Alright, we continue now our sermon series.
Hail to the victor, our journey through the book of revelations.
We've hit really, we've gone through the preamble, we've gone through a lot thus far.
But now we're going to get into an area of revelation that is often interpreted many different ways.
Is often, that's not even a word, that's why you're laughing Nikki, yeah. What am I trying to say?
Interpreted, thank you. People try to interpretate it too, but that's done wrong.
We can get lost in these next four chapters. There's a lot of symbolism and we're going to talk through
what I believe a good exegesis is of the book of revelation.
We're going to see symbols, we're going to see characters that people, they throw at real life people.
We're going to see the word antichrist. We're going to see this, kind of not only this cosmic battle,
we're going to see these beasts. And that the, much like everything in revelation, if it's not a,
like the famine or the earthquake or the stars falling or the earth, a third of people dying,
that there's apocalyptic pictures that do mean things. So it's not maybe a beast for a beast's sake,
but this dream that is coming from the Holy Spirit through the apostle John means certain things.
If we go back to the very beginning of revelation, we know that there are those four different ways
that you can read and interpret the book of revelation. And understand, here's where the rubber meets the road.
Because there are widely accepted, through scholars much smarter than me, that have dove into the Greek
and gone back to the Hebrew of what these are. But then there is a lot of other thought that is given some scholarship
to trying to determine who these people are. Right? And so again, you know me, I don't really preach politics
too much, and I know for some of you that makes you mad, for some of you you're glad. Either way, a lot of these,
and again, when we threw this sermon series in a couple years ago, at no time did I think we were going to be,
it was going to be the election year, I didn't think about it, nor did I think at the time that we were hitting these
that we would be two weeks prior to the presidential election. And the tendency here for this week and next week
is going to try to bind everything that these chapters in Revelation say to what that Tuesday will look like in November.
And so as your pastor, as your shepherd, as your leader, I'm going to tell you two things. First, calm down.
Read the scriptures the way they are meant to be read, because understand a couple things that God in His sovereignty
and in His wisdom did not put the fate of the kingdom of God on the United States political system.
That the kingdom of God is not going to come through the political system. If God needed the USA and the political system
in the United States to be the key catalyst to the kingdom of God, then He wouldn't be sovereign.
And a lot of us, we probably wouldn't be smart. So understand that we want to tie a bunch of these chapters
into what's happening right now over the next three weeks. And I think if we do that too much, I think we miss
what the message actually is. Okay, so I'm going to ask for an umbrella of grace for you and for me
and for people that we know in the sanctuary don't see things the same way. And for all of you that are sending me
text messages and emails, some funny, some not, you keep doing it, that's fine, but they make me feel that way sometimes.
Sometimes I just want to cry. Because we just get it wrong then. Because what you're doing is you're taking an instance
and trying to paint Bible on it that I don't know what it was meant to do. But let's dive in, because first we have this
cosmic battle. Okay, and the introduction quick to the cosmic battle, why we're reading this, and we're going to read
chapter 12, the first six verses. It introduces a battle between the forces of evil and the church.
That should set the scene. That this is the forces of evil and the church. And we are promised by Christ himself
that the gates of hell will not prevail against the church. That the church will stand. It is the bride of Christ.
Christ not only cares about it, but he died for it. He put it together, he set it on a path, and now he's coming back
to redeem it. So it's the forces of evil and the church. So represented by the woman, right? We're going to see this woman.
And that's symbolizing the people of God and the dragon that we're going to see is Satan. Okay, that is the forces of evil.
These chapters depict spiritual realities that span from the birth of Christ till the end of time. Okay, this is when
everything will culminate. So the birth of Christ to where revelation will take place. That is what we're talking about.
The imagery of the dragon chasing the woman in the wilderness reminds us of God's ongoing protection of his people.
Even in the face of fierce persecution. We see this throughout history. The church has always faced opposition from worldly powers,
political powers, spiritual forces. Yet it is never without God's provision. So church, take a moment, rest in that for a minute.
The church, when it was established, Jesus said, the forces of hell will not go against or will not overtake it,
will not defeat it, and that has still been to this day. For those of you that want to look at different things and go,
we are in the end times now, pull the right thing out of that urgency and share the gospel. If we're going to try to pinpoint
something that God, Christ said, you're not going to know. You have no idea when it's going to come. It's kind of a fool's errand
to try to be a conspiracy theorist and pinpoint when exactly it's going to happen, but understand that God has his provision
over us. The woman represents both Mary as the mother of Christ and the church. The dragon, identified as Satan,
seeks to devour the child, Christ, but ultimately is defeated, reminding us that Satan's opposition will always be against
God's sovereign plan, but God and Satan are never on the same level. A lot of times we get that mixed up.
They're like, oh man, yeah, God is God and Satan, he's, no. That has never been the case. That God is ultimate creator,
sustainer, sovereign God, Satan is not. And what is the significance before we dive in that Revelation 12 is a spiritual
picture of the victory Christ achieved through his birth, his death, his resurrection, his ascension. The dragon's
failure to destroy Christ at his birth shows that Satan's plans are continually frustrated by God's power.
This passage sets the stage for the ongoing struggle between Satan and the church throughout the ages. It was then,
it is now, and it will be until completion. So let's dive in. Chapter 12, the first six verses.
And a great sign appeared in heaven, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and her head a crown of
twelve stars. She was pregnant and was crying out in birth pains and agony in giving birth. And another sign
appeared in the heaven. Behold a great red dragon with seven heads and ten horns, and on his heads seven diadems.
His tail swept down a third of the angels of heaven and cast them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman
who was about to give birth, so that when she bore the child he might devour it. She gave birth to a male child,
one who is to rule all the nations with a 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 was to be nourished
for 12, 1260 days. So it's quite the opening. Quite the opening to where we are now. Now we see these signs,
we see these visions, and now we see these new characters where we already talked about what they were.
But the thing I want you to understand, if you can go back two slides, go to the middle slide I think it is.
Nope, next slide, sorry, the last one. But the woman fled into the wilderness where she has a place prepared by
God. That's what I want you to pull right now. As we see this kind of narrative, how we see this drama unfold,
it's very graphic. It's an understanding, just the graphic nature of good versus evil. Holiness versus evil.
Light versus dark. If we're really honest, that's the battle that we have every day. That every day we have the battle
of the light versus the dark. Every day, and it's nothing that we should be surprised by, all of the Scriptures talk
about this, that every day we believe in what's called total depravity. That that is, all of us are bad, right?
That we all are bent against God, and it's by God's compassion, His love, His mercy, His grace, His covenant to us
that we live, we work, we breathe, we have families, we do our jobs in that grace. That we understand that we are
living in that light. What about the darkness? The darkness can be very, very powerful. And for some of us right now,
we are struggling with the darkness. We may have a pinky into the darkness. There might be an aspect of our life
that we actually worship in the dark. That we, some act of sin, something going on in us, that that darkness is eating away
at us. That darkness is telling you that you're no good. Because you are doing said thing, or thinking said thing,
or living in a way, whatever in that darkness, that the light has no use for you, the light cannot use you, that the light
has forgotten about you. But one of the things I want you to see, that none of this, none of this that we're reading
is a surprise to God. God isn't looking at this going, who's the woman? Oh, there's a dragon. No. Understand that word
prepared is so powerful that this has been thought out, this has been premeditated in God's sovereignty and foreknowledge.
Why? Out of love for you. For where you are in that moment. Now that doesn't mean, okay, great, then we just keep on sinning.
I'm just going to keep living in the dark. If the light's ultimately going to get, that's not the way to go about it.
Because we also have to register and we have to work in these, the scriptures that say you can't have a foot in both.
John says in another book, if you have a foot in the light and a foot in the dark, what? The light doesn't know you.
That every day there's this struggle, but God has this all prepared. For some of you, that should be a breath of fresh air.
For some of you, that is an eternal frustration because you can't get out of your own way. You can't get out of that
your own sin. You can't get out of falling in this time and time again. Here is my pastoral encouragement for you.
Stop trying to do it alone. Bring someone else to hold you accountable when light is shared with more than one person.
Guess what? There's more light. And there are times that light can be shined into the darkness that you're too afraid to shine.
God has given me a spouse in Kerry that shines light on all of that for me. And hopefully, vice versa.
Hopefully you have people in your life that can shine the light into your darkness when you don't want to.
Because that's all been prepared by God. Why? Because Christ is going to have the victory.
We know this. This isn't a shock. Verse 7.
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 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 have 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 loved 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. Leave that up. Powerful words here.
So understand after failing, excuse me, to destroy the child, the dragon what? He engages in a cosmic battle against the angels led by Michael the archangel.
So I find that interesting. And this actually had me think of Jesus' temptation in the wilderness.
So after he's baptized, the spirit led him to the wilderness to be tempted by Satan.
And I've always found that interesting and we're going to get to that during Lent next year.
Is that Satan, knowing what his fate's going to be, still gives it the old college try.
To the savior of the world, he tempts him. He tempts him with sustenance, with food.
He tempts him with prestige and honor and wealth and treasures.
The only thing that probably, I would have probably thrown in there, because then that would capitalize our society as a whole,
is something to do with adultery or more of that kind of sexual nature of our culture.
It's funny he didn't tempt Jesus with that because maybe, just maybe, there's an assumption of power and authority just leads to that anyway.
And we see that in scripture. But understand that Satan himself goes to Jesus himself for temptation, to tempt him.
And who are we to think that maybe we don't get tempted?
And who are we to think that we're strong enough to battle Satan on our own?
That is a foolish understanding because understand something in this, what we just read.
So he's defeated. He's still trying. He doesn't give up.
Satan never says, uncle, your sin in your life. Never says, oh, they're just too strong. We're just going to stop.
No. It is going to be continual until we are there seeing him face to face.
That every day you will struggle with something. Every day you will struggle with a certain sin.
You will struggle with a series of sins. You will struggle because the darkness wants to devour you.
How do we know? Because he was thrown down with wrath in his heart.
Satan doesn't play fair. Satan doesn't tempt fairly.
Satan doesn't go, okay, they've had enough. Give them a day.
No. Satan will kick you when you're down.
So how we feel in the fact that God has all this prepared?
I don't know about you, but it gets a little uncomfortable.
Kind of like, really? We have to go through all of this?
Like you can't just decimate him and he's done?
Because what Revelation is teaching us right now in the here and now, October 20th, 2024, is that the battle is real.
Those temptations you're feeling, the failures you may be falling to, the successes in faith that you are having,
that is part of the everyday life. That is the life of the believer. That is the church.
But understand that Satan is defeated, cast down to earth, showing whose authority, God's authority, in heaven,
and Satan's authority has now been stripped, but Satan's power is limited.
Some of you need to hear that this morning.
Satan is cast down, Satan continues to pursue, but she, the church, us, is protected by God in the wilderness,
symbolizing God's ongoing protection of his people.
Obviously you can go back to the time in the wilderness with the Israelites,
but I want to go back to your wildernesses, my wildernesses, when I have been in a wilderness place
that I feel like God isn't there, or I feel like I'm failing,
or I'm just a schmuck of a human being or a believer, and I don't deserve it.
Friend, that is never the voice of God saying that in your life.
That is the beast. That is the evil one.
That is the darkness trying to get you to understand that you are nothing, and that is not true.
The casting down of Satan to earth mirrors Jesus' declaration in Luke 10, 18,
where he says, I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.
This fall signifies Satan's loss and ultimate defeat because of Christ's victory.
So remember this on this point.
We must remember that Satan's power is limited.
Though he continues to fight, he is a defeated enemy.
This truth gives us confidence as we face spiritual battles in our lives today.
Here's the rub.
Some of us just like to fight to fight.
Some of us think we can fight better than God in these situations.
But we're just going to poke the bait.
We're going to make sure that Satan knows he is defeated, and that is a fantastic thing.
Just making sure, getting that spiritual warfare, fighting against Satan every day, that is fantastic.
Go, Christian, go.
But what happens when you put that Satan character, that person, that feeling, that darkness on another person?
How does that fighting work?
How does that fighting work when when you look at somebody,
all you see is the darkness that you believe that they hold within themselves?
How can we do that as a church?
Because in some ways, and I better get out my darkness and put it on me,
because I feel like that's how we should always start, the plank in our own eye first.
And here we're going to get to these beasts, and we have to get to these beasts,
because these beasts, this is really awkward to say, but these beasts bring out the worst in Christians.
The beasts bring out the worst in the church.
So not only is Satan defeated, he's still fighting.
Now these beasts show up.
This is chapter 13, 1 through 10.
And I saw a beast rising out of the sea with ten horns and seven heads,
with ten diadems on the horns, and blasphemous names on the heads.
And the beast that I saw was like a leopard.
His feet were like a bear's mouth, and his mouth was like a lion's mouth.
And to it the dragon gave his power and his throne and great authority.
One of his heads seemed to have a mortal wound, but its mortal wound was healed.
And the whole earth marveled as they followed the beast.
And they worshiped the dragon, for he had given his authority to the beast,
and they worshiped the beast, saying, Who is like the beast?
Who can fight against it?
And the beast was given a mouth, uttering haughty and blasphemous words.
And it was allowed to exercise authority for 42 months.
It opened its mouth to utter blasphemies against God,
blaspheming his name and his dwelling, that is, those who dwell in heaven.
Also, it was allowed to make war on the saints and to conquer them.
And authority was given it over every tribe and people and language and nation,
and all who dwell on the earth will worship it.
Everyone whose name was not written before the foundation of the world
in the book of life of the lamb who was slain.
If anyone has ear, let him hear.
If anyone is to be taken captive, to captivity he goes.
If anyone is to be slain with the sword, with the sword he must be slain.
Here is the call for endurance and faith of the saints.
Whew.
All right.
Let's talk about the two beasts.
The first beast symbolizes something that meant a lot in the first century.
This is a widely accepted kind of understanding of those that studied the Greek
a lot more than I have, that the first beast symbolizes a corrupt political power,
embodying the Roman Empire in John's time, as we all know,
and does represent worldly government that opposes God.
Right then and there, I know 35% of you are now thinking certain things.
Stop it.
Understand that any worldly power will ultimately be corrupt.
If you look at society today in whatever group you want to look at it in,
you have to also go through the centuries of worldly powers that have been corrupt,
that have come to an end, that started, boomed, and died.
Started, boomed, and died.
Understand this is a history lesson of political corruptness.
It is not just for 2024.
Because if you're looking, friend, if you're looking for redemption and salvation
to come out of any political system, then you're not reading the book right.
That the kingdom of God is coming as God wants it to come.
The kingdom will come as He has declared it.
The reason why we see this as a political power, its blasphemous names,
the dragon's authority behind it.
Notice the passing off of authority.
The beast, Satan, now kind of passes his authority to these two other,
the dragon to these two other beasts.
All of this is happening for one reason, to bring chaos.
One of the greatest characters, in my opinion, in all of movies,
is Heath Ledger's character Joker.
And I know I'm going to get, which one is it, Colin?
The Dark Knight.
You knew I was going to say the wrong, I've already done it, right.
Thank you for reminding me of my sins.
The Dark Knight, if you've not seen it, his understanding of chaos,
his understanding of just wanting to see the world burn,
is exactly what we're seeing here.
Friends, these are defeated enemies that are still trying to fight.
And the reason why they're doing it is because they just want to see
the whole world burn.
You see the beast's death blow that has healed.
This may refer to apparent resurrection of the persecuted empires,
of the governments that may come back at the end,
constantly re-emerging and re-opposing God's name.
That all political throughout history, go back to the Greeks,
go back to the Babylonians, go back to the Romans, which this was written.
You had people saying they were God.
And you have that on all sides of every aisle.
So understand some things, that this blasphemy, that this work,
this darkness that is being done, ultimately will be defeated.
And unless Jesus decides to come back before that first Tuesday in November,
then we're all going to be there the Sunday after worshipping His name.
That we need to understand that these beasts, this political power,
this structure is being defeated.
And then you have this beast from the earth, this false prophet,
representing deceptive religious systems.
Because one of the ways that Satan can completely divide and dismantle anything,
is divide and conquer.
How do we do that?
Well, let's get them divided and let's get them believing things
that are not in this book.
Because friends, let's call a spade a spade.
We're sheep.
There's a reason why we're called sheep, myself included.
And there are times we will put our trust in whoever's shouting the loudest.
We will put our trust in whoever's posts have the most engagement,
the most likes, whatever.
That we can be a fickle people when it comes to our faith.
But what we have to see here is that this is all happening to the church.
The church is being persecuted.
The church is being tested.
The church is being attacked.
Friends, I feel it every day.
I'm sure you do too.
That there is persecution.
There is attack.
But what we have to understand from this is Satan is getting into the political system
and Satan is getting into false religions.
So why do we put so much stock in defining ourselves that way?
That doesn't make any sense to me.
That as we see the mark of the beast, we see this allegiance to false systems.
It's the same things that we like to define ourselves by.
I don't know about you, but I want people to know me as Jim the believer
before anything else.
I want people to know Jim as a loving husband, as a decent father,
adequate baseball coach.
I don't care what it is.
But don't you want to be known for the things that mean the most to you?
I don't want anybody to ever go, yeah, that's Pastor Jim.
He's a Republican.
Or, hell, that's Pastor Jim.
He's a Democrat.
Or that's Pastor Jim and he doesn't know how to spell politics.
That one probably is right.
So what are we defining ourselves as?
The beasts want us to be defined by our political allegiance
and our false religions.
No.
Why give yourself to that?
Well, you know what?
I love politics, right?
I really want to get all of my energy in finding and supporting the right
candidate.
Guess what?
Christ died for both of them.
Guess what?
Both of them are sinners.
Guess what?
God's redemption isn't coming through either of them because God's
redemption is already here through the person of Christ.
One of the things that we can take heart in is the rise and falls of
religious systems, the rise and falls of political systems.
We're not special in 2024.
Go back to history.
It happens all day.
It happened every year, every century, every thousands of years.
Systems come and systems fall.
So why in the world do we want to align ourselves with those?
Why do we want to define ourselves that way?
And in a couple days when you want to send me emails and text messages,
that's fine.
But I'm going to ask you what are you being defined by?
Are you being defined by the things of God?
Are you being defined by the things of the world?
Because guess what?
When we get up there, none of those definitions matter.
I don't care if the definition is Republican, Democrat, independent,
Green Party.
There's not going to be, that's not how it's going to be defined.
It's not going to be defined as CRC, RCA, URC.
The joke is that you've got to be careful with the PRs because they
think they're the only ones there.
But understand that there's this understanding that when we get up there,
what is Christ going to be looking for?
What is God, creator, going to be looking for?
Christ in you, the hope of glory.
If we're going to define ourselves in the midst of all of this as who we
are, I believe we're missing the point.
So where do we go from there as we land the plane?
As Christians, we must be discerning about the powers and the systems we
align ourselves with.
Political and religious systems that contradict God's word are empowered by
Satan and will ultimately fall.
Our allegiance should be always to Christ first.
A lot of you, your body just tensed up with that.
Because one of the things that we have going on in our culture today is
what we do with two words, God's word.
Friends, that is what we should be defined by.
That the words of scripture should be what people can read in your life.
I don't know who said it.
I want to say it's R.C.
Sproul, but I don't think that's right.
But in a room of 100 people, one person may read the Bible.
The other 99 are going to read that person.
That if we're going to say in the Lord's prayer, right, if we're going to say
the kingdom of God, may the kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in
heaven, what we are invoking is that the kingdom may come through us.
So what kind of kingdom are people getting in your life?
When they are friends with you, when they're related to you, when you work
with them.
If I were to sit down and ask them and say, what does the kingdom of God look
like in Sam's life?
What does the kingdom of God look like in Carrie's life to your coworkers?
What if they say, what do you mean?
Well, they're Christian.
So how do you see their Christianity?
I have no idea.
That's hard.
That's a tough one.
But understand, that's exactly where the beasts want you to be.
That's exactly what the beasts want to pull out of you.
But there is hope and there is perseverance.
We do believe in that too in Revelation 13, 9, and 10.
If anyone has an ear, let him hear.
If anyone is to be captive to captivity, he goes.
If anyone is to be slain with the sword, the sword must be slain.
Here is the call for endurance and faith in the saints.
Here is where the rubber meets the road.
If God calls you to perish for your faith, you will perish for your faith.
And that's hard.
The saints are called to endure patiently even when faced with persecution
and deception and even death.
This endurance is based on the assurances that Christ has already won
the ultimate victory and his kingdom will prevail.
If you are defined by Christ on November 1, my hope is you will be defined
by Christ on December 1, no matter what the month of November looks like.
Because what we see, the hope that we have, and this will bleed on
into next week is the same thing that Jesus said to his disciples in
Matthew 49.
He called them to endure persecution with the promise of salvation.
And it wasn't an if, it was a when.
He never said, Jim, if you're persecuted, right?
No, it's a when that we will in various different forms.
During the Protestant Reformation, many reformers, such as our beloved
John Calvin, emphasized the importance of perseverance in the face of
persecution, encouraging believers to trust in God's sovereignty and the
final victory in Christ.
So in a world where the church still faces opposition from various powers
and ideologies, friends, hold fast to the faith.
We can endure, and it's a lot easier to endure together, knowing that our
trials are temporary and Christ's victory is eternal.
So the bridge from this little mini-series within a series to next week,
it's about evangelism.
It's not about political winning.
It's not about ideology winning.
It's not about any of that.
Because we have to understand a couple things over the next couple weeks.
That if we stand confidently in Christ's victory, then we need to understand
something about the political process.
While it's necessary in the United States, it has very little to do with
how God is saving the world.
The fate of the kingdom of God does not depend on political contest.
This is taken from Brian's hand.
And here's one that hit me square in the face, and this will lead us to next
week.
While in pursuit for the ring of power, we are not permitted to abandon the
sermon on the mount.
So if we stand confidently in Christ's victory, then we also must discern the
false powers and religions in the world.
Be mindful, friends, of the systems that demand allegiance that contradict
God's word.
Speak truth into these contexts, pointing people to the one true king,
Jesus Christ.
And finally, we persevere with hope.
In the face of trials and persecutions, we remain faithful to Christ.
Let our endurance serve as a testimony to others, showing that our hope is in a
kingdom that cannot be shaken.
Let's pray.