Good evening and welcome to EBible Fellowship's Bible study in the Book of Revelation.  Tonight is study #10 of Revelation, chapter 13, and we are going to be reading Revelation 13:6-7:

And he opened his mouth in blasphemy against God, to blaspheme his name, and his tabernacle, and them that dwell in heaven. And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them: and power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations.

I will stop reading there.  We saw in our last study that this refers to the beast and God has given him power to “speak great things and blasphemies.”  It is all according to the will of God, in loosing Satan to bring these end time things to pass in order to fulfill the Word of God.

Just think of it this way:  God, in His perfect Word, has recorded that at the time of the end there must come a “falling away.”  He has said that judgment must begin at the house of God.  He has said that the “abomination of desolation” must stand in the holy place.  He has said that He will give mankind up to some of the vilest sins imaginable.  God has said all kinds of things in the Scriptures and ought not these things to be fulfilled?  Yes, they must be fulfilled.  It is necessary and it is without question that they be fulfilled and that means all Scripture.  There cannot be things that were said, but then left undone and God has said all of these things.  We have the entire Book of Jeremiah to teach us that it was God’s plan to bring his wrath and judgment upon the churches.  There is an incredible amount of information that reveals God’s end time plan for the Great Tribulation and for the judgment on the world. 

The Scriptures must be fulfilled and we know that much of His Word has already been fulfilled and the rest is currently being fulfilled.  Then why should the child of God be troubled?  Why should we be cast down?   As God’s people, we know that His will must be done and His Word must be fulfilled, so we should not be cast down, but we should be thanking Him for bringing these things to pass – things that were written about for thousands of years, in some cases.  We can go back to the Old Testament and find writings that go back 2,500 or 3,000 years ago.  Or, we can read the New Testament and see things that were written almost 2,000 years ago and have been there in the Word of God for centuries and millenniums.  God’s people had wondered at these things, but they never came to pass.  Generations came and generations went and they never saw the “falling away.”  At times when things in the world seemed bad, they may have wondered, “Is this the end time church?”  But, it was not, and it never got bad to the degree we read about in the Bible.  It is only now, in the last couple of decades, that things have deteriorated and it has gotten to the point where we know, absolutely, that the things God wrote about have been fulfilled: the man of sin took his seat in the temple; there was a falling away first and God did begin the judgment on the house of God, and so many things we have knowledge of in these days in which we presently live. 

We know it all had to happen according to the plan of God and this gives us some comfort.  It is not an easy thing and it is an extremely trying time to live in this world that has no concern or love for the truth and is going further and further away from basic morality.  For the child of God, who has that holy spirit of God and desires to do the will of God perfectly, it is very sorrowful.  The Bible does tell us that increased knowledge brings increased sorrow, as we read in Ecclesiastes, chapter 1.  It is normal, as we gain knowledge and we learn things related to “time and judgment,” to have increased sorrow concerning the world we live in, our own neighborhood, or our own families, as we see these things working out in the lives of people we love.  It is extremely sorrowful.  On the other hand, it is a strong witness to us that eternity future is at the very door – we are not far away at all.  We have progressed beyond the Great Tribulation and on into the Day of Judgment, so “time” is extremely short.  There is not much more to be fulfilled and that is one of the reasons why we are very encouraged concerning the “10,000 days” of overall judgment: 8,400 of Great Tribulation when judgment was exclusively on the churches, plus 1,600 days of judgment on the world.  This totals 10,000 days of total judgment and the number “10” in the Bible points to completeness and 10,000 is 10 x 10 x 10 x 10.  The number “four” is also in view (10 to the 4^th power) and it points to “universal completion” or worldwide completeness of the judgment of God.  When He has completed the judgment, He will have completed all things of which He prophesied and He will have fulfilled all Scripture and everything will finally be brought to pass.   This is exactly what we are looking for and we know we are progressing in God’s end time program to the very “edge” of it; we look for the completion of it and that is why the 10,000 days is a good likelihood.

Well, again it says, in our verse in Revelation 13:6:

And he opened his mouth in blasphemy against God, to blaspheme his name, and his tabernacle, and them that dwell in heaven.

You know, when it says, “And he opened his mouth in blasphemy against God, to blaspheme his name,” it is like “doubling” that statement because you cannot separate God and His name.  Likewise, when it says that he blasphemes “his tabernacle, and them that dwell in heaven,” they are also one and the same, because the tabernacle was where God’s ark was housed in the wilderness or housed in Shiloh when Israel got to the Promised Land, but it also points to the same thing because the house or temple of God is the body of believers.  So Satan speaks evil of God and he speaks evil of the people of God; the true believers are his real target, but in order to get to them, he comes against all that profess to be Christians and that is why he came against the churches because that was where the true believers were found.  Of course, God took care of that by calling His people out of the churches and leaving the churches to Satan and all the unsaved remaining there were given over to Satan. 

Satan not only blasphemed the tabernacle, but “them that dwell in heaven.”  The Bible tells us that when we become saved, we are “seated in heavenly place in Christ Jesus” and our citizenship is said to be in heaven.  We are still physically on the earth, but we have become as “strangers” or “sojourners” that are just passing through and our real home is in heaven.  We dwell in heaven in Christ.  Especially with that statement, the object of Satan’s anger is the elect people of God.

Let us go on to Revelation 13:7:

And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them: and power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations.

So, it was given to Satan to make war with the saints and to overcome them.  We keep seeing this word “given,” as it said back in verse 5, “It was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies, and power was given unto him to continue for forty and two months.”  And now it is “given unto him to make war with the saints,” and this is because there is no way Satan could have done this if it was under his own power, but it is God that brought these things to pass. 

Let us take a closer look at verse 7: “And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them.”  To “overcome” means to win or to be victorious.  Just so we are clear about who the saints refer to, let us look at a few verses that define the word “saints.”  It says in Romans 1:7:

To all that be in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints: Grace to you and peace from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Also, it says in Romans 8:27:

And he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God.

The saints are those that God has saved because they are made holy by God’s act of salvation in washing away their sin.  The word “saint” and the word “holy” are very closely related, so these elect people that have become saved are said to be “saints.”

We read in 1Corinthians 6:1:

Dare any of you, having a matter against another, go to law before the unjust, and not before the saints? Do ye not know that the saints shall judge the world? and if the world shall be judged by you, are ye unworthy to judge the smallest matters?

Here, God is speaking to the Corinthian believers and He is asking why they go to law before the unjust (those that are not true believers) rather than to go before the saints or other brethren.  Then the Apostle Paul, under the inspiration of God, speaks of the saints judging the world.  Of course, this is the biggest judgment that could be made and whatever the problem, by comparison, it is a small thing.  And since the saints are going to judge the world, then why are you unable to make these smaller decisions?  That tells us that the saints are the true believers and it also tells us that the saints will judge the world.  This is the reason why we find a few verses that speak of Christ coming in judgment “and all the saints with Him,” or “ten thousands of His saints.”  The Lord Jesus comes as Judge, with all his saints and that is exactly what is happening today – God is judging the world with all His saints because the primary means of God’s wrath is the fact that He has shut the door to heaven.  He was able to shut the door to heaven when He had saved the last one of the elect.  Therefore, He has saved all the elect and since every name in the Lamb’s Book of Life has been found and saved, there remain no more names to be found and no more people to become saved.  This permitted God to bring judgment upon the world by shutting the door and turning out the Gospel lights, so He is judging the world and all the saints with Him.

Let us just think of one thing here, because we read of a war in the Bible, but God does not spell it out for us – we have to be able to look at the context to determine which war is in view.  There is the “war” that God began against the churches.  It is the war in which God loosed Satan and made him His servant to accomplish the purpose of destroying the churches.  In that war, we read in Revelation 13:7 that it was given unto the beast to make war with the saints and to overcome them.  Satan wins that war and this is the same war mentioned in Revelation 11:7:

And when they shall have finished their testimony, the beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit shall make war against them, and shall overcome them, and kill them.

Again, the beginning of the Great Tribulation was the end of the church age and the beginning point of the judgment on the churches and congregations of the world.  God is making war against them and God is using Satan to fulfill His will and Satan wins and overcomes them, and we can find other verses that confirm this.

On the other hand, there is a war mentioned in Revelation 17:14:

These shall make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb shall overcome them: for he is Lord of lords, and King of kings: and they that are with him are called, and chosen, and faithful.

Now this is something different.  God is not making war with Satan when He is using Satan at the beginning of the Great Tribulation; He is not making war with Satan when he is loosing him.  At that point, God is using Satan and Satan wins that war.  But at the end of the Great Tribulation God turns his attention to the devil and He holds him accountable because Satan is responsible for lifting up his hand against God’s anointed as he came against the churches.  Then God brings judgment on Satan, just as for seventy years God, through prophets like Jeremiah, told his people to go into captivity and to serve the king of Babylon in Babylon; no one was to remain in the land.  So during that seventy year period, who won?  The king of Babylon won; the Babylonians won.  And that was all in accord with the will of God, just as it was when it was given to Satan to war with the saints and to overcome them.  But at the end of the seventy years, in the year 539 BC, the Lord raised up the Medes and the Persians, with their King Darius (Cyrus), and they came against Babylon in the middle of the night and they killed the king of Babylon and took the kingdom in that very night.  Then, who won?  It was Cyrus, God’s anointed, who was called God’s shepherd.  Cyrus was the victor and that points to the battle of Judgment Day.  On Judgment Day, which was May 21, 2011, it was the Lord Jesus Christ that overcame and won.  It was Satan and his kingdom of Babylon that was defeated.  It is very important to keep this in mind when we are reading of war, battle or fighting in this spiritual warfare.

First of all, we could go to an earlier battle, the cross, when Satan lost and the Lord Jesus won.  Then Satan is loosed and he wins the war against the saints and overcomes them.  Then, finally, comes the end of the Great Tribulation and Christ is the final victorious one.  He triumphs and overcomes against Satan and his kingdom and against all the “heads” of the beast and destroys them all.  It says in Revelation 19:11:

And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he doth judge and make war.

This is the war of Judgment Day and the war that God wins.  Then it says in Revelation 19:19-20:

And I saw the beast, and the kings of the earth, and their armies, gathered together to make war against him that sat on the horse, and against his army. And the beast was taken, and with him the false prophet that wrought miracles before him, with which he deceived them that had received the mark of the beast, and them that worshipped his image. These both were cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone.

Here, we have the beast and the kings of the earth and their armies making war against Him that sat upon the white horse, who is the Lord Jesus, and against His army, the 200 million which represent all that God saved.  Who wins this war?  It is the Lord Jesus and His saints.  The beast is taken.  The beast is cast into a lake of fire.  Therefore, we can know that whenever we are reading something in the Bible (like the Books of Daniel, Jeremiah or Revelation, for example) and the beast wins against the saints or against Judah, it typifies judgment on the churches because God gave Satan the churches.  But if we read that Satan is defeated, that is Judgment Day, May 21, 2011, and all the days thereafter, when Christ is exalted and has overcome.

Now this goes against what some people say happened on May 21, 2011.  They say, “Oh, the believers were killed and our testimony was finished.”  And who would have killed them?  It would have been Satan.  They are misapplying what it says in Revelation 11:7, concerning the “two witnesses,” where God is speaking of the beginning of the Great Tribulation period and the end of the church age.  They try to apply this to Judgment Day and it is all wrong.  There is nothing right about it.  It is nowhere near the truth to say that the believers were defeated on Judgment Day.  Notice that in Revelation 19, Christ is on horseback and the believers are on horseback and both are victorious.  It is the beast and his army that is cast into the lake of fire.  May 21, 2011 was not a day of defeat for God and His people and His kingdom, but it was the greatest day of victory imaginable.  It was a day of tremendous triumph and we should really be thanking God, more and more, as we go on in this time and as we are learning more.  We keep finding more reasons to glorify Him and thank Him for completing His wonderful salvation plan and for bringing His wrath upon the beast.