Where Do You Stand?

Revelation 12:12 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." 13 Now when the dragon saw that he had been cast to the earth, he persecuted the woman who gave birth to the male Child. 14 But the woman was given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness to her place, where she is nourished for a time and times and half a time, from the presence of the serpent. 15 So the serpent spewed water out of his mouth like a flood after the woman, that he might cause her to be carried away by the flood. 16 But the earth helped the woman, and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed up the flood which the dragon had spewed out of his mouth. 17 And the dragon was enraged with the woman, and he went to make war with the rest of her offspring, who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.

In the case of The Book of the Revelation of Jesus Christ, getting there is not half the fun.

Where we are presently in the book - at the mid-point of the tribulation - is a brutal depiction of life on earth, and the worst has not yet begun - it is still to come.

How bad can it really get? (Can it get any more terrible than this?)

What those on earth face during this time, (those who have already survived 3 and one-half years of God’s wrath poured out…through cataclysmic events, the unbridled, unquenched evil of man’s nature unabated, and through the conniving emergence of the anti-Christ, who as yet has only been simmering in his evil appearance,) is about to get a whole lot worse.

Satan has now been cast out of heaven, and his access has been completely shut-off to anything other than the earth – and that becomes his terrible focus.

Now the time has come for the complete destruction of the Jewish people - God’s chosen ones. God has love for the Jews, therefore Satan has hatred.

If Satan can break the scriptures by destroying the Jewish people, (as the scripture says that Jesus will return for the JEWISH people,) than he can potentially thwart God’s plan…and in the evil depravity of his nature – to seek to have the Jews worship himself (Satan,) rather than God. He will make himself the usurper of God’s plan for anyone who will allow him to.

This is the meaning of the term ‘anti-Christ.’ It does not mean, “against Christ,” as much as it means, “instead of Christ.”

The question for each of us here today is: When will you take a stand against Satan?

Has there ever been – or will there ever be – a time in your life when you will oppose the one who opposes God? Will there ever be a time when you take God’s side – even when it hurts?

Can you not see Satan’s destructive intent, not only for you, but for the whole world?

-Pastor Bill