Okay, let's return to Revelation, chapter 12, verses 7 through 12, Revelation 12, 7 through 12, and here is the challenge for some of this. You know some of the scriptures behind these already. You just don't know how they all fit together, and I don't say that as any testimony to your lack of knowledge as much as just our lack of exposure or lack of dealing with these and integrating them together. But I hope that what you'll begin to see is that the evidence of what we're about to read is already sprinkled all throughout the scripture. I'll point to a few of these from the book of Daniel, for example, from Zechariah. And I hope that when you see these, that you read what it says about Satan and has been thrown out of heaven and how all that unfolds, and as we begin to see that comparing the Old Testament scriptures as associated with the nation of Israel, and the New Testament scriptures associated with the New Jerusalem, that is the church with the truth of the Christ, the crucifixion resurrection, and ascension being the watershed point that you'll begin to see how that flows so that it's all of one scripture, and it'll remove a little bit of the mythology feel of the Old Testament, and the doctrinaire feel of the New Testament, maybe those can be woven together just a little bit for us. Together, Revelation chapter 12, 7 through 12, a dramatic passage, a scripture, now wore a rose 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 was called the devil, and Satan, the deceiver of the Old 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 love not their own lives, even unto death, therefore rejoice of heavens, and you who dwell in them. Woe to you, O worth and see, for the devil has come down to you in great wrath, because he knows that it's time short. What an exciting passage, really, to read. What a dramatic passage to read. It's exciting because the results are fairly clear. There's a war in heaven, the good guys win, and the devil is cast out. And that's an exciting passage to scripture. That's an assuring passage to scripture. The application that we can draw from that right up front is that the lives we are called to lead are lies that are built upon the sure, victory already achieved. If it wasn't already won, then our motivation to press on might be somewhat painted. We might struggle a bit because who knows how it might turn out, but it is already turned out, and we already know where the victory is, and so we can live as those with an assured victory because there is already an assured victory. The war is over. The war has been won, and our Lord is the winner. So there are three things that we'll explore tonight. Three areas that we'll look at. First of all, when did this war happen? Is this something happened in the past? Is this something that's prophetic for the future? We'll look for this. Is it not yet done? Is it not yet cast out? Is all of this still to happen? And we also want to look at the dynamics of the battle itself. What happened in this war? How is this thing fought? Are there angels with battle axes and armaments? Are there holy catapults throwing some sort of material in heaven at each other? Was there fire and arrows used in this battle? And then what does it all mean? How are we to now live? What adjustments are we to make? Let's talk about when it happened. Previously in the passages that we looked at before, we saw a dragon, and this dragon was from the beginning of our time on earth in Eden. As soon as the prophecy was made in Genesis 3.15, that there would come a seed, and that seed would be a short destruction. The dragon dimmed in the woman who was God's people, the one who would get birth to the seed. That woman, as history unfolded, and as each scheme of the devil to thwart or to destroy the potential of a child was thwarted itself, as he observed her all throughout history, kept her hand in. She was always in anticipation and in an expectation of labor for the coming forth of the promised child, all through the history of Israel, from Genesis all the way up until the birth of Christ. And so Satan watched, I imagine that in the spiritual realm he never took his eye off of Israel. He never took his eye off of Israel. He watched and he watched and he watched waiting for the child to be born so that he could crush the seed rather than the seed crushing him. The woman we know was the church, the church of the Old Testament, the church of the New Testament, awaiting that promise to seed him. When Israel brought forth Christ, when Christ was born, the dragon then went to battle against Christ and his church, and he lost. Now Christ rules with a rod of iron, we learn. And so the battle took place, and he lost. Since Jesus won, the church is now protected while she's in the wilderness. She's not exposed and at danger. Satan can't stop the progress of the gospel. He can't stop the expansion in the growth of the kingdom because it is no longer his. The kingdom of Satan has become the kingdom of God, the kingdom of man has become the kingdom of God. The battle took place during the birth of Christ, the battle waged during his life. Remember it took place at the birth and we see one episode of that when Herod went and destroyed all of the newborns. The battle waged during his life, as we are reading through a study in the Gospel of Mark, we read the other ones. What really sticks out is the amplified presence of demonic activity. We've already had just two chapters, and we're not finished with the second chapter of Mark in our mornings. We've already seen Satan and his minions that the demons appear twice already. Seeking to have authority over Jesus by calling him out by name because name signifies authority. So they were waging a war trying to stop Jesus even in his earthly ministry. There was also the war that continued to wage and his crucifixion, that is his death, and it waged all the way through his ascension where it was completed. Hebrews chapter 10 verses 12 to 13, but this man who was Christ, a great high priest, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down on the right hand of God from henceforth, expecting for his enemies to be made his foot stood. And so the war waged right on until Christ sat down at the right hand of God having completed and achieved victory. Now what happened? We talk about this war in heaven, we talk about the spiritual battle that took place between the angels and it's so dramatic, but what does that look like? How does that happen? Are there really strong armed battles taking place? Are there angelic headlocks and body slams? Are they flying and throwing things in each other in the heavens? What does an angel fight look like in the heavens? Well, we know that it was a very real battle. There's nothing in the text that signals that we should read this allegorically. There's nothing in the text that would indicate that we should make this some sort of a symbol of something else that it does appear that there really was a battle. And we can accept that. Now it doesn't mean that it was in the air somewhere where you would look up and you would see these angels flitting about among the clouds, fighting amongst each other doing runs at each other or whatever a battle like that might look like. It doesn't mean that at all, but it does mean that it was in the heavenly abode before the presence of God himself, that there was a battle between Satan and his angels that were falling demons now and Michael, the archangel and the angels of the Lord and that this took place in the presence of God himself and the heavenly abode. If we do like details on just what that might look like, where that is, it's simple what we read in Revelation. We know that the battle is spiritual. Now when I say spiritual, I don't mean by that that it's somehow imaginary in our minds or that it doesn't involve real spiritual conflict, real conflict between two parties. When we say it's spiritual, we know that the angels themselves are not created as we are and they do not have the bodies that we have and so there is not the sense of wounds and weapons of warfare that would do the same as it would do to us. There was a spiritual battle that was taking place and the way that it is described because of the way Satan is described, it's a battle in the mind with shrewdness, stratagem, deception. This is how Satan is described and we can see the battle taking place in the birth, the life and the death and the resurrection and ascension of Jesus. As Satan employs strategies as he manipulates, as he deceives to try to defeat and thwart the will and the work of God and so Michael and his angels are arrayed against Satan and his angels and the battle is taking place before God and the heavenly and the heavenly abode and yet very much can we see the results and the smoke of that war here on earth. So on the one hand we have Michael. Now Michael is not Jesus in this passage, Michael is not Jesus, he is an archangel, he's very powerful Mark angel. We know that because in places it describes Michael as being one like God but Jesus is not like God. Jesus is God. He's not ever described as being like God except as he has the very attributes of God and he is God and so this archangel is a created being, he is Michael the archangel and he is not Jesus as he's described in the passage. Daniel 10 mentions Michael by name, so if you can see in that passage he is distinguished very carefully from being from Christ. Michael also appears in Jude 9, contending with the devil about the body of Moses. He there is in Jude 9 but he respects the devil in that passage as to his power and so it seems that Michael and the devil are somewhat on par with power. It could be that he might even have a little lesser power but nevertheless he and the devil seem to be, there's some parity there with their power and you can see that that contention happening there because he says he didn't even hazard to make a curse or to rail a curse against Satan but he left that condemnation to the Lord God. He himself did not take that on himself. He's an archangel that means cheap angel and he fights with the devil. He fights on behalf of God's people. Daniel 10, 13 shows us that. Let me read from Daniel 12, 1. At that time shall arise Michael the great prince who has charge of your people. He fights on behalf of God's people and we see that in the Old Testament and we see that now in this spiritual battle that is taking place. So get his power being rivaled only by the devil himself. He fights the devil and he's the guardian of God's people in times of trouble. So these two characteristics of Michael or what should be burdened into our heads. Someone says, tell me about Michael the archangel. He does two things primarily. He fights the devil and he is the guardian of God's people. Those two roles are given to Michael to fight directly the devil and to the guardian over God's people in times of trouble. The battle was waged over Christ's birth as a result of Satan's cast out of heaven. Now here's what's really interesting here. And here's where you can see how it makes a difference. We know that the battle took place around the time that Christ was born all the way through to the ascension and in the New Testament we don't read anything like what we read in Job and in Zechariah. In Job 1 and 2 we see Satan there in the very presence of God. He has access to God and he's an accuser and he's accusing Job of being a fraud. He said, this man is not what you think. He's not righteous. He's accusing the man before God. He's in the presence of God. Same as Zechariah. Zechariah 3-1-12, the people returning from Babylon and he's accusing the high priests of being frauds, of not being worthy, of not being able to carry out their function, that they're filthy, they're dirty, they're closer bad, that these men are not worthy of being priest unto God. And he is there making that accusation directly to God the Father. But then he's cast out and he no longer has that access to the Father. So some of what we read in Job and Zechariah and then it doesn't match in the New Testament and we begin to think that maybe in the Old Testament there's a little bit of mythology going on there. Satan talking to God about Job and the priest and he doesn't do that in the New Testament we say, and this is why. Because at the birth of Christ the great dragon that had been watching and waiting and sought to destroy the seed went to war over God's people. Michael takes on the devil directly in that war and he guards over God's people in times of trouble. Satan is thrown out of heaven with his minions and his demons and he no longer has that access to God. Now we have an advocate rather than an accuser in the presence of God. You see at least in my mind how that fits and flows beautifully with the whole way of that the scripture is unfolding. What we have in Job and Zechariah the Old Testament is not an anomaly. We have the pre-battle history when Satan was still in the presence of God until the battle was fought and he was cast out. He was exiled out of heaven. Well as Jesus was on earth and the 72 disciples came back we read in Luke 10, 18. They came back successfully, they had been healing, casting out demons and they were very successful and Jesus tells them why they were finding success. I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven Jesus said. I saw Satan fall like lightning. That's why they were able to begin having success because the victory had already been won. The kingdom was now advancing. The seed had not been destroyed, the gospel was going out, the kingdom was being built and as the ministry progressed as Jesus continued to progress and the ministry as the gospel continued to be spread as the kingdom continued to take shape so that it was recognizable. The spiritual kingdom, the intensity of the battle increased. It grew more intense as we read the New Testament. We no longer see again that access but instead as it's recorded in 1 John 2.1 we told that we have an advocate. 1.11 explains in the passage today explains that the blood of the Lamb is what ended his quest as an accuser. That's what ended the quest. That's what ended Satan's ministry of accusation. That's what ended his being able to bear false testimony unto the Lord, the blood of the Lamb. The blood of the Lamb cleans the heavenly realms itself. It cleans us and therefore there is no accusation that can be made because we have been bought by the blood of Christ. As being purchased by the blood of Christ it's sealed, it's complete and so no accusation makes any sense. Satan carries now his frustration, his anger, his rage against the church on earth to try to envied the progress of the kingdom but he can't accuse God's people because our names have been revealed as sealed in the Lamb's book of life. It's a fruitless activity. Not only is it fruitless but he's been cast out so he doesn't have that access anymore. Now the word of their testimony were told, the blood and the word or the two instruments of the battle, the blood and the word. The word of the testimony is overcoming the devil and his minions. So what does that teach us? There is in the military, we call them combatitives and combatitives means that they take these basic trainings, they put them in basic training and then they teach them hand-to-hand combat. They call it combatitives, ways, if you find yourself in close contact, ways to overcome the enemy by hand. Well we have spiritual combatitives, we probably should be more intentional in the way that we train to do this. Maybe this is, maybe through this study I've come across maybe a little better agenda for discipleship in the church. These are our spiritual combatitives, these are the instruments in our warfare, in our spiritual warfare, the preaching, the teaching, witnessing and praying of God's people. When the word goes out it is effective, through the preaching of the word, through the teaching of the word as it is taught truly and purely praying and witnessing these. How is it that these are the weapons of our warfare because these are the hands that build the kingdom? How is the kingdom built by the spirit of Christ, the spirit of God, working through the preaching and the teaching and the witnessing and the praying of God's people? So Paul said in Romans he's going out and he says I'm going to have to go, we have to go out and we have to teach and we have to, how will they come to that faith? If we don't preach to them the word, how will they ever hear it? If no one goes to give it to them. See the urgency of that mission, he didn't say let go let God or God will be the copilot or whatever bumper stickers we like. He's saying these are the tools, these are our spiritual combatitives in this warfare that continues to be waged. Yes, the war is over but the battles continue because we're told that Satan when he's cast down it spins his rage upon the people living here on earth. The heavens rejoice, it's been cleansed, the blood of the lamb has cleansed it and washed Satan and his demons right out. So that's a trouble free zone now, that's a Satan free zone but it washed him and flushed him downhill, you know what they say? And guess who's downhill? We're downhill. He was thrown down to the earth and you think that he's willing to say well, I guess I lost that one. His rage, as Martin Luther penned in a mighty fortress, his rage is sure but one little word shall fail him for preaching, teaching and witnessing and praying of God's people. What are the results? Well, first of all we notice a lasting joy, we're to celebrate the defeat of our oppressor and our accuser, our worship on earth extends into the worship of heaven. Our worship is not the worship of people who are disconnected from that spiritually as we're born again, we've been delivered from the death of this life and our worship is connected, our voices are joined with those who were in the presence of God singing, those elders around the throne, those saints that are gathered there around and under the altar. Our voices are joined with theirs, our worship is to be with theirs in concert, in unison and so now we're to have this lasting joy, our worship is to be filled with joy because of the guarantee of the defeat of our oppressor and our accuser, our worship extends into heaven. To have Ephesians 2.6 Christ has raised us up together and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. That's not allegorical either. We've been raised from death to life and made to sit with Christ Jesus in heavenly places, our worship extends across that dimension. That's one reason among many others that the worship which we celebrate together is so important because it has eternal significance, it is connected to eternity. That's not the only result given to us in verse 12. It is an important result but like I said about rolling downhill, that joy that's being expressed in heaven, we're to learn from that and that goes that and be a part of that but our experience here is a temporary testing. We're worn of a testing, Satan's trouble is limited to earth, see how is it that he tests us, how is it that he troubles us, he troubles our conscience, he tells us that we're not worthy, we're not educated enough, we don't know what we're doing, that we'll never get it right so why try or that if we really are on the path that we're just being legalistic we need to relax, we'll never reach this, we'll never touch that. In one way or another, get off the path, this is point, either get off it because you're not worthy or if you're own it, get off it because nobody can understand so you're not effective. So either you're not worthy or you're not effective but either way get off the path, that's Satan's message, move left or move right but get off of the path, get stop moving in the direction that the scriptures with point because that's where the results will come from, because the results we seek are spiritual results. So he troubles our conscience, he can influence or inhabit and have it lost people as well, those who aren't involved by the spirit of Christ. I get asked this a lot of times, can people be possessed? Let's not use the word possession, that has too many Hollywood overtures and Congress of too many images that aren't helpful. Inhabit, we see it in the New Testament, we see that where even after the resurrection, we know that the demons were involved in that, but what we do know is that if the spirit of Christ those in you they will not dwell together. I can't tell you much about demonic possession and habitation, whatever we choose to call it, it's not something that's explained thoroughly, all we have heard is that it happened, so it must be possible. But we also know that it didn't happen to a believer, that there wasn't one who had the spirit of Christ because the house will not be divided and we are the temple of the Lord if we're in dwell by the spirit of Christ. So if you're in dwell with the spirit of Christ, then no, you cannot be inhabited by the spirit of the evil one. We need to think very seriously, Satan's activity, his stirring with a stick, the people of God, Peter warns, be sober, be vigilant because you're adversary, the devil is a roaring lion walking about seeking whom he made about. We always want to think the best of things, situations and people, but we don't factor this into it. It's not necessarily that the people are even aware of what's going on, but he is. He has ambitions for the church, hours in every church, he has ambitions, he's not content to twiddlestons and see how it comes out. James taught, resist the devil and he'll flee from you, resist through the blood and the testimony. That's my takeaway from this, and that's my concluding point actually, to take away, resist through the blood and the testimony, proclaiming the atoning work of Jesus that washes away sin, the gospel and the testimony. Well, that is the testimony, isn't it? The testimony is the whole scripture, the testimony of the kingdom, the testimony of everything we've been talking about that makes it all make such good sense, to where we're able to see that there's something going on here other than a free giveaway, and we do say that the gospel is free for the taking, but that's not all that we have to say. That's not everything that we have to say. It's the entry of someone to eternal life is to come to an association relationship with Jesus Christ knowing that they've been washed by the blood of the Lamb, we can sing 90% of our songs about that, but that's not the whole story. There is something that's going on in the heavenly realms with the person of our father and the son and the Holy Spirit and God desires his people to know those things. Because Satan is prowling like a lion seeking who he may devour. We must be awareness or the work of the progress of the kingdom will be impeded. It will be injured and people will be hurt because Satan cares nothing for our comfort, our pleasure, our happiness, and our joy. Those things are an abomination to him. He's happy with this content. He's happy with strife. He's happy with division. He's happy with the solution of God's people. That's victory. And why is he happy? Because he's not going to win in the end because of his rage. Because of his rage. There is no more rage than a man with pride who can't give his way. Now amplify that times 10,000. For the angel that's created, the most glorious of all, who thought he could challenge God the Father. And now he's been thrown to earth with a doom that is sure again Martin Luther's hymn helps us. And there is a rage that none of us would ever want to see personally. It's a rage that is beyond our imagination. And where is it directed? Me. That's where his rage is. And what will he use? Anything he can. He'll use you. He'll use your children. He'll use the news. He'll use a telephone truck driving by. Anything he can. Anything. He has no respecter of anything. So just know that our spiritual warfare is fought with these individuals. The preaching and the teaching and the witnessing and the prayers of God's people. And that the instruments of our battle or the blood of the land and the testimony of scripture, the blood of Christ and the scriptures are weapons of warfare. And there are shield. And there are also our weapons of offense. It's the Kingdom of March and school. We have nothing to say tonight. I can't stop doing ministry. So let's close in prayer. Our Heavenly Father, gracious God, we thank you for your love to us and Father, what a what a riveting tale it is, but it is no tale. It is truth. Father, though these have already happened, we know Father that the effect and the work continues. Satan has no love loss for anything, even his own demons. So Father, we know that being the object of his rage, we can expect that we will receive all of his attention. We ask your Father that you would strengthen us for the hour of trial. If you would give to us bold convictions and words to speak in the hour of our battle. We ask Father that we would learn to depend upon the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ and upon the sure testimony of the scriptures, but these are our only hope to which we claim. We pray that you would bless us as we depart tonight, bless us Father and our travels and our fellowship together. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.