"...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." Revelation 12:11
What difference does it make when you we begin to realize we are at war and not at peace? The difference between sleeping and waking. When you are at war, your adrenaline flows. You are passionate. You willingly make sacrifices. You don’t expect or demand constant comfort, security, enjoyment, and entertainment. Each days tasks become a spy mission, an assignment from our commander. The one thing life never is in battle is boring and purposeless. We have been given a biblical reality check and wake up call. We know we are at war, we know we are soldiers, we know we have an enemy to fight and are aware of his strategy. What are we to do?
Revelation 12:11 tells us, “They overcame.” The call and the promise to Christians is to be overcomers not overcome! God doesn’t want us just to hang on, survive; He wants His church to win! The devil is your enemy. Our strategy is simple. James said, "Resist the devil and he will flee from you". (James 4:7). The word resist means the same as Paul uses when he exhorts us to fight in 1 Timothy 6:12, "Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called when you made your good confession in the presence of many witnesses" and tells us the outcome of his life 2 Timothy 4:7, "I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith".
The apostle gives us three keys to victory in Revelation 12:11:
1. The cross of Jesus Christ- "And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb." Did you know that the blood of Jesus renders Satan powerless against you?. We see in Revelation 12:10 that Satan is the accuser of the brethren,"the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God.". You can see a more graphic picture in Zechariah 3:1-5,
Then he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the Lord, and Satan standing at his right hand to accuse him. 2 And the Lord said to Satan, “The Lord rebuke you, O Satan! The Lord who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you! Is not this a brand plucked from the fire?” 3 Now Joshua was standing before the angel, clothed with filthy garments. 4 And the angel said to those who were standing before him, “Remove the filthy garments from him.” And to him he said, “Behold, I have taken your iniquity away from you, and I will clothe you with pure vestments.” 5 And I said, “Let them put a clean turban on his head.” So they put a clean turban on his head and clothed him with garments. And the angel of the Lord was standing by.
What is the weapon that renders Satan’s accusations powerless? The blood of Jesus! It is a scud missle against his condemning lies. (Ephesians 6:13-16)
Colossians 2:15, "And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross."
Romans 8:31-39, "what, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all-- how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died-- more than that, who was raised to life-- is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written: "For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered." No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord."
What does the blood give us? Right standing, no guilt, no shame, sonship, forgiveness, cleansing, transformation, price paid, Jesus has died, raised, sits at right hand, and intercedes for us!
2. Word of {our} testimony- "And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony"
This has to do with our public identification with Jesus. It has to do with how we speak and live, whether we make His name known accurately by reflecting Him, acknowledging Him before the world, and pointing people to Him. Jesus says in Matthew 10:32, "Whoever acknowledges me before men, I will also acknowledge him before my Father in heaven." You see Satan tries to silence us and contain us. He loves carnal Christians whose lives bring dishonor to the name of Jesus and he rejoices in secret agent Christians whose lips are sealed about Christ at work, home, or anywhere else!
Martin Luther said "If I profess with the loudest voice and clearest exposition every portion of the Truth of God except precisely that little point which the world and the Devil are at the moment attacking, I am not confessing Christ, however boldly I may be professing Christ. Where the battle rages, there the loyalty of the soldier is proved, and to be steady on all the battlefield besides is merely flight and disgrace if he flinches at that point."
In Acts 8:5-8 we read that "Philip went down to a city in Samaria and proclaimed the Christ there. When the crowds heard Philip and saw the miraculous signs he did, they all paid close attention to what he said. With shrieks, evil spirits came out of many, and many paralytics and cripples were healed. So there was great joy in that city. “ Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 10:4, "For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds".
Proclaiming Christ breaks demonic power
3. Commitment "...for they loved not their lives even unto death''.
Some people can't take a stand. There was once a man in the civil war who couldn't make up his mind what army he wanted to fight with. He wore a blue coat & grey pants & they found him shot front & back. Listen to battle cry of a man who overcame because he loved Christ more than life.
Galatians 2:20, "I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me."
Philippians 1:20-21, "I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed, but will have sufficient courage so that now as always Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. "
To fight means somebody has to die. There are some things worth dying for. Jesus said in Luke 9:23-25, "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it. What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit his very self?"
If your mentality is survive it will be easy to compromise and impossible to confront! The result being a stagnated, powerless, ineffective, fruitless, we burn out instead of move out, preserving our flesh, powerless, weak, and non-threatening.” Remember in Acts 19:15 when the demons spoke to the seven sons of Sceva? "Jesus I know, Paul I know, but who are you?"
We can be known in hell! I want you to be known in hell! The devil is not afraid of a man with a weapon but no will.
There are three key commitments a Christian must make:
To Christ
To his church
To his cause
In 1 Samuel 17:29 David asked, "is there not a cause?"
The sad situation of today is the situation is desperate, but the saints are not. Dear reader, the greatest days of your life will be when you get committed!
“Until I am committed, there is a hesitancy, a chance to draw back. But the moment I commit myself then God moves also and a whole stream of events erupt. All manner of unforeseen incidents, meetings, persons, and material assistance which I could never have dreamed would come my way begin to flow towards me- the moment I make a commitment.”
There is one other key way we overcome: By Prayer
Ephesians 6:18-19, "And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints. Pray also for me, that whenever I open my mouth, words may be given me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel."
I believe the answer, beneath and behind the renewed empowering of the Word of God, is a movement of persevering, believing, expectant prayer. Prayer is the walkie-talkie on the battlefield of the world. It calls on God for courage (Ephesians 6:19). It calls in for troop deployment and target location (Acts 13:1-3). It calls in for protection and air cover (Matthew 6:13; Luke 21:36). It calls in for firepower to blast open a way for the Word (Colossians 4:3). It calls in for the miracle of healing for the wounded soldiers (James 5:16). It calls in for supplies for the forces (Matthew 6:11; Philippians 4:6). And it calls in for needed reinforcements (Matthew 9:38).
This is the place of prayer on the battlefield of the world. 2 Thessalonians 3:1 says, "Pray that the Word will triumph!" I take this to mean that God will indeed cause his Word to be glorified. But he does not intend to win without prayer. God has given us prayer because Jesus has given us a mission. We are on this earth to press back the forces of darkness, and we are given access to Headquarters by prayer in order to advance this cause.
When Jesus walked, hell broke apart at His feet. Jesus and hell could not occupy the same spot, so wherever Jesus went, hell was dismantled. When our goals reach beyond making it into heaven to a life of ministry and impact here on earth, we can see hell break apart at our feet; Satan-shaking, captive-releasing, kingdom-taking, revival-giving, Christ-glorifying power channels for God!
Dear reader, is hell breaking apart at your feet? If we don't experience the dissolution of hell in our own lives, we would do well to ask ourselves why. Are we flirting with hell and thus unable to confront it? “You cannot flirt with hell and confront it at the same time.” Have we blinded ourselves to the needs and hurts of others? Or have we just become lazy, content to coast into heaven rather than be faithful servants?
Let this be your battle cry this week: I WANT HELL TO BREAK AT MY FEET!
Peter Kreeft says, “when there is a clear and present danger, life brings a great purpose and a great choice.” We are at war! God has saved us to be victorious in this war and we must be satisfied with nothing less than knowing we are living and experiencing the spiritual reality of John’s words, “Greater is he who is in us than he who lives in the world.” May you this week begin to know and experience the thrill of victory.
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