Reading from Revelation chapter 12, we can glory in the provisions God gives us in His Word. Revelation 12, 1 through 6, a great sign appeared in the sky. A woman clothed with the sun, the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars. And being pregnant, she was crying out in labor, being in great pain to give birth. And another sign appeared in the sky. Behold a dragon, huge, fiery red, having seven heads and ten horns with seven diadems on his heads. And his tail grabbed a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman who was about to give birth in order to devour her child as soon as she gave birth. And she bore a son, a male, who would shepherd all the nations with a rod of iron. And her child was snatched up to God, even to his throne. And the woman fled into the wilderness, to where she has a place prepared by God, so that they may nourish her there 1,260 days. Amen. Father, we thank you for your Word, and we pray for your guidance and enabling as we seek to interact with that Word and to embrace it. We pray it in Jesus' name. Amen. Well last week we looked at the first two verses of this chapter which give an incredible description of God's bride, pictured with the symbol of the Old Testament woman known as Zion. In the Old Testament, Zion was frequently portrayed as a woman laboring in pain to give birth to the man-child. But verse 1 also gives a glorious picture of Zion clothed in the glory of God and crowned with a Stephanus crown. That's a victory wreath on her head. And later in the book she'll be contrasted with the harlot who rides the beast. Now we come to a different sign. It's painted in the heavens. It's almost like, it's not, it's a moving image that's painted in the heavens that he sees. A huge fiery red dragon, and we aren't left guessing as to who in the world this dragon might represent, because in verse nine, which we didn't read right now, but if you move ahead to verse nine, you'll see that he identifies this dragon as the serpent of old, the devil, and Satan. So obviously it's not a literal dragon. The word sign all by itself indicates that this is a symbol of all that the devil represents. Now interestingly, where is this dragon seen? It's seen in heaven. Now that may seem surprising to you because we saw that the fact that the woman was seen in heaven as a sign indicates her identity with heaven. What in the world is this dragon doing in heaven? But if you know the history of Satan you realize that Satan was actually created as a perfect upright angel. And his proper domain was indeed in heaven. Jude 6 says that he left his proper domain of heaven. He was identified with heaven just as much as Zion was identified with heaven. He was the archangel Lucifer, the greatest created angel of heaven. So it's perfectly appropriate that this symbol starts in heaven. Now we're used to thinking of dragons as representing evil because obviously they're the symbol for Satan ever since the serpent, you know, the serpent, the dragon, there's various fiery symbols of him. But that was not always the case because in the beginning God had created various types of dinosaurs and dragons were just one of those forms of dinosaurs. Answers in Genesis has some wonderful books documenting how various types of dragons described in history, and by the way they do intersect with humans. There is quite a bit of documentation that dragons existed and dinosaurs existed in human history. But some of those dragons look almost identical to the various types of dinosaurs that are out there. Genesis 1 verse 21 says, God created great sea creatures. And the word for great sea creatures there is great sea dragons. Okay? They're not mythical inventions. They are real. God created them. They were one of the ancient dinosaurs that God had created. And as I mentioned, Answers in Genesis and other creationist organizations have done a fabulous job of pulling together various scriptures that talk about the kinds of dinosaurs that are out there. Now, not all dinosaurs were dragons, but scripture describes three kinds of perfect dragons that were originally unaffected by sin. Psalm 91, verse 13 speaks of the Tanin. T-A-N-N-I-N. Those were the dragons that Genesis 121 talks about. Psalm 104 verse 26 speaks of Leviathan. It says that God made Leviathan to play in the sea. And I love that image of the, you know, this big dinosaur horsing around in the sea just having fun out there. Job 26, 12 through 13 speaks of yet another dinosaur called Rahab in the Hebrew. So those are the three kinds of dragons, and then there's a whole bunch of other kinds of dinosaurs that the Bible mentions. And though these various forms of dinosaurs would have been huge and would have been intimidating to man, towering above man, before the fall they were not inherently evil. They were good. God said on the end of His creation week, He looked at everything that he had made, everything, and he called it very good. So that means dragons were very good. We ought not to look down on dragons. So I think it's a quite appropriate symbol for Satan, both before and after the fall. Now initially Satan was in heaven, symbolized by the fact that the sign of the dragon here appeared in heaven. Ezekiel 28, 13 says of the pre-fall Satan, he was called Lucifer back then, in Isaiah 14 it mentions Lucifer, but Isaiah 28, 13 says, you were the seal of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. You were in Eden, the garden of God. And then it goes on to describe the incredible musical skills that Satan had before he became Satan when he was Lucifer. Ezekiel 28 14 says you were the anointed cherub who covers I established you you were on the holy mountain of God you walk back and forth in the midst of fiery stones you were perfect in your ways from the day you were created till iniquity was found in you now warn you that if you adopt what I say about Satan today nobody's going to consider you a scholar because modern scholars influenced by liberalism, they question whether Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28 refer to Satan. They say that's referring to a king. And we'll be seeing yes, he first addresses a king, but then he talks to Satan who was influencing that king, who was driving actually, had possessed that king and was moving through them. And I will You can cheer up if you want to believe what I'm saying this morning, that this is the historic church's position. And many modern Orthodox scholars do believe it. It most certainly does, even though there are evangelicals today that question it. Ezekiel 28, Isaiah 14 most certainly does describe Satan who had possessed those two kings. In any case, these two passages show how two empires were controlled by Satan. And in those passages he starts by addressing the king. Then he moves back to addressing Satan who was behind that king. And in the same way here he's explaining what the Gospels had talked about. The Gospels had talked about Herod going out and killing all of those infants, trying to kill Jesus. And this is explaining what's going on behind the scenes. It's saying there was a demon behind him. It was Satan behind Herod trying to kill the man-child as soon as he was born. Now, even though the seven heads, ten horns, and the seven diadems are appropriate images of why Lucifer was tempted to fall in the first place, I mean, they're describing his perfections. They also symbolically give a premonition to us who are used to the imagery of dragons. They give a premonition of the fact that Satan will use those seven heads, ten horns, and seven diadems to be the controller of the four empires of Daniel's visions. For example, the three heads of the first three empires. plus the four heads of the Roman Empire, the fourth empire, adds up to seven heads. That's not by accident. According to most of the commentaries that I have on my shelf, they say that's a very deliberate allusion to the fact that Satan was the one who stood behind those empires. They were demonic empires to the core. We ought not to be emulating those empires or wishing that America could be like those empires. And the crowns and the horns on the beast are hinted at in Satan's crowns and horns. Now keep in mind this is all symbolism. Satan doesn't literally have seven heads, you know, and ten horns, but they symbolize Satan. In any case, this verse is describing Satan at his fall or just before his fall. Now if you literally take the sequence in this chapter, I believe that it describes Satan before his fall, verse 3. And then verse 4 is where Satan actually leads in the rebellion. In any case, Lucifer was one of the angels that God had created on day one of creation week. He was one of the morning stars that Job 38 verse 7 describes as singing Worshiping God, when they see in awe and wonder that God is creating this world and all of the things that He is forming, they stand in awe. So let's look at each word of this description of the pre-fall dragon. It says first that he was huge. And the descriptions of Lucifer as he was being tempted seem to imply that part of his temptation was that he was greater than any other created being. He was far greater than they were. Just consider this in terms of comparison. Today, Michael the archangel is the greatest angel. And yet in Jude chapter, Jude verse six, it says that when Michael the archangel was contending with Satan over the body of Moses, because Satan wanted to get that body, no doubt to make a shrine out of it and turn things into idolatry. When he was contending with Satan over the body of Moses, it says he dared not bring a railing accusation against Satan, but said, the Lord rebuke you. Now that implies that Satan was more powerful than Michael. He was an incredibly powerful angel. In Isaiah 14, Satan certainly considered himself to be so great that he thought he was as great as the Most High. Now that is astounding. Why would he think that? It says he actually did think that, but why would he think that? Now it may have been because God had manifested himself by way of a theophany. It says he sat on a throne and Lucifer, not Lucifer, what's the name that I just gave of Satan? Lucifer, yeah it is Lucifer. It sounded too evil to be Lucifer. But he was the covering angel over that throne. So there are some people who hypothesize that maybe God had made himself in a theophany, perhaps like a man or something like that on that throne, and Satan thought that he was equal. Now I doubt that. Even though there probably was a theophany, I doubt that. I think there was something else that was going on there. Let me read that passage for you. Isaiah 14, 13-15 says, For you have said in your heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God. Now stars were symbols of the angels so being exalted above the stars means being exalted above all of the other angels. Lucifer goes on to say, I will also sit on the mount of the congregation on the farthest sides of the north. I will ascend above the heights of the clouds. I will be like the Most High. His hugeness was his temptation. And in verse 4 of our chapter here, we get a little bit of a hint of how huge Satan was. It says that, with his tail alone, he throws one-third of the stars down to the ground. Now, the stars are symbols of angels, so his tail alone is greater than one-third of all of the angels. Now, obviously, it's not literal stars, and it's not a literal dragon. It's a symbol, but it gets across the idea of his hugeness, one of the reasons why he was tempted to be so prideful. Second, it says that he was fiery red. Well, his pre-fall name, as I've already mentioned, was Lucifer, which means day star. Well, the day star was Venus, which space.com calls a hot, hellish, and volcanic planet. It is fiery red. I put a NASA picture of it in your bulletin. So if he was named after Venus, he may indeed have been fiery red. He was also called the Son of the Morning, no doubt because of his color. He was said to walk among fiery stones. Now, again, I don't want you to think that because he's fiery red, he must be evil. We've associated evil with fiery red because of the associations after the fall of Satan. But I think prior to his fall, it's just describing his incredible beauty like the dragon in The Hobbit. movie, the fiery redness was part of that dragon's vanity. He was an incredibly beautiful creature. Now I'm not saying that the dragon here looks like the dragon I've put into your outline that I copied from the Hobbit website, but both had a certain beauty about them and it is symbolized by the fiery red. Most commentators attribute red to his murderous nature, and it's true. That later did become associated with it. I think we need to take the exact order in which this vision is being given. This is describing Satan before he became a murderer, and there is a certain beauty in fiery red. The image gives him seven heads. Now that doesn't mean that Lucifer literally had seven heads. Heads are images of authority. Seven is the number of completeness and perfection. So the seven heads represent the fact that he was the supreme angel in charge. And Ezekiel 28 says that Lucifer was put in charge as the covering cherub. In fact, he was the angel that hovered over and covered the throne of God. And this exalted position also made him want more. Isaiah 14 says that he said in his heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God. I will also sit on the mount of the congregation. So he wanted supreme authority. But he also had ten horns. Ten is the number of completeness or fullness. And a horn was a symbol of power in the Old Testament. Where one horn in Scripture speaks of power or strength, ten horns would refer to completeness of strength or mighty power. You can see why this would be a temptation, you know. He was the most powerful of all of the angels. Now based on the Imagery of his tail grabbing a third of the angels out of heaven. He didn't need to arm wrestle anybody to prove his strength, right? He was so vastly greater than the other angels, they all knew he was great. And then finally, Seventh Diadem speaks to perfection of rule. His rule really was perfect initially. God said so. He said in Ezekiel 28, you were the seal of perfection. You were perfect in your ways from the day you were created till iniquity was found in you. Now when you're perfect and other people think you're perfect, it can get to your head. It can. I think Ezekiel 28 and Isaiah 14 indicate that it did get to his head. Pride was his downfall. Pride was the first sin in the universe. So I believe this sign or symbol of the dragon shows not only the perfect way that God created Lucifer, but also what led to his temptation, and then what he has used since that time to try to rule every aspect of planet Earth. Okay, verse four. Verse 4 describes how the temptation led to leading others into the same revolt. And his tail grabbed a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth. Now I want you to notice this is not God throwing the angels out of heaven, that happens later. In fact, even after this fall, Satan still has access to heaven. Job talks about that, Job chapter one, second Kings, you know, where under Ahab it talks about Satan and various demons having access to the council of heaven. And the book of Revelation indicates Satan continued to have access to heaven all the way up to AD 66. That was the point at which he was cast out of heaven. And the second half of this chapter is going to get into that. where he can no longer be the accuser of the brethren before the throne. So this is not God casting angels out of heaven, this is Satan taking angels out of their heavenly domain and kingdom and forcing them into an earthly kingdom that he is now ruling over. He had succeeded in robbing earth from Adam and he was now sought to overthrow the kingdom of heaven. But the most he was able to do was to get one-third of all angels to rebel. Now some people find that number a little bit discouraging. Think about that. Billions, if not trillions, of demons that we have to contend with. I actually find it quite encouraging. They're a minority. We got twice as many good angels as there are bad angels that are out there. Double the number. But at the same time, it gives you an idea of the vast size of Satan's kingdom. It includes billions, if not trillions, of angels. Jude 6 speaks of the angels who did not keep their proper domain, but left their own abode. Their proper domain was the kingdom of heaven, but they left their proper domain and they went to earth to rule with Satan. So in symbolic fashion, this passage goes back to the beginning of time and it shows how the conflict of the ages began. and that there was a conflict right from the beginning of time is implied in the Greek tense for the word stood in verse four. It's in the perfect tense, okay? The perfect tense indicates that the action had already started in the past, continues to happen at the same time that the writer is speaking. So when verse four says, and the dragon stood before the woman who was about to give birth, it indicates that the standing before the woman was going on in the past, it continues to go on when the woman is about ready to give birth to the man-child, and would continue to stand before this woman even after she gave birth. That's the indication of the Greek tense. And of course the rest of the chapter says the same thing. Now you'll remember from last week that the woman was Zion. She is the corporate people of God. And from the time of Eve and on, there was a conflict between the woman, Zion, and the serpent, Satan. Many, many passages describe it. Genesis 3.15 is a bit cryptic, but it says, I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed, he shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel. So this standing before the woman sums up the ages long conflict that Zion of the Old Testament had with the devil and that Zion would continue to have even into the New Testament. Now the next phrase shows the reason why the dragon stood before the woman throughout the ages. It's the object of his hatred. It says, in order to devour her child as soon as she gave birth. Satan knew that the Messiah had been promised to come through Eve. I mean, he was right there when God was rebuking Adam and rebuking Eve and rebuking the serpent. And so he knew the Messiah was gonna come through Eve and there is some evidence in the text that Adam and Eve named their son Cain, their first son, thinking maybe he's the Messiah. We've received it, you know, is the meaning of the name. And so some commentators think that they perhaps thought this is the coming Messiah. They were obviously mistaken and Satan captured Cain. And so if it didn't come through Cain, maybe it would come through Abel. And, of course, Cain, probably at the instigation of Satan, killed Abel. And that's why Satan was called a murderer right from the beginning of time. And then when Abel was killed, maybe God's going to bring the Messiah through Shem. And, of course, later he promises to do so. And so Satan fights against the seed of Shem. And then it's through Abraham and through Judah and through David, etc. Satan only knows so much about the future. He knows what's been revealed by God and His scriptures and through prophets. And so based on those bits of knowledge that he had, he engaged in conflict with the woman to kill whatever seed she might bring forth. that would do him in. And so Satan made a concerted effort to kill the seed of the godly line in order to extinguish any possibility of the Messiah coming. It's not by accident that all of the male children were killed by Pharaoh in the... what river is it? Nile River. It's not by accident. Satan stood behind that. It's not by accident that on two occasions Satan sought to have pagan kings rape Sarah. The dragon's enmity with the seed is manifested symbolically in the enmity that Esau and Jacob had, the scripture indicates, even when they were in their mother's womb. There was an enmity going on there. It's not by accident that Herod tried to kill all of the male babies in Bethlehem, two years old and under. It was Satan who was working through him to try to destroy Jesus. So this, in a nutshell, summarizes Satan's many attempts to kill the coming Messiah, with Herod's attempt, obviously, being the last one. And Satan had reason to fear. He had reason to fear. In Genesis 3, God had promised that the coming Messiah would crush Satan's head. Christ came into the world with a specific purpose of warring against Satan and defeating his kingdom. Now let's think about the next verse in that context because Satan ruled all of the nations of the world in the Old Testament with the exception of Israel. He ruled over all of those nations. But verse 5 says those nations are no longer going to belong to Satan. They're going to be taken from him. So she bore a son, a male who would shepherd all the nations with a rod of iron. Now the rod of iron symbolism comes from Psalm 2 which means don't be putting Psalm 2 off into the future, you know, distant future to us. No, he's saying that's already happened. Psalm 2 was fulfilled. Now the words who would shepherd is literally, who was about to shepherd. And it drives me crazy, but I can understand, given Pickering's eschatology, why he would ignore that. But the word mellow needs to be translated. Who was about to shepherd. He was about to do it when he was born. He was about to. The Greek word for about to indicates that Christ's kingdom began in the first century. And when you read Acts 4 and its use, the church's use of Psalm 2, you recognize the church realized Jesus had already fulfilled Psalm 2 and that the kingdom conflict had begun. That's why there was persecution. It was so intense. The kingdom conflict had begun. Now the next phrase confirms that. It says, "...and her child was snatched up to God, even to His throne." When the seed of the woman, Jesus, ascended on the clouds of heaven in AD 30, He ascended where? He ascended to His throne. To put that off again to the future like dispensationalists do just makes absolutely no sense. There is a perfect order and sequence in this snapshot of the dragon. And what happens as a result of the dragon continuing to stand before the woman. When I say continuing, that's the perfect tense in there. So even after he's born, even after he's ascended, this dragon is going to continue to stand before that woman. What does that mean? Well, it means that persecution would continue to heat up even after the ascension. And of course, the book of Acts speaks of that persecution that the early church had. And it continued until the woman was so endangered. In other words, the church was ready to be extinguished, so endangered that God hid this woman from the dragon's wrath. And verse six brings up our common theme of the three and a half year period. It says, and the woman fled into the wilderness to where she has a place prepared by God so that they may nourish her there 1,260 days. This was the church's flight from Jerusalem to Pella in 8066, just a few months before war broke out in earnest. And Pella was the place where she was able to survive the entire Holocaust of that three and a half year war against Jerusalem. So, that's the meaning of verses 3 through 6. Let me make seven additional applications. First, don't underestimate the power of Satan or his kingdom. While it is true that Satan was bound in 8070, and the second half of this chapter is going to make that, I think, fairly clear, his kingdom is not bound, and there are still billions of demons that we have to contend with. And they're seeking our destruction. Don't underestimate the power of Satan. As we'll be seeing later in this chapter, he was a formidable enemy. And we continue to fight Satan by fighting his remaining demonic angels. Second is a balance to the first. Don't give Satan too much credit. So the first one is don't underestimate his power. And this one is don't give Satan too much credit. The crown that the woman wears in verse one is a Stephanus crown. It's a victory wreath, right? Satan never has a victory wreath. He has a crown, but it's a diadem crown, which is what the emperors of Rome wore. And the emperors of Rome, where are they? They're dead. And their empires have passed away. So empires come and go, but Zion remains. She remains victorious. This is a beautiful image that we ought not to fear Satan. Greater is he who is in us than he who is in the world. God has given victory to the church, not to Satan. Satan may rule, but his rule is diminishing because of the victory of the bride. So don't give too much credit to Satan. Third, learn from the pride of Satan. That pride that led to his fall is a pride that can destroy us too. His pride was not a false pride. He had something to be proud about. He was the biggest, baddest, best looking, most powerful, most highly exalted angel out there. And if he only compared himself to other angels, he had something to be proud about. But if he had focused on God, he would have realized how infinitely small he was compared to God. And even though God says he was made perfect, if he had focused on God, he would have recognized how infinitely short his perfections fall from God's perfection, and his beauty falls far short of God's beauty. But by making himself the comparative point with others, he began to think of himself more highly than he ought to think. Your gifts and your abilities may be astoundingly great. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. They came from God, and God can take them away. There is no excuse for pride. Pride leads to independence, and the way to reverse that is to remind yourself of how utterly dependent you are upon God, and how unworthy you are of even the least of His mercies. To focus upon God and His glories, I think, is a great attitude to pride. I mean, when I start meditating upon each of the attributes, it's a great exercise to go through. Just take an attribute and start dissecting that attribute and how it applies in all areas of life. You start feeling so small it makes you weep. I mean, God's greatness is so great. that if you have any pride whatsoever, it's gonna be crushed under his boots. So meditating on who God is, I think, is a great antidote to pride. Fourth, learn from verse four that to seek your own kingdom is always to rob from God's kingdom. Satan couldn't create angels. Where does he get angels? The only place he can get angels is robbing them from God's kingdom. Satan couldn't create a kingdom. The only place he can get a kingdom is if he can make Adam fall and rob the kingdom from Adam. That's all he could do. Seeking your own rights and your own ways always ends up robbing someone of something. Everything that you are and have belongs to God, and Christ calls us to seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. And he said, if you have any needs, he'll minister to your needs. But let me tell you, if you're seeking first your own ways and your own kingdom, he's not going to minister to your needs. He's going to do the exact opposite. He says that the first shall be last. When you put yourself first, he's gonna put you last. You will not come out strong. So self-seeking not only robs someone else of something, self-seeking always ends up robbing us as well in the final analysis. Fifth, when verse five quotes Psalm 2 as being about to be fulfilled in 8030, and when it says that Jesus was seated on his throne at that time, It gives added meaning to Psalm 2. And I'd like to read through Psalm 2 fairly rapidly with the image of this dragon in the background. The dragon Satan helps to explain why kings irrationally tried to fight against Christ. Psalm 2, why do the nations rage and the people plot a vain thing? I mean, it's a question that should mystify us. Why do they do that? It's so irrational. And there are a lot of irrational things that go on in culture that can only be explained by the fact that there are billions of demons out there who are seeking to undermine Christ and His kingdom. It goes on, the kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against His anointed, saying, Let us break their bonds in pieces and cast away their cords from us. He who sits in the heavens shall laugh." And why wouldn't he laugh? It just seems so silly. He who sits in the heavens shall laugh, the Lord shall hold them in derision. then he shall speak to them in his wrath and distress them in his deep displeasure. Yet I have set my king on my holy hill of Zion. I will declare the decree. The Lord has said to me, you are my son. Today I have begotten you. Ask of me and I will give you the nations for your inheritance and the ends of the earth for your possession. You shall break them with a rod of iron. You shall dash them to pieces like a potter's vessel. Now therefore be wise, O kings, be instructed, you judges of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest He be angry, and you perish in the way, when His wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all those who put their trust in Him." So our passage says that Jesus was about to shepherd all the nations with a rod of iron. How does Christ shepherd the nations with that rod of iron? Well, he protects and blesses nations that submit to his law, and he smashes and judges nations who cast off his law. What does it say about America? To me what it says, if Jesus is in the nation shepherding business with His rod of iron, which these passages say He is, we are in danger of being smashed if America does not repent. And so you ought to take actions based on that knowledge. We need to take that very seriously. The sixth application is that God can protect His church from extinction while He smashes the nations if the church will follow His commands. The only reason that the church survived for three and a half years in Pella was because they obeyed Christ's commands that he had given in Matthew chapter 24, that as soon as they saw Jerusalem surrounded by armies, they were to peel out of there, not even go down to get their clothing. And it's a good thing they did because the armies fled. But that was the only time they fled. And they went right through the midst of them, and they were able to escape to Pella. They obeyed Christ's words. Now, God's not given us, made us privy to any information about how we, ourselves, can escape from judgment in America. But it's good to take what prudent steps you can, and then just say, okay, that's about all the prudent steps I can take. I'm gonna trust the Lord. How did Cromwell word it? Trust God, keep your powder dry. Do the best you can and trust the Lord. He can protect you even during times of hellish war. God had a place prepared for her and he can have a place prepared for you. So trust and obey. The seventh application is implied in the allusion that this passage gives to Genesis 3.15. God put enmity between the woman and the serpent. God put enmity between the woman and the serpent. That takes sovereign grace to take a woman who is not at enmity with Satan, now she is in covenant with Satan, she's friends with Satan, and she's an enemy of God, to turn that around where she's now a friend of God and an enemy of Satan. She didn't seek that. What did Adam and Eve do? They ran as fast as they could from God. If it was left up to free will, there wouldn't be any salvation. What did her free will do? Their free will ran from God, right? But God sovereignly sought them out, saved them, and put the corporate woman at enmity with Satan. So my last application is to say that if you are truly saved, You are an enemy of Satan. You will hate Satan. You will hate his works. You will do everything you can to fight against Satan. That is your calling from which you should never veer. May it be so. Amen. Father, thank you for this reminder in your Word. that greater is he who is in us than he who is in the world. That we need not fear Satan and yet we should never underestimate his ability to destroy. And so I pray Father that you would give to us a holy faith But you'd also give to us a prudence to take the kind of actions that we need to take to engage in spiritual warfare but also to Mind and tend to our affairs. We bless you that we have a privilege of invading Satan's territory his kingdom and That you give to us your holy angels And more are they who are with us than those who are with Satan? And so we glory in that, Father. We're grateful that we can be soldiers of the cross. Help us to be faithful in that calling. In Jesus' name, amen.