1.
And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars:
2.
And she being with child cried, travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered.
3.
And there appeared another wonder in heaven; and behold a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads.
4.
And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth: and the dragon stood before the woman which was ready to be delivered, for to devour her child as soon as it was born.
5.
And she brought forth a man child, who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron: and her child was caught up unto God, and to his throne.
6.
And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she hath a place prepared of God, that they should feed her there a thousand two hundred and threescore days.
7.
And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels,
MICHAEL AND ALL ANGELS
‘Michael and his angels.’
Revelation 12:7
The belief in angelic creatures has been a favourite article in the universal creed, but the most unequivocal and direct evidence of their existence and ministry is to be found in the Bible. Fifteen, at least, of the inspired writers have described them.
I. Of the vast number of the holy angels there is very little doubt.—The Jewish Rabbis state that ‘nothing exists without an attendant angel, not even a blade of grass.’ The great Aquinas asserts that ‘there are more angels than all substances together, celestial and terrestrial, animate and inanimate.’ St. Gregory calculates that ‘there are so many angels as there are elect.’ Charles Kingsley maintains that ‘in every breeze there are living spirits, and God’s angels guide the thunder-clouds.’ But what saith the Scripture? On its pages their number is variously stated. (See case of Moses, Elisha, Daniel, St. John.) At the advent of Jesus there appeared ‘a multitude of the heavenly host,’ and one dark eventide, near Gethsemane, He declared to St. Peter that if He prayed to His Father He would give Him ‘more than twelve legions of angels.’
II. But all the angels are not of the same rank.—Michael, for example, is represented in Scripture as being the next in rank to the Angel-Jehovah. In the Book of Daniel he is spoken of as ‘one of the chief princes’ in the celestial hierarchy, and in the Book of St. John as ‘the archangel.’
III. The ministry of angels.—They were ever the servants of Jesus during His incarnate life, as they are now in His glorified life; and sometimes God has employed them to punish the wicked. But they are specially ‘sent forth to do service for the sake of them that shall inherit salvation.’ Nor do they forget the body which enshrined the soul. They guard its sleeping-place, as they did the sepulchre of Jesus, until the early dawn of the resurrection, when they will give up their trust.
8.
And prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven.
9.
And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.
10.
And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night.
11.
And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death.
THE VICTORIOUS CHARACTER
‘And they loved not their lives unto the death.’
Revelation 12:11
If we Christians believe at all, we must believe in an ideal for humanity. Jesus Christ is the Son of Man, and therefore He represents so completely the ideal for manhood, apart from any of the idiosyncrasies of race, that we feel He must be the expression of the Divine will for all humanity.
Let us see how one of the disciples of the Master conceived of this ideal, to realise some of the features of the type and ideal of character which the writer of the Book of the Revelation puts before us. He says:—
I. A man must have faith in good.
II. A man must realise, because of the very strength of his confidence in good, that it is worth paying a price for.
III. A man must also read this deep spiritual principle, so often forgotten by superficial teachers—that it is not enough that he shall be a believer in goodness, that a man must pay a price to maintain good in the world; he also thinks that only they will adequately promote good who have participated in the spirit of the ideal.
—Bishop W. Boyd Carpenter.
12.
Therefore rejoice, ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them. Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea! for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time.
13.
And when the dragon saw that he was cast unto the earth, he persecuted the woman which brought forth the man child.
14.
And to the woman were given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness, into her place, where she is nourished for a time, and times, and half a time, from the face of the serpent.
15.
And the serpent cast out of his mouth water as a flood after the woman, that he might cause her to be carried away of the flood.
16.
And the earth helped the woman, and the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed up the flood which the dragon cast out of his mouth.
17.
And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.