Michael Youssef - The Structure of Heaven
Question: "Why would Satan want to target pastors for failure"? I'm sure you've probably thought about it. Why would he be so concerned on leading evangelical leaders for failure? Answer: "Because Satan knows the importance of a command structure," command structure. Please hear me right. From the enemy's point of view, it is much better to go after a person of influence, or his family, or his community. The enemy understands the command structure, because he himself operates with a command structure. The demonic hierarchy closely resembles the angelic counterpart in heaven. Please understand that whether we like it or not, whether we want to acknowledge it or not, whether we'd even like to hear it or not, Satan is fighting a war.
And like a regular army, Satan, too, has generals, commanders, and foot soldiers, and they have dual purpose: to harass the believers and to keep the unsaved blind. His forces are the rebels who broke away from God's angelic army. And when they broke away from the angelic army, they not only broke with their weapons, but there was their ranks and their divisions. Please, you have to understand that Satan is a copycatter. Satan is not creative. Satan copied the angelic structure that he saw in heaven when he was Lucifer. You see, that's how Satan operates. To understand Satan's hierarchy, hierarchical structure, you have to go to the original. You have to go to the genuine article first.
Understand the genuine article, then you'll understand why he had to copy that: because he didn't have a creative mind. We erroneously sometimes say, a little baby, when he's asleep, not when they're screaming their head off, but when they're asleep, we'll say, "Aw, isn't he an angel"? Where do we get this erroneous idea? Because we think of angel as effeminate, fragile, relatively weak, and they perform relatively minor good works. That's the way we think of angels. Christmas cards sometimes portray angels in the most ridiculous way. I'm gonna get into that. Yet, in reality, if any of us would see an angel, physically see an angel, we would have a heart attack. They are fearsome creatures, and that is why, when we hear in the Scripture and read in the Scripture, when an angel appears, whether to Joseph, or to Mary, or to anybody, it always says, "Fear not, fear not," because they're terrifying-looking individuals.
Listen to me. Angels are God's Marines, Green Berets, Navy Seals, all put together. So, I want to give you, very quickly, very quickly, it won't take very long, five things that you need to know about the angelic realm and about angels. I'm going to explain how Satan stole that structure, the command structure and copied it, but I'm going to start with angels. I like to go for the real thing first. First of all, angels have individual personalities. Some of the higher-ups in the chain of command in the angelic realm have names, like Gabriel and Michael. Angels not only have individual personalities, but they have their own intellect. They have their own feelings, and they have free will.
And that is why one-third of them, and I'm going to explain that in a minute, chose to follow Satan. They have different functions. They serve different functions, but primarily they are to execute the will of God. They implement the plan of God in the lives of those who have submitted their lives to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Secondly, angels live forever. The same Gabriel who appeared to Daniel, 400 years later, he appeared to Mary, the Virgin Mary. They are not bound by human time or space. Why? Because angels in the angelic realm do not get depleted by death. The third thing you need to know about angels is that they have bodies. They're not like ours, but it has a form, it has a form, a physical form.
Daniel in 8:15, he said, "And behold, there stood before me one having the appearance", don't miss that, that's an important word, "the appearance of a man," the appearance. Not a man, not like us, but appearance. Why? Because these celestial bodies are totally unlike us. It is a different kind of a body. It is designed for different kind of rules, and it works according to different realms. But like our bodies, they have a form. They have a likeness. They have weight, and they're capable of much more. The fourth thing you need to know about angels is that they were created first. They were created before the earth. Before the earth was created, before humanity was created, God created the angels first, then the earth. Look at Colossians chapter 1, verse 16. "By Him all things were created that are in heaven," first, "then on earth". Those who say that, "If I cannot see it, it does not exist," are going to have egg all over their face when God finally unveil the invisible world to everyone to see.
Beloved, listen to me. Our God is the God of power and might. Don't you ever forget that. Our God is a God who commands all of these trillions of angelic ranks, and they move. Our God uses this chain of command. Our God is a God of order. And whenever you see disorder, you know that Satan is behind it. Fifthly, very quickly, angels have a specific task. Each have a specific task. There are no two angels alike, and there are no two angels' jobs are alike. Each angel has his own task and mission to protect and preserve and minister to the elect of God, until our time is done. And as we know from the story of Lazarus and the rich man, the angels will carry us all the way to the presence of Jesus in glory. Every moment of every day, there are unseen battles are being fought over your head.
Satan wants to keep us in ignorance about him and about the Word of God, and yet the angels of light often work to fight off his attack on the children of the living God in that unseen spiritual battle. Psalm 91:11 says, "He will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways". I don't know about you; that thrills me, that thrills me, that thrills me. I was born nobody, and yet God assigns mighty angels to look after me. How about that? How about that? There couldn't be something greater. He assigned them to counter my foolishness and my ignorance. He assigned them to steer me around the traps that the enemy has been setting up for each one of us all the time. Well, look carefully through the Scripture, and you see God deliberately was showing us examples of how these angels work, so that we be encouraged, that we will be comforted, that we would live in faith and power and strength.
In Acts chapter 5, verse 19, angel comes and open the door of the prison, and the disciples come out. In Acts 12:7, Herod imprisoned Peter, and he's just not only imprisoned him behind iron doors; he put extra commands. He put extra heavy protection, guard around him. But the angel comes in and said, "Hey, Peter, get up, let's get out of here," and he walks him straight through all the guards and all the gates and iron gates. You see, when Satan, as we've been telling you in this series, in the last two messages, when Satan tried to topple God, he got thrown out of heaven. He took one-third of the angelic beings with him.
You say, "Well, how come? How come, could he really deceive that many"? We don't know. A huge number, a third, a third of the angels, how could he do this? How could he deceive them? I want to tell you why. Lucifer offered them all kinds of incentives. Hear me right. Satan does this with millions of people now. Satan's modus operandi is to offer you the world and pay you with trash. His promises, he promises you the best, and he pays you with the worst. He promises you pleasure, and he pays you with pain. He promises you profits, and he pays you with losses. He promises you life, and he pays you with the currency of death. He's doing that every single day. Nothing's changed. That's how he persuaded a third of the angelic beings to follow him.
But there are three things that you must know about Satan's stolen, stealing this command structure from the angelic realm, about this hierarchical structure of heaven. Three things, only three things you need to know. First of all, these enemy's forces still retain their God-given power. When Lucifer was thrown out of heaven, he set up his kingdom and a government system here on earth, as he saw being done in heaven. Don't forget, he was Lucifer, the angel of light, who served the throne of God. Remember, again, he was right there in the presence of God. He observed closely what's going on in heaven, and he copied those ranks of heaven. Don't miss what I'm going to tell you, okay? Don't miss what I'm going to tell you. Satan may have lost his innocence when he fell, but he did not lose his intelligence. These fallen angels have their own distinct personalities and characteristics. These are immortal and not limited by time and space.
The difference is this: They worship Lucifer instead of God. Second thing, second thing you need to know about your enemy's hierarchical structure... Oh, but you know what? Before I tell you this, before I tell you this, because I know, but I know, but I know that when you hear what I'm going to tell you, the second thing, some of you are going to be frightened. Remember what I told you? It's not whether you're afraid of Satan or not. It's whether Satan is afraid of you. I want everyone under the sound of my voice today, begin the spiritual walk where Satan is afraid of you. You never be afraid of him. Never, never, never, never, never be frightened of him. He is a defeated foe. He's a toothless liar.
Now, I need to remind you again and again and again, I'm gonna keep reminding you of this, for every demon that harasses you, there are two angels. Remember a third, two-thirds? For every demon, there are two angels who are protecting you, watching over you. And so, now I get to the second one concerning why I was concerned that I don't want you to be frightened or worried about it. Satan has an assigned agent on your case. Satan cannot be everywhere at once. He cannot be at your house and in my house all at the same time. No. So what does he do? He uses his demons. But there is only one exception, one exception, when Satan showed up in person. I think some of you already got this. Some already know where that was. When he tempted Jesus in the wilderness, he could not leave that to one of his underlings. He had to do that because he wanted to stop Jesus from going to the cross at any cost. So, he showed up in person in the wilderness and performed those three temptations.
Now, we often say, "Oh, Satan tempts me". Well, not quite. It's one of his underlings is tempting us, one of his foot soldiers tempting us, for he himself does not perform the day to day operations, any more than the CEO of any of these corporations answer the phone when you ring, when you call. He leaves the routine temptations to his underlings. Oh, they will try to harass us. Listen to me, believers. He will try to harass, he will try to frustrate us. He will try to tempt us. He will try to oppress us. And that is why our fight is not against what? Now, I hate to tell you this, but it's true, these demons are conscientious. They are active. They're deeply committed to their task. These demons are well-disciplined, and they blindly, they are obedient. They are obedient soldiers to Satan, and that is why we must always, always be vigilant, must be vigilant.
And again, let me stop right here, because I know, as soon as you hear the word "vigilant," you think that you're supposed to be sitting there and looking around, gritting your teeth, "Oh, I've got to be vigilant, I've got to be vigilant, I've got to be". No, no, no, no, no, no, no, that's not the Christian faith. Vigilant means that you invite the Holy Spirit to come in and take residence every single day. You renew his presence in your life. And as the Holy Spirit comes in, he's going to make you alert. He's going to make you vigilant. The third and the last thing I want to tell you is this: the enemy within, the enemy within.
Well, what do I mean by that? The truth is, there are many church people who allow Satan to use them. The lack of discernment allows Satan to use them. It is the saddest thing in the world when you see professing Christians fraternizing with the enemy. In a regular army, when a solider fraternized with the enemy, it's called treason. But how many professing Christians, whether it is deliberately or in ignorance, they serve the enemy's purpose? Think about this with me. The chief apostle, the chief disciple, when Satan was trying to use him to stop the Lord Jesus from going to the cross, what did Jesus say to him in Matthew 16:22-23? God bless you. Was Peter Satan? No, no, he's not; but at that moment, what he said and did was serving Satan's purpose. Satan was using him to hinder the plan of salvation. He can use any of us, when we don't resist him. He can use any of us when we don't flee from temptation.
Now, I want to leave you with this. Yes, there are millions of demons. But also remember, write it down, mark it, there are two angels for every demon who are deployed for the ministry, according to the epistle to the Hebrews, to ministering to the saints, to ministering to the children of the living God. When you invite the Holy Spirit to strengthen you on a daily basis, sometimes even moment by moment basis, when you ask the Holy Spirit to give you victory, he, the Holy Spirit, will send the angels, and they will send the demon packing. Psalm 118, verse 6, "The Lord is on my side. I will not fear. What can anyone do to me"?