Book of Enoch & The Sons of God · Chapter 7 of 10
Satan’s Final Aim: Seizing a Throne on Earth, and His Last Resistance against the Appointed Times
In Genesis 3 the ancient serpent had a single aim: to deceive the children whom God Himself had formed and to whom He had given life, and to separate them from God. He did not seek to become a husband. He was reaching for a far higher place.
Fallen spiritual beings know very well who God the Creator is. They know better than anyone how empty any power within creation is by comparison. The temptation in the wilderness shows this decisively.
Luke 4:6-7 and said to Him, “I will give You all this authority and their glory, for it has been handed over to me, and I give it to whom I wish. If You, then, will worship before me, it will all be Yours.”
The devil offered the authority of all the kingdoms of the world for a single act of worship. He was not clinging to power within creation. What he wanted was not authority but the worship that belongs to God alone, the very thing Yeshua refused with the words, “You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only shall you serve” (Luke 4:8). What, then, had Satan craved from the beginning? To ascend into heaven, to raise his throne above the stars of God, and to make himself like the Most High.
Isaiah 14:12-14 How you have fallen from heaven, the howling, son of the dawn! You are cut down to the earth, you who laid low the nations! And you said in your heart: “I will ascend to the heavens, above the stars of God I will raise my throne, and I will sit on the mountain of appointed time (moed), in the uttermost parts of the north. I will ascend above the heights of the cloud; I will make myself like the Most High (Elyon).”
The place where he meant to sit was “the mountain of appointed time (moed)” (Isaiah 14:13), har moed in Hebrew. Moed is the very word the LORD used in Leviticus 23: “these are My appointed times (moadim)” (Leviticus 23:2). This verse lays bare the root of Satan’s persistent hostility toward the times God has appointed.
Yet spiritual beings know they can never prevail against God the Almighty Father. Since the atonement of the cross was accomplished and the victory of the Lamb, Yeshua, was proclaimed, they know they cannot prevail against Yeshua either. Nor can any spiritual being stand against the Holy Spirit of God.
Knowing that he can no longer seize the throne of heaven, Satan turns to a throne on earth instead and seeks to seat his own agent there.
2 Thessalonians 2:4 who opposes and exalts himself above every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat as God in the temple of God, displaying himself as being God.
Yet it is already written that this too will end in utter defeat (2 Thessalonians 2:8; Revelation 19:20).
The defeat of Satan and his angels is certain, and the only resistance left to them is to obstruct the goal toward which God is moving: saving people and bringing His eternal kingdom to completion. Their means is the lie that drives people apart from God. Atheism, the unraveling of the created order, and the spirit of lawlessness (anomia, life without God’s Torah) are all tools for this. Among them the most persistent attack is on the appointed times (moadim) that God Himself established, the feasts, the Sabbath, and the holy convocations: to hinder them, change them, and tear them down.
Daniel 7:25 And he shall speak words against the Most High (Elyon), and he shall wear out the saints of the Most High (Elyon); and he shall think to change times (zimnin, Aramaic) and decree. And they shall be given into his hand until an appointed time (iddan, Aramaic) and appointed times (iddanin, Aramaic) and half a time.
When Satan at last seats his agent in the temple to pose as God (2 Thessalonians 2:4), that too will be, at its core, the height of his resistance to the appointed times: an attempt to block and twist the fulfillment of the autumn feasts, which begin with the Day of Trumpets, Yom Teruah, “a memorial of trumpet blast, a holy convocation” (Leviticus 23:24), and which point to the return of Yeshua, the King of kings. Satan himself knows that every such attempt is futile before the sovereignty of God, yet he carries on his last resistance until the final judgment is carried out.
How persistently the spirit of Satan, the evil spirit at work in Babylon, sets itself against the times God has appointed can be seen, as a sign, even in the dates of the major wars of modern Israel.
| War | Date | The day on the Hebrew calendar |
|---|---|---|
| The Six-Day War | June 5-10, 1967 | Near the end of the seven weeks counted from Passover to Shavuot, the counting of the Omer (26 Iyar to 2 Sivan), ending just days before Shavuot, which falls on 6 Sivan by the rabbinic calendar that Judaism follows today |
| The Yom Kippur War | October 6, 1973 | The holiest day of Israel’s year, the Day of Atonement itself (10 Tishrei) |
| The Hamas attack | October 7, 2023 | “The eighth day … a holy convocation” (Leviticus 23:36) after the seven days of Sukkot, the day observed in Israel as both Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah (22 Tishrei) |
The brutal attack of October 7, 2023, on “the eighth day” (Leviticus 23:36), brought home the spiritual reality of why the spirit of Babylon, the spirit of Satan, so hates the appointed times of God. Watching what has unfolded since then in Israel, Iran, and across the Middle East, we take to heart again the words “I will sit on the mountain of appointed time (moed)” (Isaiah 14:13). And we take to heart the warning Yeshua Himself gave on the Mount of Olives:
Matthew 24:15 Therefore when you see the abomination of desolation which was spoken of through Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place — let the reader understand —
In the face of all these things, we come to trust more fully in the prophecies of Daniel and in Yeshua the Messiah, who is coming again.