When we concluded yesterday we learned there was a red dragon who wanted to prevent the birth of the nation of Israel and to prevent the advent of the Messiah. John saw in his vision a sign which was a woman (who symbolizes Israel) with a twelve-starred crown on her head. He told us that she was giving birth and that there was also an enormous red dragon in the vision. This is where we pick up with John telling us why the dragon is present.
"The dragon stood in front of the woman who was about to give birth, so that it might devour her child the moment He was born." (Revelation 12:4b) Satan never wanted Christ to be born because he never wanted mankind to be saved. Satan hates God and wants to be God, but since he can't achieve what he wants, he uses the human beings whom God loves in order to get back at Him. The devil does everything he can to try to prevent people from coming to a saving faith in Christ. His heart's desire is to be worshiped, but if he can't have that then he thinks the next best thing is to turn worship away from the Lord.
The prophet Isaiah speaks about the devil's prideful heart and about his fallen nature, revealing to us the thoughts in Satan's mind, "How you have fallen from heaven, morning star, son of the dawn! You have been cast down to the earth, you who once laid low the nations! You said in your heart, 'I will ascend to the heavens; I will raise my throne above the stars of God; I will sit enthroned on the mount of the assembly, on the utmost heights of Mount Zaphon. I will ascend above the tops of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.'" (Isaiah 14:12-14) This passage of Isaiah, by the way, is the origin of the tradition of calling the devil by the name of "Lucifer", because in Latin the words translated into English as "morning star" are "lux ferre" which means "light bearer". We don't know whether Satan ever bore the name of Lucifer, and personally I doubt it, but we can see from this passage that God's purpose in creating him was so that he would serve God by bringing light in some form, but instead he chose only to bring darkness, discouragement, and despair to the people of the earth.
We know that the child the woman (Israel) bears is Christ because John goes on to say, "She gave birth to a son, a male child, who 'will rule all the nations with an iron scepter'. And her child was snatched up to God and to His throne." (Revelation 12:5) The passage John quotes is from Psalm 2, which is a psalm written about the Messiah prior to His advent. The second half of verse 5 refers to the resurrection of Christ. He is not dead in the tomb. He is no longer on the earth. He is alive and well, seated at the right hand of God.
Because all his schemes to prevent the Savior from coming have failed, Satan is enraged. He hates the nation of Israel above all other nations because she is the "mother" of the Messiah. He wants the nation of Israel wiped from the earth so that the remaining prophecies about the Messiah can never come true: that His headquarters will be in Jerusalem and that He will be seated there on David's throne. If there is no Israel, there is no throne of David from which He can reign. In his wrath at not being able to lay a finger on Christ, Satan takes out his anger on the nation into which Christ was born. "The woman fled into the wilderness to a place prepared for her by God, where she might be taken care of for 1260 days." (Revelation 12:6) The devil has tried to destroy Israel a number of times, but during the final 1260 days of the Great Tribulation he's going to harbor more hatred for the Jewish people than even Adolf Hitler. But God won't allow his plans to succeed. Many scholars take verse 6 to mean that there will be a fortress in the wilderness in those days that will be made impenetrable to the Antichrist. It's difficult to speculate exactly what this fortress will be, but it's clear that it's something that has been prepared ahead of time, so the facility in which God will house those who flee Jerusalem in the last days may already exist. It could be that the fortress will shield these people through military and technological strength alone, but I think it's quite possible that God will add a supernatural shield of protection around it.
We are going to conclude today by witnessing an immense battle in heaven that takes place halfway through the Great Tribulation when the archangel Michael and his angels throw Satan and his angels out of heaven. Did you know that to this very day the devil and his fallen angels still have access to the throne of God? We can look back to the Old Testament book of Job for proof of this. "One day the angels came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came with them. The Lord said to Satan, 'Where have you come from?' Satan answered the Lord, 'From roaming throughout the earth, going back and forth on it.'" (Job 1:6-7) This passage suggests that from time to time the angels appear before the Lord to give an account of the work they are performing. They were created to serve God and mankind, but Satan and those who followed him have tempted and tormented mankind instead. But we see from the passage in Job that even after Satan's spiritual fall, he still enters the presence of God and brags about how fruitlessly he's spending his time. What is he actually up to when he's roaming the earth and going back and forth on it? He "prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour". (1 Peter 5:8) Like a lion lurking in the darkness at the edge of a meadow waiting for an animal to stray from its pack, Satan lurks in the darkness looking for the one who has fallen out of church, for the one who no longer studies the Bible, for the one who hardly ever prays, for the one who doesn't maintain friendships with other Christians who can give them encouragement. When the devil identifies the weak one, he attacks. These attacks can take a number of forms, but often they are temptation, depression, and discouragement.
A day is coming in which Satan and his angels will no longer have access to heaven. They won't be able to go before God and accuse His people day and night. In tomorrow's study there will be rejoicing that the accuser is rendered unable to accuse believers before God. The name "Satan" literally means "accuser" and "adversary". I don't know what he says about you and me to God, but I imagine he points out all our faults and failures. He may say things like, "Did you hear what Your 'servant' said to someone who made him angry?", or, "Did you see how your 'daughter' got back at the co-worker who tried to keep her from being promoted?', or, "Do you know the kind of lustful thoughts your 'son' had when he was in the grocery checkout line and saw the picture of a woman in a bathing suit on a magazine cover?" I think the devil loves to point out the mistakes we make. But the thing is, God already knows everything about us. He knows everything about us and loves us anyway, so much so that He sent His Son to redeem us from our sins. And I think when the devil points out our mistakes to Him, maybe God answers with, "Sin? I don't see any sin? My daughters and my sons have been redeemed, and they are sorry for the mistakes they make, and they confess their sins to Me and I faithfully forgive them, so I don't see these sins you're talking about. They are obscured from My sight by the blood of My Son."
John concludes our passage today with the description of the heavenly battle. "Then war broke out in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back. But he was not strong enough, and they lost their place in heaven. The great dragon was hurled down---that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him." (Revelation 12:7-9) There is a very real danger of people in our day thinking that Satan is God's counterpart and that they are engaged in a struggle. The devil is not God's opposite or God's equal. God doesn't even have to stand up from the throne to cast the devil and his angels out of heaven for good. The Lord merely commands an archangel to handle the problem. Satan isn't even a match for the archangel Michael, much less a match for God. The Most High God doesn't have to lift a finger when He says to Michael, "I think it's time to take out the trash."
We don't know why God has allowed Satan and his angels to continue to have access to Him. We could speculate about this for a long time and never come up with any satisfactory answer. There is a purpose for it because everything God does and everything God allows has a purpose. Maybe He enjoys using every one of these occasions to brag about His Son, saying, "The sins of those whom you accuse are forgiven and forgotten for the sake of My Son who made the ultimate sacrifice for them. Behold My perfect and holy Son, whose birth you tried to prevent! Behold My risen Son, whose life you thought you took. Behold the One who is going to crush you under His feet!"
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