How to Win This War

The world was stunned this past weekend with the lightning speed and brazen assault by which America extricated the leader of Venezuela in a midnight three-hour special ops snatch-and-run mission, replete with video coverage released once the mission was accomplished. The next morning, while reporting this mission, some government officials hinted at perhaps a similar mission to commandeer Greenland for America. New Year’s headlines lend credence to Revelation’s prophetic warning of a geopolitical power with Christian influences and global superpower status that will “force” (see Rev. 13:16, NIV) the world to follow its orders.[1]

The truth is, we are in a war, and the battle is intensifying.

Consider this line from ancient cosmic history: “And war broke out in heaven” (Rev. 12:7). In heaven, the home of universal peace? War, the act of universal nonpeace, broke out there? Hard to fathom!

But the Greek word here for war is polēmos—from whence comes our word “polemics,” or “polemical.” Thus, this war in heaven was no fist-to-cuff fight of clashing swords—but rather a battle of clashing ideas, a war of words, a struggle over competing values, two contrary supercharged arguments, divisive to the core. You get it—we all get it.

In a story so familiar we all know it: “And war broke out in heaven: Michael[2] and his angels fought with the dragon; and the dragon and his angels fought” (Rev. 12:7).

The two sides? On the one hand stands the clearly heartbroken divine Creator and Friend of all creation—this “Maker of all things who loves and wants me.”[3] And in lethal opposition to heaven’s King stands the highest created intelligence in the universe, the beloved but now fallen angel prince Lucifer, tagged as the apocalyptic dragon, “that serpent of old, called the Devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world” (Rev. 12:9; see also Isa. 14:12, 13; Eze. 28:14-17).

How quickly this cosmic conflict morphed into the personification of two warring ideologies: the Creator’s self-sacrificingI-will-lay-down-My-life-for-the-good-of-others love for His creation (agapé) versus the rebel’s self-worshippingI-will-advance-my-life-at-the-expense-of-others perversion of love (eros). A Mother Teresa versus Adolf Hitler kind of value contrast.

We are in a war, and the battle is intensifying.

This cosmic conflict theme is a most significant theological paradigm our Seventh-day Adventist faith community still contributes to the world of biblical thought. We call it “the great controversy” motif—a simple descriptor enveloping the entire narrative of Holy Scripture, in the battle between Christ and Satan, light and darkness, love and hatred, right and wrong—from Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, to the last sinners on earth.

“And war broke out in heaven. . . . So the great dragon was cast out . . . and his angels were cast out with him” (Rev. 12:7-9).

We are in a war, and the battle is intensifying.

Revelation hints at this war’s exorbitant price exacted from heaven with this cryptic phrase: “the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world” (Rev. 13:8). That is, before the universe was, before time immemorial, the divine heart pledged to sacrifice Himself (the very meaning of agapé) should rebellion ever hemorrhage into existence. And tragically it did . . . and still does.

But Revelation’s stunning sequel to this war launched in heaven is that it was decisively won here on earth—at the cross! It is no happenstance that the word “lamb” appears 29 times in the Apocalypse, making “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29) the hands-down numero uno Hero of heaven!

And no wonder. When Jesus rent the terrible darkness of Golgotha with that piercing scream, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” (Matt. 27:46), we knew at last the infinite price of this bloody war. And when His battered head raised up in that pent-up death cry, “It is finished!” (John 19:30), wild was the pealing of that death knell across the chasms of God’s universe.

In her apocalyptic classic Ellen White declares: “In the Saviour’s expiring cry, ‘It is finished,’ the death knell of Satan was rung. The great controversy which had been so long in progress was then decided, and the final eradication of evil was made certain.”[4] Did you catch that—“was rung,” “was then decided,” “was made certain”—all in the past tense. Calvary’s triumph secured the devil’s defeat 2,000 years ago!

Several years ago I was preaching in Sacramento, California. The Friday evening meeting was about to begin when I spotted him walking down the center aisle of the church—a young man wearing a black T-shirt, emblazoned with large red letters: SATAN. I did a double take. Am I at the right place? But as he moved closer, he extended his hand with a smile, and only then could I read the two very small words in white letters: “SATAN is defeated.” But the truth from the cross has forever reversed that T-shirt’s emphasis, and now reads: “satan IS DEFEATED”!

No wonder Revelation 12:11 reads the way it does! “And they [the followers of Jesus] overcame him [the dragon] by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony.”

So in the battle ahead, let your own testimony splash the blood of the triumphant Lamb on the doorposts of your life every day with the prayer: “Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world—have mercy on me—and let the blood of Your triumph be upon me, today and today and today,[5] until You come.” Amen.

[1] In an upcoming The Endgame post, we will examine the six internal evidences that corroborate the identity of this geopolitical superpower.

[2] Since the Reformation, Protestant scholars have followed Melancthon’s lead that Michael is the wartime apocalyptic name for the preincarnate Christ, who always appears in cosmic showdowns with the devil on behalf of God’s loyalists (see Dan. 12:1; Jude 9; Rev. 12:7).

[3] For a biblical affirmation of this summary truth, see the The Endgame article “Albert Einstein and the Truth About God.”

[4] Ellen G. White, The Great Controversy (Mountain View, Calif.: Pacific Press Pub. Assn., 1911), p. 503.

[5] From the prayer of William Miller, in F. D. Nichol, The Midnight Cry (Washington, D.C.: Review and Herald Pub. Assn., 1954), p. 267.