“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. She was pregnant and was crying out in birth pains and the agony of giving birth. And another sign appeared in heaven: behold, a great red dragon, with seven heads and ten horns, and on his heads seven diadems. 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. She gave birth to a male child, one who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron, but her child was caught up to God and to his throne, 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. Now war arose in heaven, Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon. And the dragon and his angels fought back, but he was defeated, and there was no longer any place for them in heaven. 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!’ 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. 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. The serpent poured water like a river out of his mouth after the woman, to sweep her away with a flood. 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. 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 stood on the sand of the sea.”

To say that I’m fond of Scripture would be a vast understatement. Putting it mildly, I’m obsessed. God’s Word is endlessly fascinating, overflowing with insight and wisdom, and more worthy of time and study than any other book to ever exist. This is largely because while, yes, it is a literal book, it is far, far more than just ink and paper. Paul writes to Timothy in 2 Timothy 3:16–17,

“All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.”

The Bible is more than just a literary work, it’s a living, breathing testimony, through which the Spirit is active and moving. Part of the reason I’m so enamored with Scripture is that, despite centuries of being pigeonholed into one category or another, the Bible is spiritual, it’s literally historical, it’s deeply psychological, and beautifully poetic. When we imagine that the Bible is only literal, we miss the deep and symbolic implications of what it has to say. If we think that the Bible is only symbolic, then we lose the impact of realizing that these events really happened within the world we occupy (or else will happen in the case of something prophetic like Revelation). The Bible is something that will show you the true nature of the world in which we live, the spiritual workings that are below the surface, and ultimately through the enlightenment of the Spirit, things that an unredeemed mind can’t comprehend or rationalize. When Jesus says in Matthew 5:44–45,

“Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.”

That doesn’t really make sense to the human mind. If left to your own desires and the rationale of your flesh, you would say the same thing as Lamech in Genesis 4:23–24,

“… I have killed a man for wounding me, a young man for striking me. If Cain’s revenge is sevenfold, then Lamech’s is seventy-sevenfold.”

“Get them before they get you,” is physically rational, and where this logically leads is, “get so many of them before they get you that the rest will fear you and no one will dare to come against you.” It’s a position of tyranny, of power through death and domination – a power that is fitting to our flesh. The idea that the entire world doesn’t operate constantly on this principle shows just how influential even “cultural” Christianity is, the idea that even without a true, salvific faith in Christ, a society can reap some benefit by simply acting out the general idea of not playing an entirely selfish, “every man for himself” sort of game. So the teaching to love your enemies goes against the grain of the flesh, but maybe you could adopt that right principle for the wrong reasons through social shaping. But the teaching of Scripture isn’t one note, it’s not all a single level of complexity, but varies in weight and depth. Jesus says to the crowd in John 6:54–57,

“Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me.”

It is one thing to, in a vague, atheistic or agnostic sense, acknowledge the utility of cherry-picking some of the ten commandments and adopting some of these principles into your life. It’s another matter to understand or even attempt to take on a position of loving your enemies. However, the idea of this John 6 teaching, the meaning and purpose of the flesh and blood of Christ is something that even professing believers will struggle to agree on. The immediate response of those who were following Jesus is,

“This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?”

And disagreement over this matter remains to this day. To the Orthodox and Catholic churches, this pertains to transubstantiation, to the bread and wine of the Eucharist literally becoming the flesh and blood of Christ, only under the blessings of a priest (I’m not going to swing even wider on this subject and delve into everything that’s wrong with that, just know that that’s their position). To the Baptist, what Jesus is saying speaks to the deep spiritual transformation that is symbolized through the Lord’s Supper, taking the body and blood, the essence of Jesus who died and rose again for us into ourselves in remembrance of His work, and celebration of the change He has made in us. And these are just the two ends of the spectrum, with other Protestant denominations falling somewhere in between. I ventured down that rabbit hole to illustrate where we find ourselves today – there is a degree of Biblical philosophy that sinful man can imitate, and point where this drops off, and it is truly only the believer who can act out what the Spirit has called us to do. The point beyond this reaches a mystery and complexity where “Christians” as a whole aren’t in agreement, but fall into different denominational views. These are questions that often aren’t as relevant for those we’ll call “baby” Christians, but become incredibly important to study, analyze, and prayerfully consider as we grow in our faith, if for no other reason than that God has given us His Word, and He is worthy of our time and consideration. So, why am I going on about this? What point am I trying to get at? It’s so crucial to understand this concept of Biblical layering, of literal and symbolic layered over one another, and of teachings that advance in complexity, that require greater spiritual understanding as opposed to simple knowledge, because we’re watching this unfold as we progress through Revelation. Revelation 1:1 – it’s the apocalypse, the revelation, the unveiling of Jesus Christ, this is a given testimony to understand Jesus to a greater extent, and on a deeper level. We start looking at the seven churches – seven very real earthly churches, that symbolize all the churches that did, and would exist. In Jesus’ words to the seven churches are timeless messages, words of encouragement and chilling warnings that apply to every believer to this very day. But then we shift, we look into the throne room of heaven, and things are glorious, and there’s a degree of mystery about them because we’re getting description of holy, spiritual things that are in many ways above the minds of men, and this quality continues as we go through the seven seals, the first interlude, the first six trumpets, and even the second interlude. But even in the midst of these things that we can only know in part, there’s still an order, a sequence to the story that we can follow along with. This becomes significantly harder to track as we moved into last week’s passage of Revelation 11. There’s a seeming increase in the symbolic language, and while we’re given the timestamps – forty-two months that the holy city will be trampled, 1,260 days that the two witnesses will testify before being killed by the beast and, after three and a half days, being raised by God – we’re not told when during the seven year tribulation that their three and a half years falls. The “when” matters far less than the “what” of their message, but this is another topic that can lead to no end of infighting, because it’s open to interpretation. It’s imperative though, that as we move into this week’s passage, we have our perspective clear, because what we’re reading becomes, if anything, even more mysterious. I recently heard Wes Huff say that he wasn’t going to, “shout about something that Scripture whispers,” and I thought that was an excellent way of putting it. It does us no good to dig our heels in and dogmatically insist on one way of reading a passage that isn’t singular in its message, we can’t ground something in a single direction that God has left open to remain relevant in multiple directions. It also does us no good to throw our hands up and say, “I don’t know what this is talking about, what’s the point of reading it.” Because what it’s talking about ultimately leads us back to Christ, and the point of reading it is that we understand and glorify Him to a greater degree. Last week as we closed looking at the sounding of the seventh trumpet, we saw this language that is foretelling God’s victory and His coming kingdom as if it’s something that is happening at that very moment, something that helps us see the eternal nature of God’s triumph – something that today’s passage helps us see even further. Because the battles that we’ve seen prophesied are not limited to Revelation – just as the spirit of the antichrist, which is manifested in a single individual is at work in the world today, this battle of evil striving and failing to overcome good is one as old as time itself, and it ends in a victory that God has claimed indefinitely.

A Victory that Transcends Time

1. The Eternal Divide of Good and Evil

“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. She was pregnant and was crying out in birth pains and the agony of giving birth. And another sign appeared in heaven: behold, a great red dragon, with seven heads and ten horns, and on his heads seven diadems.

Last week, we saw the seventh trumpet sounded and this beautiful declaration from the twenty-four elders,

“We give thanks to you, Lord God Almighty, who is and who was, for you have taken your great power and begun to reign. 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.”

After this there’s immediately this glimpse even farther into heaven than we’ve seen before, as the temple is open, the ark of the covenant is seen, and God’s glory seems to shake everything – and then, we transition to this week, and we’ve departed from anything we’ve seen previously, “And a great sign appeared in heaven…” We’re given this image of a woman radiantly clothed in the sun, standing upon the lesser light of the moon, a dozen stars crowning her head. If this image (which we’ll unpack), is confusing, we’re immediately given another one in the form of the great red dragon. This second image, terrible as it is, is at least explained later in the passage as we’re told that this is Satan. But what does it all mean, these signs appearing in heaven and then what unfolds afterward? I think part of the reason that this sequence can be confusing is because of how we think of heaven. For the most part, myself included, when the believer thinks of heaven, we think of paradise, we think of being kept in the presence of God. In many respects, we take what is said about the new heaven in Revelation 21 and 22, and we apply it to all of what heaven is now. Certainly, to the believer, this is close to what it means to die in this life, and to enter into the presence of God, but this doesn’t seem to be all that “heaven” is. One verse that used to confused me was Ephesians 6:12, this coming from the passage where Paul implores us to don the full armor of God,

“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.”

The idea of fighting spiritually against an enemy who is spiritual, this idea of “spiritual warfare,” as it’s commonly called makes sense, but the part that can sound strange is this idea of “spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” If “heaven” as we think of it is only to bein God’s presence, what is essentially the throne room, then what would forces of evil be doing there? Think back to the description of the throne room we read in Revelation 4 – the shining radiance of the One upon the throne, the living creatures and their testimony, the twenty-four elders and their worship, the seven burning torches, and the crystalline sea of glass. Does this sound like a place where there’s demonic activity? Does this sound like an environment where Satan could, or would be permitted to exist for even a moment? Consider Paul’s words in 2 Corinthians 12:2–4,

“I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows. And I know that this man was caught up into paradise—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows— and he heard things that cannot be told, which man may not utter.”

Speaking of heavenly places, he refers to this place, paradise, as the “third heaven.” Considering these passages together it seems that, within proper context, when we see these signs in heaven – the woman who by all accounts seems to represent Israel, and the dragon who is Satan – this isn’t happening in heaven, the throne room of God, but rather heaven, the spiritual realm. This also makes sense when we consider the words of the unnamed angel who speaks to Daniel in Daniel 10:13–14, 20-21,

“The prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me twenty-one days, but Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, for I was left there with the kings of Persia, and came to make you understand what is to happen to your people in the latter days. For the vision is for days yet to come.” … “Then he said, ‘Do you know why I have come to you? But now I will return to fight against the prince of Persia; and when I go out, behold, the prince of Greece will come. But I will tell you what is inscribed in the book of truth: there is none who contends by my side against these except Michael, your prince.”

The idea of Satan waging war upon God directly, or somehow taking his fight to the throne room just doesn’t make sense – we get to see what it looks like when God actually moves against the enemy in Revelation 19 and 20 and it’s over really fast. But by understanding what are essentially layers to heaven, to different heavenly places, all of which are above and out of sight of mortal eyes, but are not all on the same tier, we can make better sense of the signs that we’re seeing in today’s passage. Don’t let this confuse you, and certainly don’t let it cause you dismay – remember that your hope is not in “heaven” in a place, but rather “heaven” in a person. It is not a location that we seek, but rather to be in the presence of God, through Christ.

“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. She gave birth to a male child, one who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron, but her child was caught up to God and to his throne, 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”

In regard to the woman, and her representing Israel – for a very long time this was one of the most difficult passages in all of Revelation for me to understand. I got that we may not be seeing things in sequence, that this wasn’t necessarily in a chronological order, but the woman clearly gives birth to the Messiah, which would make her Mary, and I couldn’t really fold the pursuit of Satan, the flight into the wilderness, or the 1,260 day nourishment in the wilderness into the Christmas story, and so I found myself more or less doing exactly what I said not to do earlier, throwing my hands up, with no clue how to make sense of things. Then, a few weeks ago I was reading this section, and the Word, the God-breathed Scripture hit me completely differently than it ever had before. Crowned with twelve stars… This is Israel, the woman symbolizes the bride of God, the nation from whom the Christ would come forth. This is not fallen Israel, not the faithless bride that we read of in Ezekiel 16, not what Jerusalem has become as we read of her in last week’s passage, called Sodom and Egypt, the one who seems to bear so much resemblance to the prostitute that is Babylon, seen in Revelation 17. Rather this is an Israel that was called to God and made radiant by His glory, the bride as God first made her, described before her transgressions in Ezekiel 16:14,

“And your renown went forth among the nations because of your beauty, for it was perfect through the splendor that I had bestowed on you, declares the Lord GOD.”

And the language of her description is reminiscent of Genesis 37:9 which says of Joseph,

“Then he dreamed another dream and told it to his brothers and said, ‘Behold, I have dreamed another dream. Behold, the sun, the moon, and eleven stars were bowing down to me.’”

Seeing her as Israel, we can understand the scope of Satan’s hatred – he hates God, and so, of course, he hates God’s people. The seven heads and ten horns, and then the seven diadems upon his heads all numerically and symbolically tie into completion and authority, which may sound strange in regard to Satan, but is actually fitting. Satan is a murderer, he is the father of lies, he is, if nothing else, complete in his rebellion, in his wickedness, in his damnation, and he absolutely holds authority over sinful man who bows down in worship of the enemy. This line we see about him sweeping down a third of the stars with his tail is where the common teaching that one third of the angels rebelled with him comes from. I’m not saying it’s not true – we know from this very passage that there were angels who sided with the dragon, and there is precedent in Scripture for angels being referred to as stars – but again, the things we teach with absolute certainty, what we treat as close-fisted matters should ideally come with more Scriptural backing than this. Regardless, we can see it as an attack against heaven, a lashing out that damages the heavens that we with mortal eyes are actually able to see. The dragon advances upon the woman to eat her child, to consume the Christ – something we can see Satan attempt through Herod’s genocide of male children after Jesus’ birth, in Satan’s temptation of Jesus before the start of His earthly ministry, and in the fact that Judas Iscariot’s betrayal was ultimately in step with the spirit of the enemy. All attempts to devour the Son of God in one way or another, all failed completely. In the aftermath of the ascension we see the woman flee, specifically into the wilderness, and we see that she will be nourished for the same amount of time, given in the same measurement (days), as the two witnesses prophesied on the earth. The wilderness is not a place of peace or prosperity, it’s where God’s people rebelled and where they were forced to wander until an entire generation had died before they could enter the promised land – and yet, by God, it was also a place of provision. The people of Israel ate by His hand, given the bread of heaven. They were judged when they transgressed, corrected and refined through the Law and through divine punishment, called as a people to God. We’re mistaken if we see the two witnesses as a plague upon the earth. Though they certainly bring judgment upon the earth through the powers and plagues God has placed at their disposal, the two witnesses are there to witness, to testify, two olive trees, sent seemingly directly to God’s original people once again (given that they’re killed in Jerusalem, it stands to reason that their ministry was in or primarily around the region of Israel). Yet despite the life they offer through the testimony they give, there is celebration at the death of the two witnesses, at the end of the correction they brought against those in rebellion to God. Bringing this back to the woman, we know historically how Israel has received their time in the wilderness, how they grumbled and rebelled, and even how they stumbled and disobeyed in the promised land that He had prepared for them. We’re not told this in what John sees, it’s not revealed through the sign in heaven, but we can know the history, and we can guess at their future as the adulterous woman, seated upon Satan’s back and lavished in the delights of the flesh. But in her origins, and in God’s provision for her, and in the contrast of Satan’s evil, his plotting, treachery, and chaotic destruction, we can grasp this struggle as old as the world. The sin and the correction, the pull of the outer darkness and the call of the Light of life, the hatred of Satan which coddles our flesh and corrupts our spirit, and the love of God which crucifies the flesh and nourishes the spirit forever. One is destined to lose, and keep losing until he and all who follow him are consigned to the burning fire of the outer darkness for eternity, and the other will claim the victory that never ends, that endures into eternity.

2. The Victorious Nature of Good

“Now war arose in heaven, Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon. And the dragon and his angels fought back, but he was defeated, and there was no longer any place for them in heaven. 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.

As we continue on in today’s passage and look further at these epic, supernatural events, I want you to understand something – Satan is a loser. Yes, he’s the god of this world, he’s the enemy, the accuser, he’s a roaring lion, and a creeping serpent, but he’s also a profound, unparalleled loser. Just to count up some of his biggest defeats – he lost when God cursed him in the garden, he lost when Jesus raised Himself from the grave, he loses in Revelation 20 when he’s bound and thrown in the abyss for a thousand years, he loses again in Revelation 20 when he’s freed from the abyss, only to be judged and thrown into the lake for fire for eternity, and moving back a bit, he loses in today’s passage when Michael and his angels literally kick him out of heaven. The language isn’t dissimilar to the Daniel passage we read earlier, except instead of Michael and the unnamed angel who comes to Daniel contending against their adversaries, it’s full on war between the angels of God, and Satan and his angels, and the dragon and those who follow him are defeated decisively. This marks a shift in the supernatural that we could easily breeze past – remember, if we think of heaven as only being the throne room of God, then of course there’s no place for Satan and his angels there, but if we understand “heaven” in the layered sense that we talked about before, it changes the context entirely. Job 1:1-5 gives us a brief but powerful description of the man Job, his family, his possessions, and most importantly, his character and standing before God. Job 1:6–7 however takes a rather strange turn, leaving Job behind entirely for the moment and giving us a scene unfolding in some heavenly realm,

“Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan also came among them. The LORD said to Satan, ‘From where have you come?’ Satan answered the LORD and said, ‘From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking up and down on it.’”

Angels present themselves before God, and also, for some reason, Satan’s here. I’ve addressed this many times before, but always remember when reading Scripture that God never asks a question due to lack of knowledge, He’s not asking someone because He needs to know, He’s asking to give whoever is being addressed an opportunity to respond. Now, let’s imagine something for a minute – even if you’re not a parent, I can guarantee that at some point you’ve been a child, so bearing that in mind, let me ask you a question about kids. A kid sneaks into the pantry to get a cookie and gets caught. They know they’re not supposed to be eating sweets before dinner (hence the sneaking), but their sugar cravings won out, and they decided to knowingly break the rules. “What are you doing in the pantry?” their mom or dad asks. “Oh, I’m just looking,” they reply. Now, by the rationale of the kid, they didn’t lie, they are just looking, they didn’t actually do anything. However what they’re saying is deceptive, it’s intentionally misleading – it’s a lie, even if something that is pointedly opposite of the truth isn’t spoken. This is what Satan does, it’s his entire MO. It’s what he did in the garden, mis-representing the command Adam and Eve had been given regarding the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and it’s what he tried to do when tempting Jesus, mis-quoting Scripture. God asks a question that He omnisciently already knows the answer to, “From where have you come?” and Satan, being just the absolute worst, gives an, “Oh, I’m just looking,” equivalent of an answer. “Where have you come from?” Oh me? I was just walking around…” Yeah, doing what, you snake? Because what Satan has been doing is accusing – it’s in the loud voice from heaven, “the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down.” Seemingly since the fall, Satan, existing in the spirit, moving in heavenly places has been permitted to appeal to God against mankind? Why? Because it glorifies God, because the eternal loser just keeps on losing, because he doesn’t understand mercy, he doesn’t understand grace, he doesn’t understand God, he only knows how to hate, how to steal, kill, and destroy, and how to lose – and this defeat that we read of today is something else. He doesn’t just lose, he doesn’t just fall, he is seemingly cast out of the spiritual realm altogether – “and there was no longer any place for them in heaven.” The enemy has been losing since the beginning – but this marks the beginning of his end. He is cast down, thrown out into the physical world and barred from heaven, and while the world may suffer in his presence, his end is heralded, and the final victory approaches.

“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.”

In Luke 9, Jesus sends out the twelve disciples in pairs. This event is recorded in Matthew and Mark as well, as the twelve are blessed to cast out demons, cure diseases, and proclaim the coming kingdom. In Luke 10, we see as Jesus commissions seventy-two others with the same mission, this sometimes being passed over or forgotten in casual reading as it’s only recorded in Luke’s account. Luke 10:17–20 shows the return of the seventy-two and Jesus’ words to them,

“The seventy-two returned with joy, saying, ‘Lord, even the demons are subject to us in your name!’ And he said to them, ‘I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. Behold, I have given you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall hurt you. Nevertheless, do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.’”

“I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven,” is one of those verses that has just stuck in my head for years. One, it stands as a warning against pride, against the love of power for the sake of power, and against forgetting that it is God to whom all glory is due. Two, it reminds us that Jesus is God. This man, the carpenter from Nazareth who stands before them is eternal, existing before time and space and creation – before any kind of reality we can know or imagine, He was there. I’ve always assumed that Jesus was referring to Satan being cast down before the fall of man, and maybe He was, but it occurs to me that He may have also been referring to what we’ve read today. As these seventy-two rejoice that even the demons are subject to them in the name of Jesus, He can see forward and speaks of the day when the leader of the demons, the accuser is cast out of the heavenly places, exorcized with no return. And then Jesus tells them where their hope lies, what they truly have to rejoice over – it’s not that they can cast out demons in His name, but that their names are written in heaven. Satan is conquered, not by the might of man or the force of human will, but by the blood of the Lamb, by the testimony that Jesus Christ is Lord. Paul writes in Romans 8:18,

“For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.”

And in 2 Timothy 4:6–8,

“For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure has come. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing.”

The victory of those who are saved in Christ transcends suffering, it overcomes time and space, because our victory is not our own, but rather is the one that our Lord has given us. It beats sin, it beats the world, it beats the enemy, and it destroys the sting of death, that we need not fear losing our lives in the declaration of His righteous glory.

“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!’”

Heaven celebrates, as the dragon and his followers are banished from the spiritual realm, but woe is given to the world, because Satan, the spirit that has been cherished in the fallen hearts of men has entered the world in a new and terrible way – and yet, despite his fury, we know that his time is drawing to a close.

3. The Fruitless Nature of Evil

“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. 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.”

As we’ve already discussed, Satan is a loser. He is, by all accounts, a being that is possessed by hatred, having no repentance, no regard for the shocking and disgusting depths of his own wickedness, he exists only to hate insatiably. So, when he is cast out of heaven, barred from the spiritual realm and finds himself on the earth, he immediately pursues the woman again. I don’t know what that may look like practically, but I do have a question to ponder over – when we first saw her, the preserved nation from whom the Messiah came forth, it made sense to identify her as Israel, but after the resurrection, the ascension, and the spread of the gospel, Israel that once was the bride of God has become the church that is the bride of Christ. So does it make more sense now to see her as Israel, or the church? You could make a case for either, but it’s something to consider either way. Regardless, what we see is that God’s provision, these great eagle wings are given to His people, and they’re delivered from the serpent, again into the wilderness where they will be cared for and nourished.

“The serpent poured water like a river out of his mouth after the woman, to sweep her away with a flood. 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.”

In response to her flight, the dragon pours forth a flood from his mouth – whether this is meant to be a literal flood, or it’s the tide of chaos that he brings to bear against God’s people, either way it’s another failure. What’s strange though is how Satan is thwarted here, in that the earth comes to the woman’s defense. You’ll hear it said that the world is Satan’s playground – people will take the information that he’s called the god or ruler of this world and think that means that he has complete dominion. He certainly has sway, he’s the spiritual driver of the spirit of sin, swaying the hearts of those who have chosen estrangement and rebellion against Christ – but creation ultimately belongs to the Creator, not the evil one who rules because mankind chose him over God, and God gave the world over to their desires, and so creation fights back. Under the hand of God, the world which has been shaken apart, which awaits destruction under His wrath, comes to the defense of His people and Satan fails again – the world that he has treated as his kingdom turning against the accuser.

“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 stood on the sand of the sea.”

Failing to harm the symbolic woman, Satan’s fury swells and he goes off to fight against the children of God – and he’s specifically described standing, “on the sand of the sea.” When we looked at the mighty angel who brought down the little scroll in Revelation 10, we saw that he stood with given authority over all of creation – one foot on the land, one foot on the sea. Both the place of extreme stability and the place of complete chaos are firm foundations beneath him as he fulfills the work that God has given him. We see Satan left in a very different position, with our final view of him standing, furious and terrible, on the sand, on the boundary line. The sea is chaos, it’s death, but it’s definable chaos, we can know what it is, in that we know that we don’t really know what it is – the sand is different. It looks like land, in some respects, it behaves like land, and yet it is shifting and unstable. Jesus says as a close to the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 7:26–27,

“And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.”

The teachings and temptations of the world, of Satan are a sandy foundation that leads to ruin and death, and yet this is now where we see the enemy, this is the ground he makes his stand on, cast down permanently from heaven barred from the heavenly places. He will plot and scheme, lie and deceive, he will do every dark and blasphemous thing possible to steal, kill, and destroy, to wage war against God, to tear down that he might wickedly and perversely glorify himself… And he will lose. The sand that he stands upon, the weak and hazy middle ground that he seeks to operate in will crumble beneath him and swallow him whole. There is a battle playing out, since the beginning of time, to the present day, until the heavenly bodies are burned up and dissolved, and the final judgment is leveled – the outcome is decided – Satan will lose, just as he’s lost again and again since this war began, crushed under the just hand of the Living God, defeated by the victory that transcends time.

Pastor Chris’ Sermon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5N5k7bP0osk