The Roots and Rise of Antisemitism – Revelation 12:1-12 – Skip Heitzig
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Turn in your Bibles, please, to Revelation, chapter 12, the book of Revelation, chapter 12. I probably don’t need to rehearse what has gone on the past week or so in the Middle East, but to frame this evening, on October 7, on a Saturday, Israel was violently attacked by a group of terrorists who indiscriminately sought to kill as many civilians as they could possibly do. That didn’t matter who they were. It didn’t matter if they were soldiers off duty, if they were mothers, grandmothers, babies.
They were killed. They were knifed. They were burnt. They were beheaded. 1,400 Jewish people in Israel is the latest count, were violently killed. The immediate reaction of the world– I should say, the thinking world, the civilized world. The immediate reaction was an unequivocal support for Israel and a denouncement against terrorism, condemning the attack.
You should know that this last week, we opened up the ability to give to people who are victims of terrorism in that land. The Joshua fund with Joel Rosenberg works in that area. He has set up an organization in Israel to help with that, and there are some other organizations. We were able to collect some money. And this week, just the other day, we were able to send a $50,000 to the families who are suffering in that area.
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And so again, we just need to say it. We wholeheartedly, unequivocally stand for Israel. As a church, we stand for Israel.
[APPLAUSE] And I need to add to that a little bit. There are some sensible Iranians who live in Iran, and they denounce the leadership of the ayatollahs. And they don’t agree with it. They feel like they’re victims in that country in which they live. They have written me letters. I got one this week.
And so they are decrying the regime of Iran, just as there were sensible Germans in World War II who denounced Adolf Hitler, and there are sensible Palestinians who live in Gaza and in other parts of the area who have denounced Hamas. And for them we pray. But by and large, the world denounce the terrorism. But not everyone. And that is the troubling point that I want to dive into, not everyone.
If you just go back a couple of decades to our big event of terrorism, September 11, 2001, the nation was galvanized. Churches were packed. The world was on our side. But you may also remember that some said this was the fault of the United States of America because of their policies with Israel, especially, and their policies in the Middle East, in general. And when the towers fell on September 11, 2001, there were celebrations in Gaza, celebrations in many Muslim communities around the world, just like last week there were celebrations in many of these same communities because of what happened in Israel.
Last Friday, the former chief of Hamas, Khaled Mashal, declared a global day of rage. Everybody around the world was crossing their fingers, hoping nothing bad would happen. He called for Muslims around the world to take action, to send a message, a message to the Zionists and to the Americans, a National Day of rage. This past week, there have been demonstrations in cities around the world, London, Paris, Berlin, to name a few, Chicago, New York, every major city very, very pro-Palestinian, very, very anti-Israel, anti-Jewish, and very Nazi-like in the rhetoric that was used.
And I don’t use the term lightly. In fact, in Berlin, one German official warned, and I am quoting, “I would not advise anyone to make their Jewish faith visible.” This is in Berlin, Germany, decades after the Holocaust. “I would not advise anyone to make their Jewish faith visible. Those who wear the kippah”– the head covering– “already face the prospect of being spat on or insulted in quieter times. Isn’t it sick that such things have become normal in Germany?”
There have been Hamas celebrations on universities, college campuses, around the country. This week, at New York University, NYU, a pro-Palestinian student walked up to the pictures of the families that have been taken hostage. The missing women and children that are presumably in tunnels or hidden by Hamas, their pictures were put up for people to see who they were. Students at NYU came and ripped those pictures down in our country.
Well, I travel to the Middle East quite a lot, not just to Israel, 41 times, but I’ve been to Saudi Arabia, to Egypt, to the United Arab Emirates, to Jordan, to several different countries. And on some of the trips that I took, I went with a man who has spoken here before. He is going to be interviewed. The full interview will be on our website. This is just another snippet like last week.
But Johnnie Moore is the one that I interviewed. And I will introduce his accolades as I begin to interview him. So we’re going to show that taped interview.
[VIDEO PLAYBACK]
– Well, I’m with Johnnie Moore. Johnnie is an evangelical leader. He’s a businessman. He is a commissioner for the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom. He’s the president of the Congress of Christian Leaders. I met Johnnie Moore first at the White House, and I have been impressed with him ever since.
Johnnie, you play a unique role, diplomatically, spiritually, and I want to get your take on what has happened in this past week. Since the first incursion of terrorists into Israel happened about a week ago, there has been a response that I did not expect. I expected the press to have a response that would be against Hamas and pro-Israel. That’s lasted for a minute or two.
But there are demonstrations in cities, on college campuses, that are pro-Palestinian, very anti-Israel, very anti-Jewish, some very extremely hateful speech, even advocating for the death of Jewish people. Does that concern you? And why is that happening?
– Yeah, it concerns me. And I think people have missed the timeline of exactly what happened here on Saturday, October 7th. We had the most horrific slaughter of the Jewish community since the Holocaust. And by the way, not just Israelis, many of these people had dual citizenship. So this affected citizens of at least 43 countries. The hostages are from dozens and dozens of countries.
And Israel says that they’re going to retaliate. But the protests began before Israel began to retaliate. And so it demonstrates that all over the world is this network of pro-Hamas, pro-Islamist supporters of the terrorist activities of Hamas. And when they say things like from the river to the sea, that happened at Dearborn, Michigan, by the way, thousands of people marching down the street saying, from the river to the sea. That’s a call for the genocide of the Jewish people.
– Explain the river to the sea.
– It’s the it’s the position of Hamas. It’s not the two-state solution. It’s the final solution.
– Is it from the Euphrates River to the Mediterranean Sea, eradicate the Jewish people from the Middle East. Is that the idea?
– It’s from the Jordan River to the sea. So the state of Israel, wipe them all out. So Hamas, this is the position of Hamas. Hamas is an anti-Semitic organization that came to kill Jews. We actually now have the instructions that they were carrying with them in the attack, and one of the pieces of instructions says, kill as many civilians as possible.
They actually had maps to know where the schools were. Somehow, probably– not probably– from Iran, they got the intelligence, most likely, in order to do this, to do this attack. But it is a genocidal organization, an anti-Semitic organization, that wants to see the elimination of every single Jew on earth. And this is why I am very hesitant to compare anything to the Holocaust.
But very, very early on, the Jewish community started using this phrase. This was the worst slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust. But there’s a difference between the Nazis and between these Hamas terrorists. Because the Nazis would sometimes, very often, in fact, they would hide their crimes. And yet Hamas–
– Openly.
–live-streamed their torture of children. This isn’t just about Hamas. It’s, as they say in Israel, it’s not about the arms of the octopus. You have to get to the head of the octopus, and that’s the Islamic Republic of Iran.
It seems like our governments around the world haven’t come to their senses. And these protesters, this is not about Palestinians and Israelis. This is about Israel and Hamas, a terrorist organization. And if people are in the streets cheering what Hamas did to the Jewish community, that is a national security issue. And our governments need to be paying attention to it.
– Speaking of Hamas, they have a charter. People can go and read what they believe, what they stand for, what they hate. The Charter of Hamas and the nation of Iran under the ayatollahs, they want the total elimination of the state of Israel America is the great Satan. Israel is the little Satan.
It seems to me that at least part of the shock of all this, what has happened in the last week, is that the world hasn’t taken those threats seriously. And they’re just waking up to the fact that they’ve threatened this. Why should we take what they threaten seriously? And why hasn’t it been taken seriously up to this point?
– But I argue with people in the government about this all the time. Many people think that Iran and the ayatollahs use religion as a weapon. I think they’re actually believers. I think the ayatollah could wake up from a dream in the middle of the night, and if he had a nuclear bomb, he would send it. OK, this is evil.
What the Hamas leaders have said is evil. You can just go listen to it online. What Hamas is doing now is evil. They’re taking the Palestinians and using them as human shields. I mean, and by the way, a lot of people in the media are taking the bait hook, line, and sinker. And all of a sudden, Israel is having to answer all of these questions.
What is Israel supposed to do? Right now, rockets are still flying from Gaza into the state of Israel. And everyone wants to talk about–
– War crimes.
– –about proportionality and all of these things. It is absolutely, absolutely absurd the way Israel is treated, versus these terrorists. But when crazy, evil people say crazy, evil things, you have to take them seriously. I mean, this is a level of evil that a lot of people in politics, they don’t believe in evil. They just think that people have different points of view in the world. In fact, a very senior US government person that’s now been suspended from his job, he said that Hamas just views things differently. There’s good, and there’s evil.
– Johnnie, in this war, in this response by Israel, they are warning the population of Gaza to get out. Flee south. We’ll give you safe corridors and able to do that. Hamas has been blocking some of those corridors to not let people– they would rather see people in their own city killed so they can have footage to show the world of the atrocities of Israel.
So here is Israel trying to do everything they can to get people before they target Hamas leadership. What do you think now? Here we have the president going to Israel to meet there. What do you think the next move of the Israelis is going to be?
– Israel is not going to stop until they totally destroy Hamas entirely. And the United States should not tell them to stop. And the European Union should not tell them to stop.
I was in a conversation the other day with a woman who was speaking to us on Zoom from her bomb shelter in the north of Israel. And she said, in the past, what has happened with this terrorist organization when they send their thousands of rockets is the international community demands that we stop. And then she said, they ask us to stop so that they can kill us again. And this time, we’re not stopping.
– Johnnie, you wrote a book, and you came out to our church and even talked about it. You updated Foxe’s Book of Martyrs. And you talked in your book about what has been going on in terms of Christian persecution since Foxe wrote his book up until modern times. You did such a great job in that. Where I’m going with this is, are there believers, are there missionaries, in Gaza? Has the Lord been using people to reach that people group?
– Yeah. Yeah, there are and just like there are in Iran. We have people everywhere. And that’s the hardest part, in many ways, about all of this. And if Christian history is any prediction of the future, we will have incredible stories of these moments of believers who sacrificed their lives to save others and maybe even people who find Jesus through all of it.
And I always say the best evangelist in the entire Muslim world is the ayatollah in Iran because he’s so defamed his religion and his culture, that millions and millions and millions of Muslims went looking for something else. And this is why in Iran, we have the fastest growing evangelical movement in the entire Muslim world. So yes, God is at work.
And yet, I think sometimes we face this challenge. As Christians, what do we pray for? And I always go back to two things. The apostle Paul said pray that we would be delivered from wicked and from evil people.
And Hamas persecuted the Christian community as soon as they took over the Gaza Strip. Very, very, very small Christian community left there, and right now, they’re huddled up in churches. So God expects us to recognize that he works through persecution. But we’re supposed to pray for these people to be saved from evil, including the evil of terrorism.
And then there’s an Old Testament juxtaposition, where the Bible says– the book of Psalm says that we are to seek peace and pursue it. And then it says, justice, justice, we shall pursue. And this is the juxtaposition. God hates what these Hamas terrorists did to people made in his image. And God loves peace.
[END PLAYBOOK] Much thanks to Johnnie Moore. You can get that whole interview– it’s much longer than that– on our website. But let’s look at Revelation, chapter 12. I’m going to begin in verse 1. “Now a great sign appeared in heaven, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a garland of 12 stars. Then being with child, she cried out in labor and in pain to give birth.
And another sign appeared in heaven, behold a great, fiery red dragon, having 7 heads and 10 horns and 7 diadems on his heads. His tail drew a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman, who was ready to give birth, to devour her child as soon as it was born. She bore a male child who was to rule all the nations with a rod of iron, and her child was caught up to God and his throne. Then the woman fled into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God, that they should feed her there 1,260 days.
And war broke out in heaven, Michael and his angels fought with the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought. But they did not prevail, nor was a place found for them in heaven any longer. So the great dragon was cast out, that serpent of old, called the devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world. He was cast to the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.
And then I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, now salvation and strength and the kingdom of our God and the power of his Christ have come. For the accuser of our brethren, who accused them before our God day and night, has been cast down. And they overcame him by the blood of the lamb, by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives to the death.
Therefore, rejoice, O heavens, and you who dwell in them. Woe to the inhabitants of the earth and sea. For the devil has come down to you, having great wrath because he knows that he has a short time.”
Now, that passage mentions war in heaven. I’m guessing the last place you expect a war is in heaven. Most of us don’t think of heaven as a war zone. Heaven is a worship zone. Heaven is where the angels and the saints around the throne, the elders cast their crowns and give glory to the Lamb and to the one who sits on the throne. But here, there is a rebellion.
Satan rebelled, and when he rebelled– we know the story– he managed to rebel with a third of the angels in heaven. Or as the text puts it metaphorically, he drew a third of the stars with him. Now, the conflict that is outlined in chapter 12 of Revelation is all centered around a woman, a pregnant woman, a woman who is about to give birth to a male child. And she is described as clothed with the sun and the moon and having 12 stars.
The question has been asked throughout the centuries, who is this woman? What is this a picture of? What does the metaphor mean? There have been many guesses. The cultic group known as Christian Science believes that the woman is Mary Baker Eddy, who was the founder of Christian Science, who, they say, gave birth to Christian Science. The dragon to them is the carnal mind that rejects science and health and the doctrines that she wrote about. That is a cult, but that’s how they interpret this.
The Catholic Church, as you can probably guess, interprets the woman as being the virgin Mary. And their art reflects that. Paintings, the famous paintings of Spain dating back to the 16 and 1700s, an artist by the name of Bartolome Murillo is the one who first drew the virgin Mary with her feet on the moon, sunbeams emanating from her face, and around her head 12 stars. He was taking this passage and interpreting it artistically to be the virgin Mary.
Some Protestants will interpret the woman as being the church. Because the Bible speaks of the church in the New Testament as the bride of Christ. Or the bride, the Jewish bride, is the motif engaged to Christ. So it’s the church, the bride engaged to Christ.
The problem with that is twofold. Number one, she’s pregnant. And the virgin bride of Christ showing up pregnant is a problem theologically. And the second problem is this can’t be a picture of the church giving birth to Christ, as some interpret it, because the church didn’t give birth to Christ. Christ gave birth to the church. That’s where we came from, from his work on the cross.
So who is the woman? Well, we don’t really even have to guess at who it is. We are told in the Bible who it is. And I’m going to show you that. There’s only one other place in the entire holy writ where you have sun, moon, and 12 stars used metaphorically besides this passage, and it’s in Genesis 37.
In Genesis chapter 37, Joseph, who is the son of Jacob, has a couple of dreams. Do you remember the story? He goes to his brothers, who hate him anyway, and he very naively says, hey, guys, I had a dream. And it says, they hated him because of his dreams. When I tell you the dreams, you’ll know why.
The first dream, he said to his brothers, in my dream, we were out in the field binding sheaves, and then my sheaf stood erect. It stood up. And then all of your sheaves stood up and bowed down to my sheaf. And they said, what, do you think we’re going to bow down to you? Do you think you’re going to rule over us? We will not have you rule over us.
Now, you’d think if he had another dream, he would probably not tell them after that reaction. But not Joseph. He’s just kind of naive and innocent. He says, well, I had another dream. And in this dream, the sun and the moon and the 11 stars bowed down to me, my star.
Joseph’s dad Jacob interpreted the dream. He knew exactly what the dream meant because this was his reaction. He said, shall your mother and I and your brothers bow down to you? So in that story, Jacob interprets sun, moon, and stars as Jacob, his wife, and the sons, who would become the tribes of Israel.
So now you have a woman clothed with the sun and the moon and the 12 stars. You go back to the only other passage where it is interpreted as being the forebears of Israel, and we have to conclude this is a picture of Israel. The woman is the nation of Israel. And what is she doing? She is birthing the Messiah. That was the aspiration of every Jewish girl, to perhaps be the one who would bring Messiah into the world. This is a picture of the nation birthing Israel.
Verse 2, “being with child, she cried out in labor and in pain to give birth.” The dragon in the story is poised before the woman in a very hateful stance. Why? For one important reason– to get at the child, to get at the child who was going to be born. Why the child? Because the child is going to be the one who is going to crush the dragon’s head, his dominion, and rule the world. He rules, it says, with a rod of iron.
Back in Genesis, chapter 3, the first prediction of Messiah, the seed of the woman will come and bruise the heel of the serpent, crush the head of the dragon of the serpent. And then Isaiah, chapter 9 talks about his rule. “For unto us a child is born. Unto us a son is given. The government will be on his shoulder. Of the increase of his government and peace, there will be no end.”
So it’s a very appropriate picture of Israel birthing the Messiah, Satan ready to destroy that child as soon as he is born. Why? To crush the head, to bruise the head, to take away any possibility of him ruling. Satan, throughout biblical history, has been trying to destroy the woman to get to the seed, destroy the nation of Israel to get to the seed.
Now, why such hatred? I just want to keep zeroing in on this question. Why such hatred of Satan toward Israel? Well, let me give you a premise. What if, what if God’s plan to redeem the world required the existence of a nation and the continuance of that nation? What if God’s plan to redeem the world required the existence of a nation and the continuance of that nation?
Well, if that were true, and I believe it is, if you destroy that nation, you will thwart God’s plan. If you can destroy those people, you will thwart God’s plan. I have to tell you this. You will not understand much of your Bible until you understand this.
Until you see that there is and has been an invisible war, this cosmic conflict that has been waged since the very beginning of time, you will read your Bible, and you’ll go, huh? in a lot of the passages. It will remain enigmatic to you. So a cosmic conflict has been waged as a pursuit by Satan to destroy the seed that would eventually crush Satan’s kingdom and rule the world.
Let me give you a few examples of that. As soon as God made the promise in Genesis 3, the seed of the woman is going to come and crush the head of the serpent. The very next chapter, chapter 4, Satan gets Cain to kill Abel. He’s the righteous one who brings the appropriate sacrifice. So Cain kills his brother. But then God raises up another child by the name of Seth. And the seed continues through Seth, and the promise continues through him.
The second example is in Genesis, chapter 6. Cut to the chase, let’s just make the whole world so wicked, that God has to destroy everybody, a scorched earth policy or, in that case, I guess, a soaked earth policy. So the world became so corrupt, so despicable, the intents and thoughts of mankind was only evil continually, that God destroyed the earth in a worldwide flood. Everybody is destroyed except one family, eight people. God preserved the eight to continue the promise of the seed who would come.
A third example is in Genesis 27. You know the story of Jacob and Esau and how Jacob gets the birthright, and Esau hates his brother? He didn’t care about the birthright, but he sold it for a bowl of stew. But then he got so angry, it says, he determined in his heart that he was going to kill Jacob. Why? Because Jacob was the son of promise.
You keep continuing that line throughout the Bible. The fourth example, you come to Pharaoh. And pharaoh has a group of people living in his country called Jews. And he is so afraid of what these people might become, that he gives this strange and demonic edict to the midwives of Egypt, that if the Hebrews have boys, kill them. Kill them all. If it’s a girl, let it live. Why did he do that? He was an agent of Satan, trying to destroy the Jews, because the Jews, the woman, would birth the male child.
The fifth example is in 1 Samuel, where Saul not once, not twice, but for a decade hunts David down to kill him. Why David? Because more and more promises are getting leaked out. It’s sort of like military intelligence. As God reveals his plan through the scripture, there’s counteractive measures that the enemy uses. And so destroy the one that God is going to set his promise upon for an eternal kingdom, and that would be David.
The sixth example, though it’s a little bit obscure, but it won’t be in a couple of weeks, because we’re studying 2 Kings. And in 2 Kings, chapter 11, there’s a woman by the name of Athaliah. And Athaliah, in 2 Kings 11, decides to kill the entire royal line of Judah. Every single possible heir to the throne of Judah from the lineage of King David will be destroyed. And she destroys all of them except one.
A little boy by the name of Joash is hidden away with the midwife who nursed him. And if, if, by any chance, all of them would have been destroyed, God’s promise would have been thwarted. But one is saved. Joash is saved, and the line continues.
Here’s another example, a seventh example. We come to the story of the Jews in Persia, modern day Iran. By God’s provision, he allows Esther to become the queen of the palace of Ahasuerus. But a man by the name of Haman, the Agagite– do you know story of that? Remember when Saul was sent out to battle and said, go kill the king. And everybody just destroyed them because they’re going to terrorize your country. And he brought Agag back.
And Samuel said, why did you bring him back? And he said, well, I spared some of these people in the royal family because– I’m sacrificing to the Lord. He made up all these excuses. You know what Samuel did. He hacked him to pieces. One of those Agagites survived to make an edict in Persia that every single living Jew in Persia would be wiped out in one day. Destroy them all. Kill them all.
And that’s just the Old Testament. You come to the New Testament, the male child is born. Jesus is born. He’s born in what city?
Bethlehem.
Bethlehem. Herod finds out about it. What does he decide to do? Kill every single male child two years and below. Why? It’s a demonic plot to destroy the seed.
Then Jesus grows up, meets Satan on the Mount of temptation. And Satan throws this wild thought at him. Hey, let me take you to the pinnacle of the temple. Throw yourself off, probably hoping he would die. But he quotes scripture. Throw yourself off, for as the scripture has said, he’ll command his angels to have charge over you and lest you dash your foot against a stone.
Not only that, but when Jesus went back to the synagogue in Nazareth sometime after that, and he opened up the scroll of Isaiah, and then he expounded that to them and said, that is fulfilled in your hearing, it says they trust him out of the synagogue and took him to the brow of the hill and would have thrown him over; attempt after attempt after attempt after attempt to destroy the woman, to get at the seed, to prevent the seed from crushing the head of the dragon and ruling the world with a rod of iron.
And then it happened. One Friday afternoon in spring, we believe around 32 AD, 3 o’clock in the afternoon, Jesus died on that cross. And probably, when Jesus died on the cross, there was a little party going on in hell. Satan thought he had won the victory, the body of Jesus limp, dead, had bled throughout the day, had been taken off, wrapped in linen, put in a tomb. And Satan probably just went, it’s done. But he didn’t read the fine print.
[LAUGHTER]
The fine print is where Jesus said, no one takes my life from me. I lay it down of myself. I have the power to lay it down– here’s the fine print– and take it again. And he did take it up again.
[APPLAUSE] And I’ve always been intrigued by an interesting little scripture in 1 Corinthians 2, verse 8. Had the princes of this world known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. There was no party in hell when Jesus rose from the dead.
Every time we mention the resurrection here at church, you all applaud. I like that. Whenever we sing about Jesus conquering death, you applaud. I love that.
They did not do that in hell. When Jesus rose from the dead, plan B was to unleash all of Satan’s fury now on the people of God, the church, and continue his assault on the chosen people, through whom the kingdom will be given. And that is the nation of Israel.
Now, you might wonder, well, why? Now, if Jesus has died on the cross and rose again and then ascended, why would there be a continual conflict? And yet that is what the passage seems to indicate. Here, there is a woman giving birth to the male child. The male child is born, is caught up to God. But there’s still this unleashing of the dragon’s wrath on the woman.
Back to the premise I just gave you a few moments ago, if God’s plan of redemption required the existence of a nation and the continuance of that nation, if you destroy that nation, you will thwart God’s plan. If you destroy the nation of Israel, you defeat God. Essentially, you keep God from fulfilling all of his promises. You keep Jesus from establishing his kingdom so that the Jews cannot receive it. And so the battle continues.
Here’s the basic premise. Here’s the bottom line. Whatever God loves, Satan hates. Whatever God loves, Satan hates. So anti-Semitism is a prejudice. And we all denounce prejudice, and we should. Prejudice is evil. It’s wrong. Racial prejudice is wrong.
But anti-Semitism is downright satanic. It comes right back to the heart of the dragon himself. It’s from the pit of hell.
Now, why do I support Israel? And why do I make a stand from time to time that we as a church support Israel? Because there’s no logical reason for me to support Israel. I’m not Jewish. I’m a Gentile. Moreover, I’m a German Gentile. And if you know the history of my people and where I came from, there is no logical reason to be at all favorable toward Jewish people.
But something happened to me. I started reading this book. And I find it to be a very Jewish book. I find God to be a Jewish God.
[APPLAUSE]
I find him to make very Jewish promises. I find that my Savior, the Messiah, was Jewish and that he promises to return one day and rule from Jerusalem for 1,000 years with the people of Israel. Now, I’ll be the first to say that Israel is not perfect when it comes to its policies, when it comes to its government. There have been corruption charges in Israeli government, like in all governments.
But when I say I support Israel, let me be clear about that. I support the covenant that God has made with Israel. I support Israel because I support the covenant that God made with Israel.
This war in Revelation, chapter 12 began in heaven. But it moved to the theater of the earth. And you and I are involved in it. The devil commands the Satanic realm, but his theater of operations is the human world. And there are four principal targets that Satan has.
First target, Jesus Christ, he hates Jesus. That’s what this is all about. He’s poised in front of the woman to get at that child as soon as it’s born. Why? Because of the promise, the seed of the woman, will come and crush the head of the serpent; so Jesus, number one.
Second, he attacks holy angels. Verse 7, “there was war in heaven. Michael and his angels fought with the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought.” Because the angels are part of God’s cadre of might, working for his people on the earth. they are engaged in fighting holy angels; so Jesus, holy angels.
Number three, Israel, Israel. Why Israel? Because they are the object of God’s promises. God made covenants with the Jews. This is Paul’s whole point in Romans 9, Israel, of whom are the covenants, the giving of the Law, and the Messiah himself. And so the attack of Satan is against the ones God made a covenant with.
This is important because many of the covenants have been fulfilled, but not all of them have been fulfilled. There is still the promise that God will set up a kingdom in Israel, in Jerusalem, and rule and reign from there. There will be a kingdom that encompasses the Earth that is centered in Jerusalem. That promise has not yet been fulfilled. We are waiting for that to be fulfilled; so Jesus, holy angels, Israel.
And number 4, believers, because we are objects of God’s grace. This is why you get harassed. This is why every single Christian who has ever been saved on planet earth has been harassed and tempted. Because you are objects of God’s grace.
What does Revelation say of Satan? He’s the accuser of the brethren. Ever felt that? Ever heard those accusations? We all have.
By the way, you know what the word “devil” means? Slanderer. That’s what the name “devil” means. That’s his MO. That’s his description.
So I just want you to hear this because I wanted you to hear what Israel is up against. So as I close this, you know that yesterday, Israel was accused of bombing a hospital in the Gaza. And The New York Times and CNN and all the news outlets immediately says, it’s Israel’s fault. They just bombed that hospital.
They’ve never bombed hospitals ever. They are very careful about filming, documenting. And so what Israel did is they not only denied it, but they showed the world the video footage and the audio files of Hamas and Palestinian leaders talking, admitting that it wasn’t Israel’s missile, but it was their own missile that they sent from Gaza that was a misfire and landed on that hospital. But they quickly said it was Israel’s fault.
The group that launched the missile was called the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. You see, you thought there was only Hamas and Hezbollah. There’s another 100 of those disparate groups around.
The Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the former president of that group, said, and I quote, “the killing of the Jews will continue, killing, killing, in God’s name, until they vanish.” That’s what they’re up against, killing, killing, until they vanish. Make peace with them? They’ll kill again till they vanish.
I want you to see how bad it is. This is despicable, but I think you need to see it. These are the quotes of children. I’ve seen the actual footage. I’m just going to put the quotes up of different children in Gaza, one saying, “right now, I am prepared to be a suicide bomber.” These are children between 9 and 12. “With Allah’s help,” another one said, “I will fight for ISIS, the Islamic State.”
Another child of that age said, “I am ready to stab a Jew and drive a car over them.” Another child said, “we have to constantly stab them, drive over them, and shoot them.” Another child– “stabbing and running over Jews brings dignity to the Palestinians.” Another child said, “we have to fight against them and make war.”
These are quotes of children, who have been taught to say that from a young age by parents and teachers. So they’re raising a whole new generation. I found this yesterday from a Jordanian Palestinian businessman and politician. His name is Talal Abu-Ghazaleh. He was being interviewed by Lebanese TV just about a week ago, October 12th.
He said– and we’ll put this on the screen– “Israel would not sacrifice a single person. There is not a goal for which it would sacrifice a single person. They are afraid of death. Death for them is strange and loathsome.
We, on the other hand, welcome death. A Palestinian carries his son on his shoulders with a headband on the kid’s forehead, which his father inscribed, ‘martyrdom seeker.’ This is a man who says, ‘I want my son to die.’ A Palestinian mother says, ‘I have given birth to children so they would be martyred.’ This does not exist in the Zionist mentality,” end quote.
He’s bragging on the fact that the Jews hate death, we love death. I just want you to see that because that’s what Israel is facing today. That is the dragon before the woman. And to add a morbid twist to it, because we are living in America, the FBI director warned just yesterday, Christopher Wray, that rising threats of Hamas-style terrorism are coming to America.
That’s why last week, when we talk about an open border, I get scared. And we should be vigilant. But I want to close by saying this.
The dragon couldn’t stop Jesus from being born. The dragon couldn’t stop Jesus from going to the cross and shedding his blood. The dragon couldn’t stop Jesus from rising from the dead. The dragon couldn’t stop Jesus from ascending into heaven. And the dragon cannot stop Jesus from coming again and ruling this world. And he will.
[APPLAUSE AND CHEERING]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
But finally, this– don’t let the dragon, don’t let Satan, stop you from following Christ. I’ve talked to people over the last several days, some who have been marginal in their faith, some who have been looking in different places and not really serious with the Lord. But this has served, they say, as a wake up call to them. “This whole Israel thing, man, has got me thinking.” Good. I hope it has thinking about where you’re going for eternity.
Now, listen, if you’re here with us, and you’ve never given your life to Christ, or you wandered away from Christ, get right with him now. Satan knows his time is short. We’re living in these days. His time is short. He’s going to turn up the Jews. Let’s us, the church of God, turn up the Jews.
Let’s pray. Father, we just thank you that whatever plans the enemy has that would go against your plans, whatever wrath he would send to Jewish people, to Christian people, nothing is going to stop eventually the rule and reign of Christ upon this earth, just as nothing was able to stop Jesus from his birth, his death, his resurrection, his ascension. I pray no one would let Satan stop Jesus Christ from ruling and reigning over them.
And in this room of people and the thousands that are watching right now on the internet and will be watching in the next few days, if they’re not right with you, if they haven’t turned from their sin and given their life to Christ, I pray they would do it now.
[MUSIC PLAYING] Really quickly, your heads are bowed. Your eyes are closed. You have an opportunity yet again to say yes to the God who loves you, has revealed these things in advance and many more, has a plan for your life, wants to forgive you, wants to save you, wants to put your name in the Lamb’s book of life. But he won’t do it without your permission. He’s knocking at the door of your heart. Will you open it up and let him in?
Will you say yes to him? If you are willing to give your life to Jesus, or if you’ve wandered away from him and you need to come back to him and rededicate your life, I want you just to slip your hand up in the air. Just slip it up. Slip it up right now, just so I can notice it and pray for you as we close. God bless you in the back.
Anybody else? Raise your hand up. Now is the time to do it. God bless you to my right. And you, God bless you. Yes. Yes.
Father, we thank you for those who you didn’t bring here by accident, but by appointment. We pray that the work you do in their life would be profound, eternal. Right where you’re sitting, because we’re going to go into a time of prayer in just a moment. Right where you’re sitting, you pray this prayer to him.
