{"id":18984,"date":"2019-04-14T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-04-14T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sugar-land-bible-church.local\/sermon\/revelation-036-the-mystery-of-antisemitism\/"},"modified":"2019-04-14T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2019-04-14T05:00:00","slug":"revelation-036-the-mystery-of-antisemitism","status":"publish","type":"sermon","link":"https:\/\/slbc.org\/es\/sermon\/revelation-036-the-mystery-of-antisemitism\/","title":{"rendered":"Revelation 036 – The Mystery of Antisemitism"},"content":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"template":"","book":[111],"series_event":[490],"sermon_service_type":[472],"speaker":[6],"class_list":["post-18984","sermon","type-sermon","status-publish","hentry","book-revelation","series_event-revelation","sermon_service_type-main-service","speaker-dr-andy-woods","no-post-thumbnail"],"acf":{"sermon_title":"Revelation 036 - The Mystery of Antisemitism","sermon_date":"20190414","sermon_month":"4","sermon_year":"2019","sermon_notes":6567,"sermon_slides":6563,"sermon_mp3":6565,"sermon_id":"414191429397492","series_or_event":490,"service_type":[472],"speaker":6,"books_of_the_bible":111,"chapter_and_verse":"12:6-12","sermon_transcript":"Dr. Andy Woods\n\nThe Mystery of Anti-Semitism\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a04-14-19\n\nRevelation 12:6-12\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Lesson 36\n\nGood morning everybody.\u00a0 A happy Palm Sunday to everybody.\u00a0 Let\u2019s take our Bibles if we could and open them to the Book of Revelation, chapter 12 and verse 6.\u00a0 The title of our message this morning is The Mystery of Antisemitism.\u00a0 I think this will probably be a Part 1, The Mystery of Antisemitism.\u00a0 As you\u2019re turning there just to kind of take you back on what was Jeff was saying there about Camp Aret\u00e9<\/em>, you know the name Aret\u00e9<\/em> means excellence. And I think it comes from Philippians 4, I think around verse 8, of the things that we are to meditate on, it gives you a list of things.\u00a0 [Philippians 4:8, \u201cFinally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things.\u201d]\n\nAnd one of the things we\u2019re to meditate on, it gives you a list of things, and one of the things we\u2019re to meditate on is \u201cany excellence.\u201d\u00a0 And then there\u2019s one other thing that I wanted to bring up concerning Camp Aret\u00e9<\/em> is its actually fun.\u00a0 I mean, these people know how to put the word \u201cfun\u201d into fundamentalist because I was there and I don\u2019t want it to be fun, I want it to be biblical, as if biblical and fun are mutually exclusive.\u00a0 So I was one of the speakers there in Colorado and my wife was having so much fun she basically took over the whole camp.\u00a0 She was teacher, counselor, cook. I mean you name it and she can\u2019t wait to go back.\u00a0 And it is camp as you envision camp, fond memories and a lot of fun but a real focus on God and His Words.\u00a0 So that\u2019s why my wife and I really fell in love with Camp Aret\u00e9<\/em>.\n\nWe are continuing our series through the Book of Revelation; we are in a section of the book where the trumpet judgments have been sounded.\u00a0 Every time a trumpet blast occurs a judgment comes to the earth and we have been studying the seventh trumpet.\u00a0 The seventh trumpet is it says as follows: the kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ.\u00a0 [Revelation 11:15, \u201cThen the seventh angel sounded; and there were loud voices in heaven, saying, \u2018The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ; and He will reign forever and ever.\u201d\u2019]\u00a0 What is happening here in the Book of Revelation is\u00a0 there is a legal transfer of authority taking place from the grip of Satan unto the majesty and the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.\u00a0 The time in history is coming when He will reign upon the earth and over the earth.\n\nNow there are about five times in the Book of Revelation where the chronology is halted or paused to fill in a gap, if you will, of things happening in the sequence to just give more clarity on these things.\u00a0 And so we are at the end of the trumpets and there\u2019s a halt in the action there in chapters 12-14.\u00a0 In fact the Book of Revelation does this about five times and we\u2019re on our third occurrence where the chronology has stopped, where the Holy Spirit says slow down, let Me give you some details concerning things happening in the chronology.\n\nAnd so what we have is Revelation 12-14 which represents Israel\u2019s flight, chapter 12, the two beasts, chapter 13, and six scenes of hope.\u00a0 And the last time we were together we began moving ever so slowly into Revelation chapter 12, and as we moved into that chapter I told you that I have become a tremendous student of Revelation 12, probably more than any other chapter in the Book of Revelation.\u00a0 And the reason that I hold it in such high esteem, as I hold all chapters in the Bible in high esteem, is it describes the reality of the angelic world.\u00a0 All around us there\u2019s an invisible world that we as human beings can\u2019t necessarily see where a great conflict is taking place, the angelic world, the angelic warfare.\n\nAnd what we discovered in Revelation 12 is Satan has strategies.\u00a0 In fact what you see in Revelation 12 are his two strategies.\u00a0 He has worked in history to stop two things.\u00a0 Paul the apostle writes in 2 Corinthians 2:11, \u201cso that no advantage would be taken of us by Satan, for we are not ignorant of his schemes.\u201d\u00a0 Scheme is a strategy.\u00a0 I\u2019m afraid today that the body of Christ largely is unaware of the schemes or the strategies of Satan and yet we need not be that way because the whole playbook is revealed right here in Revelation 12.\n\nIf you can understand Revelation 12 you can understand largely what the Bible is about; you can understand things that are happening in our present world, why they\u2019re happening.\u00a0 We would have no such knowledge had God not pulled back the veil and seen fit to disclose what He discloses to us here in Revelation 12.\u00a0 These are two strategies that Satan used to stop God\u2019s plan.\u00a0 And you say well how smart is it to try to stop God?\u00a0 The fact of the matter is it\u2019s not a matter of smarts, it\u2019s not a matter of logic; when the intellect is divorced from God the intellect doesn\u2019t work right. \u201cThe fear of the LORD is the beginning of\u201d what? \u201cwisdom,\u201d actually knowledge, chapter 1 verse 7, followed by wisdom.\u00a0 The mind works currently when it\u2019s in submission to the Creator that made that mind.\u00a0 And yet when the mind is doing its own thing, not under the authority of God, the intellect, whether it\u2019s human or angels doesn\u2019t work correctly.\n\nOf Satan\u2019s intellect we read this in Ezekiel 28:17, \u201cYou\u201d God speaking to Satan, \u201ccorrupted your wisdom by reason of your splendor.\u201d\u00a0 The wisdom, the intellect, the mental acumen is not logic based when it comes to Satan; it is power based!\u00a0 And consequently, Satan irrationally tries to do two things in human history.\u00a0 Number one is a past strategy that failed involving the first advent of Christ.\u00a0 We looked at that last week, verses 1-5.\u00a0 The second thing he does, now that back strategy has failed is he works in history to destroy the nation of Israel, verses 6-17.\n\nWe studied last week verses 1-5 as we looked at Satan\u2019s great strategy. We made a reference to the fact that this material here, Revelation 12, is the most symbolic chapter in the most symbolic book of the Bible, the Book of Revelation.\u00a0 There are three principle characters and when you study a couple of rules and understand a couple of rules of interpretation that we looked at last week you can identify who these principle characters are.\u00a0 The son, s-o-n, is the Messiah.\u00a0 The dragon is the devil.\u00a0 The woman is the nation of Israel.\u00a0 So we have a Messiah, Satan, and Israel.\n\nNow if you\u2019re trying to understand how we got all of that you might want to listen to last week\u2019s sermon because we went through that in detail.\u00a0 We made a reference to the fact that God wants the Book of Revelation understood.\u00a0 In fact, that\u2019s the title of the book, the disclosure.\u00a0 A lot of people just throw up their hands, they don\u2019t think they can get it or understand it. \u00a0\u00a0And yet all the symbols in the Book of Revelation are readily identifiable by the design of God Himself.\u00a0 And the key verse in that paragraph is in the middle of verse 4 when it says, \u201cand the dragon\u201d who\u2019s the dragon? Satan, \u201cstood before the woman,\u201d who\u2019s the woman?\u00a0 Israel, \u201cwho is about to give birth so that he might devour her child.\u201d\u00a0 Who is the child?\u00a0 The Messiah.\u00a0 And that is a revelation of what Satan did in strategy number one.\u00a0 He worked overtime in history to stop the birth of Jesus Christ.\n\nMatthew 2 gives you the story of Herod killing all of the male infants there in Bethlehem.\u00a0 Matthew 2 explains that story from the realm of the physical world.\u00a0 Revelation 12:1-5 comes along and gives\u00a0 you the exact same story but from a different angle.\u00a0 This is an angelic perspective.\u00a0 And what you learn is that Satan himself was using Herod\u2019s insecurity over his own throne to prevent the birth of the Christ child.\u00a0 In fact Satan has worked overtime in human history to prevent the fulfillment of this verse which is the first Messianic prophecy ever given in the Bible, Genesis 3:15, where God said to the serpent, \u201cAnd I will put enmity between you and the woman,\u201d in this case the woman is Eve, \u201cbetween your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, and you shall bruise him on the heel.\u201d\u00a0 There is coming one who is going to take your head, Satan, from Eve\u2019s lineage and crush it.\u00a0 Satan says to himself well, we\u2019ll see about that.\u00a0 And so consequently all the way through the Old Testament, we looked at all these different verses last week, he works in history to stop\u00a0 the lineage leading to Christ.\u00a0 \u00a0And that\u2019s why when you go through the Old Testament you\u2019ll see that the lineage leading to Christ is threatened over and over and over and over and over and over again.\u00a0 But it\u2019s not till you get to Revelation 12 that you understand it\u2019s actually Satan influencing people to halt the birth of Christ.\n\nAnd yet that was round one, Satan went down in defeat in round one.\u00a0 Everything he did to stop the birth of Christ failed, the Messiah was born.\u00a0 And now we are at a point in the Book of Revelation where the kingdom of the world has been become or is becoming the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ.\u00a0 [Revelation 11:15, \u201cThen the seventh angel sounded; and there were loud voices in heaven, saying, \u2018The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ; and He will reign forever and ever.\u201d]\u00a0 The kingdom of God is coming, Satan says to himself, you know what, I\u2019m going to stop that from happening!\n\nAnd now we move into Rocky Part 2.\u00a0 Now I guess there\u2019s Rocky Part 15 or something, where their grandkids are in the ring duking it out.\u00a0 But this is another attempt by Satan to stop the plan of God.\u00a0\u00a0 Next time he\u2019s not trying to stop the Messiah\u2019s birth, that round he went down in defeat.\u00a0 This time he\u2019s trying to stop the manifestation of the kingdom and the reason John is bringing all of the up is it\u2019s Satan\u2019s reaction to trumpet number seven, \u201cthe kingdom of this world has become the kingdom of our God and of His Christ.\u201d\u00a0 God makes a move, Satan is now making a counter move.\u00a0 Why is Satan doing this?\u00a0 Because he is the one ruling the present world; it\u2019s been that way ever since the fall of man in Genesis 3.\u00a0 You read through the verses I have on the screen and you\u2019ll see over and over again that the Bible matter of fact declares that Satan is the god of this world, the prince and power of the air, the prince of this world, the whole world lies in the lap of the wicked one.\n\nThese are the different designations given to Satan.\u00a0 He\u2019s the one we wrestle with.\u00a0 He is the one that roams about like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour.\u00a0 This explains why we are not yet in the millennial kingdom because in the millennial kingdom Satan will be bound.\u00a0 That\u2019s why I always get a chuckle out of people that think we\u2019re in the kingdom today.\u00a0 I mean how could that be?\u00a0 Satan is not bound, if he is bound, as one commentator said, he must be on a very long leash.\u00a0 Because he\u2019s not bound, he\u2019s running the world system and when you have trumpet number seven and the legal proclamation that \u201cthe kingdom of this world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ,\u201d [Revelation 11:15]\n\nSatan is now moving into strategy 2 to try to stop the birth of the kingdom.\u00a0 And how\u2019s he going to do that?\u00a0 It\u2019s very simple, he\u2019s going to attack the instrument through which the kingdom will come.\u00a0 What did God say all the way back to the time of Abram, Genesis 12:3, \u201cI will bless those who bless you, the one who curses I will curse,\u201d look at this last clause, \u201cand in you all the families of the earth will be blessed.\u201d\u00a0 God has purposed in history to bless the world through the Hebrew race.\u00a0 You say well why did God choose them?\u00a0 You\u2019ll have to talk to God about that.\u00a0 That was His choice, He unilaterally made a decision.\n\nHe says in Deuteronomy 7:7, by the way, I didn\u2019t choose you because you were so\u2026 you know, more numerous than the other people.\u00a0 \u00a0[\u201cThe LORD did not set His love on you nor choose you because you were more in number than any of the peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples\u201d\u00a0 Deuteronomy 7:7] \u201cI chose you out of a sovereign choice that God is allowed to make, I will create the Hebrew race, the nation of Israel, and I will bless the world through the nation of Israel.\u00a0 That\u2019s the decree of God.\n\nAnd so there are three blessings that have come into our world, two past, one future, things that the world would not have had it not been for the Creator\u2019s work with the physical descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.\u00a0 The first blessing is this book we\u2019re holding our hand called the Scripture.\u00a0 I\u2019ve been reading the Bible for a long time, I can\u2019t find a single Southern Baptist or Presbyterian author; every single one of them, the only one even to debate anymore is Luke, every single one of them was Jewish.\u00a0 By the way, Jesus was not a member of a Bible church, He was Jewish.\u00a0 John 4:22.\u00a0 [John 4:22, \u201cYou worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews.\u201d]\n\nHad it not been for God\u2019s work with the nation of Israel creating them, protecting them, giving them promises, A. we wouldn\u2019t have a Bible.\u00a0 B. we wouldn\u2019t have a Savior.\u00a0 And here\u2019s the deal\u2014Satan worked in history to stop those first two blessings from materializing.\u00a0 He failed and now there\u2019s a third blessing on the horizon, that he\u2019s trying to stop, called the kingdom.\u00a0 Isaiah 2:2-3 very clearly says that when the kingdom materializes one day, for a thousand years, it will not be headquartered in Brussels, certainly not Washington D. C. (praise the Lord for that) but it will be headquartered in the city of Jerusalem.\u00a0 [Isaiah 2:2-3, \u201cNow it will come about that in the last days the mountain of the house of the LORD will be established as the chief of the mountains, and will be raised above the hills; and all the nations will stream to it.\u00a0 [3] And many peoples will come and say, \u201cCome, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob; that He may teach us concerning His ways and that we may walk in His paths.\u201d\u00a0 For the law will go forth from Zion and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.\u201d]\n\nJesus will reign over the planet for a thousand years from the throne of David in the city of Jerusalem.\u00a0 And you see, this third blessing, of all the blessings I think it\u2019s the one that Satan may hate the most because once the kingdom materializes, you see down there in number six and seven, Satan will be bound.\u00a0 He\u2019s not bound right now, he will be bound and at the end of that kingdom age he will be thrown into the Lake of Fire.\u00a0 And so since Satan works in history to try to stop in his corrupted intellect the program and plan of God, since he works preemptively I will take you out before you take me out, just as he tried to stop the lineage leading to Christ, Revelation 12:1-5, what he\u2019s doing today and what will reach its zenith in the middle of the tribulation period is his attack, a Satanic attack on the nation of Israel.\n\n[Revelation 12:1-5, \u201cA great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars; [2] and she was with child; and she cried out, being in labor and in pain to give birth.\u00a0 [3] Then another sign appeared in heaven: and behold, a great red dragon having seven heads and ten horns, and on his heads were<\/em> seven diadems. [4] And his tail swept away a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman who was about to give birth, so that when she gave birth he might devour her child. [5] And she gave birth to a son, a male child,<\/em> who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron; and her child was caught up to God and to His throne.\u201d]\n\nThere\u2019s one thing I do respect about Satan is number one, he reads Bible prophecy. To some extent, he takes it literally.\u00a0 He knows that the kingdom will come through Israel. The problem is with his darkened intellect, he thinks he can stop the manifestation of the kingdom by taking out Israel prematurely.\u00a0 No Israel, no kingdom. No kingdom, I run the show as I have for these many, many millennia.\u00a0 I stay on the throne.\n\nIt\u2019s sort of the same kind of thing that Saul was trying to do with David, when it became very clear that Saul, the anointing had left Saul that the anointing had come onto David; that created in Saul tremendous jealousy.\u00a0 It was just a matter of time before David ascended to the throne.\u00a0 Saul didn\u2019t like that, he didn\u2019t like people praising David because it reminded them of David\u2019s future and Saul\u2019s future.\u00a0 And so, he set out many times in the book of 1 Samuel to kill off David prematurely. Yet somehow David keeps miraculously escaping.\u00a0 That this sort of, this game of chess is sort of what\u2019s happening related to Satan\u2019s attitude towards the Jewish people and his desire to blot them out.\u00a0 And that\u2019s why when you understand this you begin to understand what motivates anti-Semitism.\n\nWhy is it that in every generation there seems to be this irrational hatred for the Bible, and by the way, they\u2019re teaching this on all your college campuses to your children and grandchildren.\u00a0 It\u2019s called the BDS movement, Boycott Divestment Sanctions.\u00a0 It\u2019s anti-Israel.\u00a0 I mean how could we do that so close to emerging from the holocaust?\u00a0 It doesn\u2019t make any sense, it\u2019s illogical.\u00a0 And the problem is people try to analyze this from a logical perspective and yet this is, as we said earlier, is not logic based, it\u2019s power based.\u00a0 It\u2019s related to Saul, a type of Satan, wanting to stay on the throne.\u00a0\u00a0 It doesn\u2019t like the prophecies of the kingdom so I will destroy the instrument through which the kingdom comes.\u00a0 And see all of that is important background to understand the passage that we are merging into now.\n\nNotice, if you will, Revelation 12:6, \u201cThen the woman\u201d who\u2019s the woman? Israel, \u201cfled into the wilderness where she had a place prepared by God so that she would be nourished for one thousand two hundred and sixty days.\u201d\u00a0 You say well what does this mean, one thousand two hundred and sixty days\u201d?\u00a0 Ready for this, this is really deep---it means one thousand two hundred and sixty days.\u00a0 Another way of saying it is forty-two months.\u00a0 And we\u2019re going to see in Revelation 12 a reference to another way of saying it, \u201ca time, times, and a half a time.\u201d\u00a0 Time--a Jewish year, times\u2014two Jewish years, half a time\u2014half a Jewish year.\u00a0 Three and a half years total.\u00a0 All of these are synonyms for describing the second half of the tribulation period.\n\nIt\u2019s interesting that we are celebrating this morning Palm Sunday and it\u2019s interesting to me that the Lord would have us in this passage on Palm Sunday.\u00a0 Why is that interesting?\u00a0 It\u2019s interesting because Palm Sunday is predicted to the day by Daniel in Daniel 9:25. [Daniel 9:25, \u201cSo you are to know and discern that from the issuing of a decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until Messiah the Prince there will be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks; it will be built again, with plaza and moat, even in times of distress.\u201d]\u00a0 It\u2019s dealing with a four-hundred-and-ninety-year clock, the time period from the beginning point in Daniel gives in Nehemiah 2 until the coming of Christ on Palm Sunday is exactly 483 years.\u00a0 It\u2019s exactly 173,880 days.\u00a0 And then the clock stops because Israel rejected their king, seven years future, and people ask well how do you know this 1,260-day figure is literal?\u00a0 Look at the track record of the same prophecy. If it was fulfilled to the exact day why wouldn\u2019t it be fulfilled to the exact day in the part of it that\u2019s yet to come, the second half of the tribulation period?\n\nSo when God gives us numbers like this these are things you don\u2019t just allegorize or symbolize away; these are specific numbers you pay attention to given the track record of the seventy weeks prophecy.\u00a0 If you want some background on the seventy weeks prophecy we\u2019ve done a sermon series all the way through the Book of Daniel.\u00a0 We spent an awful lot of time in the Seventy Weeks Prophecy, I even tried to do seventy sermons out of the Seventy Weeks Prophecy, I didn\u2019t quite get there but we spent a lot of time on that.\u00a0 All of that\u2019s archived for you if you want more information on it.\n\nSo this woman in the second half of the tribulation period is to flee into the wilderness.\u00a0 And you say \u201cthe wilderness, where is that, where is Israel where this woman is going?\u00a0 \u00a0Well, we wouldn\u2019t know unless we could peace together several other areas of Scripture which comment on this same place, seven things total helping us identify where this woman is headed.\u00a0 Number one, it\u2019s a place prepared by God, verse 6.\n\nNumber two, it\u2019s a place where the woman, Israel, is going to be nourished.\u00a0 We learn from Isaiah 33:16 that the woman or Israel is going to be nourished miraculously with food and water during this time period.\u00a0 [Isaiah 33:16, \u201cHe will dwell on the heights, His refuge will be the impregnable rock; His bread will be given him, His water will be sure.\u201d]\n\nNumber three, it\u2019s in the wilderness, verses 6, verse 14.\u00a0 [Revelation 12:6, \u201cThen the woman fled into the wilderness where she had a place prepared by God, so that there she would be nourished for one thousand two hundred and sixty days.\u201d\u00a0 Revelation 12:14, \u201cBut the two wings of the great eagle were given to the woman, so that she could fly into the wilderness to her place, where she was nourished for a time and times and half a time, from the presence of the serpent.\u201d]\n\nNow the Lord in a cross reference tells the Jews during the time period to flee into the mountains.\u00a0 More on that in a minute.\u00a0 Matthew 24:16.\u00a0 [Matthew 24:16, \u201cthen those who are in Judea must flee to the mountains.\u201d] Wherever this place is it\u2019s got to be in the mountains.\u00a0 Beyond that, Isaiah 33:16 tells us sit\u2019s got to be a place that\u2019s defensible.\u00a0 [Isaiah 33:16, \u201cHe will dwell on the heights, His refuge will be the impregnable rock; His bread will be given him, His water will be sure.\u201d]\n\nNumber six, the best guess is that this is in what we call modern day Jordan, directly to the east of the nation of Israel.\u00a0 There\u2019s a very interesting reference to that in Daniel 11:41 about the antichrist going through the nation of Israel like a savage.\u00a0 [Daniel 11:41, \u201cHe will also enter the Beautiful Land, and many countries will fall; but these will be rescued out of his hand: Edom, Moab and the foremost of the sons of Ammon.\u201d]\u00a0 And yet his reign does not extend into Moab and Ammon.\u00a0 Why does it not extend into Moab and Ammon?\u00a0\u00a0 That apparently is an area that he will not be able to get to and that is likely there because that\u2019s the place where Israel will flee to, Moab, Ammon, and Edom is what we call today modern day Jordan.\n\nAnd beyond that we have number seven there, Micah 2:12 which tells us that this place is a place called Bozrah.\u00a0 [Micah 2:12, \u201cI will surely assemble, O Jacob, all of thee; I will surely gather the remnant of Israel; I will put them together as the sheep of Bozrah, as the flock in the midst of their fold: they shall make great noise by reason of the multitude of<\/em> men.\u201d]\n\nSo whatever view you come up with as to the place of the woman\u2019s refuge it\u2019s got to be prepared by God, a place where He will give divine provisions, it\u2019s in the wilderness, it\u2019s in the mountains, it\u2019s in an area that\u2019s defensible, it\u2019s in what we call modern day Jordan, and more specifically it\u2019s a place called Bozrah.\u00a0 Put all seven clues together and what\u2019s your best guess? \u00a0The best guess is it\u2019s Petra in Mount Seir in southern Jordan.\u00a0 I have Petra there on the picture on the right there circled.\u00a0 That\u2019s where the nation of Israel most likely will flee to during this time of tremendous persecution. It\u2019s a place that you can visit today if you go to the nation of Israel you can oftentimes get a Jordan extension and visit this very area where the nation of Israel will flee to.\n\nArnold Fruchtenbaum describes it this way:\u00a0 \u201cAnother suggestion is that the city known as Petra, this author prefers the identification with Petra.\u00a0 Petra is located in a basin within Mount Seir, and is totally surrounded by mountains and cliffs. The only way in and out of the city is through a narrow passageway that extends for about a mile and can only be negotiated by foot or by horseback. This makes the city easy to defend, and its surrounding high cliffs give added meaning and confirmation to Isaiah 33:16.\u201d Which is a parallel passage commenting on Revelation 12:6.\u00a0 \u201cOnly a few abreast can enter through this passage at any one time, giving this city even greater defensibility\n\n\u201c\u201c<\/em>The name Bozrah<\/em> means \u2018sheepfold.\u2019 An ancient sheepfold had a narrow entrance so that the shepherd could count his sheep. Once inside the fold, the sheep had more room to move around. Petra<\/em> is shaped like a giant sheepfold, with its narrow passage opening up to a spacious circle surrounded by cliffs. This is not true of another town which he dismisses here, [\u201cthe town of Buseira<\/em>.] \u00a0Furthermore, by modern Petra<\/em> is a site known as Butzeira<\/em>, which retains the Hebrew Botzrah<\/em>...It will be a very defensible city located in Mount Seir...Furthermore, as they flee and while they are living there, food and water will be miraculously provided.\u201d \u00a0<\/em>[Arnold Fruchtenbaum, Footsteps of the Messiah, <\/em>Page 296-97]\n\nIt is interesting to me that in the height of the attack on Israel God has already provided a way of escape and protection.\u00a0 You saw well how does this apply to my life.\u00a0 Well, because in your life right now no doubt you\u2019re walking through some kind of trial, some kind of difficulty, some kind of valley, and if God\u2019s nature never changes, if He is the same yesterday, today and forever and will provide for Israel during her darkest hour, why wouldn\u2019t He provide for you?\u00a0 Isn\u2019t that what David was talking about in Psalm 23, \u201cThough I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,\u201d and he begins to describe the presence of God, the protection of God, the table of God, in the midst of one of the most difficult times in David\u2019s life.\u00a0 This is why the woman or Israel is fleeing to this place, because she\u2019s going to be supernaturally protected there from the adversary.\n\nOver in Matthew 24:15-22 Jesus describes the same flight of Israel from the human perspective.\u00a0 [Matthew 24:15-22, \u201cTHE LAND OF ZEBULUN AND THE LAND OF NAPHTALI, BY THE WAY OF THE SEA, BEYOND THE JORDAN, GALILEE OF THE GENTILES\u2014\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 [16] \u201cTHE PEOPLE WHO WERE SITTING IN DARKNESS SAW A GREAT LIGHT, AND THOSE WHO WERE SITTING IN THE LAND AND SHADOW OF DEATH, UPON THEM A LIGHT DAWNED.\u201d\u00a0 [17] From that time Jesus began to preach and say, \u201cRepent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.\u201d\u00a0 [18] Now as Jesus was walking by the Sea of Galilee, He saw two brothers, Simon who was called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea; for they were fishermen. [19] And He said to them, \u201cFollow Me, and I will make you fishers of men.\u201d [20] Immediately they left their nets and followed Him. [21] Going on from there He saw two other brothers, James the son<\/em> of Zebedee, and John his brother, in the boat with Zebedee their father, mending their nets; and He called them. [22] Immediately they left the boat and their father, and followed Him.\u201d]\n\nRevelation 12 gives you the same story from the angelic perspective.\u00a0 [Revelation 12:1-5, \u201cA great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars; [2] and she was with child; and she cried out, being in labor and in pain to give birth.\u00a0 [3] Then another sign appeared in heaven: and behold, a great red dragon having seven heads and ten horns, and on his heads were<\/em> seven diadems. [4] And his tail swept away a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman who was about to give birth, so that when she gave birth he might devour her child. [5] And she gave birth to a son, a male child,<\/em> who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron; and her child was caught up to God and to His throne.\u201d]\n\nNotice what Jesus says to the Jews living on the earth, during the tribulation period who watched their temple desecrated.\u00a0 Matthew 24 15, \u201cTherefore when you see the abomination of desolation which was spoken of through Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place (let the reader under\u00adstand), [16] then those who are in Judea must flee to the mountains.\u201d\u00a0 [17] Whoever is on the housetop must not go down to get the things out that are in his house.\u00a0 [18] Whoever is in the field must not turn back to get his cloak.\u00a0 [19] But woe to those who are pregnant and to those who are nursing babies in those days!\u00a0 [20] But pray that your flight will not be in the winter, or on a Sabbath.\u201d Doesn\u2019t that sound kind of Jewish?\u00a0 [21] \u201cFor then there will be a great tribulation,\u201d what is he talking about? He\u2019s talking about the second half of the tribulation period as the wrath of Satan is now being kicked into high gear, as he\u2019s pursuing strategy number two.\u00a0 Matthew 21:24, \u201cFor then there will be great tribulation such as has not occurred since the beginning of the world until now, nor ever will. [22] Unless those days had been cut short, no life would have been saved; but for the sake of the elect\u201d the elect here is Israel, \u201cthose days will be cut short.\n\nMatthew 24 explains the story from the physical world perspective.\u00a0 John in Revelation 12:6-17 talks about the exact same event from the angelic perspective, just like Matthew 2, the story we looked at last week, the attacks on the birth of Christ, Matthew 2 gives us that story from the perspective of the physical world, Revelation 12:1-5 gives you that same story from the angelic perspective.\n\nYou\u2019ll notice as we continue on, verses 7-9, what begins to happen here.\u00a0 Notice what it says.\u00a0 \u201cAnd there was war in heaven, and Michael and his angels were waging war with the dragon,\u201d who\u2019s the dragon?\u00a0 The devil.\u00a0 \u201c\u2026the dragon and his angels waged war.\u201d\u00a0 Verse 8, \u201cand they were not strong enough, and there was no longer a place found for them in heaven.\u00a0 [9] And the great dragon\u201d the devil, \u201cwas thrown down,\u201d now notice this, we don\u2019t have to rely on our sanctified imagination to figure out who the dragon is because it says in verse 9, of the dragon, he was \u201cthe serpent of old who is called the devil and Satan,\u201d watch this, who deceives the whole world; he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him.\u201d\u00a0 You say pastor, what in the world is going on here?\u00a0\u00a0 I think to some extent it is a description of how Satan originally fell.\u00a0 We know from passages like Isaiah 14:12-15, Ezekiel 28:12-17 Satan was not always Satan, he was at one time a beautiful cherub, an anointed cherub.\n\n[Isaiah 14:12-15, \u201c\u201cHow you have fallen from heaven, O star of the morning, son of the dawn!\u00a0 You have been cut down to the earth, you who have weakened the nations!\u00a0 [13] \u201cBut you said in your heart, \u2018I will ascend to heaven; I will raise my throne above the stars of God, and I will sit on the mount of assembly i the recesses of the north. [14] \u2018I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.\u2019 [15] Nevertheless you will be thrust down to Sheol, to the recesses of the pit.\u201d]\n\nEzekiel 28:12-16, \u201cThe prince who is among them will load his baggage<\/em> on his<\/em> shoulder in the dark and go out. They will dig a hole through the wall to bring it<\/em> out. He will cover his face so that he can not see the land with his<\/em> eyes. [13] \u201cI will also spread My net over him, and he will be caught in My snare. And I will bring him to Babylon in the land of the Chaldeans; yet he will not see it, though he will die there. [14] \u201cI will scatter to every wind all who are around him, his helpers and all his troops; and I will draw out a sword after them. [15] So they will know that I am the LORD when I scatter them among the nations and spread them among the countries. \u00a0[16] \u201cBut I will spare a few of them from the sword, the famine and the pestilence that they may tell all their abominations among the nations where they go, and may know that I am the LORD.\u201d]\n\nAnd yet on account of his beauty he became prideful and he articulated five \u201cI 1will\u201d statements against God.\u00a0 And the moment that happened is the moment he was cast to the earth and Satan is so good at his trade that someway, somehow, he deceived a third of the angels into falling with him.\u00a0 How many angels are there?\u00a0 There\u2019s a plethora, so many they can\u2019t even be counted.\u00a0 And somehow, he was able to deceive a third of them into rebelling with him against God.\u00a0 That\u2019s where the realm of Satan comes from, the realm of the demonic comes from, and they lost their positions in heaven.\n\nAnd I think that John here, as he\u2019s giving this vision, is somehow thinking back to that original fall, yet there\u2019s a futuristic component to it.\u00a0 Today Satan, even in his fallen state, retained access to heaven.\u00a0 He doesn\u2019t go into heaven to worship and to serve, as he once did as a high-ranking angel, he can go into heaven to communicate and to accuse.\u00a0 That\u2019s the whole basis for the Book of Job, isn\u2019t it.\u00a0 Job 1:6, Job 2:1. [\u201cJob 1:6, \u201cNow there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan also came among them.\u201d \u00a0Job 2:1, \u201cAgain there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan also came among them to present himself before the LORD.\u201d]\n\nSatan went into heaven to accuse the high priest, Joshua, Zechariah 3:1, [Zechariah 3:1, \u201cThen he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the LORD, and Satan standing at his right hand to accuse him.\u201d]\u00a0 In fact, Jesus and Peter are having a conversation one day and Jesus says to Peter, Luke 22:31, \u201cSimon, Simon, behold, Satan has demanded permission to sift you like wheat.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 How would you like the Lord to tell you that one day in a casual conversation?\u00a0\u00a0 I probably would have said to the Lord, \u201cWell, that\u2019s more information than I need to know.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 I don\u2019t want to know about any conversations taking place about me in the heavenlies.\n\nWe\u2019re going to look for a moment at verse 10 which says, he does this day and night.\u00a0 And what happens here is halfway through the tribulation period, with only 1,260 days to go on Daniel\u2019s clock that privilege is taken away.\u00a0 Yes, he originally fell but the privilege that he has to go into heaven, to communicate and accuse that privilege is gone.\u00a0 And consequently, he begins to plummet to the earth knowing he\u2019s got forty-two months left on the clock to eradicate Israel so that the kingdom will never come.\n\nIt\u2019s a tremendous passage here on the spiritual conflict, angelic conflict that takes place all around us that we can\u2019t necessarily see.\u00a0 It mentions here Michael?\u00a0 Who\u2019s Michael?\u00a0 Well, Jude 9 says Michael is an archangel.\u00a0 [Jude 9, \u201cBut Michael the archangel, when he disputed with the devil and argued about the body of Moses, did not dare pronounce against him a railing judgment, but said, \"The Lord rebuke you!\u201d]\u00a0 And there was a warfare that went on between these two groups\u2014Michael and his angels, two thirds, by the way aren\u2019t you glad that two thirds are on our side?\u00a0 Satan and his one third, this warfare went on and they lost their position in heaven.\u00a0 We\u2019re told here that it was the dragon and his angels that fell.\u00a0 We know the dragon is Satan himself.\u00a0 It mentions verse 7 war two times.\u00a0 I mean, an actual war with victors and losers and casualties and you name it.\n\nAnd so Satan found himself on the losing side two times; the original fall and then this privilege to go into heaven now taken away the moment we get to the midpoint of the tribulation period.\u00a0 This is why the Lord is telling Israel to flee.\u00a0 I mean once the desolation of the temple happens, right at the midpoint, expect spiritual warfare and anti-Semitism itself to kick into high gear because he\u2019s got three and a half years left to shut this whole thing down.\u00a0 And he\u2019s making every effort he can to stop the birth of the kingdom, just like in verses 1-5 he made every effort he could to stop the birth of Jesus Christ.\n\nFolks, spiritual warfare is a reality.\u00a0 We may not see it, we may not even understand it but if you\u2019re at all a student of God\u2019s Word, you know that it exists and if you don\u2019t believe me try to do something for God.\u00a0 Try to obey God in any area.\u00a0 Try to step out and do what you think God wants you to do and you\u2019re going to start getting hit from all sides.\u00a0 In fact, you\u2019re going to get hit from people that you thought were even your friends.\u00a0 You\u2019re going to get hit from people sometimes that are your own family members because that\u2019s the reality of spiritual conflict.\u00a0 That\u2019s what we signed up for; it shouldn\u2019t shock us, it shouldn\u2019t surprise us.\u00a0 Isn\u2019t that why we\u2019re told, Ephesians 6, to put on the whole armor of God. Why is the armor of God there if we\u2019re not in a conflict?\n\nOne of the things that has always stuck out to me in these verses is verse 9, when it describes Satan deceives the whole world.\u00a0 \u201cRevelation 12:9, \u201cAnd the great dragon was thrown down, the serpent of old who is called the devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world; he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him.\u201d]\u00a0 Think about that.\u00a0 I think we have completely underestimated the deceptive ability of Satan, the ability to trick, the ability to fool, the ability to lie.\u00a0 Isn\u2019t he called in John 8:44 \u201cthe\u201d definite article, \u201cfather of lies.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 [John 8:44, \u201c\"You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies.\u201d]\n\nI mean, you\u2019re dealing with an entity that was able to deceive the angels themselves, at least a third of them, to stand in the presence of God Himself seeing His glory and he\u2019s able to fool them.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Did you know Satan was able to fool and deceive Adam and Eve, Genesis 3, while they were in their un-sinful condition, sin hadn\u2019t even entered the picture yet.\u00a0 I mean, if he\u2019s able to fool and deceive the angels that stand in the presence of God\u2019s glory and he\u2019s able to deceive our forbearers, Adam and Eve, before sin entered the picture, what could he do with you?\u00a0 What could he do with me?\u00a0 And once you begin to understand this, you begin to understand why the armor of God, Ephesians 6, becomes so vital.\n\nNotice, if you will, verse 10, it\u2019s a description of what Satan is trying to stop.\u00a0 Verse 10, \u201cThen I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, \u2018Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom,\u201d you should take \u201ckingdom\u201d in your Bible and underline it or circle it, or both!\u00a0 The Greek word basileia<\/em>, because that\u2019s what he\u2019s trying to stop from coming.\u00a0 Why is he trying to stop it now?\u00a0 Because it just got announced as a legal transfer with trumpet seven. \u00a0\u00a0\u201cThen I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, \u2018Now the salvation, and the power, and the kingdom of our God and the authority of His Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren has been thrown down, he who accuses them before our God day and night.\u201d\u00a0 [Revelation 12:10]\n\nLook at the descriptions here of the kingdom: \u201cpower,\u201d \u201cauthority of Christ\u201d and then notice what it says here, \u201csalvation,\u201d is that personal salvation?\u00a0 I think that could be part of it but it\u2019s salvation of the whole earth, the liberation of planet earth.\u00a0 Did you know Romans 8 tells us that this world is in a state of travail?\u00a0 It\u2019s in a state of groaning.\u00a0 It\u2019s in bondage.\u00a0 It\u2019s been that way ever since Genesis 3 and now the chains are about to come off.\u00a0 Do you think Satan is just going to sit there and let that happen without a fight?\u00a0 I mean, that would deny everything we under\u00ad\u00ad-stand about Satanology and demonology.\u00a0 He was working overtime to stop the proclamation that we have in Revelation 11:15, the kingdom of this world has become the kingdom of our LORD and of His Christ.\u201d\u00a0 He\u2019s trying to prevent what\u2019s happening on the right-hand side of the screen after the second advent, the thousand year kingdom.\u00a0 We want to prevent that from coming.\u00a0 Well how can you think that way?\u00a0 Because your mind\u2019s darkened, you\u2019re blinded by power, just like he tried to stop the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ.\n\nAnd before this privilege is taken away and he permanently loses access to heaven it tells us what he was doing up there; he was accusing the brethren day and night. That\u2019s a role of a prosecuting attorney right there, and I just say to myself I hope I\u2019ve got a good defense attorney. Fortunately I do, Jesus Christ who is called our what?\u00a0 Advocate, a legal term.\n\nWe continue on and we move to verse 11.\u00a0 How can the inhabitants of the earth in this time period stand up against this?\u00a0 Well, you\u2019re given the answer there in verse 11, \u201cAnd they,\u201d now this is not the church, the church is already in heaven, this is the earth dwellers, \u201cthey overcame him because of\u201d number one,\u201d the blood of the Lamb.\u00a0 And because of, number two, the word of their testimony.\u00a0 And they did not, number 3, love their lives even when faced with death.\u00a0 How did these people overcome?\u00a0 Blood, testimony and putting God first to the point of martyrdom.\n\nHow do you in your life given the given the wiles of Satan have any hope of overcoming?\u00a0 It\u2019s the same formula, blood, testimony, putting God first.\u00a0 First of all the blood, Philippians 3:9 says this: because of the shed blood of Christ, \u201cand may be found\u201d Paul says, \u201cin Him, not having a righteousness of my own\u201d did you hear that?\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cnot having a righteous of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith.\u201d\u00a0 The only way to overcome Satan is you\u2019ve got to have a righteousness that\u2019s higher than your own.\u00a0 If you\u2019re relying upon good works to make yourself right with God that\u2019s not going to get you\u2026 that and a nickel will probably get you a cup of coffee.\u00a0\u00a0 Because what is your self-righteousness worth at the end of the day; what is my self-righteousness worth at the end of the day?\u00a0 It\u2019s hardly worth anything.\n\nI\u2019ve got to have what the Protestant Reformers called alien righteousness, and alien means it\u2019s from another place. It\u2019s from another source.\u00a0 It\u2019s procured by the blood of Christ.\u00a0 And it\u2019s transferred to us at the point of faith.\u00a0 I think that\u2019s what the breast-plate of righteousness is largely referring to.\u00a0 Every morning you get up and you say you know what, God looks at me as if I\u2019m just as righteous as His Son.\u00a0 And you say to yourself well, my goodness, I don\u2019t deserve that!\u00a0 And you\u2019re right, that\u2019s the whole point.\u00a0 It\u2019s alien righteousness, it\u2019s transferred righteousness, it\u2019s a gift that God gives.\u00a0 It\u2019s very clear here, verse 9 of Philippians, it\u2019 access by faith.\n\nYou say well what about our daily life?\u00a0 Well, here\u2019s the deal, you try to live according to your position, the best you can, under God\u2019s power but trying to live for God didn\u2019t give you the alien righteousness to begin with.\u00a0 You wake up every day and you say I\u2019m clothed in the righteousness of Jesus Christ, God looks at me through the blood of His Son as if am, people say \u201cjust as if I\u2019d never sinned.\u201d\u00a0 No, as if you were as perfect as Jesus.\u00a0 You put that on every day, you appropriate that by faith moment by moment, here come the fiery darts of the wicked one throughout the day, condemned, condemned, condemned.\u00a0 You\u2019ve got the breastplate of righteousness on, you can stand up.\n\nHow else do they overcome?\u00a0 Not just through blood but through the word of their testimony.\u00a0 [Revelation 12:11, \u201cAnd they overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb and because of the word of their testimony, and they did not love their life even when faced with death.\u201d]\u00a0 What is a testimony?\u00a0 I love testimonies, I wasn\u2019t here to hear it, I did listen to it after the fact online, I loved listening to Judy Cunningham, our women\u2019s speaker last week I think it was because she was revealing what God had done through her and for her.\u00a0 And you listen to that and you say wow, that\u2019s the work of God.\u00a0 And she\u2019s not the only one that has a testimony, I have a testimony, you have a testimony.\u00a0 How helpful it is to hear those testimonies because it\u2019s undeniable what God has brought forth in us.\u00a0 I mean, I don\u2019t stand up against any wave of confusion or discouragement or doubt.\n\nAnd then you\u2019ll notice what these people did here on the earth during this time.\u00a0 \u201c\u2026they did not love their life even to the point of death.\u201d\u00a0 They weren\u2019t interested in their own plans and their own desires and their own ambitions, they were interested in living for Jesus Christ, \u201cnot my will be done but Thy will be done.\u201d\u00a0 Isn\u2019t interesting that when the biblical writers write books they don\u2019t sit there and tout their credentials, I graduated from this school, and I\u2019ve done this for the Lord and look at my resume.\u00a0 You know how they describe themselves?\u00a0 As bondservants of the Lord Jesus Christ.\u00a0 The Greek word for bondservant is doulos<\/em>, a slave, someone who exists not to execute his own will but the will of his master.\u00a0 We live like that, we keep putting the Lord first, we keep appropriating His blood moment by moment, you stick to the word of your testimony as a reminder of what God has done for you.\u00a0 What can the wiles of the devil do to you?\u00a0 They\u2019re rendered ineffective, they\u2019re rendered inoperative.\n\nAnd as we go down to verse 12 notice what it says as Satan\u2019s cast out of heaven, verse 12, \u201cFor this reason, rejoice, O heavens and you who dwell in them. Woe to the earth and the sea, because the devil has come down to you, having great wrath, knowing that he has only a short time.\u201d\u2019 Heaven, when this happens midway through the tribulation period you should rejoice because the devil won\u2019t even be in your presence there in any sense.\u00a0 Yes, he was kicked out in ages gone by but even the ability that he has to go into the presence of God as early Job tells us can happen, not to worship and serve but to communicate and accuse.\u00a0 That privilege is gone, Satan is out of heaven!\n\nHeaven can rejoice, but woe to the earth because of where\u2019s he going?\u00a0 He\u2019s going to the one domain he has left.\u00a0 He\u2019s only got one domain left, that explains his desperation.\u00a0 I mean, you\u2019re getting into desperation territory here.\u00a0 He\u2019s only got so many things left in his bag of tricks and he plummets to the earth and the earth is to grieve, the earth is to mourn, woe unto the earth, because the devil has come down to you with great wrath.\u00a0 Oh my goodness, the confusion on that phrase.\u00a0 I can\u2019t tell you how many people I interact with that tell me the great tribulation period has nothing to do with the wrath of God till the final, I don\u2019t know, twenty-five percent or something, because after all it doesn\u2019t say the wrath of God here, it says Satan\u2019s wrath.\n\nIs your view of God so small that\u00a0 you don\u2019t think He can use His enemies to execute His wrath?\u00a0 I mean, did God not use godless people all the way through the Old Testament?\u00a0 Was not Nebuchadnezzar an instrument of divine wrath?\u00a0 Now Nebuchadnezzar, believe me, he had some anger management issues, no doubt about it.\u00a0 Daniel 4 is very clear on that.\u00a0 But he was always under the sovereign control of God, even when Nebuchadnezzar was exercising his will against God\u2019s people Nebuchadnezzar himself was an instrument of discipline.\u00a0 There\u2019s just a lot of people out there that are very afraid of this free will idea.\u00a0 Gosh, you can\u2019t get too much into free will, you\u2019re going to limit God\u2019s sovereignty.\u00a0 You talk too much about free will and you\u2019re going to take away the authority of God.\u00a0 Nonsense!\u00a0 God is capable of using the free moral will of His enemies to execute His own plan.\u00a0 That\u2019s how big God is.\n\nAnd just because you have the wrath of Satan here doesn\u2019t mean it\u2019s not the wrath of God because who\u2019s the one in Revelation 6 opening the seven sealed scroll trigging these judgments on the earth.\u00a0 The Lamb, Jesus Christ.\u00a0 Satan can think he\u2019s doing his own thing but he ultimately and even as he exercises free will is a puppet on a string.\u00a0 So the devil has come down to knowing he has but a short time, his wrath is coming.\u00a0 Why does it say short time? \u00a0Well you have to define short time by verse 6, \u201cone thousand two hundred and sixty days\u201d and by verse 14, \u201ca time, times and half a time.\u201d\u00a0 He\u2019s got three and a half years or forty-two months left to gobble up this woman so that the kingdom won\u2019t come, so he can stay in control of the globe.\u00a0 That\u2019s what\u2019s happening here.\n\nAnd it\u2019s very fascinating to me that in verse 12 it says, \u201cFor this reason, rejoice, O heavens and you who dwell in them. Woe to the earth and the sea, because the devil has come down to you, having great wrath, knowing\u201d see that, verse 12, \u201cknowing that he has only a short time.\u201d\u00a0 How would he know?\u00a0 He knows because he\u2019s a student of the Bible.\u00a0 In fact, Satan, I\u2019m convinced, would win all the Awana awards, he would win the Bible bee because he knows the Scripture cold. \u00a0He knows the Scripture far better than most pastors, preachers, theologians today. \u00a0\u00a0The error in his thinking is thinking he can stop them from happening.\u00a0 But you can\u2019t stop something from happening unless you know what it says.\u00a0 In fact, in Luke 4 you have a Scripture quoting contest between Jesus and Satan.\u00a0 Jesus quotes the Scripture in the three temptations and Satan gets into the act, Luke 4:9-10, \u201cAnd he\u201d the devil \u201cled Him to Jerusalem and had Him stand on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to Him, \u201cIf You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down from here;\u00a0 [10] for it is written,\u201d this is Satan talking to Jesus, \u201cfor it is written, \u2018HE WILL COMMAND HIS ANGELS CONCERNING YOU TO GUARD YOU,\u2019\u201d\u00a0 lest your foot strike a stone.\u201d\n\nWhat is that?\u00a0 That\u2019s Psalm 91:11-12.\u00a0 [Psalm 91, \u201cFor you have made the LORD, my refuge, Even<\/em> the Most High, your dwelling place.\u00a0 [10] No evil will befall you, nor will any plague come near your tent.\u00a0 [11] For He will give His angels charge concerning you, to guard you in all your ways. [12] They will bear you up in their hands, That you do not strike your foot against a stone.\u201d]\n\nYou mean Satan reads the Psalms?\u00a0 He\u2019s the father of lies, he\u2019ll quote the psalms, but he\u2019ll just twist them a little bit to make it sound as if the psalm is saying something it really isn\u2019t saying.\u00a0 That\u2019s why you get the response of Christ, \u201cYou shalt not put the Lord your God to the test.\u201d\u00a0 [Matthew 4:7, \u201cJesus said to him, \u201cOn the other hand, it is written, \u2018YOU SHALL NOT PUT THE LORD YOUR GOD TO THE TEST.\u2019\u201d]\n\nYou know, you\u2019ve got them coming to your house, I\u2019ve got them coming to my house, guys on the bicycles, well dressed, polite.\u00a0 Let me tell you something, if you don\u2019t know your stuff they will turn you into a theological pretzel in about two to three minutes.\u00a0 They know what you\u2019re going to say in response before you can say it.\u00a0 Do you know why?\u00a0 Because when you go to Kingdom Hall, Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses, you know what they do in their gatherings?\u00a0 They study.\n\nYou know what the evangelical church today does in its gatherings?\u00a0 \u00a0I come to get the liver quiver of the day, the warm fuzzy, a place to see and be seen.\u00a0 They have a completely, COMPLETELY different mindset, they come as students to learn how to refute what they think you\u2019re going to say.\u00a0 That\u2019s how well they know their stuff.\u00a0 And unless you know exactly what you\u2019re doing and\u00a0 you have some experience in it I would just\u2026 I don\u2019t think you have to turn the sprinklers on or anything, [laughter] politeness always goes a distance but I wouldn\u2019t even get into a conversation with them unless you know exactly what you\u2019re talking about because the cults know the Scriptures, Satan knows the Scripture, the problem with Satan though is he thinks he can stop the Scripture out of his arrogance and pride which is power based, not logic based.\n\nAnd so what happens is this whole conflict is going to take place in two cycles.\u00a0 Satan attacks, God protects, verses 13-14.\u00a0 Satan attacks, God protects, verses 15-16.\u00a0 And finally, we will get down to verse 17 where it gives the general attitude of Satan towards this woman or the Jewish people because that are used there in verse 17 are stunning and it opens the door of understand\u00ading to us concerning where antisemitism comes from.\u00a0 And we\u2019ll take a look at that subject next week.\n\nYou know, you could be here today never ever having heard something like this but somehow instinctively you\u2019re aware there\u2019s a conflict, and we\u2019re here to affirm that belief, there is a conflict and folks, there isn\u2019t any middle ground here.\u00a0 Jesus was very clear, if you\u2019re not for Me, you\u2019re against Me.\u00a0 If a person has never decided in terms of trusting Christ they just made a decision already.\u00a0 Indecision is a decision!\u00a0 And so consequently we never want to close our services without allowing the people the opportunity to get on the right side of the ledger, to get on the right side of the angelic conflict, to get on the winning side.\u00a0\u00a0 And how does that happen?\u00a0\u00a0 You become attached to the one who\u2019s the victor; you become positionally identified with Him.\n\nWell how do you do that?\u00a0 It\u2019s through what\u2019s called the gospel which means good news.\u00a0 It\u2019s good news because Jesus did the work; Jesus, through His death, burial, resurrection and ascension did everything that is humanly possible, or divinely possible for that matter, to bridge the gap between fallen humanity and a holy God.\u00a0 The works already been done.\u00a0 In fact, what was His final words on the cross.\u00a0 \u201cIt is finished!\u201d\u00a0 So, what are we to do?\u00a0 We can\u2019t add to that, we have to receive it as a gift.\u00a0 The reality of the situation is there\u2019s only one way to receive a gift from God and you\u2019ll see it in Romans 4:5 \u201cBut to the one who does not work but believes,\u201d you have to believe.\n\nWhat does that mean? It means to trust; it means to rely upon, it means to depend upon.\u00a0 At some point the Spirit of God convicts us of our need to trust Christ and we respond the best we know how in the quietness of our own hearts by trusting or believing or relying upon or depending upon the gospel.\u00a0 It\u2019s not something you walk an aisle to receive.\u00a0 It\u2019s not something you give money to receive.\u00a0 It\u2019s not something you join a church to receive.\u00a0 It\u2019s a matter of privacy between you and the Lord where the Lord convicts you of your need to do this.\u00a0 And the best you know how in the quietness of your own mind or heart you respond and believe the gospel, trusting in Christ and Christ alone for your eternity and the safe keeping of your soul.\u00a0 We\u2019re dealing here with a twelve-step program; it\u2019s one step program.\u00a0 And receiving Christ is something you can do right now, even people listening online can do it right now.\u00a0 If it\u2019s something that you need more information on I\u2019m available after the service to talk.\u00a0 Shall we pray.\n\nFather, we remain grateful for the things that You have decided to disclose to us concerning the angelic conflict.\u00a0 Make us, we ask, good stewards of these things this week as we walk by faith.\u00a0 We\u2019ll be careful to give you all the praise and the glory. We ask these things in Jesus name, and God\u2019s people said\u2026. Amen!","series_sermon_number":""},"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t