Now, can there be found a rationale for this dreadful twist in human affairs--this seeming unfathomable conundrum? We cannot believe that God would create a "footstool" in which sin, suffering, and misery were to abound; no such provision could have been in the divine plan. In the Word of God alone we find the explanation of it all. The Word gives an unmistakable account of an insurrection in heaven: "Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon fought and his angels, and prevailed not." This strange warfare was inaugurated by the great archangelic leader.
This "war in heaven" could have but one ending: the complete overthrow of the disturber and his followers. They were cast out, and are, beyond a doubt, swarming around this sin-blinded planet--invisible, yet personal and all but omnipresent. When we remember that one-third of the angelic population of heaven cast their lot with this chieftain, his strength and personality can be somewhat understood. It is written: "The tail (influence) of the dragon drew the third part of the stars (angels) of heaven, and cast them down to the earth." In their relation to heaven, the dragon and his angels met with irremediable ruin; now, defeated, humiliated, maddened, doomed, this fallen archangel and his innumerable myrmidons are filling the whole earth with every curse that can be conjured up by their superior, supernatural intelligence. There can be no room to doubt the truth of this hellish propaganda, as he is called the "god of this world."
It must be kept clearly in mind that the powers of darkness can, in no sense, mean an ethereal, impersonal spirit of evil--or perverseness of weak human nature; but rather a Being who rules and commands legions upon legions of subjects--_demons_, each of them endowed with all the powers and gifts possessed when they were ministering emissaries of God. They are now "the angels which kept not their first estate."
We have no way to estimate the size of this satanic army, marshalled for the destruction of the race and the overthrow of Christ's kingdom. However, we read in the tenth chapter of Revelation that two hundred million were turned loose in the earth at one time. Ten thousand were in the country of the Gadarenes when the Master entered there; no wonder the entire land was kept in terror, even though their incarnation seemed to have been limited to one man living in a graveyard. Seven demons were cast out of one woman.