Not My Job

Some time back while engaging in one of my favorite tasks, studying Bible prophecy, I took note of a passage I knew well –

Rev 12:7 And there was war in heaven, Michael and his angels waging war with the dragon. The dragon and his angels waged war, 8 and they were not strong enough, and there was no longer a place found for them in heaven. 9 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. 10 Then 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, he who accuses them before our God day and night. 11 “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 when faced with death. 12 “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.”

What caught my attention on this day was “the devil has come down to you…”  and that raised the question, if the devil is coming down to the world, where has he been? I thought he was the “god of this world” (1 Cor 4:4)? Well, the obvious answer is in the beginning of the passage – he was in heaven waging war against the angels of God. I guess I’ll understand that better when I figure out what and where heaven is, but for now the best I can do is discern how things like this in heaven affect those still in the world. It really doesn’t take a gift of discernment to see this conflict played out daily in many ways.

Let me just say that as I consider this, I find that at least part of the answer is that the heaven or spiritual side of this is not separate from this earthly realm: It is the spiritual component behind the values, principles, and, thereby, the judgments, choices, and actions of those dwelling in the earth. We don’t see Michael and his angels fighting the dragon; we see people aligning with Christ and the truth in great conflict with those who covet evil and hate those who don’t. If you can stomach it, there will be a time when the world rises up against the people of Christ as it did against Him 2,000 years ago…with much the same end for many. That is war in heaven from an earthly viewpoint.

This is not about what is going to be, though. It is about what is before then, when the devil is in heaven endlessly accusing the people of God before his throne…where the churches dwell in the spirit according to Rev. 1. Until the war in heaven described above happens, it seems the devil dwells somewhat unchallenged in heaven, which is to say, among the people of God. The tares and wheat must grow together until the harvest, said Jesus in one His lessons, and then the angels of God will harvest the wheat out of the field. Of course, that “harvest” and the “war” described above speak of the same tumultuous time, both being the inevitable climax of the untenable cohabitation of wheat and tares or, likewise, angels and demons manifested through the natural rivalry between the sons of God and the sons of the devil.

Biblical contrasts such as those are many, but they all focus on the earthly realities of what this describes, a world where true Christians dwell together with non-Christians on a course guaranteeing conflict between the two. The climax of that conflict will be the Apocalypse, and the conclusion will be the conquering of the kingdoms of this world by Christ and his hosts. No spoiler alert here. We know the end of the story. It’s the chapter before that that keeps me awake at night.

Getting back to the devil, who remains in heaven today, I ask, what is he doing there, or more to the point, what are the observable signs of his works in the world? The answer to that is also in the subject text: He deceives the whole world, and he continually accuses the righteous before God just as he did Job thousands of years ago. He spreads insidious lies through his hosts in the world, who in turn treat those who disagree spitefully. The most obvious example that comes to mind is what I’ll generically call the mass gender confusion infecting America and the western world these days. The battle line is the truth: The righteous stand with it, and the unrighteous line up against the truth and those who stand with it. It’s not much different than when the crowds once rallied to support crucifying an innocent man named Jesus.

Besides the importance of standing on the truth, another distinction between the children of God and the devil is that the children of the devil are not only those who believe the lies, they are also the ones who stand accusing the children of God. They are the prosecutors seeking to punish the accused, the righteous. They can’t withstand objective scrutiny of their lies, so they attack those who disagree. Being untethered from the truth guarantees no boundaries in how they prosecute their targets. Yes, there’s plenty of that in today’s America, too. Winning seems to be the only thing that matters to people these days; how the game is played is irrelevant.

In contrast, the true children of God understand that another person’s error is not a call for them to rise up against them, even if that error is an egregious offense against them. God never took back His exclusive right to vengeance, and He sure never gave me a portion of it. The world stands against the righteous, but they trust in their Lord Jesus Christ to deliver them. They speak the truth regardless of the personal costs of doing so, even if and when it costs their life in this world. That’s who they are and how they ultimately prevail, beginning with not returning evil for the evils done against them. That’s not their job, and it’s not my job, either. God’s justice is worth waiting for, and that’s a truth that stands on its own.

And they overcame [the devil] because of the blood of the Lamb and because of the word of their testimony, and they did not love their life even when faced with death. (Rev 12:11)