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Guest (Male): Lots of people today are assigning more power to Satan than he deserves. Here's Pastor Bill Henry.

Bill Henry: Satan is in no way God, nor is he close to being God. If you look at today and sadly a lot of Christians, they put Satan in one corner, 100% strength, and God in the other corner, 100% strength, and they ring the bell and they come together. It's nowhere even near that.

He's clearly a created being, created by God, an angel who has fallen. Though he's one of the most beautiful angels God made, he's only a fallen angel. And thus it only takes Michael and his angels to fight against the dragon or Satan.

Guest (Male): Welcome to Simple Faith, the radio outreach of Simple Faith Calvary Chapel, featuring Pastor Bill Henry. Have you ever had a really weird dream? You wake up, you suddenly remember the dream, and you begin laughing, right? It's safe to say that no one has ever had a dream like the vision given to John that became the book of Revelation, and it is certainly no laughing matter.

We are witnessing here in chapter 12 a battle going on between God and Satan. Now, we know who wins, but we also need to know why this battle is fought in the first place. Here's Pastor Bill Henry in Revelation chapter 12, verses seven through 10.

Bill Henry: And war broke out in heaven. Michael and his angels fought with the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought. But they did not prevail, nor was a place found for them in heaven any longer. So the great dragon was cast out, that serpent of old called the Devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world. He was cast to the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.

Then I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, "Now salvation and strength and the kingdom of our God and the power of His Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren, who accused them before our God day and night, has been cast down." Anybody say hallelujah on that one?

Verse 11: "And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives to the death. Therefore rejoice, O heavens, and you who dwell in them. Woe to the inhabitants of the earth and the sea, for the devil has come down to you, having great wrath, because he knows that he has a short time."

Back in the first six verses here in chapter 12, we see that the Apostle John has been given these great signs in heaven. We saw a woman, it said there, clothed in sun, with the moon under her feet and on her head a crown of 12 stars. And we studied how this was the exact same picture given to Joseph back in Genesis chapter 37 about the nation of Israel. Thus we know this woman is Israel, representing Israel here in chapter 12.

And then we saw that Jesus came out of the Messiah, came out of this woman, coming out of the nation of Israel. And at His birth, it says the fiery red dragon came and tried to devour the Messiah. We also studied last time that Satan again tried to kill Jesus in the wilderness when he tempted Him, and again later on through the religious leaders as they had attempted to stone Him at one point and another point tried to throw Him off a cliff.

But then finally, the dragon thought he had succeeded, that he had devoured Jesus the Christ, as He was put to death on the cross. And as Jesus lay in the tomb for some three days, He rose again from the dead. And thus Satan was defeated, the dragon defeated, because He didn't stay there. But then in the text, it says then He was caught up to God and to His throne. And He's been there since that time; He's been at the throne of God since being caught up into heaven. We see it at the end of the Gospel of Luke; we see it again at the beginning of the book of Acts.

And so until this time, here in the middle of the tribulation, here in chapter 12, the dragon Satan is now at this point going to go after the people of God. He's even been going after them, really, for the last 2,000 years, but here it gets even worse. As we see in the middle of the tribulation, she's going to have to flee the nation of Israel as the Antichrist breaks his seven-year agreement in the middle of this agreement that Daniel talks about as well, as he stands in the temple in Jerusalem and he demands that the world worship him as God.

And Jesus in Matthew 24, verses 15 and 16, as He's quoting from the prophet Daniel, said, "Therefore, when you see the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel the prophet standing in the holy place (whoever reads, let him understand), then let those who are in Judea flee."

So now as we continue here in verse 12, as Satan has now defiled the temple mount and commanded the whole world to now worship him, I believe verse seven is now God's response to Satan. Look at verse seven: "And war broke out in heaven. Michael and his angels fought with the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought. But they did not prevail, nor was a place found for them in heaven any longer."

Now if you'll remember, just if you glanced back at verse four, you remember that Satan himself took a third of the stars with his tail and threw them down to the earth. And we studied this and we found that this was those angels that had rebelled against God and basically followed Satan. And he sent them to go to the earth. If you remember as we looked in the Greek, it was talking about that they'd been cast down with a purpose.

And so now we see that his angels had gone down to the earth as they're causing havoc, wreaking havoc amongst the earth, and I believe they've done so pretty much since the beginning of the creation. But at this time, there's going to come a time when they'll be cast out period. But at this moment, as you notice, the dragon and his angels fought. So maybe they come back, maybe there's other angels that are still in heaven that have rebelled against God and are still with Satan; we don't exactly know.

But it's interesting as they have this war breaking out in heaven. Now some commentators believe that this has already happened and that's why the third of the angels were thrown down. But again we notice that those angels were thrown down by Satan, not by God. So I think this is different. I think this event is going to happen in the middle of the tribulation like we're seeing.

And it's interesting if you look at verse 10, that even now Satan is accusing the brethren of the Lord before the throne of God day and night. You and me, he's accusing day and night, and we know that this is happening now. So this will happen at the midpoint of the tribulation where Satan, the Antichrist, again blasphemes God. The abomination of desolation takes place, demanding to be worshiped as God in Jerusalem on the temple mount, in the temple. Crazy, wicked stuff.

But notice again verse seven: "And war broke out in heaven. Michael and his angels fought with the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought." A few things to point out here once again, and we've done this before, but we see here once again, and we need to hear this again especially in our day and age: Satan is not equal with God. Anybody amen?

Satan is not equal with God. Again, how do we see that here? Well, notice it doesn't say the Lord and His angels fighting Satan and his angels. It is Michael the archangel and his angels fighting against Satan, which is probably a fallen archangel, and his angels. The dragon is there fighting.

Satan is in no way God, nor is he close to being God. If you look at today and sadly a lot of Christians, they put Satan in one corner, 100% strength, and God in the other corner, 100% strength, and they ring the bell and they come together. It's nowhere even near that. He's clearly a created being, created by God, an angel who has fallen. Though he's one of the most beautiful angels God made, he's only a fallen angel. And thus it only takes Michael and his angels to fight against the dragon or Satan.

Why do so many people believe that Satan is so powerful? Why do so many today even within the church believe that Satan is an equal in power? Because of deception, because of lies. And we're going to come to that in just a moment. But notice in verse eight, "But they did not prevail, nor was a place found for them in heaven any longer."

I don't know about you guys and gals, but the longer that we've been here in the book of Revelation, I just keep finding myself getting more and more excited. I can't wait for the day that Satan will be forever thrown from heaven, his angels forever thrown out of heaven, no longer accusing me and you, no longer deceiving the world, although we're going to see it's not quite over for him there.

But at this point, verse eight, guess what? There is no place found for them in heaven any longer. Notice Michael and his archangels are even more powerful than Satan and his angels as Satan loses this war in heaven and they're cast down. Look at verse nine: "So the great dragon was cast out, that serpent of old called the Devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world. He was cast to the earth, and his angels were cast out with him."

I love this. You know, it's interesting we're going to see again in verse 10, we'll study this next time if we're all here, Lord willing, but one of the things that Satan does is he stands before the throne of God constantly accusing you and I. A lot of times we like to accuse ourselves of a lot of things or other people accuse us of a lot of things, and we're going to talk about that.

But here we see there's coming this time where Satan will be cast out of heaven for all eternity. What a blessed thing it is. Again, this just gets me excited again; just such a beautiful thing. Notice here something though I find that is very interesting. Notice here in verse nine all the different things that Satan is called. Did you notice that? Look at that: the great dragon, there's the first one. That serpent of old, the Devil, and Satan, who deceives the whole world.

Satan has all these different names that he's called throughout the Scriptures. He's described in so many different ways. And it's interesting here, notice he's the one who deceives the whole world. Even now, Satan is deceiving the whole world. Anybody ever see a little movie called Wizard of Oz? I remember when I was a kid back in the '60s they used to put it on once a year on TV, late '60s obviously or early '70s.

But I remember watching it for the first time sitting in our front living room and thinking this is the greatest thing ever, this is great. And watching it and then thinking, "Who's this Wizard of Oz? I can't wait to see the Wizard of Oz." Anybody else get all excited? And then you go in there and it's this big scary thing. Who is it that's come here? And you're just like, "Whoa, he's a scary-looking dude."

And all of a sudden little Toto goes over to that curtain and starts pulling on the curtain and all of a sudden it's like, "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!" I'll be honest, I was so bummed. I'm like, "Oh, it's just an old guy behind the curtain doing all these things." Well, guess what? That's who Satan is.

Satan is behind the curtain and he's out there deceiving many of us even here probably today or those watching or listening. You think Satan is so much more powerful than he is. Satan is so much bigger than he is. He is one single fallen angel. He's powerful, don't get me wrong, but there's not even a blip on the radar compared with God Almighty.

And so it's all deception. Notice: Satan who deceives the world. Now it's interesting as you go throughout the Bible, here again he's called the great dragon, he's called the serpent of old, he's called the Devil and Satan, he who deceives the world. In other places throughout the Word of God, he's called the father of lies, the great deceiver.

Like he goes about like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. He's the tempter, he's Lucifer. Jesus called him a murderer. He's the prince of the power of the air, Beelzebub, the prince of demons. He's Belial or evil personified, and on. He has to have all these names because he has to keep this persona that he's some big thing. Don't look behind the curtain. In other words, don't open your Bibles and start to read, because you're going to find out who he really is.

And here we see who he really is. Now this morning I just want to go, this is going to happen, but one of the descriptions that we are given here through the Word of God who Satan is is that it is he who deceives the world. I want to take a few minutes this morning to kind of hone in here because today as we look at the world today, it is so deceived. It is so deceived.

And again if it's the last days like we think it is, it's going to get even worse, these deceptions. But notice we're told in Second Corinthians chapter four, if you want to turn there with me real quick please, Second Corinthians chapter four, that Satan is the god of this world, the false god of this world. Let me read this out of the Amplified. Second Corinthians 4:4.

It says, "For the god of this world has blinded the unbelievers' minds that they should not discern the truth, preventing them from seeing the illuminating light of the gospel of the glory of Christ the Messiah, who is the image and likeness of God." So again Satan is he who is told here in our text chapter 12 that he is he who deceives the whole world. Second Corinthians 4:4 says he is the god of this world, he has blinded the eyes of those in the world that they should not discern the truth in the Greek.

The last place in the world that we should be looking for truth is the world. The last place that we should be looking for truth as Christians in the world is the world, especially moral truths about what is right, what is wrong, what is good, what is evil, what is light, what is dark. There are so many other truths in the world that we need to question today. I mean there are so many lies. Let's just say within politics. This voting season again is upon us.

So many lies. There's one side that is in love with lying, the other side sadly is learning to love it too. It's across the spectrum sadly, but mostly on one side of the aisle. But there's so many lies within politics. I think that's what politics means, isn't it? To be able to lie or something like that, I don't know.

There's so many lies and deceptions within the media and news. It's hard to even tell what's true and what's false anymore. We did a program on the radio last week and it was about the shooter at Lakewood church, Joel Osteen's church. The first news that came out was this woman and a boy were shot and this older man was shot and different things. Well then it came out it's a transgender guy that born a guy, born a gal, I don't know, dressed as a guy.

And so we reported on it as transgender went in and did this. Well I got a message, an email, saying well they weren't a transgender, it ended up being. So I go on and do some more homework because I always use stories, I don't just bring this up. So I do a search on this. And it was really odd because I use DuckDuckGo.

But every story that I had for page after page was by CNN, The Guardian, Reuters, all these really liberal things. And usually you kind of get that at first. But it was page after page after page, all saying that she wasn't transgender. And I'm like, "Thou protesteth too much." It was seriously weird. I'm like, "Now this is kind of interesting."

But they all agreed on another thing: that this gal also would go by the name Jeffrey sometimes. So was she transgender, was she not transgender? Who knows? Nobody did their homework by the way to go see why did she use the name Jeffrey sometimes? Was it because she was transgender? Was it because she was just trying to get away with crimes? We don't know. So many deceptions and by the way, left, right, center, couldn't find it.

How about so many lies on the internet? The internet will never lie to us, will it? Come on. So many lies being preached at the secular religious institution that they call schools. See, I don't call them schools anymore; I call them secular religious institutions because sadly all the way from kindergarten to middle school, to high school, to college and university, it's all about indoctrinating now. And that's what it's turned into religion. That's all that is anymore; it's a secular religion.

Again, so many lies. And so many lies even within what's called science today. There's a story a few years ago about climate change and how one of the professors who had given a lot of the information from England, I don't know if you remember this, came out that he totally made up all the numbers. And so but again do they go back, "Oh wait a minute, we got to check on this"? No.

Watched a video by another fellow the other day and he did this whole video or this whole study for two years on crime with police and were black people targeted more by police shootings than white people or other races? And the study came out and said no they're not. The guy doing it was a black liberal fellow.

And yet when he published the paper, and this was back in 2017 or '18, he said, "I published the paper, I got a call within one minute of literally posting the thing saying I was wrong." And he said I told the guy, "Wow, you read over 100 pages in one minute? You're a speed reader, bro." Deception everywhere. Nobody wants to know the truth. I mean not nobody; I think we do.

Christians should. But to be fair, so many lies that have even crept their way into the church today. So much deception that is happening even from the pulpits today. And again this isn't new, by the way. It goes all the way back to the Garden of Eden where Eve was deceived in the garden by the snake. Remember too, guys and gals, the Bible clearly tells us that Eve was deceived, but the guy Adam chose to sin. Gnarly, isn't it?

There's been deception all the way back. But this all comes from where? From Satan. Again he's deceiving as we're seeing our text this morning, he is deceiving the whole world. Now to add on to this, Paul said this would even get worse in the last days. Turn with me please to Second Thessalonians chapter two. Now Jesus said the same thing by the way in Matthew chapter 24 and the other Gospels, that deceivers would be coming.

Second Thessalonians chapter 2, verses 9 through 12: "The coming of the lawless one is in accordance to the working of Satan with all power, signs, and lying wonders, and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish because they did not receive the love of the truth that they may be saved." Notice the reason. There are many people today, they don't even care what the truth is because they don't love the truth.

"Because they did not receive the love of the truth that they might be saved. And for this reason God will send them strong delusion, that they should believe the lie, and that they all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness."

I mean we could unpack so much there, but I just want to say, I don't believe this is going to happen until after the rapture of the church, this strong delusion. But I do think it's already part of it, it's already here where it's not going to just come. I think it's kind of coming in these waves, birth pangs if you will as Jesus described it and Paul described it.

So here's the thing: as we see all this deception already here, and then it's supposed to get worse in the last days, and that Satan is behind all this deception, how do we know what is true? How do we know what is good and pure and right? Ready? I'm going to tell you how. Ready? You go to TikTok. Dude, I'm telling you, everything they tell you there is true. They're not going to lie. 100% straight up, bro.

Guest (Male): This has been Simple Faith with Pastor Bill Henry from Simple Faith Calvary Chapel in Vancouver, Washington. Today we brought you a message from Pastor Bill's series in Revelation. It's our sincere hope and prayer that you've been blessed by the words you heard from Pastor Bill today.

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