(Daniel 11:31; Luke 21:20; Revelation 12:10-12)
After Christ ascended to God, He was made the Lord of Heaven and Earth, and the Spirit of Christ, as the archangel Michael, cast down Satan and his angels.
This began the tribulation of the saints, the Great Tribulation. The Apostle John said, “The accuser of the brethren has been thrown down, he who accuses them before our God, day and night—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.”1Rev 12:10-12
Some have misunderstood the coming of the Antichrist and the Great Tribulation to be a future event, but already, in his Epistles, John warned us that “the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard, is coming—is now already in the world.”21Jo 4:3
Jesus said, “When you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, know that her desolation is near.”3Luk 21:20 The desolation He spoke of was the desolation of New Jerusalem.
By the end of the second century, a false experience of the holy spirit, called Montanism, had spread throughout Asia. The chief spokesman of the Montanists was Tertullian, the father of Latin Christianity. The apostle Paul said that the coming of the lawless one would be “according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs and lying wonders.”42Th 2:9
Daniel told us that Satan was “given an army,”5Dan 8:12 an army of demons: “Arms stand up from him and they pollute the sanctuary of strength.”6Dan 11:31 The Hebrew word used for strength here was maoz; it is used in the Old Testament only to describe the refuge of God, as in “God is my strong fortress.”72 Sam 22:33
The army of Satan polluted the sanctuary of strength and ended the worship of God in the holy spirit. The apostle John said that the Woman flew “into the wilderness for a time, times, and half a time”8Rev 12:14 away from the presence of the serpent.
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