Jottings

by J. Miller | Category: Jottings | Mar 1963

Nowhere in the Scriptures do we find so many names for Satan grouped together as in Revelation 12.9, and this at a time of great significance to him and to his angels, in the middle of Daniel's last prophetic week (Daniel 9.24-27). This is a week of years. It is the last part of the period of seventy weeks of years. Sixty-nine of these years have already run their course, measured from the commandment to restore and build Jerusalem to the Anointed One (Messiah, the Prince) the Prince; at the end of which period the Messiah is cut off, and shall have nothing, that is, at the Lord's death on the cross. This period of the seventy weeks is perhaps the most important period affecting the Jewish race and the most important in the understanding of the fulfilment of prophecy.

The death of Christ, at the end of the sixty-nine weeks, is beyond question the most important event of all prophecy and history. There is yet that period of the seventieth week which will be filled with events such as no period of human history has ever seen. At the end of the seventieth week the Lord shall return to earth in power and great glory with all the angels with Him and accompanied by His saints. That week of seven years is divided into two periods of three and a half years, a time, times and half a time, or forty and two months, or one thousand two hundred and threescore days. In the middle of that period of seven years Michael the archangel, the great prince that standeth for the Jewish people (Daniel 10.21 ; 12.1), shall go forth to war with the dragon, and the dragon shall war and his angels (Revelation 12. 7-9). The result of this war is that the dragon and his angels are cast down to the earth, and their place will never more be found in heaven. And here in this verse we are told who the dragon is, he is the old serpent, the Devil and Satan, and he is the deceiver of the whole world.

The old serpent is a name which carries the mind back to the story of the Fall, as is given in Genesis 3, for behind the serpent of the field was the person of the old serpent, the deceiver of the woman and the deceiver of her posterity. Paul calls the devil the tempter (1 Thessalonians 3.5), and in the Lord's temptation in the wilderness, where He was led by the Spirit to be tempted of the Devil, we are told that "the tempter came and said unto Him," and so forth (Matthew 4.1-8). And undoubtedly when Paul wrote to the Corinthians, "I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve in his craftiness, your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity and the purity that is toward Christ" (2 Corinthians 11.8), he had a much more dangerous creature in view than the ordinary serpent of the field.

The evil work of him who is frequently called the evil one in the New Testament is seen in all stages of Scripture history, but while his work is clearly seen he himself works under cover of darkness, for he ever works in the darkness of the night while men sleep. This the Lord showed in the parable of the tares of the field. The interpretation of the parable as given by the Lord was, that He Himself it was who sowed the good seed, but the enemy, who sowed the tares, the sons of the evil one, was the devil, and also the sowing by the devil was while men slept (Matthew 13.24-80, 86-43).

How many are the warnings against falling asleep on the part of those who are the Lord's own! Men of the world sleep on, unconscious of the devil's work, for surely and certainly he is at work in our time with an intensity, exceeding, perhaps, all his evil work in past times. The word of the Lord to us in such circumstances would be, "Awake, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall shine upon thee" (Ephesians 5. 14).

The Lord spoke of the fearful end of the devil and his angels, when He prophesied of His own coming to earth with all the angels, and of His sitting on the throne of His glory, and of judging the living nations of the earth. He shall say to the wicked, "Depart from Me, ye cursed, into the eternal fire which is prepared for the devil and his angels" (Matthew 25.41). There is no need for the devil to stand before any throne of judgement, for the Lord said of him, "The prince of this world hath been judged" (John 16. 11).

It seems clear that, when the devil in his pride rebelled against God, some of the angels joined with him in the revolt and are now his angels, messengers that go and come at his command (2 Peter 2.4; Jude 6), and they will continue with him till they with him are cast down from heaven by Michael, the archangel, and his angels (Revelation 12.7-12), and on earth will continue their evil work of deceiving men to their destruction.

The Lord acknowledged, in Matthew 12.22-28, that Satan had a kingdom. The Lord had just healed a demoniac, one possessed with a demon, and when the Pharisees heard it, they said,

"This Man doth not cast out devils (Daimonion, demons), but by Beelzebub the prince of the demons. And knowing their thoughts He said unto them, Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand: and if Satan casteth out Satan, he is divided against himself; how then shall his kingdom stand? And if I by Beelzebub cast out devils, by whom do your sons cast them out? therefore shall they be your judges. But if I by the Spirit of God cast out devils, then is the kingdom of God come upon you."

In this passage the Lord seems to indicate that the subjects of Satan's kingdom are demons, and he and they are carrying on a fearful warfare against God and His purposes, and against the human race, and, in particular, against God's saints, especially such as stand for God and His truth. Satan as we have seen is called the prince of this world (John 16.11). The Lord said in the upper room, "I will no more speak much with you, for the prince of the world cometh: and he hath nothing in Me" (John 14.80). There was no sin, nothing of Satan in the Lord in consequence of the Fall in Adam upon which the evil one could work. Earlier the Lord, contemplating His death on the cross, in John 12.82, said in verse 81, "Now is the judgement of this world: now shall the prince of this world be cast out." The world reached its crisis, its judgement, at the cross, and by means of the cross the devil will in due time be cast out. Paul described the devil as "the god of this age" who blinds the minds of the unbelieving (2 Corinthians 4.4), and also describes him as "the prince of the poor (authority) of the air, ... the spirit that now worketh in the sons of disobedience" (Ephesians 2.2).

Then in Ephesians 6.10-20 Paul deals with the Christian's warfare, and says that our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, that is, in carnal warfare, but against "the principalities, against the powers (authorities), against the worldrulers of this darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places." There seems little doubt that these spiritual hosts of wickedness are the angels of the devil, of Revelation 12.9, in a system of ordered government indicated as principalities, authorities, world-rulers, within Satan's kingdom. These beings under Satanic leadership are, according as I read the Gospels, the demons, over whom the Lord gave power to His apostles and to the seventy others whom He sent forth. It is said that the seventy returned with joy, saying, "Lord, even the demons are subject unto us in Thy name." Whereupon the Lord said, " I beheld Satan fallen as lightning from heaven" (Luke 10.17, 18).

We have few references to demons in the Acts and the Epistles as compared with the references to them in the Gospels, as one can see at a glance at any good concordance.

J. Miller | Mar 1963
Jottings