the little scroll from the hand of the angel and ate it. It was sweet as honey in my mouth, but when I had eaten it my stomach was made bitter. 11 And I was told, “You must again prophesy about many peoples and nations and languages and kings.”

(ESV)