Good morning.
My name is Kimberly.
Today's scripture reading is from Revelation, chapter 12, verses 1 through 17.
This is on page 1063 in the Bible, in the back of the pews.
A great sign appeared in heaven, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet,
and a crown of twelve stars on her head.
She was pregnant and cried out in labor and agony as she was about to give birth.
Then another sign appeared in heaven.
There was a great fiery red dragon having seven heads and ten horns, and on its heads
were seven crowns.
Its tail swept away a third of the stars in heaven and hurled them to the earth.
And the dragon stood in front of the woman who was about to give birth, so that when
she did give birth, it might devour her child.
She gave birth to a son, a male, who is going to rule all nations with an iron rod.
Her child was caught up to God and to his throne.
The woman fled into the wilderness, where she had a place prepared by God to be nourished
there for 1260 days.
Then war broke out in heaven.
Michael and his angels fought against the dragon.
The dragon and his angels also fought, but he could not prevail, and there was no place
for them in heaven any longer.
So the great dragon was thrown out, the ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan,
the one who deceives the whole world.
He was thrown to earth and his angels with him.
Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say, the salvation and the power and the kingdom of
our God and the authority of his Christ has now come, because the accuser of our brothers
and sisters who accuses them before our God day and night has been thrown down.
They conquered him by the blood of the lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they
did not love their lives to the point of death.
Therefore rejoice you heavens and you who dwell in them.
Woe to the earth and the sea, because the devil has come down to you with great fury,
because he knows his time is short.
When the dragon saw that he'd been thrown down to earth, he persecuted the woman who
had given birth to the male child.
The woman was given two wings of a great eagle so that she could fly from the serpent's presence
to her place in the wilderness, where she was nourished for a time, times, and half
a time.
From his mouth, the serpent spewed water like a river, flowing after the woman to sweep
her away with the flood.
But the earth helped the woman.
The earth opened its mouth and swallowed up the river that the dragon had spewed from
his mouth.
So the dragon was furious with the woman and went off to wage war against the rest of her
offspring.
Those who keep the commands of God and hold firmly to the testimony about Jesus.
This is God's word.
Thank you, Kimberly.
Imagine being a U.S. diplomat in a foreign land.
You've dedicated your life to serving your country when suddenly you're struck by a mysterious
ailment, headaches, difficulty concentrating, memory issues, even brain damage, all stemming
from an unknown source.
This isn't a plot from a spy novel.
It is actually a real life ordeal that some of our U.S. diplomats experienced in a few
nations, particularly China and Cuba.
After extensive study, the National Academy of Science concluded that what was likely
going on, these ailments that they experienced in these countries, was what is called directed
pulsed radio frequencies, an unseen yet potent force that affected the brain, affected the
brain chemistry, and even caused damage, permanent damage to their brains.
It is believed that it was purposeful.
It was an attempt to undermine the work of the U.S. in those countries.
And what we find in Revelation chapter 12 is a vivid reminder of the unseen realm.
Just as these diplomats faced invisible assaults, we as believers are in constant unseen battle.
Our adversary Satan doesn't attack us with physical weapons, but with spiritual ones
like doubts and fears and accusations.
Like the directed energy that baffled the scientists, his tactics are often cloaked
in mystery, making them all the more challenging for us to combat.
In Revelation chapter 12, we are reminded of a cosmic conflict between good and evil.
Revelation 12 is peeling back the curtain for us, giving you and I a glimpse into that
unseen realm.
And it gives us an angle on the Christmas story, particularly that we are not at all
accustomed to experiencing.
But it's more than just that.
It reveals the story that is behind our story, the story that begins in the garden and ends
with the new heavens and the new earth.
I want to remind you of the words of Revelation chapter 1 verse 3 that says, blessed is the
one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear the words of
this prophecy and keep what is written in it, because the time is near.
Now, some of you may think of Revelation as an intimidating book.
It would be hard to take that macarism that I just read out of Revelation 1 that says,
blessed are you to hear this and to keep its words.
And you go, mostly I'm confused, not blessed when I read Revelation.
And so I want to provide a couple of tools that we're going to need for reading and understanding
Revelation this morning.
The first one is, as one pastor put it, it cannot mean for us what it did not mean for
them.
It cannot mean for us what it did not mean to them.
In other words, they understood it, and we can too.
And the key is not in understanding modern events or deciding, you know, which star is
the Black Hawk helicopters and which one is the this and the that.
It's actually the key to understanding is reading and understanding the scriptures.
Reading and understanding the scriptures, because there is nothing in Revelation that
isn't already been said somewhere else in the Bible.
There's nothing in Revelation that hasn't already been said somewhere else.
And the next tool that we'll need, so the first one is that it can't mean for us what
it didn't mean for them.
It can be understood.
And the next tool is that Revelation is not linear or chronological events.
If you go to Revelation and you think this and then this and then this and then this,
you got a whole lot of things you got to deal with.
But what it's like, it's more like scenes, flashes, and they're marked by then I saw
or then I heard or then this happened.
And for John, the writer of Revelation, it was as if he is looking through windows and
he's seeing different scenes.
And sometimes he'll go from one window to the next and he'll be seeing the same event
from a different angle.
We see that, right?
Movies oftentimes will use that as a play in their cinematography, as they'll show one
event from one angle and then they'll show it from a different perspective.
In other words, it's not what happened next.
It's what did John see next?
That's important.
It's important to remember.
These tools together will help you read apocalyptic literature like Revelations with a keen eye
and maybe a little bit more understanding.
So let's go ahead and jump in to chapter 12.
Chapter 12 gave us two signs.
Twice, it says there was a sign and the first one was the woman.
The first sign is the woman.
Signs are symbolic tools that are used to communicate spiritual truths, prophetic revelations
about events and ongoing cosmic struggles between good and evil.
They're loaded with meaning.
Signs are loaded with meaning.
They're multifaceted.
They don't just have one narrow meaning.
The first sign is a woman.
A woman clothed with the sun and with the moon under her feet and a crown of 12 stars
on her head.
She was pregnant, crying out in labor and agony as she was about to give birth.
It's a crazy picture.
Stars and moons and crowns with 12, you know, with sun and pregnant and labor agony.
It's like, who is she?
Who is this woman?
Well, in verse five, we get a little bit of insight.
Verse five tells us that the son she gives birth to is a male who is going to rule all
nations with an iron rod.
And so some of you are already connecting the dots.
Who is the one who rules with an iron rod?
Jesus, which makes the woman Mary, the mother of Jesus.
The one who rules with an iron rod.
We'll see a little bit later that that comes straight from the scriptures as well.
What's up with the moons and the stars and the suns?
Anyone?
12 tribes, 12.
That's an important number, right?
In fact, the sun, moon and stars is a direct reference back to Joseph.
You remember Joseph had some dreams and it caused some trouble in his family.
Joseph had some dreams and one of those dreams was that the sun, the moon and 11 stars all
bowed down to him.
And his father and mother knew exactly what that meant.
His brothers too.
His brothers killed him for it or threw him in a pit at least.
They knew that the sun represented his father, that the moon represented his mother and that
the 11 represented the sons, the sons of Jacob and Rachel.
11 sons plus one, Joseph is 12.
So who are these people?
They are the patriarchal family of the people of God.
They are the 12 tribes of Israel.
They are the faithful of people of God, the faithful of God who have walked with him.
He called them out beginning with Abraham down to Isaac and now Jacob and Jacob has
the sons who become the 12 tribes of Jacob.
So this woman represents them as well.
Not just Mary but also the people of God before Christ, the Old Testament.
Isaiah 66 already gives the image of the people of God as a whole like a woman.
Isaiah does this frequently but Isaiah 66 uses the imagery of the people of God like
a woman bringing forth sons.
It says before Zion was in labor she gave birth.
Before she was in pain she delivered a boy who has heard of such a thing, who has seen
such things.
Can a land be born in one day or a nation be delivered in an instant?
Yet as soon as Zion was in labor she gave birth to sons.
Will I bring a baby to the point of birth and not deliver it says the Lord or will I
who deliver close the womb says God.
Mary the mother of Jesus, the people of God who have been faithful through the Old Testament
and we will see also loaded into this meaning is that this woman also represents us today,
the church, the faithful after Christ.
If you guys remember we talked on this a little bit a couple weeks back but Genesis chapter
3 we talked about the advent of hope and what is this hope predicated on?
It is the fall of humankind and the necessity to have hope of some sort of deliverer to
come and Genesis 3 talked about the serpent and the offspring of the woman.
We were told that God put enmity between the serpent and the woman between her offspring
and the serpent's offspring and that ultimately the woman's offspring would crush the head
of the serpent and the serpent's offspring would strike the heel of the woman's offspring
and we talked about how this became a picture that is traced throughout the Old Testament.
Much of how the Old Testament story unfolds is how against all odds men and women of faith
but particularly women of faith persevered in the battle to save the people of God from
the serpent's evil schemes.
Yes men were a part of that, women were too and often times evil and evil schemes attack
women and women and children to accomplish their goals.
Through barrenness, abuse, threat of death and rampant evil Sarah, Rebecca, Tamar, Jacobet
and Miriam, Deborah, Ruth and Naomi, Esther and the people of God they faced the threat
of evil as they believed that through them God would bring about the promised serpent
crusher.
This woman here in Revelation 12 represents all of this and as we'll see the faithful
people of God are wrapped up in that imagery, in that sign, the woman.
The second sign that we're told about in Revelation 12 is the dragon.
The next sign is that we see a red dragon and he has seven horns and horns mean rulership.
He has universal authority, seven being the number of completion.
He has complete universal authority albeit that it was given to him for a time it is
not something inherent in him.
He has ten horns and horns means strength.
Throughout the Old Testament you see scriptures that talk about lifting up my horn, is lifting
up my strength, returning to me strength.
He has ten which means he has great strength and seven crowns to rule through the nations
and rulers of this world.
Verse nine tells us that the great dragon is the ancient serpent who is called the
devil and Satan, the one who deceives the whole earth.
He is the ancient serpent.
It says that his tail swept a third of the stars in heaven and hurled them down.
It's probable that this refers to the portion of angels who fell in rebellion against God,
one third.
He is the Genesis three serpent.
The red dragon of Revelation 12 is the Genesis three serpent.
It's the one who was promised would be an enmity with humanity and it was the one that
promised that one from the line of humans would eventually crush his head.
The dragon is the deceiver.
And the next character that we're introduced to in Revelation chapter 12 is the son.
But the son is not introduced as a sign.
See a sign is loaded with meaning and multifaceted, right?
The son is not introduced as a sign.
We're just told our attention is turned to him because he is not a sign.
He is someone specific.
The dragon stood in front of the woman who was also about to give birth so that when
she did give birth, it would devour her child.
She gave birth to a son, a male who was going to rule all nations with an iron rod.
Her child was caught up to God and to his throne.
Here's that iron rod again.
He will rule with an iron rod is a reference back to one of the most powerful messianic
Psalms, Psalm two, where the anointed son breaks the authority of the evil nations with
an iron scepter.
He is the son, Christ, Jesus.
And where in scripture do we see the dragon plotting to kill the newborn king?
Is it not Matthew chapter two?
Matthew two, Herod, the wicked ruler orders that every male child under the age of two
in the region of Bethlehem be murdered so that he can once for all put a stop to the
seat of the woman, the promised king.
And it's interesting this connection between the iron rod, Herod and his orders in Psalm
two, because Psalm two actually began with a question.
This powerful messianic Psalm begins with a question.
Why do the nations rage and the people's plot in vain?
The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers conspire together against the Lord
and his anointed one.
Why?
Because the dragon, the serpent is deceiving and manipulating and trying to destroy the
work of God.
He's using authorities and powers.
Remember, he has crowns on his head.
He has authority and he works through nations and rulers in an attempt to destroy the work
of God.
We see that with Herod.
Each ruler has the choice.
Will they rule with righteousness as an image bearer of God or will they rule as the serpent
destroying the work of God?
Everyone made his choice.
But we're told that the son was caught up to God and to his throne.
In his ascension, after his work was complete, it's interesting how Revelation 12 just skips
over all of it and goes right to, he's caught up to God.
His work is complete.
He sits down next to the throne.
Says that the woman, the faithful people of God, the church now enter a time of wilderness.
The place where in the past, if you guys remember the wilderness motif, what was the wilderness
motif?
It was a place of testing.
It was a place where God would lead and guide them if they would trust in him for their
provision.
For step by step, he would go before them, but it was not a place of comfort.
The wilderness was a place of trust and testing.
Would they place their trust in God as their strength in their provision?
It was a place where God would lead his people, be it the people of Israel after Egypt going
through the wilderness or Elijah fleeing from the queen Jezebel or Jesus in his time of
testing in the wilderness.
Would he rely upon God?
Eugene Peterson said once, it is John's spirit appointed task to superintend, let's get this,
there it is.
It is John's spirit appointed task to supplement the work of Matthew and Luke so that the nativity
cannot be sentimentalized into coziness nor domesticated into worldliness.
This is not the nativity story we grew up with, but it is the nativity story all the
same.
Jesus's birth excites more than wonder.
It excites evil.
Evil knows what this birth means for evil.
The passage in Revelation 12 then shifts back after talking about the son to retelling the
story from the perspective of the heavenly realm.
So listen to this.
Again remember we're getting glimpses.
This is not chronological order.
This is in a different story.
This is the same story told from a different angle.
We're now in heaven as the Christ child is born.
It says then war broke out in heaven.
Michael and his angels fought against the dragon.
The dragon, his angels also fought, but he could not prevail and there was no place for
them in heaven any longer.
So the great dragon was thrown down, the serpent, the ancient serpent who was called the devil
and Satan, the one who deceives the whole world.
He was thrown down to earth and his angels with him.
And then I heard a loud voice in heaven say, the salvation and the power and the kingdom
of our God and the authority of his Christ has now come because the accuser of our brother
who accuses them day and night before God has been thrown down.
They conquered him by the blood of the lamb and the word of their testimony for they did
not love their lives to the point of death.
Therefore rejoice you heavens and you who dwell in them.
The woe to the earth and the sea because the devil has come down to you with great fury
because he knows his time is short.
Right here we get profound insight into the reality into which you and I were born.
The reality that we were born is that there is a battle that had already taken place in
heaven and the dragon and his angels were overcome and thrown down to earth.
I heard one preacher say that the Greek there is actually means bounced.
The devil got bounced.
If you're into slang, let's bounce.
The devil and his angels got bounced from the heavenlies down to earth.
They were evicted.
They were kicked out of heaven and for a time they are loose on the earth.
And we're told woe to the earth and the sea because the devil has come down to you with
great fury because he knows his time is short.
The focus of the war has switched from the war in the heavens to the war here on earth.
The war behind every war is a spiritual cosmic war and one of the parties in that war is
a wounded desperate serpent whose fury is great to destroy the work of God.
And through accusation, through deception and death, Satan attempts to wreak havoc on
the faithful people of God.
Just read it.
We don't have time to really dig into all of the chapter 12 there, but read it with
the eyes that the woman represents the collective faithful people of God.
And you'll see he's wreaking havoc.
He first goes after her, it says, and he attempts to persecute her.
But there's some grace that God gives.
And so then he goes off to find the offspring of the woman throughout the world that he
can bring his fury against.
Accusation, deception and death, Satan attempts to wreak havoc on the faithful people of the
world.
Why are things difficult?
Why are things the way that they are?
Why is there affliction?
Why suffering and death?
Why the mocking and scourging?
Why the accusations?
This is why.
This is why Satan is raging against the people of God.
Don't fall prey to his evil schemes.
Why is there always opposition when the people of God are on mission to spread the good news
of the gospel?
We, my dear ladies that I meet with on Tuesday for Bible study, one of my highlights of my
week, I go to Campus Commons and I meet with some dear ladies plus Kim.
No, I was going to say dear old ladies plus Kim.
But Kim is older than me, so she's, you know.
I will say though, Ron, a gentleman from Campus Commons has joined our Bible study, so there's
a little more testosterone in the room.
We are, we were going through the book, or we are going through the book of Hebrews,
we broke for the holiday here.
We're going through the book of Hebrews and we made it to the hall of faith.
You guys know the hall of faith?
By faith this person, by faith that person.
And then it gets down to that like crescendo part where it's like just going, like man
they're this, that, they receive their dead back, their sons back from the dead, they
overcame this, they resisted that, they da da da.
And then it just switches right in the middle, it's like, and then they were sawn in half
and they were torn apart and they were ripped to shreds and they counted it a joy that they
would suffer for the gospel.
Why are they torn apart?
Why are they sawn in half?
Why are the nations raging?
They're raging against the work of God.
Jesus has gone to sit at the right hand of God and will surely come again.
And when he comes, he comes not as the first one in John 3, 16.
God so loved the world that he gave his only son that whoever believes in him shall not
perish but have everlasting life.
What's the next verse?
God did not come, he did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, right?
But to save the world, that was the first advent.
The second advent, he comes.
And the image that we have of the Jesus who comes is not the cute little baby who needs
his passey and a little like, woo.
No, no, it's Jesus dressed in white, stained with the blood from trampling the grapes of
wrath.
Dressed in white, stained with the blood, tattoo on his thigh, eyes blazing like fire,
a sword coming out of his mouth.
Jesus returns to judge the living and the dead.
Satan knows his time is coming.
And all who have followed the path of evil, all who have said, here's my choice, I will
rule in righteousness with the authority God has given to see that God receives the glory
or I will rule with selfishness and I will rule in line with the evil one and I will
follow his ways.
That's how you become the offspring.
That's how you are the seed of the serpent or the woman.
The woman, the promise that God would bring about someone who would crush.
Those who walked faithfully are represented in the woman.
Those who said, forget it.
I want what I want.
Who rule with evil intent.
Who rule with selfish ambition.
They've chosen and God comes to judge.
Why all the affliction?
Why all the suffering and death?
Don't fall prey to his evil schemes.
We can expect that if we are aiming to be on mission as a church fellowship, if Village
is going to be on mission to bring the gospel to life, we will experience the fury of the
dragon.
We will.
He will make every attempt to accuse.
He will make every attempt to deceive and to produce in us fear because fear is the
enemy of faith.
And fear causes us to shrink back and shrivel.
And I love that about Hebrews when the writer of Hebrews says, that's what it causes.
And he says, but you're not of those.
You're not like that.
You're not the ones who drift away or you're not the ones who shrink back.
We're not like that.
But we have to be prepared.
We have to know the evil schemes of the enemy.
And so I want to say to us, expect a fight.
It's already been going on.
Maybe you've been oblivious to it.
Maybe for you, it's been like those those directed microwaves.
And you're like, I don't know why I've got headaches all the time and why I'm irritable
and why I don't like all the people at church.
I don't know why.
He will try to deceive you into forgetting the gospel, and he will try to deceive you
instead and and lead you into believing that you must be good enough for God to love you.
He will try to deceive you.
I promise you, he will try to convince you that it is your lack of goodness, your lack
of being good.
God does not love you because of that.
That is deception.
That is evil.
That is anti gospel.
It is not what we do, but it's what Christ has done.
He will tell you lies about other people and try to divide us.
He will say that these people around you, they don't care about you really.
He will say that they're not fighting for you.
They don't really love you.
He will try to deceive you.
Anything that can divide us.
He will accuse you by saying that you are terrible at praying.
What kind of Christian are you?
You can't even pray for five minutes without getting distracted.
He will accuse you.
And he will attempt you to believe and tempt you to repeat that story.
How many of you are guilty of that?
I'm not very good at praying.
You just repeated the lie of the enemy.
You just spoke the gospel, the anti gospel of the snake.
Don't go around quoting the anti gospel of the snake.
Quote truth.
He will accuse you and say that you're terrible at reading your Bible because you skipped
those days.
Or you're terrible.
You must not have the spirit because you don't understand what you're reading all the time.
He will lie to you.
And he will tempt you to believe and repeat that story.
Don't preach the anti gospel of the serpent.
He will accuse you by saying you can never share the gospel.
You?
What do you know?
And you will be tempted to believe that and tell that story over and over again.
He will tempt you to believe that you do not need the fellowship, that you don't need instruction
in the word of God, and that you don't need to sing songs in worship, and that you don't
need to care and love for your brothers and sisters in the faith.
And what he will do is he will steal love from them by lying to you and getting you
to withhold what God has commanded you to give to them.
He will lie to you.
Don't believe the lie and he'll steal from them because you believe the lie.
We need you.
We need your love.
We need your counsel.
We need your encouragement.
I need your encouragement.
Don't believe the lie.
He will steal love.
He wants you to run from the things that will bring you life.
And so he'll do anything he can to make them look like death.
One pastor said, accusation gets its power from agreement.
Accusation gets its power from agreement.
When you believe it and you start telling the story, stop believing it.
Stop repeating the story.
Stop measuring your reality by the word of God alone.
What he says is yours is yours.
Who he says you are in Christ, you are.
What he says he will do in and through you, believe it and tell that story.
Tell that story to brothers and sisters.
Seeing that story in song, he will do it.
He will do it.
I'll give a little, bind the curtain here.
I came in today probably feeling the most something down, discouraged that I felt in
the entire time I've ever been here.
I knew I was preaching this.
And so I kind of had a little bit of a cue that maybe something might be up.
I was hopeful that, yeah, I could discern the schemes of the enemy at least a little
bit this many years in, but who knows?
I get blindsided all the time.
But I was coming in and honestly, I was kind of doing that flip the Bible, like looking
for something.
I don't know what I was looking for, but I was just looking.
And I landed on Psalm 23 of all things.
And as I thought about the new year and I thought about where we're at and we were sitting
here praying together, and it just struck me.
As a congregation, we've moved to the CSB as our translation of choice because it's
a little easier than ESV, but a little bit more literal than NIV.
We don't need to get into that.
But I don't know that I've ever read exactly the way that it said it in the CSB or how
it translated it, but it chose to translate.
In fact, let me read it right out so I don't butcher it.
The Lord spoke to me this morning and it just, it really hit me.
And so why not go off script?
All right, Psalm 23.
The last line, right before it, it says, you prepare a table before me in the presence
of my enemies.
You anoint my head with oil, my cup overflows.
And then it said this, only goodness and faithful love will pursue me all the days of my life.
And I would dwell in the house of the Lord as long as I live.
Surely goodness, and I've heard that version before, only, and it connected to me back
to the verse before, enemies.
Enemies pursue us, hot on our trail.
We're trying to outrun them and we're looking over our shoulder constantly in fear that
they're about to overtake us and take us down.
And the writer of Psalm 23 says, only goodness and faithful love will pursue me all the days
of my life.
The only thing over my shoulder is his goodness and his faithful love.
I don't need to be looking back for enemies.
I don't need to be cowering in fear.
That's the only thing behind me that's pushing me and moving me along is his goodness and
faithful love.
That's the story I'm telling myself today.
When the dragon seeks to intimidate us with death, I want us to remember this too, that
Jesus flipped the script.
Jesus flipped the script on death like nothing else.
Evil only ever had death as the ultimate fear to hold over any of our heads.
That's all it ever had was death.
We could hold death over our heads and say, I will hurt your body.
I will torture you.
I will abuse you and you will die.
Run in fear for death, from death.
But what did Jesus do?
What's at the heart of the gospel?
For the faithful people of God, Jesus flipped the script and made death ultimate gain.
He went right over and took it right out of the enemy's hands.
And he says, that thing that you've been holding over people is the doorway into life, into
ultimate gain.
Death, where is your sting?
Fear where is your power?
For the faithful people of God, death is ultimate gain.
He emptied the dragon of power by flipping the script and making the very thing that
Satan taunted every human being with since the fall of mankind death, he made it the
doorway to life.
First in his own body and then extending it to us.
As we are hours away from the new year, I want to challenge you.
Punching in and out on Sunday mornings will not be enough for the fight that we are in.
They conquered him by the blood of the lamb, by the word of their testimony.
And they did not love their lives to the point of death.
I want us all to wake up to the fights, the cosmic reality, the battle that is raging
right now as we prepare to head into a new year.
Discipleship, frequent gatherings for encouragement, frequent, I'm not just saying for your encouragement.
Look around you, look to your left, look to your right, your brothers and sisters, frequent
gatherings for encouragement, reading, studying and obeying the scripture, fervent prayers
together.
We always want to compartmentalize our faith and make it something that's very private.
And I love the way one pastor put it once, your faith is personal, very deeply personal,
but it is in no way private.
There are a plethora of scriptures, a plethora of scriptures that do not address us as individuals,
but address us as a whole.
And so we need discipleship, we need frequent gathering for encouragement, reading, studying
and obeying the scripture.
We need fervent prayers.
If we are going to build a kingdom fellowship of Christ honoring disciples, we need everyone
in this fight.
Will you pray with me?