The Lord’s Day Evening
January 24, 2010
Revelation 12:7-12
“The Defeated, Disbarred, and Diabolical Accuser”
The Reverend Mr. Jeremy H. Smith
A week or two ago in a nation that we have prayed about and talked about for the
better part of two weeks, we saw devastation occur in a nation already wrecked
by pain and turmoil and poverty, and the Bible gives us several reasons why
troubles exist in this life. Jesus
tells us to expect it. It shouldn’t
come as a surprise when we find trouble in this world but it gives us several
ways of understanding the trouble that we do find.
On the one hand, the Bible tells us that there is a curse imposed by the
Creator God upon this world as a result of sin.
So when we see tectonic plates shifting we see a world at war with
humanity; we can almost hear Paul say, “Yes, there it is, groaning in
captivity.” From another perspective
we can see trouble in this life than comes as a result of the sinful nature that
mankind has inherited by the Fall.
We see man a rebel against God, as such alienated from God and alienated from
one another. We see selfishness and
abuse, exploitation, and these contribute, these are part of the trouble that we
find in this life. Sometimes the
Bible will speak of divine judgment, chastisement, even trials, and these two go
into the formula. But then finally
the Bible will speak of an individual as the leader of a pack who stands opposed
to God and to God’s people – Satan himself.
And it’s Satan we’ll consider this evening as we turn in our Bibles to
Revelation chapter 12. Revelation
chapter 12. What is it that Satan
does and why does it matter? We’ll
pick up our reading in verse 7, but before we do let’s look to the Lord in
prayer.
Our heavenly Father, we thank You for Your Word.
It’s a lamp. It’s a light.
It helps us to understand. It
helps us to see who You are and what You’re like.
It helps us to see us and what we’re like.
And Lord, in this case, it helps us to understand the experiences in this
life. Lord we pray that You would
open our eyes, grant us faith, and bless us we pray, for Christ’s sake.
Amen.
Revelation chapter 12 and beginning in verse 7:
“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.”
Amen, thus far the very words of our God.
It might have all seemed all too terribly familiar to us I suspect – a scene of
a war; a war in heaven. Now
sometimes when John talks about something occurring in heaven he means the sky.
I think that’s what he means in the first verse of this chapter.
But here, John is seeing something taking place in the heavenly courts,
in the abode of God. In that sense
he means heaven. He sees this war,
this war between angels, between Michael and his associates and the great red
dragon who John identifies as the devil and as Satan, and his associates.
It’s a war waging in heaven.
Now Michael is one of the few angels that we meet by name in the Bible.
He shows up in places like Daniel where he is contending with another
spirit over the will of the Persian king.
We come across Michael again in Jude where we’re told that he contends
with the devil himself over the body of Moses, and here in chapter 12 he’s
fighting once more. This battle goes
on and Satan and his associates are the losers, and as such they are cast down
from heaven to the earth.
Now what is it that John is seeing?
And there’s more than one interpretation of this passage. Some see this as a
historical event taking place sometime between Genesis 1:1 and the time when
Adam and Eve arrive on the scene. That
is, this is a battle taking place in heaven whereby Satan rebels against God,
draws to himself those other angels who would rebel against God, and they are
thrown down to earth and the next time you see Satan he is in the Garden of
Eden. This takes place before Adam,
after God had created. I don’t think
that’s what John here is describing for a couple of different reasons.
On the one hand, John sees the result of this battle being Satan’s forfeiture of
whatever rights and privileges he had enjoyed in heaven.
That is, when the battle is going on, Satan is in the precincts of
heaven, and when the battle ends, Satan is barred from entry.
This is not like territory that an army might capture only to give it
back to the enemy for losing it or for some strategic purposes.
This is battleground once gained never given back.
And if this takes place back before Adam and Eve then we have a trouble
because we do find Satan in heaven at least once in the Old Testament.
In the opening chapters of Job, you find Satan returning from earth and
in the very precincts of heaven where he and God are having a conversation.
Actually God is pointing out to him, Job.
Then the devil would then come to sift and to try.
I think we can say that Satan, at least in the days of Job, had access to
the courts of heaven. And when we
come to the New Testament, a passage that we’ll come to in just a couple of
weeks, Jesus, when His apostles return – the 72 that He had sent out – return to
Him, He will say, “I saw Satan falling out of heaven like a bolt of lightening”
and Ligon will help us understand what Jesus meant by that phrase.
But if Satan has been cast out of heaven in the sense that this passage
contemplates I don’t think this could have happened up until that time.
I think we get a clue of what John is seeing if we look at the manner in which
the battle is fought. Look down at
verse 11. Notice how Michael and his
angels wage this war and especially on what account they are victorious.
Verse 11 – “And they have conquered him” – that’s Satan and by
implication his cohorts – “they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb, by
the word of their testimony.”
Especially that first part – “they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb”
– on account of, on the basis of, using the weaponry of, the blood of the Lamb.
John, I think is describing the finished work of Christ - His life, His
death, His resurrection, and even His ascension by that simple phrase.
But the manner in which He speaks I think gives us a clue as to what John
is here describing.
I think it will help us if we even allow our eyes to glance back at the
beginning sections of this chapter.
In the first six verses of chapter 12 John has a different sign.
Actually, he’s got two figures that he sees.
One is a woman who is about to give birth and then the great red dragon
that we’ve already encountered. The
picture is grotesque. It’s of a
woman in labor, a woman about to give birth, with a powerful red dragon who is
ready to devour the child. It’s a
grotesque picture that John sees up in the heavens, or in the sky in this sense.
The child, we are told, is spared.
He is One who will rule the nations.
It’s clear from here and from other places that this is the Messiah, that
Jesus is the Child here pictured.
The red dragon we know is Satan.
That leaves the woman to identify.
Some have suggested Mary. Probably
better though is the whole company of God’s people in the Old Testament.
I remember it is “from the seed of the woman that the Messiah will come”
according to Genesis chapter 3. I
think John is seeing a personification, a picture, of the entire Old Testament
people of God, where Satan is attempting to devour that Messiah.
You’ll recall that Satan was in the Garden when God spoke His words of curse but
also His words of blessing. When He
spoke of One who would come to “crush the head of the serpent” Satan had heard
those words. He knew what God had
said. Throughout the Old Testament
you see Satan working to keep that prophecy from coming to fruition.
You see it in Cain as he murders his brother Abel.
You see it in the actions of Pharaoh as he attempts to destroy all of the
male children in
On the one hand, Satan has been busy trying to stop the Messiah’s birth.
That’s been his activity on the earth.
But in heaven, he’s had a different method.
He’s had a different level of activity.
And we see that suggested for us in verse 10, really the end of verse 10.
After the announcement that Satan has been thrown down we find out why
great joy has broken out because of what he’s been doing.
“Now I heard a loud voice in heaven” verse 10 is saying, “Now 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 out, who accuses them day
and night before our God.” This
battle scene has quickly turned to a scene in the courtroom.
And that’s typical of John in this book – he’ll go from scene to scene
describing the same thing and yet from different perspectives.
This battle has now moved to the courtroom where Satan is now depicted as
the prosecuting attorney. And under
the Old Testament dispensation, Satan would bring accusations.
You can imagine Satan, a ploy in Satan’s attack.
Abraham passes away and his spirit comes into this courtroom in heaven.
“Ah-ha” says Satan, “I know this man.
I saw this man. I’ve seen
this man. I know his first seventy
five years of life before God called him.
I know what kind of man he was.
And even after You placed Your call on him I watched him.
I saw him struggle and doubt.
I saw him attempt to have a son, that son that You promised, with Hagar.
I saw that. I watched him as
he feared for his own life and he lied not once, but twice, telling people that
Sarah was not his wife but his sister.
How would You allow this man into the precincts of heaven?
Ah, here comes Moses now. I
know this man too. I know what kind
of man he was. I saw him there when
he struck that rock and God You Yourself know.
You wouldn’t let him enter the Promised Land because of that sin.
How can You now allow him to enter into the precincts of heaven?
He’s not righteous. No, he is
not righteous.”
And until the coming of Christ it would seem, the court heard that case.
Michael certainly arguing against saying, “But ah, God has spoken.
God has promised. God has
said that there will be a Messiah to make these things right.
He’ll take away their sins.”
And the prosecuting attorney responds, “Ah, yeah, but I’m still at work down
there at heaven. That Messiah hasn’t
come. We’ll see if he comes to fruition but he hasn’t come yet.”
But it’s not until that Messiah does come that He comes with perfect
obedience and He goes to the Cross, that He dies a death becoming sin for us,
and He’s raised and then ascended back into heaven, at which point the court
will no longer hear that prosecution argument.
“Ah, but there’s not –“ But
now there has been. When once the
devil would say, “There is no basis for His righteousness,” now the finished
work of Christ pleads on their behalf.
The prosecuting attorney is thrown out.
Now as the saint comes into the courtroom, who is going to stand and
bring a charge against God’s elect?
That is the war. That is the sense
in which John is seeing this battle play out in heaven.
It’s a picture of Satan bringing accusation after accusation against
God’s people.
But now that the Messiah has come, Satan has been defeated in his attempts to
keep Him from being born. Now that
He’s come and now that He’s completed His work, Satan no longer has any hearing
in heaven and so he’s been thrown out.
He’s been cast out. He has
been kept from heaven which is why you might find him in the opening chapters of
Job, in the courts of heaven, with a hearing from God.
But you will not find him there now.
That was a temporary benefit Satan enjoyed, but now he’s cast down.
Good news for heaven, rejoicing going on in heaven to be sure, but
remember verse 12? “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 to the earth he pursued the woman.”
Who is the woman? It’s the
people of God. “He pursued the woman
who had given birth to the male child.”
And so we now find what Satan is up to on this side of the Cross.
What is it that Satan is doing now in these final days?
Well, he may be doing other things to be sure, but primarily Satan is
concerned with the destruction of believers.
In the Old Testament we might say that he had a divided attention.
He had efforts on earth and he had efforts in heaven, but following the
work of Christ he no longer has a divided attention.
He’s got no hearing in heaven.
All of his energy, all of his focus, is now here on earth pursuing that
woman who had given birth to the male child, pursuing the people of God in great
wrath, knowing that his time is short.
How does he go about? What does he
do flexing his wrath? What does he
do to pursue this woman? And from
this passage and from others I would suggest to you that fundamentally, he does
the same thing now that he has always done.
In the Old Testament he attempted to destroy the Messiah.
He was defeated, but he was all the time “the great deceiver” as John
calls him, and he was the great accuser.
Now that he has no place in heaven, I would suggest that he continues
those same two things: to deceive
and to accuse, and in that way he does war against the people of God.
It’s not so much that Satan lacks creativity, that he can’t think of new
things to do. I think instead it
speaks of our own learning disability, that we do not remember what it is that
Satan does. And so with the time we
have remaining I want to think about those two things - the work of Satan in
deception and the work of Satan in accusation.
Now we could describe Satan’s deception in a host of ways but I want to focus
especially on one that we see running throughout the Scriptures.
Satan’s deception that says God is not good.
That’s what you find the serpent speaking to Eve back in the Garden.
By the way, I don’t think that it’s any coincidence that you find a snake
in the Garden and now a great red dragon in Revelation 12.
That snake, under further review, is actually a terrible monster snake, a
dragon. But the serpent is speaking
to Eve as she stands before this tree and he begins by asking her, “Did God
really say you’re not supposed to eat that fruit?
I mean look how pleasant it is to the eyes, to the touch.
Did God really say you shouldn’t have that good, tasty, nutritious fruit?
Actually what God is doing is keeping you from becoming like Him.
He doesn’t want good for you.”
It was Satan’s play in the Garden and it remains Satan’s ploy to this day
to cast dispersions on the goodness of God, to deceive the world by convincing
the world that God is not good.
I think there is an important evangelistic implication to that.
Sometimes we view non-Christians, non-Christians in other parts of the
world and even non-Christians in our own neighborhoods, as fundamentally being a
problem of understanding sin. That
is, they aren’t Christians because they don’t understand their sin and if we
convince them of their sin then we overcome the obstacle to them becoming
Christians. And of course that’s
partly true – that without a right apprehension of sin one may not enter into
the
But not only does the devil deceive the world about the goodness of God, he does
so with the believer as well, especially with the believer in trial.
When we find difficulty, uncertainty, struggles, pain, sorrow, it is the
devil that casts doubts about His existence.
How could these bad things happen if God truly existed?
He doubts God’s benevolence.
If God really loved you, He wouldn’t allow these things to happen to you.
He causes you to doubt His ability to deliver.
I think that’s in part what happens with Elijah.
Remember Elijah just after the
But we also see him as the accuser.
He’s lost God’s ear and so he settles for the conscience of people, reminding
them of sin. There’s a famous
passage in Bunyan’s, Pilgrim’s Progress,
where Christian, not long after he has begun, encounters Apollyon, Bunyan’s
devil figure in the allegory, where Apollyon begins reminding Christian of his
own sin, saying, “Ah, but even though you’ve just begun you’ve already failed
your new Master. He surely will not
take you.” That’s precisely Satan’s
ploy. He accuses the conscience.
Here’s one who knows us better than any, one who knows, who can speak to
your conscience and say, “I know even what your spouse does not know.
I know what your children don’t know.
I know what your mother and father don’t know.
I know the thoughts that pass through your mind.
I know that thing or those things which you have done.
I know how reluctantly you have done the things of God.
I know you and there’s no way you could have anything to do with God.” –
Satan accusing. He accuses us.
He combines deception and the accusation.
He accuses us of our own sin and then he begins to deceive us saying,
“You know, it’s better to keep that sin concealed.
Don’t think about it. Don’t
even admit it to yourself. And if
you admit it to yourself, certainly don’t admit it to anyone else.
Put on a front. Convince the
world that everything is fine because what would happen if the world would find
out? What would happen if another
believer would find out? What would
happen if your spouse found out?”
And he says, finally, “You can’t even reveal that sin to God.
After all, look at how you’ve been the beneficiary of His goodness to
you. He has given you His Spirit and you would do that?
How many times have you confessed that sin?
Do you think He wants to hear you say you’re sorry again, you hypocrite?”
And in so doing, Satan accuses and he deceives.
It’s like Revelation 12 and this picture of Satan is the exact opposite of the
ending of Romans 8. Remember Derek’s
sermons from this last summer? Satan comes and says, “Don’t trust the goodness
of God.” And what does Paul tell
you? “He who did not spare His own
Son, freely gave Him up for us all, how will He not also along with Him
graciously give us all things?” And
Satan the accuser stands and says, “You sinner, you sinner, you sinner,” where
Paul says, “It’s God who justifies.
Who is it that condemns?”
That’s the work of Satan, to deceive and to accuse.
I think we can draw three lessons, three implications, from the work of
Satan. What does it matter what if
we understand what he is doing? Let
me suggest three things. First of
all, we can be reminded that our team is stronger.
Our team is stronger. You see
it in the battle. Michael and his
cohorts defeat Satan and his. It’s
funny – there are several battles suggested in the book of Revelation where the
forces of evil, where the forces of Satan, conspire to do battle with the forces
of God and His people, but they’re all terribly anticlimactic when you begin to
read them. You see verse after verse
describe how these armies come together and then you get things like this – “And
the beast was defeated and thrown into hell.”
That’s how chapter 19 goes – the great white, the figure sitting on the
great white horse, Jesus, and His people behind Him comes to do battle with all
the forces of evil. And there’s not
a great struggle, there’s not strategy, there’s simply the statement – “The bad
guys lose.” That’s helpful to
remember – the ones on our team are stronger than the ones on the other.
There’s Michael and his angels, but even more there’s Jesus Himself –
Jesus that great High Priest who’s blood speaks a better word that Abel’s, who
would say to Peter, “The devil has asked to sift you, but I have prayed for
you.” Our side is stronger.
II.
Secondly, there’s a sense in which we could question the very power which the
devil imposes. Martin Luther
famously called Satan “God’s devil” by which he meant that if you look at
Scripture you see Satan being confined by what God permits him to do.
He can’t go beyond that which God allows him to do.
He’s got to ask, “Can I do this and can I do that?” and in that sense, he
was “God’s devil.” Now Luther could
be provocative and get away with it, but I’d like to suggest in some ways not
only is he God’s devil in that sense but he the believer’s devil.
Let me see if I can explain what I mean by that.
On the one hand, he is an enemy to be sure, but he is an enemy whose weapons do
not work. Here is the deceiver of
the world who attempts to bring darkness into the hearts of one where the light
of the world resides, who attempts to bring darkness where light now reigns, who
attempts to deceive those who have been given the Holy Spirit Himself.
James will tell you in James chapter 4 that you can “resist the devil and
he will flee.” Now there are other
enemies to be sure in this life. I
can’t think of very many enemies in this life who, by simply resisting, turn and
flee, and yet that’s precisely what James says about the devil.
If you resist him, he flees.
Now how is it that we don’t resist him?
Well, I think Paul gives us some indication.
You remember back in Ephesians chapter 4 Paul will talk about anger and
he’ll say “don’t let the sun go down on your anger because if you do that you’ll
give the devil a foothold” – a place to work.
That’s one way we don’t resist the devil.
He’s the Christian’s devil in the sense that his power of us is limited
to those areas where we give him room to work.
III.
There’s a third implication. What’s
the battleground? You know the
famous picture of the devil is the one, the figure, sitting on the shoulder
whispering in your ear to “do this” or to “do that,” who brings external things
into you life that causes conflict.
I can up to the church this afternoon to think through this sermon and when I
arrived and sat down I had left most of my sermon notes at home.
I was tempted to think, “Here I am preaching about the devil – surely the
devil has caused me to leave my sermon notes at home.”
Probably more to the point it’s just my forgetfulness rather than the
devil. Surely the devil brings
external things by way of temptation, but especially the external aspects of
warfare that are on display in Revelation 12 and in other places.
The battleground the devil uses, yes, the things that he brings into our
lives that are temptations, yes, circumstances that are external to us, but it’s
especially those things which happen inside.
We began our service by saying “I dare not trust the sweetest frame but
wholly lean on Jesus’ name.” What do
we mean when we say that? I don’t
even trust the best emotional state of mind that I might be in.
I’m not even good enough to have the “warm fuzzies” for God we might say.
It’s only the foundation that is Jesus Christ.
And when we sing those words, that’s spiritual warfare we’re engaged in.
That’s spiritual warfare we’re engaged in.
That’s us resisting the devil.
My friends, when we sing words like that, “I dare not trust the sweetest
frame but wholly lean on Jesus’ name,” James tells us that the devil flees
because his arena, his battlefield, is in our souls, in our hearts, in our
minds, by our thoughts, and by our emotions.
And so we remind ourselves to preach the Gospel to ourselves over and
over again. “I dare not trust the
sweetest frame but wholly lean on Jesus’ name.”
Let’s pray.
Our Father and
our God, we have a mighty enemy to be sure, and O Lord God, we have listened to
him besmerch Your character Lord, and we have believed that father of lies
instead of our own heavenly Father.
Lord God forgive…
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