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Revelation 12
7 There was war in the sky [heaven]. Michael and his angels made war on the dragon. The dragon and his angels made war. 8 They didn't prevail, neither was a place found for him any more in heaven.
neither was a place found for him any more in heaven
This phrase is loaded with implications and insights that often are given little attention. The concept of having a place to live, to exist, to be accepted and to fit in is a creation design principle built into the psyche of many living creatures. We are not created to be alone, isolated, independent or aloof from others. We are designed to function and interact dependently with others to make up a united body. This makes perfect sense as we were made for joy, and joy requires more than one to experience realistically, and it grows exponentially the more we become involved. This is the 'place' for which we intuitively long, where we feel cared for, wanted, nourished in every respect and find our sense of home. We are made for love, for joy, for fellowship and intimacy. Without this 'place' we feel lost, disconnected, constantly wandering and searching for security and peace but never finding it, which leaves our internal spirit filled with dissonance because our very design is violated and short-changed.
But the unclean spirit, when he is gone out of the man, passes through waterless places, seeking rest, and doesn't find it. Then he says, 'I will return into my house from which I came out,' and when he has come back, he finds it empty, swept, and put in order. Then he goes, and takes with himself seven other spirits more evil than he is, and they enter in and dwell there. The last state of that man becomes worse than the first. Even so will it be also to this evil generation. (Matthew 12:43-45)
What I find compelling about this description by Jesus is that the spirit He is referring to here is one of the angels who originally could find no place in heaven after joining the accuser of God, the great Satan, the one who turned himself into the dragon of Revelation. We can use the patterns of operation as templates to learn how things in the past repeat themselves over and over throughout the history of this war. This spirit found himself looking for rest and doesn't find it. This resonates strongly with the very first time that he and all the other angels who aligned themselves with fallen Lucifer against God's government of love learned that there was no place in heaven to be found for them to remain.
I believe it would be very enlightening to spend some time unpacking this passage, both for coming to a better appreciation of how this war came to its first decisive turning point long ago in heaven, and also for what it has to say about our relationship to this war and what it involves when it comes to each one of our own situations.
I want to compare this story with another passage that at first may seem like it has little to do with this but in reality exposes underlying issues of conflict in this war and how we are to overcome.
Don't be deceived, my beloved brothers. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom can be no variation, nor turning shadow. Of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of first fruits of his creatures. So, then, my beloved brothers, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, and slow to anger; for the anger of man doesn't produce the righteousness of God.
Therefore, putting away all filthiness and overflowing of wickedness, receive with humility the implanted word, which is able to save your souls. But be doers of the word, and not only hearers, deluding your own selves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man looking at his natural face in a mirror; for he sees himself, and goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was.
But he who looks into the perfect law of freedom, and continues, not being a hearer who forgets, but a doer of the work, this man will be blessed in what he does. (James 1:16-25)
What might this have to do with an unclean spirit leaving and then reentering a man with seven other spirits more evil than himself? It is because this is how the war is being fought, for keep in mind that this is a war of truth versus deception, lies about God, about how reality should function and about where to source our perceptions about our identity, our value, purpose and how to act like ourselves.
What James begins by pointing out here is the issue that was under dispute in the very early stages of this war the dragon was conducting in reaction to the war Michael initiated to expose his lies with the actual truth of God's heart and character that was under attack. James warns us not to be deceived, and then goes on to detail the area of deception in particular. Here we can see that the issue under dispute is the source of everything that is good, where our gifts come from as well as whether or not God has a dual disposition or is pure and singular in His constant attitude of honesty, love, humility and truthfulness. James declares that with God there is never any shiftiness, never any darkness or even hint of darkness like a shadow but that He is the Father of lights. John also emphatically declares the same thing when He says in 1 John 1:5 that God is light and in Him is no darkness whatsoever. This is in contrast to what Lucifer began to insinuate and later openly assert as his infected the minds of angels with doubts about God's purity of integrity and trustworthiness. Later he used similar assertions with Eve when he insisted that being like God involves knowing both good and evil. That contradicts the testimony of the Son of God who stands for the truth about God and stands for all those who choose loyalty with God, both unfallen angels and humans on earth who believe and choose to trust God.
Clearly we see that the war here is over what we will choose to believe is truth. James says that God brought us forth by the word of truth. This can refer to the original creation of humanity who by design are to be reflectors of God's light of glory. This design means that we will reflect in our lives either the Son's view of God or the dragon's version of God. Clearly an unclean spirit having access to our inner spirit would be a deceiving spirit finding a place to hang out because we have allowed his lies to find residence in our thinking and choices. I suspect that many of us have such deceiving spirits with easy access to us without our ever being aware of it because their lies are so familiar that we simply assume most of our life that they are merely facts of reality rather than lies that prevent us from living out the freedom and joy of liberty in Christ Jesus.
James mentions another thing I find compelling here that I won't take a lot of time to unpack but is very relevant to informing us about one of the key issues in this war that needs to be clarified in our mind.
the anger of man doesn't produce the righteousness of God.
I will simply say this: when we allow Satan to cause us to project our feelings of anger and desires for revenge, punishment of evil-doers and confused notions about justice back onto God, we remain blinded by the lies of the enemy and are not living in the light that the Son of God has brought into the world about how God relates to those who fight against Him. Most of our propositions and doctrines involving God's wrath and the punishment of the wicked are riddled with false assumptions about God's ways and character caused by our first parents embracing the lies of Satan about God being a mix of light and darkness, good and evil and who relies on enticements of rewards and threats of punishment to manipulate others into conforming to His commandments. So long as we cling to such ideas about God we discredit the truth about the Father of lights and reject His mercy, which is the only way we can be prepared to come into His presence and thrive instead of experiencing torment.
James goes on to instruct us to put away all filthiness and overflowing of wickedness. We may not be aware of how much filth there is inside of us, and this is part of the curse of living in the darkness of deception, for a deceived person almost never is aware that they are deceived. When a person is clueless as to some extreme danger they are in, there is no incentive to heed warnings meant to save them because they assume the warnings are for others and not themselves. I believe we need to plead with God and give Him permission to do whatever it takes to come to an awareness of our true condition and the grave danger we are in and unmask the true nature of the diabolical enemy who has kept us in bondage under the tyranny of fear all our lives and humbly accept that what the Word of God says to us is the only thing we can trust in spite of our feelings and traditions to the contrary. This is how the war is being conducted, a war over what spirit we will believe about who we are and what reality looks like and what is coming in our future.
James tells us that what is able to save our soul is to receive the implanted word. This of course is the word of God, not the word of the dragon. Again, this entire war revolves around whose word we will trust, whose words we will choose to believe as defining who we are and how to live. In turn, whatever word we receive and becomes planted inside our mind and heart determines the defining characteristics of how we perceive reality and what we will believe God is like. The war between Michael and His angels and the dragon and his spirit angels is entirely a war over how God needs to govern and achieve unity and cohesiveness of society and maintain harmony and peace in the universe. This may seem like an exaggeration to many, but our traditional opinions about the nature of the war have been far too small and have blinded us as to how intense the battle is happening all the time in our own individual lives. These instructions from Scripture need to be taken seriously if we are to come into the light and be rescued from the deep darkness that covers the entire world.
This is where the parallel passages begin to fit together tightly. Evidently in the story Jesus tells, the unclean spirit who leaves a person had already been residing in them for who knows how long already. And if there is a point of time when the spirit goes out of a person, it would not be because they simply decided to go look for other places voluntarily or simply got bored. No, deceiving spirits are always seeking minds and hearts where they can find access to take control, to deceive, to manipulate and exploit. And inferred in this story by Jesus is that so long as they can remain in a person and have access to them, they find at least what we might call relative rest even though they never experience the kind of rest explained in Hebrews 3 and 4. But they do claim such person's as being their place of rest.
That leads us to the next question. If an unclean or demonic spirit has already been hanging out in a person's life and suddenly leaves, what might be the cause of their sudden eviction? This is also where the pattern informs us that something similar likely transpired in heaven as described in the passage we are looking at in Revelation 12 here. The original question we are exploring tangentially is the nature of the place in heaven that was somehow not able to be found by the dragon and his angels, and I believe we can glean clues from analyzing similar or parallel situations where those same spirits either find a place to hang out or find themselves without rest and constantly wandering around restlessly looking for a place of their own to dwell in and control.
Jesus said that one of these spirits passes through waterless places, seeking rest, and doesn't find it. A waterless place clearly involves symbolic language, so we should become aware of what the symbol of water may mean here. In prophecy, waters usually represent peoples, but there are other meanings as well. Jesus talked about the water of life that potentially can gush out from our inner parts, and Paul says that we need to experience a washing of the word.
Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the assembly, and gave himself up for it; that he might sanctify it, having cleansed it by the washing of water with the word. (Ephesians 5:25-26)
Given that unclean spirits refer to the angels who lost their original place in heaven by aligning with the dragon, we can put the clues together to see that their loss of place continues to cause them to restlessly look for places of rest which apparently has to do with how much of the word of God is active in a person's soul. Paul seems to indicate that this word involves loving our spouses like Christ loved us and gave Himself up for us that He might sanctify us and cleanse us by washing with the water of the word. This would be in direct contrast to the implied condition of a person while an evil spirit is allowed to remain in them, for Jesus infers that such a spirit introduces filth and in effect is trashing the 'house' he is living in. We see similar illustrations of this in stories of irresponsible young people conducting parties in mansions while their parents are away that end up trashing the premises and causing huge amounts of damage. This is the nature of selfish indulgence which is motivated by these very spirits. These are merely outward expressions of similar conditions internally by people who do this. But the same thing can be happening internally in people who appear to be just the opposite externally, for darkness and lies can produce opposite symptoms as Paul points on in Romans 1 and 2. The cause of dysfunction, whether expressed through pious religious prigs judging open sinners as worthy of severe punishment, or in reckless sinners flaunting their supposed freedom to indulge in all sorts of base passions, is actually the same. It is the exchanging of the truth about God for the lie, and this is at the crux of this entire war as we have been talking about since the beginning of this study in Revelation.
So back to the question of what caused this unclean spirit to suddenly leave off residing in a person where he had previously been able to hang out and trash his life? If we look at the parallel passage in James or take into account the various stories of Jesus or His followers casting out demons from people, it likely involves something along the lines of having the truth of the word of God brought into the life that causes such torment to this kind of spirit that they simply vacate because they cannot tolerate living that close to the truth of God's love. Truth and love are intolerable by demonic spirits who thrive on circulating and promoting lies, deceptions and innuendoes about God's untrustworthiness and keeps their place secure in our lives. When the truth comes too close to them they lose their power over us because the authority we have given them is withdrawn and they are compelled to exit.
Yet what we see in both the account of Jesus as well as in the passage in James is the potential for a relapse, and such a relapse can result in a condition far worse than the original problems caused by a single dark spirit hanging out in our life keeping us numb to our actual condition of being deceived. Jesus speaks of such an expelled demon as wandering about looking for another place to rest and not being able to find any. This is like what happened originally in heaven, where the dragon Satan and his angels found no place for them in heaven and came to this earth previous to the creation of humans. We have almost no information about what transpired at that time except that they could no longer remain in heaven and later ended up here on earth. I suspect that during part of that time these fallen angels could have wandered many places throughout the universe seeking a place to rest but with no success because everywhere they went they found themselves unwelcome by the unfallen inhabitants of other planets and unfallen angels who had determined to remain loyal to Michael and trust His testimony about God's nature rather than Satan's.
In the case that Jesus told, this spirit decided to return to observe what may have become of the residence he had been evicted from originally, and to his demonic delight discovers that while that person's life was radically improved and cleaned up from all the havoc the demon had brought into that person's soul, no other spirit had been brought to take up residence, and the person in effect was available for occupancy by whomever could find a way to enter.
I believe the main point of this story by Jesus is that it is not enough to be set free and cleaned up by the power of the word of God over a person's life. Yes, the truth did set them free, and the truth did cause much restoration, healing and brought hope and love into that person's experience. Yet if they failed to make choices to keep authorizing continued growth by giving permission for the Spirit of God to be in charge, then their situation could become extremely hazardous, yet they themselves are oblivious to their own danger. Such a person might presume that now that they are free of the control of the lies the former spirit occupant used to manipulate them and trash their life, that is good enough. Any suggestion they need to continue to move deeper into the word of God and apply it to their own lives might be viewed as legalistic or works oriented, and such ideas are considered out of line with the gospel of freedom in Christ. Yet both Jesus and James makes it clear that simply receiving freedom from the power of sin or control by an evil spirit does not secure us from reinfection. In fact, Jesus says plainly that if a dwelling place (a human heart and mind) is left unoccupied and unattended, that person is like a sitting duck inviting a relapse that can prove the total ruin of that person's life, and all because of their own negligence or complacency.
Jesus does not explain what this person should have done, but this is where James helps to fill in what is vital for us to understand if we want to avoid the fate Jesus describes as happening to such a person. There are several things in this passage from James that we would do well to heed when we become aware that we may be in a similar situation while basking in good feelings after experiencing deliverance, while in reality we may be in even greater danger than before.
James says that we need to embrace a spirit of humility, and from that posture we must receive the word of God as an implant inside of us.
James also warns that it is very dangerous to simply hear the word but fail to actually act on it.
In the analogy that James uses to illustrate his point, we find out what he actually describes as what it means to do the word and not merely hear it or even experience its initial power to set us free. In other words, it is just as important if not more so, to make choices that will keep us free and moving forward in our freedom as it is to initially experience deliverance that has the power to set us free from the lies, confusion and destructive habits of thinking and living that ruin our lives. This action that defines what it means to be a doer of the word of God involves looking into what James says is like a mirror and later identified as being the Law of Liberty.
This is where traditional views of the purpose and function of the Law of God usually bring in some confusion as we often jump to conclusions about what we expect to see when we look at the law closely. Most of the time, people assume the Law is designed to show us how sinful we are, how out of harmony we are with God's expectations, and immediately we can begin to feel condemnation and compelled to figure out how to alleviate these negative feelings. As a result this illustration gets hijacked from that point on. This was how I read this and heard it taught for most of my life, until not long ago the Spirit brought something to my attention, and that is when I suddenly realized I had not been paying close attention to what James is actually saying.
I now see enormous overcoming power in what James is actually referring to here. This is not about looking into the Law mirror in order to see how bad I am by contrast, then looking for an effective solution in response. That is rooted in flesh logic, where I perceive my identity and value and God's opinion of me based on externals, or having the right answers, or becoming good enough to be accepted by God. James is rather referring to God's Law as a reflection of God's character, not a tool to make me feel condemned. When we come to see it in this way, then we look into the Law as a description of God, not a description of how bad I am. The Law reveals the goodness and righteousness of God, not a threat of punishment or something to remind me to feel guilty. It describes what liberty from bondage under sin looks like, and when I view it from that perspective I see that the law is describing what my reflection of God can look like when I live as a normal human reflector of Him. That is why James says that we will see our natural face when we look into that mirror. Because natural for a human means to reflect the glory of God and nothing less.
he is like a man looking at his natural face in a mirror; for he sees himself, and goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was.
In these words James is saying that it is our natural face we will see in the mirror, and then he says it in other words twice again – he sees himself, and he sees what kind of man he is, so long as he looks into the mirror of the law. So the question is this: what is our natural face? What kind of person am I if I continue to look into the perfect law of liberty?
God said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness...." God created man in his own image. In God's image he created him; male and female he created them. (Genesis 1:26-27)
This is where I learn about who I really am and how to act like myself. Rather than viewing the Law of God as something hostile towards me, I can learn to love the Law like David talked about, because that is where I find truth, both about God as the origin of my reflected image and who I am as His reflector. This is why Jesus said we should seek God's kingdom and His righteousness first, because in doing so and continuing to do so we become transformed through beholding that glory to become like God.
I discovered something fascinating when I did a word search on the Greek word translated doer of the word. In every instance except one, this word is translated in this way, and most of the times it is in this passage. Paul mentions is similarly in Romans 2:13, but the exception to it being translated as doer is when Paul is speaking to the pagans in Athens at the Areopagus where he refers to their own poets for the idea that we are all God's offspring. The word translated poets there is the same word that is translated doer everywhere else. This would seem to indicate that even pagans who contemplate what the Spirit of God is impressing on every person can recognize that a human should be an active reflector of their origin, not merely assenting to factual realities but actively living out what is believed.
'For in him we live, and move, and have our being.' As some of your own poets have said, 'For we are also his offspring.' (Acts 17:28)
This is the kind of focus for our imagination that gives cause for unclean familiar spirits to leave and go looking elsewhere for a place to hang out. Dark spirits who revel in lies and chaos to make people miserable like them, hate the light of love and truth. So when anyone begins filling their mind and heart with the atmosphere of heaven, these spirits soon take a hike. But they may likely come back sometime to see if we are continuing the activities that gave them reason to leave, or if we settled for thinking being set free is good enough and we don't need to bring in a new spirit tenant to occupy in our inner domain. That is how I see these passages correlating closely to each other and how they can help us appreciate the nature of the way homeless spirits tend to operate. If we understand what is going on we can know how to remain within the safety of having God's Spirit dwell in us, partly to prevent any unclean spirit from regaining access to our life. We can do this by continually filling our mind with the word of God that informs us of who we are as His image bearers, and what it looks like to live out His righteousness by reflecting it. This is the purpose of praise, worship and gratitude to God.
One of the basic principles of reflection is that the light seen in a reflector must first be received before it can be sent back out. This is a secret the enemy does not want us to know, for he wants us to imagine that we have to generate good deeds to earn merit with God or any number of other burdensome requirements so we will not enter into the rest of simply receiving God's love freely and allowing it to flow to others uninhibited because we continually receive it to our full capacity. This is the freedom that knowing the truth about our real identity brings, and is just the opposite of living under the tyranny of demonic spirits wrecking our lives and jerking us around with puppet strings while we feel helpless to escape their urges and impulses that creates confusion and desperation inside.
When Jesus said the unclean spirit left and later came back to find the person he had abused previously still vacant, he was describing a dangerous condition that we need to avoid. It is the condition of being alone, and we were never meant to live alone, disconnected and independent of others.
And the Lord God said, It is not good for the man to be by himself: I will make one like himself as a help to him. (Genesis 2:18 BBE)
God is love, and just as love requires a minimum of three to fully function as love, so too do all the inhabitants of His creation who are designed to be expressive of the Godhead's heart. This sense of innate longing to find our place and fulfill our purpose is a God-implanted motivation designed to propel us toward our fuller potential. Intuitively we search for this experience all our lives, but it can only be found and experienced by embracing our place in our Creator. This is what is called the unity of faith, and without it we cannot thrive.
He made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the surface of the earth, having determined appointed seasons, and the boundaries of their dwellings, that they should seek the Lord, if perhaps they might reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. 'For in him we live, and move, and have our being.' As some of your own poets have said, 'For we are also his offspring.' (Acts 17:26-28)
The reason that spirits are restless and always looking for a place to hang out is because they have lost that sense of security, that place of peace knowing they are loved and cared for by God. Without love the inevitable outcome is always restlessness, irritation and sooner or later it leads to exploiting others. Those bound in chains of darkness may have a sense of comradery with others who are likewise in misery, but is not true rest, so their restlessness remains. Restless souls are irritated when they encounter those living in peace, joy and freedom, which is why homeless spirits who lost their place in heaven hate any who live in the atmosphere of heaven here on earth.
