And there was war in heaven, Michael and his angels waging war with the dragon. And the dragon and his angels waged war, and they were not strong enough (let us establish that point firmly in our minds: they were not strong enough), and there was no longer a place found for them in heaven. This is another phrase that bears repeating often so that we do not forget it: they no longer had a place—we thank God for that! And the great dragon was thrown down, the serpent of old who is called the devil and Satan, who deceives 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 brethren has been thrown down, who accuses them before our God day and night. And they overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb and because of the word of their testimony, and they did not love their life even to death. For this reason, rejoice, O heavens and you who dwell in them. Woe to the earth and the sea; because the devil has come down to you, having great wrath, knowing that he has only a short time.” Revelation 12:7–12.
The devil has only a short time! We praise the Lord for that! It is always good to reduce our enemy down to scriptural proportions, because he is continually trying to present himself as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour (1 Peter 5:8).
He comes raging because he has only a short time. If we had a short time, we would rage too. But eternity is ours. Everything is ours. As for the victory that Christ won over Satan, it is the will of God the Father that we are the ones who shall execute it.
Until Satan is thrown down, he has access to the Father, so that he might accuse us day and night, in the mobile court, not the third heaven.
Satan has a certain intelligence; and though he is a lie and the father of it (John 8:44), he understands God’s world. For many thousands of years, he has been able to bluff and to bluster.
Why did the Father not simply banish him? Why did He not send Satan to hell and forget him? Why did Christ the Creator come into a world that had fallen under sin and under Satan’s snare, to die in order to get dominion over Satan? Why was it all done in that manner? We must understand what God was trying to do. I do not blame God for not doing anything about Satan. I honor Him for it.
Romans 16:20 tells us, And the God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. That is the reason God did not do anything about Satan. He never intended to have an encounter with Satan. Christ never intended to do more than just defeat him, as far as all requirements were concerned.
John 16:8–11 says: “Now is the judgment of this world; now shall the prince of this world be cast down. The Holy Spirit comes to convict the world concerning sin and judgment; for judgment, because the prince of this world is judged.”
From this it is very evident that the Holy Spirit is bringing down Satan—but through the Church. Christ is accomplishing it—but through His many-membered Body.
The Father intended that the agency of Satan’s defeat would not be His sovereign moving, but His moving through a many-membered Body.
It was the divine intention that the victory of Jesus Christ would be manifested through us. We war not against flesh and blood. Principalities and powers are the enemies we war against (Ephesians 6:12), but we do not approach them as though the victory were not won. The victory has already been won. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. 1 Corinthians 15:57.
We are administrators of the estate. We are the executioners. Already the sentence has been passed. We take the name of Jesus, and we cast out devils and send them into the abyss, not because we are wonderful, but because that is God’s plan. It is God’s divine order that this is the way it be done—through us.
A walk with God involves a lot of battle and spiritual warfare; let us thank God for it. It is an indication of what is happening. We are at that point in the history of man where God has ordained that the heavens will be cleared; and though Satan will rage on the earth for a while, there is to be no place for him. No place for him! After the seventy had gone out to minister, they came back rejoicing that even the demons were subject to them. Then Jesus said, “I saw Satan fall from heaven” (Luke 10:17, 18).
More and more we are magnifying the Lordship of Jesus Christ, but we are doing so because that Lordship and that victory which Christ has won is being executed through us. We are the ones who execute His victory!
Once we understand what is really ours, what is our destiny, and that it is our place to do this, then we can proceed with the next phase of operation. We can stand and begin to do that which God raised us up to do. It is twofold: first, the judgment of the prince of this world and seeing him cast out; and second, loosing creation from its futility and entering into the fullness of our victory.
Christians have been conditioned too long into accepting something less than what God wants them to have. It is time for us to again approach things that we have tried to do, but have not been able to do. We do not realize how far we have progressed into the period of the greater works.
There must be a continual awakening of the people to realize how they have progressed in the Lord. God has dealt deeply in our lives. The things that frustrated and hindered His moving are being removed. We are going on and on into greater depths in the Lord. We can now enter into the spiritual warfare and into claiming blessings from the Lord on a level that we do not yet realize we have attained. We have gone further than we know.
I have been increasingly aware that we are deeper into the Parousia and into the Kingdom age than we know. We do not realize it because it is such a secret thing.
The Kingdom is not coming with observation, so that people can say, “Lo, here it is; there it is” (Luke 17:20, 21). Even the saints of God are not aware that the Kingdom is coming forth within them. We do not realize how far God has moved to bring authority to us, to bring us in to that place He wants us to fulfill.
We may be afraid there are still many things in our lives that should not be there, but God is moving very rapidly to accomplish His will in our lives. Simultaneously, the arrogance of the carnal mind and its great unbelief coexist as the greatest enemies of God’s will.
When we come into the humility, we will have the key of inheriting the earth. When we become poor in spirit, then ours is the Kingdom (Matthew 5:3, 5).
We must come to the place where we determine that what God says is the truth, no matter what the world has seen or what has existed upon the world for centuries; that has nothing to do with it.
There must be the first people to believe to see the complete fulfillment of God’s promises. There must be the first people to walk up to a mountain and cast it into the sea (Mark 11:23). There must be the first people to tackle something even greater than the works that Christ did in His ministry.
We take dominion to loose great areas from the principalities and the spirits that have reigned since the dawn of civilization. These principalities shall be broken.
God has a company of humble people who will walk confidently through the land and loose it from these elemental spirits that have fastened themselves to certain territories. People will be loosed into believing in divine health, into taking dominion over everything that comes against them, as they stand and war in the spirit against the principalities and powers.
Why did God not put an end to Satan? Why did He have to countenance Satan’s constant accusing of us? Because it was the will of God that we were to be the instruments executing the judgment of Christ. Ephesians 3:10, 11 tells us that this was God’s plan to manifest through the Church His wisdom to the principalities and powers. They may be smarter than we are, but they are not smarter than God. As His wisdom comes upon us, we will know how to see not only the heavens, but also the earth freed of them in our generation.
Now these powers are raging against us. Why do they accuse us? Because Satan and these demon powers know that we are the instruments of their downfall. There was nothing else for them to do but to constantly accuse us of our unworthiness.
But we stand before God and we prevail on another basis. We overcome Satan by the blood of the Lamb, for this was the price of his defeat; and by the word of our testimony, because the word of God in our mouth is the agency of the execution of his defeat; and by not loving our lives even to death (Revelation 12:11).
Human beings are controlled by the human instinct of self-preservation, feeling they have to defend themselves, and loving their lives so much that they will go through all kinds of suffering rather than to give up living.
But a bold people will walk right in the face of principalities and powers; they will love not their lives even unto death. When God has refined out of us the old carnal instincts of the human nature, we will walk as the regenerated children of God; and by the blood of Jesus Christ and by the word we speak, we will see Satan completely brought to an end.
Where Satan once stood in the presence of the Father, accusing us continually, now he will find no place there—no place! He may still be accusing us here on earth, and that is the reason we must come under the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Because Christ shed His precious blood and because Satan has been cast out of heaven, Satan cannot accuse us before God any longer; but he still brings self-condemnation to us. He can war against us to prevent us from accepting God’s verdict. Although God has accepted us, we often will not accept ourselves. Satan accuses us and brings self-condemnation to us, and we wallow in it. It is time for us to arise and overcome him by the blood of Jesus Christ, that brings us into a worthiness in the midst of our unworthiness, and by a word of testimony as we speak that word, positively declaring it in the name of the Lord.
We are not afraid to die. Christ delivers those who were all their lifetime subject to bondage through the fear of death. It is gone. This is what Hebrews 2:14, 15 tells us. Since then the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise also partook of the same, that through death He might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil; and might deliver those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives. The Lord Jesus Christ delivers us from the instinct of self-preservation, from all fear, and brings us to the place where we walk confidently into the precious victory that He has for us.
What is the next step? With all my heart, I believe the next step is the manifestation of the sons of God (Romans 8:19). We will take hold of that doctrine which seems to be something far in the future and yank it into the present. This manifestation is not waiting for some super race of people to be born. It is God’s pleasure that by His grace, through Christ’s blood and the word of testimony, the people who have lost all fear of death in their complete dedication to the Lord are the ones who will overcome Satan. We will overcome him!
Let it be said now of all the churches God has raised up, as it was said in that mighty battle in Revelation 12: that the demons were not strong enough. They were not strong enough! There was no place found for them. No place!
We have battled and battled, but God is delivering us from the last vestiges of self-condemnation. He is bringing us to the place that by the blood we overcome, by the blood we stand righteous in His sight, and by the precious blood we move right into that victory over Satan.
For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will, but because of Him who subjected it.… Creation followed man into the state of vanity or futility. After man had fallen, God did not ordain that creation would remain perfect as He had created it; therefore, He put creation in a state of futility also, … in hope that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. Romans 8:19–21. When we come into this liberty as children of God, creation will follow us.
The Israelites were delivered out of Egypt because Moses had the faith to refuse every compromise proposed by Pharaoh. Moses said; “Not one hoof will be left behind. When we go out, our wives and our children go too, our cattle, the chickens, the dogs go—every part of us leaves Egypt. Not one hoof will be left behind” (Exodus 10:9, 26). We have applied this to our salvation. When we believe God for salvation, we believe not only for ourselves but for our whole household. Likewise, in claiming God’s great redemptive work, let us settle for nothing less than its complete manifestation.
And not only this, but also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body. Romans 8:23. That is the reason Satan is doing everything he can to fight us in our bodies. The physical body is the battleground, because that is the last phase of redemption. But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who indwells you. Romans 8:11. We are in a battle; and if we follow our senses and try to reason it out, it does not make sense at all. The carnal mind with its reasoning will not accept what God is doing.
From the minute we begin a walk with God, we start learning spiritual warfare. The battle is great, but this is how we learn to come against powers; this is our destiny. There is no place for them in heaven; therefore, they are raging on earth because their time is short. There will be no place for them here either. In due course, when we have established this victory that is ours, there will be only one place for them to go.
Now we wait for our glorious redemption. What do we do about it? We will not preach it as an ethereal doctrine of the future. We must believe for God to cleanse us, to make us holy, to let us walk before Him by the precious blood of Jesus Christ in full awareness of our victory. We must face the battles, the testings, and the harassments that come against us physically. We must not draw back. This is what we were called to do. All creation is waiting for us. Even the flowers seem to be nodding their heads and saying, “We are waiting for you to liberate us.” Everything is waiting—eagerly waiting.
Travail is upon creation. For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now. Romans 8:22. Even with the futility that is upon nature, if you listen on a quiet day, you can hear all nature groaning in childbirth, anxious for the Kingdom to come. Things are ready to change. “Oh,” you say, “I just can’t wait until the Lord changes them.” No, you mean you cannot wait until you change them. You change them. First you change; and then you change the conditions. This is your destiny. This is your prerogative. Satan’s destiny is to be bruised under your feet shortly (Romans 16:20). Get ready. Practice your stomping. Get accustomed to it. Just keep thinking in your mind: “I am going to be more than a conqueror through Christ who loved me (Romans 8:37). Satan is not strong enough. There is no place for him. His time is very short.” You must become accustomed to the application of this victory.
In our hearts there is nothing we want more than to break out of those traces of self-condemnation and to dump that last vestige of the old flesh nature. Can it be done? It can be done! It is the time for it now. Once when Christ was winning great victories, the demons screamed out: “Art Thou come to torment us before the time?” Every demon knows that he has just a short time. They rushed into the pigs, and the pigs ran over the precipice into the sea (Matthew 8:28–32). The demons pleaded with Jesus, “Do not send us out of the country. Let us have some place to go.” Now they come, saying the same thing. The sniveling little devils are whining that there is no place for them. They are not strong enough. Their time is short. They ask again, “Are you come to torment us before the time?” We answer, “It is the time! This is the time now! It’s the time!”
Think of everything the enemy has wrought against you. He rages against you. He wants to condition you with that spirit of futility that is on all creation, until you automatically accept a level that Christ does not intend for you to accept, you accept limitations that Christ does not intend for you to accept, and you accept a place far inferior to what God chose for you to have.
It is the time. It is time for you to move into your place as a child of God. It is time for the ministers to move into the authority that belongs to them in the name of the Lord. It is the time for the young people to accept absolute, total, perfect victory over the flesh, the devil, and the world. You are born of God, and you are to overcome the world (1 John 5:4). It is the time. It is the time!
With the aggressiveness of our faith, we look about us; and the cry rings out again: “There remaineth yet much land to be possessed” (Joshua 13:1). We are going to have it. We do violence to the restrictions in our thinking. We determine to walk in this word, in the name of the Lord. We determine that every obnoxious thing that we see in our nature, we will bring to the cross and reckon it dead (Romans 6:11). We determine that every glorious victory we have seen wrought by Christ and confirmed in the Word, we will claim as ours in the name of the Lord. We have had enough of these spirits battling us. We will see an end of them shortly—under our feet.
Take a practical step. Never let the word of God come only to give you a distant goal. That has been the frustration of Christianity. They are always talking about something far in the future. Take a step now. Get your eye on the promise, but do everything you can to bring it into the present. Start walking in it. If you think of yourself as an instrument in the hand of God, you will bypass self-condemnation and the sense of inadequacy; and you will believe in your destiny. You will believe in the Christ who enables you, who makes you an able minister of His new covenant. You will believe in the sufficiency that comes from God (2 Corinthians 3:5, 6). You will never believe in your own self as being sufficient or worthy, but you will start rebuking the enemy and moving with the audaciousness of faith. You will say to the Lord, “Let me walk on water, too! Bid me to come. Speak to me that I move out” (Matthew 14:28, 29). It is time to do it. It is the time. It is the time!