Good evening and welcome to EBible Fellowship's Bible study in the Book of Revelation.  Tonight is study #13 of Revelation, chapter 12, and we are going to be reading Revelation 12:12:

Therefore rejoice, ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them. Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea! for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time.

As we have been going along in Revelation, chapter 12, we have seen that Satan was cast out of heaven and he was cast down to the earth.  In the previous verse, God spoke of those that had overcome Satan “by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony, and they loved not their lives unto the death.”  This verse follows up on that with the statement, “Therefore rejoice, ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them.”  They are to rejoice because of salvation, and salvation is the overcoming by the faith of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the blood of the Lamb and through the Word of God, the word of the testimony.

We find this same word “rejoice,” Strong’s #2165, used in the parable of the prodigal son, in Luke 15:21-24:

And the son said unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son. But the father said to his servants, Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet: And bring hither the fatted calf, and kill it; and let us eat, and be merry: For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found. And they began to be merry.

The word “merry” in both verses 23 and 24 is the translation of the same Greek word translated as “rejoice” in our verse.  We can see here that it has to do with salvation, because as the son returns to his father, his father exclaims, “For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.”  This is language of salvation and it causes the father to “rejoice” with all those of his household and to “be merry.”  It is to rejoice over salvation.

It is a similar idea, but a different Greek word, where it is found earlier in Luke 15 when Jesus gave a couple of parables with the idea of rejoicing in heaven over the salvation of sinners.  For instance, it says in Luke 15:3-7:

And he spake this parable unto them, saying, What man of you, having an hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after that which is lost, until he find it? And when he hath found it, he layeth it on his shoulders, rejoicing. And when he cometh home, he calleth together his friends and neighbours, saying unto them, Rejoice with me; for I have found my sheep which was lost. I say unto you, that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons, which need no repentance.

Then, immediately, a second parable is given of a woman that had ten pieces of silver and she lost a piece of silver and finds it again.  It is the same teaching.  It says in Luke 15:9-10:

And when she hath found it, she calleth her friends and her neighbours together, saying, Rejoice with me; for I have found the piece which I had lost. Likewise, I say unto you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth.

Then, immediately following that parable, there is the parable of the two sons – the prodigal son and his older brother.  The prodigal son (who had gone away and wasted his substance) had given every indication he was unsaved, but when the son returned, the father exclaims, “For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.”  This is really teaching the same thing as the man who lost a sheep or the woman who lost a coin.  There is “making merry” when the son returns home, just as was the case with the man who found his sheep and he wants others to rejoice with him.  God uses these as examples of “joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth.”  This is exactly what is in view in our verse in Revelation 12:12:

Therefore rejoice, ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them.

Rejoice because the Gospel is going out into the world during this period of the church age and there will be those that overcome by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony and they will love not their lives unto the death.  This is a cause of rejoicing, of making merry and of being glad because it relates to salvation, so it says, “Therefore rejoices, ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them.”  God dwells in heaven.  The angels dwell in heaven, as well as all those elect whom God has saved – whether “in the body” like Moses and Elijah, or “in soul,” like all the saints throughout history.  They are in heaven in their soul existence, and we know this from language we found in Revelation 6, where it speaks of the “souls under the altar.”  The altar typified Christ.  All these are in heaven, but so, too, are God’s people that are still living on the earth; in their salvation, they are seated in heavenly places in Christ Jesus and granted citizenship in the kingdom of heaven.  Referring to the elect that are still living on the earth, it says in Philippians 3:20:

For our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ:

The word “conversation” means “behavior, ” or in this case, it means more than that.  We have a position and status and a “right.”  We have citizenship in heaven.  So, as God speaks of those that are in heaven and those that dwell in them, He is also speaking to His people that are still upon the earth.  There ought to be rejoicing over the salvation of sinners and, of course, this is speaking of those saved during the church age.  We are living in a different time now.  We have gone beyond the period of the church age.  We are not even living in the time of the Great Tribulation, because we have gone beyond that.  We are people that live “in those days after that tribulation,” in the Day of Judgment and, yet, we can still, along with others, rejoice with those in heaven over the great work of salvation that God did during the “little season” of the Great Tribulation when He saved the great multitude.  We can also rejoice that God has saved every one whose name was written in the Lamb’s Book of Life.  Everyone that was to become saved has become saved and this is a great cause of rejoicing and making merry.  We can be very thankful to the Lord for being faithful to His salvation plan.  He had a people that He purchased by His own blood and He had a plan to find those people down through history and He has completed that glorious salvation program.  So, yes, we have much to thank God for concerning those He has saved.

Then it goes on to say in Revelation 12:12:

… Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea!

This is basically the same idea – the “inhabiters of the earth and of the sea” are the same.  God likens this “sea” to people.  Now Satan has come down, after being cast down to the earth, so this resulted in God pronouncing this woe: “Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea!”  Woe to the people living on the earth, as God goes on to give the reason for the woe.  The word translated as “woe” is a word also translated as “alas,” for it is a grievous thing.  Then it goes on to say why there is this woe in the last part of Revelation 12:12:

… for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time.

The devil is come down unto you and has great wrath.  He is very angry.  The word translated as “wrath” here is the same word we find in Revelation 14:8:

And there followed another angel, saying, Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city, because she made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication.

The same word “wrath” is also used in Revelation 14:10:

The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God…

Also, it says in Revelation 14:19:

And the angel thrust in his sickle into the earth, and gathered the vine of the earth, and cast it into the great winepress of the wrath of God.

It is the identical Greek word, so this word means “furious anger.”  We know when it is used of God, that God is angry with the wicked.  We read in the Psalms that He is “angry with the wicked every day.”  It is a word that expresses fierce anger and this is the word that God chose to describe Satan’s anger with the “woman” who brought forth the man child and then fled into the wilderness to the place God had prepared; and we know that place was the church because that is where the elect were found for the almost 2,000 years of the church age. 

And Satan came after her because he had been cast down from heaven to the earth and he did not like it at all.  He must have realized the big change that happened when Christ went to the cross and then Satan could not bind the hearts of men in the nations as he had previously been able to do.  Now the Word of God was not limited to Israel, but the Word of God was being carried forth by the disciples of Christ; they were now going out on missionary trips to surrounding nations.  Satan never really had to deal with that sort of effort before, because Israel was the corporate body, God’s representatives of the people of the earth, but they basically kept to themselves.  They were the holy people.  If anyone wanted to know of the Word of God, the nation of Israel was the only caretakers of the Word of God.  While it is true that synagogues would be established in other nations, yet the Jews were not very evangelistic.  They were not trying to convert the Gentiles.  As a matter of fact, they had hostility, in most cases, toward the Gentiles. 

But now there was a drastic change in the program and the Gospel was now going forth to the nations – to the Gentiles.  The Gentiles were being encouraged to come to the Word of God and churches were being established in nation, after nation, after nation, and it was spreading and expanding, so Satan was full of wrath and anger at this whole prospect.  Of course, he was angry about the outcome of his efforts against the Lord Jesus Christ.  He thought he had won when he had Christ crucified.  Yet, in killing Christ, it did not end God’s plan, but it was part of God’s plan.  It was the death and resurrection of Christ that really powered the movement of the followers of Christ, the Christians.  Now they were emboldened as they went forth into the surrounding nations and there seemed to be no stopping them. 

So Satan was very furious and he came down unto them with great wrath, also knowing that “he had but a short time.”  Satan had some sort of knowledge, although we are not sure what he knew, but he had some sort of knowledge of the shortness of his time.

The word “short” in Revelation 12:12 is “oligos,” Strong’s #3641, and it is the word that is translated as “few” several times.  When we read a familiar verse like, “Many are called, but few are chosen,” it is this Greek word “oligos.”  When it relates to numbers of people, it has the idea of “few” people.  This word is not often used in referring to time, but here the word “time” is a word that is typically is used for “time.”  It is translated a few times as “little time,” but here it is translated as “short,” which is accurate.  There is a short period of time.  It is the same word found in Revelation 17:10:

And there are seven kings: five are fallen, and one is, and the other is not yet come; and when he cometh, he must continue a short space.

Both the English words translated as “short space” is a translation of that one Greek word “oligos,” so it really reads that he must continue a “little while” or a “short while.”  In Revelation 17:10, it is a reference to the “little season” of the Great Tribulation, but in our verse in Revelation 12:12, it is referring to the entire New Testament church era.  It is but a short time and Satan knew that when he was cast out of heaven and bound at the cross and when he began his pursuit of the “woman” during the early years of the New Testament church age.  He knew then that he only had a short period of time before he would be judged and destroyed and experience eternal destruction at the hand of God. 

Another verse that ties in with this a little bit is found in Matthew 8:28:

And when he was come to the other side into the country of the Gergesenes, there met him two possessed with devils, coming out of the tombs, exceeding fierce, so that no man might pass by that way. And, behold, they cried out, saying, What have we to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of God? art thou come hither to torment us before the time?

We know the rest of the story.  Christ cast out the demons and they entered into the herd of about 2,000 swine and they ran violently down a steep hill and drowned in the sea.  This pictures what will happen to the fallen angels, known as demons or evil spirits.  All these evil spirits were possessing these two men, so many spirits can enter into a man and when they came out, they entered into this herd of about 2,000 swine.  As they ran down into the sea and were drowned, this is a picture of the final judgment and their destruction that comes at the end.  So the number of about 2,000 is significant because this happened in the time of Jesus’ ministry in the first century AD and about 2,000 years later came the Great Tribulation and Judgment Day.  As we have seen, the Great Tribulation came in 1988 and continued for exactly 23 years until 2011, and then we entered into Judgment Day.  So it is about 2,000 years from the time that Christ showed Himself to these demons possessing these men.  They said, “Art thou come hither to torment us before the time?”  This statement reveals that they knew something about the “time.”  They knew, for instance, at that period of time, that it was not the time of their judgment.  So, exactly what did the devil and the fallen angels know about time?  Well, they did know they had a “short time.”  They knew that the first century AD was not the time of the final judgment.  I do not know if the Bible gives more information concerning what they knew.  Perhaps, they knew there had to be a falling away first or great apostasy within the churches.  I do not know, but we do know that they knew their time was short.  Is that not amazing?  This was about 2,000 years ago and Satan already knew he had but a short time. 

Here we are in about 2,000 AD and the world had been under the power of Satan for most of its history, until very recently, but the people of the world act as if they have unlimited amounts of time remaining and this world will continue on indefinitely – it will just go on, and on: “After all we have been here billions of years,” they suppose.  Yet, there is every indicator this is not the case.  The church is completely dead and apostate and sin has multiplied all over the face of the earth.  Read Romans, chapter 1, and then look at the world as it relates to all the sins listed there.  Romans, chapter 1, describes perfectly what is going on today as God gives men up to their lusts and their sins, especially when we see men marrying men and women marrying women.  It is becoming a common, everyday occurrence in states and in country after country.  To the world, it is a “good thing.”  So all things considered – the condition of the churches and the condition of the world – it is just shouting unto heaven that the “time is short.”  If it was short almost 2,000 years ago, then how much time can actually be left now?  How much time has expired since Satan knew he had but a short while?  How much remains? 

From everything we can read in the Bible, we have very, very little time remaining before the end comes and before the evil spirits will finally be destroyed, as well as all the unsaved.  Then this world will, mercifully, be destroyed and wiped from existence and wiped from the memory of God’s people, as all of these wicked things must be totally wiped away, never to be thought of again, as God and His kingdom turn their attention to that glorious, perfect and sinless eternity future!