Revelation 12
Our reading tonight is from Revelation
chapter 12, verses one through 17. And we tonight make another
turn in Revelation to another set of sevens. We had the seven
churches, the seven bowls, the seven trumpets. and now we’re
to the next cycle. And this, in many respects, may
be one of the most significant sets of cycles we go into because
it connects with Genesis 3, a passage and theme we are familiar with,
but it also gives us a picture. of, well, it gives us a picture
in the first six verses of maybe our view of what’s taking place
between the church and Satan. And then when we get to verses
seven through 17, we get a picture of what heaven’s view of the
battle between Satan and the church looks like. So let’s begin by reading together,
starting at verse one of chapter 12. says, and a great sign appeared
in heaven, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under
her feet and on her head, a crown of 12 stars. She was pregnant. She was crying out in birth pains
and the agony of giving birth. And another sign appeared in
heaven and behold a great red dragon with seven heads and 10
horns and on its head, seven diadems. His tail swept down
a third of the stars of heaven. It cast them down to earth and
the dragon stood before the woman who was about to give birth so
that when she bore her child, he might devour it. She gave
birth to a male child, one who is to rule all the nations with
the rod of iron. But her child was caught up to
God and to his throne. And the woman fled into the wilderness
where she has a place prepared by God in which she is to be
nourished for 1,260 days. Now war arose in heaven, Michael
and his angels fighting against the dragon and the dragon and
his angels fought back, but he was defeated and there was no
longer any place for them in heaven. And the great dragon
was thrown down that ancient serpent who is called the devil
and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world. He was thrown down
to the earth and his angels were thrown down with him. And I heard
a loud voice in heaven saying, Now the salvation and the power
and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have
come. For the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down,
who accuses them day and night before our God. And they have
conquered him by the blood of the lamb and by the word of their
testimony, for they love not their lives, even unto death.
Therefore rejoice, O heavens, and you who dwell in them. But
woe to you, O earth and sea, for the devil has come down to
you in great wrath, because he knows that his time is short.
And when the dragon saw that he had been thrown down to the
earth, he pursued the woman who had given birth to the male child.
But the woman was given the two wings of the great eagle so that
she might fly from the serpent into the wilderness, to the place
where she is to be nourished for a time and times and a half
a time. The serpent poured water like
a river out of his mouth after the woman to sweep her away with
a flood. But the earth came to the help
of the woman and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed the river.
that the dragon had poured out from its mouth. Then the dragon
became furious with the woman and went off to make war on the
rest of her offspring, on those who keep the commandments of
God and hold to the testimony of Jesus. And he stood on the
sand of the sea.” Amen, this is God’s holy and inspired word. Well, who are the enemies of
the church? Some might say it’s the lawmakers,
they’re taking away our religious freedom. Some would say the enemies
of the church are the heretics, those who are teaching and espousing
false doctrine. Others might say the enemies
of the church are wolves in sheep clothing, those who come into
the church dressed as sheep but are really ravenous wolves who
are seeking to devour the people. Or step it up a notch, who are
the enemies of the church. It’s Satan and his minions, or
his demons. Or here in our passage, the dragon,
the beast. Later in Revelation, the harlot
and those with the mark of the beast. We can distinguish between
the church’s enemies, those who are maybe local or on this earth,
and those who are spiritual and demonic and have some extra powers. Remember what Paul says, we fight
not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and
the powers of this present darkness. And one thing we have to remember
as Christians, we are the gathered people of the Lord Jesus Christ.
He has gathered us out of the world for God, for an eternal
inheritance. And as a church, we are an outpost
of heaven, but in hell’s territory. And that’s not something we think
about very often. I would imagine if you were a
soldier in one of the world wars and you were on the war front,
you were in the theater of war and you were in enemy territory,
you would know it. And not only would you know it,
you would not eat, drink and be merry. because you are in
hostile territory. But sometimes I wonder if, as
Christians, if we remember that we’re in hostile territory. A
lot of times we do a little too much of the eating and drinking
and being merry, and maybe we don’t mind enemy territory. Maybe
we don’t mind it so much. No, we… invited into our homes. We dabble with it daily and we’re
enamored with it. And quite frankly, when sometimes
we think of the prospect of being ushered into God’s presence in
heaven, we think about the things down here that we might have
to pry our fingers off and leave behind. I mean, what do you think? What do we think about our American
culture. Just think about in the last
50 years since post-World War II. Just think for a moment about
the riches of Americans. We’ve moved from simple homes. We used to be happy with three
or four rooms, with a bathroom and a simple kitchen, and now
we have to live in these McMansions. everybody has to have a bedroom
and so the kids can get along they get their own bathroom and
might as well give them a tv room as well and we have the
man cave we have the she shed we have the family room which
in which the family never gathers we have dining rooms in which
the family never eats but we live in these mcmansions only
to separate ourselves but we ensconce them with granite and
copper and all these sorts of things and i think very sadly
we would be quite happy staying down here for a pretty good while. But we need to remember, dear
friends, that we are living as Christians in hostile enemy hell’s
territory. And it would be easy for us who
are mindful of these things to become discouraged and say, look,
Satan is winning. It would be easy for us to be
overwhelmed and say, I don’t know if the church will make
it. It would be easy for us who are
unsure to say, can I make a difference? Is it worth following Jesus?
Can we overcome this world? And so the people of God from
time to time need encouragement. We need to be reminded that we
are, yes, the church, and we are in hardship, but God always
provides for his people in hardship. And so tonight we want to think
about God’s devil. It’s a wonderful phrase from
Martin Luther. Reminds us as we read his writings
that yes, the devil is strong. Yes. The devil is powerful We
don’t want to commit one of two errors one by saying the devil
is just a joke. He’s just a pointy-eared fellow
with a long tail that has a sticky end on it and he carries about
a pitchfork and maybe he’s red. No, those come from the caricatures
of the devil from the medieval times. They figured if they made
fun of him, he would, because he was a prideful being, he might
tuck his tail and walk away. But we also don’t want to think
the devil has too much power. He’s not God. The things we read
earlier in our larger catechism about the providence and decrees
of God, they are not true of Satan. Satan can’t do his holy
will or his unholy will. Satan can’t do what he pleases.
Remember in the prologue to Job, he had to ask permission to give
Job a dose of trouble. And so we need to remember that
God always provides for his people in hardship and the devil is
God’s devil. Think of him this way. I think
I mentioned to you before that in our family’s furniture business,
I can remember this as a kid up at our warehouses, we had
a chain link fence and we had a gate that shut and locked and
a house on either side of the entrance to the driveway, you
had to pass through and one of the houses had a dog. It was
one of those Doberman pinchers. And that dog, the food was provided
for and that dog was meant to keep anybody who wanted furniture
for free out of those warehouses. It was not home of the five finger
discount. And so. That Doberman pincher
served as a deterrent to theft. But that Doberman pincher was
on a chain, and that chain was staked into the ground. That’s
illegal now. I think they call it dog tethering.
It’s inhumane. I still haven’t figured out how
inhumane applies to animals, because humane applies to humanity. But animals have more rights
than we do, but that’s a different story. That’s a different end
times problem, isn’t it? But anyway, this dog could only
go so far if he lunged, guess what? the chain would stop him. And you could go up to the fence
and you could taunt that dog and he would come lunging at
you, but guess what? The chain, and you hoped the choker around
his neck would stop him. And that’s how we must think
of the devil. He’s God’s devil and God has him on a chain. And
he may be a Doberman pincher. He may be a pit bull. He may
be a frothy mouth, sharp tooth dog, but he’s God’s devil. So a couple of things we want
to think about in this passage. as we look at it this evening.
The first is, in our passage, we find an age-old promise. Let me ask you a question. Where
would you go in the Bible to find the gospel? Some of you
would say John 14. Some of you would say John 3.16.
Some of you would say it’s in the Sermon on the Mount. It’s
in the Beatitudes. Some of you would say it’s in
maybe Paul’s summary in Romans. It’s in one of Paul’s summaries
in Corinthians or Colossians, and you would be right. But is
the gospel in the Old Testament? It is, and it first finds its
place in Genesis chapter three, the passage we read just a little
bit ago. What does God promise in the midst of pain and suffering
due to Adam and Eve and all mankind for sin? He promises the hope. of a savior. He promises a gospel. He promises to Eve, you’re going
to have a baby and that baby is going to make war with the
serpent. And here we have in chapter 12,
this ancient serpent still waging war with the saints. And we remember
that God throughout the history of his people, has done what
he’s done for Adam and Eve. He’s come looking and he’s clothed
his people with his righteousness. He says to us, your fig leaves
won’t do, your own works of righteousness will not do. It takes the shedding
of blood, it takes death to cover your nakedness. And so we remember
in Genesis 3, God pronounced curses and one of those curses
would be this age old battle between God’s people and the
serpent. But God in Genesis 3 speaks of
one to be born who will save. And so from Adam to Christ, God’s
people of the old covenant had faith in the Messiah, just as
we do now. And this son, this seed, this
offspring, he would be the king of Psalm 2, who would defeat
Satan, who would rule with an iron rod. And from of old, we
see the gospel. We see the age old promise. that
there will be this continual cosmic battle. And I want you
to think just for a second practically about this cosmic battle. God
says to Satan, you’ll nip at the heels of the people. Can
you imagine walking along a path? Sometimes you walk through tall
grass. And if it’s summertime, what do you think? I don’t want
a snake to bite me on the ankle. That’s what happened to my dad
a few years ago, getting the mail. A snake came out of the
grass and bit him on the ankle. So anytime we go to their house
where the grass is tall and it’s kind of wooded, we do a little
high step through the yard because guess what? We don’t want to
get nipped on the heel. We don’t want a snake bite. But
that’s all God tells Satan that he can do is, you’ll be a heel
nipper. And we go through life with these
nips, these nips, nips, nips, where Satan is trying to wear
us down, just nipping at us, nipping at us, nipping at us,
do this, do that, love this, love that, hate your family,
hate the church, don’t follow Christ, love the world, chase
money, pursue things that are not part of the kingdom of God,
but what does God promise? One day, a son will come and
he will crush the serpent’s head. Sometimes at Easter, we sing,
sing choirs of new Jerusalem. And I think it’s in the second
line, there’s that stanza. Sing choirs of new Jerusalem.
He’s crushed the serpent’s head. Christ cries aloud through death’s
dark domain. He’s won the victory. And so
there’s this age old promise of the gospel, but there’s also
this age old battle. We’ve spoken of it a little bit,
but I want us to think about it in light of the whole of scripture
for a moment. Some of you may think our situation
is unique. You may flip through the channels
and you may watch some of these end times prophecy preachers
and they say, you know, anytime somebody says this, you know,
they’re probably wrong. Never in the history of mankind Right? Well, what does Ecclesiastes
say? There’s nothing new under the sun. So when a preacher says,
never in the history of mankind, that preacher’s not read Ecclesiastes,
most likely. But they say something like this,
never in the history of the time have things been so bad. Well,
they’ve not read their history books. They’ve not read about
Nero. They’ve not read about Domitian
or Diocletian. They’ve not read about Joseph
Stalin or Hitler or the persecution in Eritrea or what’s taking place
in China. They believe that it’s only bad
for them and it couldn’t get worse for anyone else. So sometimes
we think our situation is unique, but it’s been bad for a long
time. It’s been bad since the garden. Remember what took place
right after the garden. What happened first in Adam and
Eve’s family? Cain and Abel went to worship
God. God had regard for one of them’s worship, Abel’s. But for
Cain’s worship, he had no regard. And what did Cain do? Did he
say, well, that’s great, Abel. I’m glad God accepted your offering. I’m going to be charitable and
pat you on the back and say, good job, friend. Teach me something.
No, he took him out in the field and he killed him. And it got
from there worse and worse. worse and so we see the evening
news we see the headlines we wonder what’s gone wrong with
the world and we forget about Genesis chapter 3 and how by
the time you get to chapter 4 there’s Cain there’s Abel and pretty
soon after that there’s Lamech who says he would kill 70 people
for hurting his pride and on and on it goes so Cain kills
Abel but as God’s plan of redemption thwarted. No. Adam and Eve have
who? Oh, Seth. And from Seth and from
his offspring, the word of God tells us that people began to
call on the name of the Lord. Seth’s sons marry Cain’s offspring
and you think, oh no, The promise of God and the line of the Messiah
can’t happen. But then along comes Noah. Noah
finds favor in the eyes of the Lord. Well, then there’s Abraham.
Abraham almost dies without having a son. But what does God give
him in his old age? He gives him Isaac. Well, just
when Isaac is growing and making his father proud, what does God
ask of Abraham? Sacrifice Isaac. Take your son,
your only son, Isaac, the one whom you love, and put him on
the altar. but God provides a ram in the thicket. Then there’s
Rebecca. She’s barren, yet Jacob is born. Then there’s Jacob and Esau who
in the womb are literally at each other’s throats. Jacob literally
means the heel grasper. They struggle in the womb and
they struggle outside the womb. The father and mother pit one
another, one boy against the other. But after Jacob and Esau,
there is peace. They pursue one another and Esau
goes his way. We have the father of Middle Eastern folks this day.
And we have Jacob, the patriarch of Israel. And then a little
bit down the line, when God rescues his people out of Egypt, lo and
behold, what do they do? As soon as they get out of Egypt
and are supposed to worship God, they build a golden calf. But
God raises up a deliverer. There’s Moses. And on and on
we could go. We could speak of Saul and David.
We could speak of Ahab and Jezebel and the wicked daughter Athaliah.
Yet there’s Joash, there’s darkness in Israel’s history of idolatry
and wickedness and pagan worship. Yet there’s the promise that
a virgin will conceive and bring forth a son. There’s in the life
of the Jewish people, there’s wicked Haman, but there’s also
Esther and Mordecai. There’s Herod who wants to put
Jesus, the baby, to death. but God puts Mary and Joseph
to flight. And what you see just in this
Old Testament survey really is that nothing has ever stopped
God’s seed. The serpent always fails. He always fails. And so put this
into your life, your perspective. Maybe make it hit close to home
and you think about has the serpent been deceptive in the life of
your church? Or has the serpent been deceptive
in the life of your family? Has the serpent brought evil
upon people that you know and love? Has the serpent brought
harm to your life? We must remember he can nip at
the heel. But God and Christ will crush
the head. The serpent always fails. But what does our passage tell
us? He is mad. He knows, as Martin Luther’s
Mighty Fortress hymn teaches us, he knows his doom is sure. And how many words will fail
him? One. little word. He’s going to be
a failure. He’s going to not succeed. The gates of hell will not prevail
against God and his people. His church will prevail. So we’ve
got age old promise, the gospel, an age old battle between Satan
and the people of God. But we also have an everlasting
savior. And in our passage, there is
a picture of a woman who is pregnant and She is going to give birth
and some see her as the Virgin Mary, others see her as simply
the church begetting more and more Christians. You know from
of old, people have always indicated the church with the feminine
pronoun. We speak of the church as her
or she. But we speak of the church as
our mother. God is our father, the church
is our mother. And so we understand this passage most likely just
to simply mean the church continues to give birth to covenant children,
to more children of God. And what do you think Satan hates
more? He hates when the church grows. Heaven rejoices when one
comes to faith. That’s what we’re told in scripture.
But what do you think Satan and the pits of hell do. They tremble. They tremble that God’s army
is growing and that people are bowing the knee to Jesus and
that God, not Satan, is getting the glory. But here we have the
picture of a woman pregnant, soon to give birth. And it’s
as if maybe in our modern thinking, we think of this serpent trying
to sneak into the birthing room and nurses scrubs. And he has
to hide his bifurcated tail and all that, right, in the scrubs.
But he wants, what does he want to do? Welcome the little child
into the world? No, he wants to eat the child. He wants to
devour the child, but God protects his own. And the child, the mother,
they’re caught up, they’re protected. And the church, dear brothers
and sisters, is protected by God. The other picture of protection
here is that God leads us through the wilderness. You know, sometimes
we think It was only the Old Testament Israelites who were
in the wilderness. It was only the Old Testament
disobedient people who were exiled into Babylon. But you know what?
Peter speaks of us as strangers and exiles. God uses in the Bible
the same language to us, the church, that he did for the wandering
Israelites. through the desert of Sinai.
He uses the same language in the New Testament of us, the
church, as the exiles away from Jerusalem, but longing for the
eternal presence and worship of Almighty God. And so one of
the things we have to consider of ourselves as we are marching
to Zion is we are strangers. We are pilgrims. We are aliens.
We are exiles. This is not our home. This is
the earthly city. This is Babylon and we are marching
to Zion. Jerusalem, but God protects us. God looks after us and over us. And just as he fed and nourished
his people in the wilderness, just as Elijah could pray for
rain, he could be fed by the ravens, just as the people of
God in Sinai could eat bread from heaven and water from the
rock and the quail that God provided, God can give us our daily bread. He always provides for his people
in hardship. and he can give us peace. He
can allow us to worship and to witness. He can give us life
in the midst of hostility and scorn, in the midst of the threat
of being snuffed out and persecuted, in the midst of alienation and
trial and trauma. God will protect us. And the devil, yes, he’s a threat.
But remember this, he is God’s devil. Let’s pray together. Our Lord, we give you thanks
for this your word that brings to us encouragement that when
things seem dark, when things seem to bring despair to our
minds and hearts, we can look again to the truth and see what
is good and right and true and be encouraged to lift our eyes
up to heaven, to get our eyes off the things of this world
and to trust Christ more and to power through and to prevail
and to live lives of faith as we press on and keep the faith.
May it be so in our lives. We pray in Jesus name. Amen.