SPEAKER_00: We study through books of the Bible here at the Village Chapel, and it is my pleasure to be leading us through Revelation chapter 12 today.
SPEAKER_00: If you want to grab your Bible or swipe there on your device, we're calling our study of this last book of the Bible, the 66th book, God's final closing word to us in the scriptures.
SPEAKER_00: We're calling it Revelation, the Hope of Glory.
SPEAKER_00: And that's because the Christian faith is a forward-looking faith, and we are looking forward to the day when God wraps up human history and sets everything right that's broken in this world and restores and renews and refreshes everything that belongs to Him.
SPEAKER_00: All of us will be gathered together around the throne of God.
SPEAKER_00: We've already seen that.
SPEAKER_00: People from every tribe and tongue and people group and nation singing together the praises of our God and King and our beautiful Savior and Redeemer, Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: So as we get into chapter 12, uh let you know that uh chapters 12, 13, and 14 can be seen as a literary unit together.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you may think of them as we read through them.
SPEAKER_00: You may think to yourself, man, this reads like a J.R.R.
SPEAKER_00: Tolkien or C.S.
SPEAKER_00: Lewis epic battle novel or movie that you might have seen.
SPEAKER_00: But keep in mind that Tolkien and Lewis, uh, who were contemporaries of each other and personal friends, as a matter of fact, uh, they lived in the earliest or early 20th century and centuries after the Apostle John had received and written and distributed what we call the book of Revelation.
SPEAKER_00: The story is of God's redemption on display in the scriptures, and it certainly has echoed through the writings of many authors and many people who have written books like Tolkien and Lewis.
SPEAKER_00: But we all um resonate with this for a reason.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because we we want to know our Creator, we long to know how we can, you know, know the difference between right and wrong, and is there a difference between good and evil?
SPEAKER_00: And um we all want to experience God's love for us, I believe, and at our heart, at our deepest, deepest part of who we are.
SPEAKER_00: And Revelation tells the story of God's uh glorious redemption in striking symbolism, um, overflowing with rich scenery, imaginative creatures, and vivid plot lines.
SPEAKER_00: And uh, we've broken it down into several visions, sections of visions, but 12, 13, 14 all run together here.
SPEAKER_00: And I want to get right into it in just a second.
SPEAKER_00: But I want you to know I love this kind of literature, apocalyptic literature, prophetic literature, and it's also epistolary.
SPEAKER_00: That is, it's like a letter.
SPEAKER_00: Um, I love this kind of combination because it really speaks to a lot of different um kinds of people.
SPEAKER_00: It can reach to the people who think poetically and who learn poetically or perceive things poetically in ways that, for instance, something that's just more didactic, straight teaching cannot.
SPEAKER_00: And so I love that.
SPEAKER_00: Malcolm Guide, a modern-day poet over in Northern Ireland, says uh in why poetic imagination is necessary to understand biblical prophecy, he says the scriptures give us not concepts alone, but living images with which to think and from which to draw wisdom.
SPEAKER_00: And so, yeah, here we go.
SPEAKER_00: Revelation chapter 12 is indeed that, and uh this kind of prophetic and apocalyptic literature is that God's speaking to us in beautiful ways that so many uh have just been thrilled by.
SPEAKER_00: As a matter of fact, in this particular book, it's the only book in the entire Bible that the promise of verse uh three, chapter one is blessed is he who reads um and those who hear the words of the prophecy and heed the things which are written in it, for the time is near.
SPEAKER_00: And so, right from the get-go, um uh we're told to sit up straight, pay attention, get ready.
SPEAKER_00: The blessing is even for those who you may not be able to understand it all, it might just blow your mind.
SPEAKER_00: And as we've seen with uh the Apostle John, he spends a lot of time uh on his knees before Christ or the 24 elders around the throne, spend a lot of time, not sitting on their individual chairs, but down on their faces before God, their minds blown, not so much worrying about the future at all, um, but overflowing with wonder and worship.
SPEAKER_00: And I think that's the intent and purpose, as we just heard there from verse 3.
SPEAKER_00: So here we have um in chapter 12 uh a presentation of a part of the vision that John has.
SPEAKER_00: And it has uh it introduces us to three dramatis personae.
SPEAKER_00: Um in order of appearance, you're gonna you're gonna hear about a beautifully adorned pregnant woman.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, so that's the first one, the first primary character.
SPEAKER_00: And the second character is a child that she's about to deliver.
SPEAKER_00: And the third character is an evil red dragon who wants to devour the child.
SPEAKER_00: We're told that right from the beginning here, uh, in a pretty kind of a brutal and gruesome sort of way.
SPEAKER_00: The woman is beautiful and wondrous and about to bring life into the world in the form of the child.
SPEAKER_00: Um, and it's not just, she doesn't just represent Mary.
SPEAKER_00: I don't want you to think that.
SPEAKER_00: I think a lot of people on the on the surface might think that because the child certainly is pretty clear, is is is a symbol of Jesus Christ in this vision.
SPEAKER_00: Um, but the red dragon is hideous and ravenous.
SPEAKER_00: The red dragon wants to kill, wants to prevent life.
SPEAKER_00: And uh especially this child's life from from uh being lived and the mission that that uh Jesus is on, of course, the dragon who is gonna represent Satan, those are two pretty obvious parallels there and symbols there.
SPEAKER_00: But this dramatic scene illustrates the highest good that can be imagined.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you know, um a child being born, you know, that that that is gonna come and be the savior of the world.
SPEAKER_00: That's beautiful.
SPEAKER_00: And yet the lowest of evils that can be imagined, uh, that uh that someone would want to kill that child, that someone would want to stop that uh gift of redemption from being put on offer.
SPEAKER_00: So what will happen as this as this woman delivers uh her baby's son?
SPEAKER_00: And and and what does it symbolize and what does it reveal about the story of God's redemption?
SPEAKER_00: Without further ado, let's uh jump into the text.
SPEAKER_00: All right, chapter 12.
SPEAKER_00: And a great sign appeared in the heaven, a woman clothed with the sun and the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars.
SPEAKER_00: And here's another um uh reason why we don't think of it as just one particular person.
SPEAKER_00: Uh the the the image is fantastic in every way.
SPEAKER_00: And even the twelve stars sort of start to give you the impression that this uh this woman isn't uh uh isn't representing just one person, perhaps the twelve tribes of Israel, perhaps the twelve apostles, the twelve disciples that turned into the twelfth apostles.
SPEAKER_00: And so it's the people of God that this woman represents, really.
SPEAKER_00: And she was with child, we're told right here, and she cried out, being in labor and pain, to give birth.
SPEAKER_00: And so here she is with this diaphanous garment that she was she was clothed with the sun and the moon, she's standing on the moon in this vision.
SPEAKER_00: It's really, I mean, just again, mind-blowing, eye-popping, right?
SPEAKER_00: And another sign appeared, verse 3 says, in the heaven, and behold, a great red dragon.
SPEAKER_00: And you can just hear the symphony go, dun dun, dun, da.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's just, you know, here comes the evil, you know, uh antagonist in the storyline, right?
SPEAKER_00: A sign appeared in the heaven and a great red dragon having seven heads and ten horns, and on his heads were seven diadems.
SPEAKER_00: And so you've got this this kind of crimson reptilian sort of creature, um, this, this, uh, uh, this dragon and his tail swept verse four, his tail swept away a third of the stars in heaven.
SPEAKER_00: So it's it's massive, this, this dragon, and and while she's you know, beautiful and and adorned beautifully and pregnant and and in some ways vulnerable and all that sort of thing, and and but she's she's dressed in the sun and standing on the moon.
SPEAKER_00: This dragon is massive and hideous and ugly and um seeking to take life, you know, and sweeps away a third of the stars in heaven and threw them to the earth, and the dragon stood before the woman who was about to give birth, so that when she gave birth, he might devour her child.
SPEAKER_00: And so this is pretty scary stuff uh that we're seeing here.
SPEAKER_00: Um, very graphic.
SPEAKER_00: And uh you kind of find yourself, whoa, what's this?
SPEAKER_00: This is this is our Bible telling us this kind of story, presenting this kind of image to us.
SPEAKER_00: Well, she gave birth to a son, a male child who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron, and her child was caught up to God and to his throne.
SPEAKER_00: And so, again, the idea is that uh this is symbolizing Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus was indeed born into the earth, um, so we have the incarnation and walked the earth and lived on the earth, and um 30 or so, 33 or so years later, uh ascended back into the heavens after the crucifixion and the resurrection.
SPEAKER_00: And so in the heavenly realm, all of this is truncated and it moves quite quickly.
SPEAKER_00: And what you're gonna see uh is it expands a little bit as the camera moves back a little bit uh in the storytelling line of things.
SPEAKER_00: But the dragon stood before the woman who was about to give birth, and the dragon just couldn't wait to pounce on the child.
SPEAKER_00: And um and so you you you think back to the gospel records and you think back to how King Herod, who uh Herod the Great, who was the king of uh Judea when Jesus was born, and who heard about the birth of the baby king from the wise men that traveled from the east, and how when he heard of that, he sent soldiers to the village uh where the child was born to kill and and put to death all of the baby boys.
SPEAKER_00: And so you you kind of you kind of have that, you can kind of see that in the storyline of the gospel records that we have, even in this vision that John is having.
SPEAKER_00: Well, she gave birth to a son, a male child, and uh he's he was gonna rule the nations and caught up in heaven, right?
SPEAKER_00: And the woman fled into the wilderness where uh she had a place prepared by God so that there she might be nourished for 1,260 days.
SPEAKER_00: And we've already learned before that uh 1260 days is the same thing as 42 months, is the same thing as three and a half years, and and these numbers are symbolic and apocalyptic literature of that sort of uh limited amount of time that God allows certain things to happen, and He's in control.
SPEAKER_00: That reminds us God's completely in control of all of these things that are happening, including the fact that this woman, and I again suggest representing the people of God, uh, has to live in a wilderness type of a space for a period of time that's limited by God, and um, yet God is providing, and this place is prepared for this woman.
SPEAKER_00: Well, uh, this dragon isn't gonna just let it go.
SPEAKER_00: Um, gonna go down swinging, is what's gonna happen, right?
SPEAKER_00: And we'll read that as we uh move from verse six to verse seven.
SPEAKER_00: There was a war in heaven, Michael and his angels waging war with the dragon, okay?
SPEAKER_00: And the dragon and his angels waged war, but they were not strong enough, and there was no longer a place found for them in heaven.
SPEAKER_00: And the great dragon was thrown down.
SPEAKER_00: You're gonna read that this dragon gets thrown down multiple times in this chapter, and it's just a great reminder that um um, as even though some people might present the idea of the devil and of Satan as being quite powerful, um, here is Michael the archangel taking and literally throwing the angel down.
SPEAKER_00: It's pretty amazing when you think about it.
SPEAKER_00: And uh his angels as well, and they just weren't strong enough to to to go to battle against God and God's angel, uh Michael, and and and the other angels in heaven that were faithful and loyal to God.
SPEAKER_00: All right, so he's thrown down.
SPEAKER_00: Um, the great serpent was thrown down, the serpent, verse nine, of old, who is called the devil and Satan who deceives the whole world.
SPEAKER_00: He was thrown down, it says again, to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him.
SPEAKER_00: And John is just saying over and over, no, freaking thrown down.
SPEAKER_00: And so God is literally throwing down this serpent and has the power to do that, and God's um God's um sovereign over all of his creation, and uh uh has this dragon on a leash, basically.
SPEAKER_00: And so he tosses in in the visual image that we that we have here for this vision, he tosses the great dragon down to the earth.
SPEAKER_00: And I heard a loud voice in heaven, verse 10 says, and this is John writing again now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come.
SPEAKER_00: For the accuser of our brethren has been thrown down, who accuses them, the brethren, before our God day and night.
SPEAKER_00: And so here we really see you start to get a an idea of what Satan is really all about, you know, trying to usurp or rise to the level of being equal with God in the heavenly realm, thrown down to uh the earth and limited to the earth, and now uh uh fighting against uh if can't if it can't win over God, gonna fight against God's people, and um, and yet the declaration has come, that the victory has already been won.
SPEAKER_00: And this loud voice in heaven says, and now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ are come.
SPEAKER_00: Not our coming, but are come.
SPEAKER_00: And the accuser of our brethren has been thrown down, who accuses them before God day and night.
SPEAKER_00: But they, verse 11, this is such a beautiful verse, but they overcame him because of the blood of the lamb and the word of their testimony, and they did not love their life even to death.
SPEAKER_00: You can put a 1, 2, 3 by verse 11.
SPEAKER_00: We'll come back to that in just a minute, but it's really powerful.
SPEAKER_00: Because in the heavenly realm it's already settled, it's already done, the victory's already won, and they overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb, and because of the word of their testimony, uh, and because they didn't uh love their life even unto death.
SPEAKER_00: For this reason, rejoice, verse 12 says, O heavens, and you who dwell in them, woe to the earth and the sea, because the devil has come down to you, having great wrath, knowing that he has only a short time.
SPEAKER_00: And so, as Michael's tossing him out of heaven, um, somehow in the heavenly realm, uh, you know, it's kind of like time out, and you've you're gonna be in timeout for just a little while, all right?
SPEAKER_00: And when the dragon saw that he was thrown down to the earth, he persecuted the woman who gave birth to the male child.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and the two wings of the great eagle were given to the woman in order that she might fly into the wilderness to her place, where she was nourished for a time and times, and half a time from the presence of the serpent.
SPEAKER_00: And of course, um, that's that three and a half time, times, and time half time is that image of that three and a half years uh that we continue to use and see in apocalyptic literature, the 1260 days, the the three and a half years, uh, the 42 months, uh, that is the a limited time that God has set on the serpent.
SPEAKER_00: The serpent poured water like a river out of his mouth after the woman, so that he might cause her to be swept away with the flood.
SPEAKER_00: And so he is, he's trying to drown her now.
SPEAKER_00: And and uh as she's out in this wilderness, and you know, if you've been to the desert over in uh uh southern Israel, you understand the wadis, you you see these dry riverbeds.
SPEAKER_00: And when the when the rain does come, man, the water comes like a flash flood down these wadis, and uh it just it's the kind of thing that would sweep you away, and you'd you would drown in something like that.
SPEAKER_00: And so the image is very uh for them, uh for the folks that would be reading this in the first century, very easy for them to imagine.
SPEAKER_00: All right.
SPEAKER_00: And the dragon was enraged with the woman, verse 17, and went off to make war with the rest of her offspring, um, who keep the commandments of God and hold to the testimony of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And I love this verse too, uh, verse 17.
SPEAKER_00: I love this verse also, I should have said.
SPEAKER_00: The dragon was enraged with the woman.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because she belongs uh under the protective custody of God.
SPEAKER_00: And if the dragon can't defeat God in the heavenly realm, then the dragon is going to defeat the people of God in the earthly realm, or at least go down swinging and trying.
SPEAKER_00: And he's just angry, enraged, it says right here, and went off to make war with the rest of her offspring.
SPEAKER_00: Um, and that's another reason why, again, we don't see this as Mary, especially with from the Catholic perspective, when they uh suggest that Mary was perpetually a virgin, uh, she wouldn't have had other offspring.
SPEAKER_00: So this is this is the people of God, and uh and those who continue down through the ages like we would be uh included in that, the people of God who continue to uh believe and trust and hope in Christ um and who are part of and members of the body of Christ, the church itself.
SPEAKER_00: And uh they're noted by two things in verse 17.
SPEAKER_00: They keep the commandments of God.
SPEAKER_00: So the people of God are those who keep the commandments of God.
SPEAKER_00: Um they know his word, they love his word, um, they recognize that uh his word is a lamp into our feet and a light into our path.
SPEAKER_00: Uh and they recognize that in if you're looking for the wisdom of God in life, that's where you're gonna find it in his word.
SPEAKER_00: Um and so we we read it, we study it, we sing it, um, we we uh we love God's word and God's commandments.
SPEAKER_00: They bring us life.
SPEAKER_00: And they hold uh the the other characteristic of these people is they hold to the testimony of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And remember in verse 11, we're told that they overcame uh this dragon because of the blood of the lamb and the word of their testimony.
SPEAKER_00: Their testimony is all about Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Exactly right.
SPEAKER_00: All right, that's a great chapter.
SPEAKER_00: There's so much there.
SPEAKER_00: Let me put up on the screen.
SPEAKER_00: It breaks down nicely into three sections.
SPEAKER_00: You have the woman, the child, and the red dragon introduced in verses one through six.
SPEAKER_00: You have the decisive defeat of the dragon in verses seven through twelve.
SPEAKER_00: And in verses thirteen, you have uh really the story of the persecution of the church uh before Christ returns and sets all things right.
SPEAKER_00: Now, some have held the opinion that the Bible is all fiction, perhaps some form of a fairy tale or an ancient legend.
SPEAKER_00: Um, it's my opinion that that is rudely reductionist and uh ignorantly simplistic.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, here at the Village Chapel, we see the Bible completely different.
SPEAKER_00: We have a high view of scripture.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, in its pages, we're presented with clues to the origin of the universe, the meaning of life, uh, an ultimate source and a righteous source for discerning between right and wrong in life, and between things like justice and injustice.
SPEAKER_00: We find that in the scriptures, yeah.
SPEAKER_00: And more importantly, within the pages of the Bible and across the sweep of scripture, we find a grand narrative of God's salvation on offer, received by faith and faith in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: This child that we just read about, born in uh in Revelation chapter 12, who's come to rule with a rod of iron.
SPEAKER_00: And that's that doesn't mean he's gonna coerce people to believe.
SPEAKER_00: What that means is he's he's strong and he's righteous.
SPEAKER_00: See?
SPEAKER_00: Um and his authority, he he has all authority in heaven and earth, see.
SPEAKER_00: And uh and so we have in the scriptures this grand narrative of God's salvation offered by grace through faith in God's Redeemer, Jesus Christ, who loved us, came to rescue us while we were yet sinners.
SPEAKER_00: Before you turned around, before you got your act together, Christ said his love on you, set his love on me.
SPEAKER_00: So don't wait until you get your act together to turn to him and believe and trust and hope.
SPEAKER_00: In him.
SPEAKER_00: You're not going to be able to earn salvation.
SPEAKER_00: See, grace is opposed to earning.
SPEAKER_00: It's not opposed to effort, but grace is opposed to earning.
SPEAKER_00: Salvation of God comes by gift.
SPEAKER_00: And we receive it.
SPEAKER_00: We can't achieve it.
SPEAKER_00: We receive it with the empty hands of faith.
SPEAKER_00: And then we begin to walk in it, of course.
SPEAKER_00: And that's where the effort part comes in.
SPEAKER_00: But the Bible, what a wonderful treasury of 66 books written by uh over a period of 1600 years by 40 different authors, all from a wide variety of walks and backgrounds.
SPEAKER_00: It contains historical narrative, wisdom literature, poetic books, prophetic books like this one, eyewitness accounts of the life and teachings of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And if you really want to get to know Jesus and know who Jesus was and is, uh, man, the four gospels, wonderful eyewitness accounts there and near eyewitness accounts of who Jesus was.
SPEAKER_00: And that's that's where you want to go if you want to get a credible um understanding of the person and work of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Here in Revelation, we're confronted with that apocalyptic literature that exposes the great conflict behind all conflicts, the epic battle between good and evil.
SPEAKER_00: Here, here we're really starting to get a good picture of it in uh chapter 12, and it'll continue in chapter 13 next week when our brother Scotty Smith uh will be teaching.
SPEAKER_00: I'm so excited uh to hear him talk about the the two beasts of chapter 13.
SPEAKER_00: Um but revelation is is just bold and and clear as it presents the story of the fact there is a great conflict in reality in the universe, okay?
SPEAKER_00: And uh behind it all, uh in the spiritual and the heavenly realm, you have this conflict between Satan and between uh the forces of heaven, you see.
SPEAKER_00: And uh so we are introduced here to the the powers and the personalities behind that great conflict.
SPEAKER_00: Again, our three primary characters um in chapter 12, the woman, as I say, I think symbolizing the people of God, Old Testament and New Testament, um, the child, Jesus Christ, um, who we've already been told is the lion of Judah, the root of David, and the lamb who was slain but now lives and reigns forever.
SPEAKER_00: And it's that combination of all three of those that makes Jesus uniquely qualified to be our Savior, uniquely qualified to be the King of kings, the Lord of lords, the Prince of Peace.
SPEAKER_00: He's the Lion of Judah.
SPEAKER_00: Lion is the symbol of authority, the king, if you will.
SPEAKER_00: He's the root of David.
SPEAKER_00: He became one of us.
SPEAKER_00: He he entered space-time history, became a human being in the line of King David of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: Um, and so he also is the lamb that was slain.
SPEAKER_00: He laid down his life on the cross.
SPEAKER_00: Uh interestingly enough, uh, at the during the Passover feasts, he laid down his life.
SPEAKER_00: He became the ultimate Passover lamb.
SPEAKER_00: And his blood shed for me, his body broken for me, paid the price for my sins.
SPEAKER_00: And the same is on offer to you.
SPEAKER_00: No matter who you are, no matter what your background, no matter how far you may have run away from God right now, no matter how you struggle right now to believe, no matter how surreal the world of this kind of current pandemic we're experiencing, no matter how surreal that is, no matter how disoriented you may feel, Christ has come.
SPEAKER_00: Christ has died, Christ has risen, and Christ promises to come again and set all things right.
SPEAKER_00: So now, and then we had that third persona also, the dragon, um representing the devil, Satan.
SPEAKER_00: And some some of you, I can hear some of you may be thinking, you mean you really believe in a in a in a the in Satan, in in the a personal devil like that?
SPEAKER_00: And the answer is, yes, I do.
SPEAKER_00: Uh the Bible talks about it quite a bit.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus talked about him quite a bit.
SPEAKER_00: And uh, and here we're presented with an image of him, uh, this great dragon.
SPEAKER_00: Um, I love the way D.L.
SPEAKER_00: Moody, that old evangelist, used to say, I believe in Satan.
SPEAKER_00: Uh I believe Satan to exist for two reasons.
SPEAKER_00: First, the Bible says so.
SPEAKER_00: And second, I've done business with him.
SPEAKER_00: And uh, if you're like me, uh you you you know, you you believe in the this force that is working at odds with your faith and uh and it is strategic, yes.
SPEAKER_00: And uh and you've you've wrestled and struggled yourself.
SPEAKER_00: And we're you know, temptations are thrown at us all the time through three different sources the world, the flesh, and the devil.
SPEAKER_00: And he's very strategic.
SPEAKER_00: It's amazing how many times I'll just be driving down the road and I'll look up and see something on a billboard that'll remind me and tempt me into some kind of thought, either some kind of fear, some kind of greed, some kind of lust, whatever it might be.
SPEAKER_00: And that was placed strategically right there just for me to derail me in my faith and in my walk with Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And that that same kind of thing happens over countless numbers of times.
SPEAKER_00: We just don't even recognize what's happened.
SPEAKER_00: And C.S.
SPEAKER_00: Lewis uh has written a book.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you are familiar with it and have read it.
SPEAKER_00: If you have not, um, I highly recommend the screw tape letters.
SPEAKER_00: It is just amazing.
SPEAKER_00: 31 short letters uh From a Senior Devil to a Junior Devil.
SPEAKER_00: Uh and C.
SPEAKER_00: S.
SPEAKER_00: Lewis said it was like the hardest book for him to have written because he had to put his mind into the mindset of the senior devil writing to the junior devil.
SPEAKER_00: And the advice in each of these 31 letters from the senior devil to the junior devil is on how to tempt the patient, as they're called, which would be the human person that this junior devil, Wormwood, has been uh assigned to.
SPEAKER_00: And so, so screw tape, the screw tape letters, or the screw tape is the name of this, the uh elder devil.
SPEAKER_00: And uh and he always starts off his uh his letter, every letter is my dear wormwood.
SPEAKER_00: And I I I actually have an audio version of it that was read by John Cleese, the comedian, English comedian, and it's just amazing.
SPEAKER_00: I I I uh when I when I listened down to that, uh he did he did such a great job of reading those.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, if you get a chance to get a hold of that, do.
SPEAKER_00: In the preface to the screw tape letters, though, you find C.S.
SPEAKER_00: Lewis talking about whether or not uh a person should believe in the devil, and he says this there are two equal and opposite errors into which our race, humanity, can fall about the devils.
SPEAKER_00: One is to disbelieve in their existence, the other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them.
SPEAKER_00: They, meaning the devils, are equally pleased by both errors and hail a materialist who wouldn't believe in the devil, or a magician who would think the devil's everywhere, with the same delight.
SPEAKER_00: C.S.
SPEAKER_00: Lewis so beautifully and succinctly said.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, again, get it if you get a chance, uh grab a copy of that book and read it.
SPEAKER_00: You'll really find yourself constantly going, oh, I can't believe it.
SPEAKER_00: He got me, oh, I can't believe it.
SPEAKER_00: Um, three things I want to say as we highlight uh uh chapter 12 and sort of summarize it.
SPEAKER_00: First of all, Satan is the accuser of the brethren.
SPEAKER_00: And chapter 12 reminds us of that very clearly uh as he literally calls him the accuser of the brethren in verse 10.
SPEAKER_00: And so here is the accuser of the brethren, Satan, who's constantly working to tempt us to sin, and then turns around and and and in the uh heavenly realm, when given audience, uh, will accuse us before God and accuse us in our own hearts and minds.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, Satan is tempting you to sin, and then when you sin, he's gonna come and accuse you and and shame you and guilt you uh for the sin that he tempted you to get into.
SPEAKER_00: So he wants his cake and he wants to eat it too.
SPEAKER_00: And that's why this is really chapter 12 is so eye-opening because it gives us an idea of this grand narrative, this this grand conflict that's happening behind everything, okay, where the dragon is at work and attempting to defeat um the offspring of the woman, the chill, you know, the church, and every single one of us.
SPEAKER_00: Um, and so you have that happening.
SPEAKER_00: And uh I love the uh the fact that there's a real difference between the work of Satan, who's all about shame, and the work of the Holy Spirit, who's all about conviction of sin.
SPEAKER_00: Hmm.
SPEAKER_00: So let me say that again.
SPEAKER_00: Satan will tempt you and lure you and seduce you into sin and then shame you for the sin he lured you into, or you fell to if it was your flesh, or or if it was, it was uh you know something else that lured you into it.
SPEAKER_00: Um he stands ready to accuse you as much as he can to make you feel shame and guilt.
SPEAKER_00: The Holy Spirit, on the other hand, comes along to convict us of sin.
SPEAKER_00: And I love this.
SPEAKER_00: See, Satan in the shame business leads to unbelief, doubt, and fear.
SPEAKER_00: The Holy Spirit is in the conviction business, it leads to repentance, forgiveness, and restoration.
SPEAKER_00: Ah, this is so beautiful and it's so wonderful.
SPEAKER_00: Dallas Willard and Renovation of the Heart.
SPEAKER_00: Satan uses feelings to captivate us today by making them more important to our life than they really are, as well as by inducing much false guilt about what we do and do not feel.
SPEAKER_00: All right, now that's you want to read that a couple times and take that in a little bit.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, we don't base our faith and what we believe on the things that we feel because feelings are they're not bad in and of themselves, but they can be used to make us feel shamed and guilt.
SPEAKER_00: Whereas the Holy Spirit wants to come along and convict us of our sin and lead us to repentance, forgiveness, and restoration.
SPEAKER_00: I love the way Bible teacher Beth Moore says it very succinctly.
SPEAKER_00: She says, shame is Satan's laughter morphed into a human emotion.
SPEAKER_00: Let me read it again.
SPEAKER_00: Shame is Satan's laughter morphed into a human emotion.
SPEAKER_00: And so here you have in Revelation 12 very clearly presented to you uh Satan, who is the accuser of the brothers and sisters who belong to Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Secondly, from this chapter we learn, and from that second section of this chapter, verses 7 and on down to uh uh verse 12, I think it is, uh Satan has been decisively defeated.
SPEAKER_00: All right.
SPEAKER_00: So what took place in the heavenly realm where we saw, where we read that Michael, uh that throw down, throw down, throw down just kept happening, right?
SPEAKER_00: And and so Satan has literally been just tossed out of heaven, tossed down to the earth, and he's on a leash, he's on a chain, if you will, and uh and sovereign God is all is almighty, and he's gonna protect and care for his church and never allow them to be ultimately destroyed by this great red dragon.
SPEAKER_00: I love the way Fleming Rutledge, uh, she's a brilliant author and theologian, um, lives up in the Northeast.
SPEAKER_00: She said, In the birth of our Savior, we have received something that is beyond our deserving, beyond our preparations, beyond our human potential, beyond our expectations, that comes to us.
SPEAKER_00: And here it is, this child that was born in the first part of this chapter, right?
SPEAKER_00: Comes to us in the words of beloved Carols that we sing about the silent night or dark streets or in the bleak midwinter in such a world as this.
SPEAKER_00: But comes to save us all from Satan's power, and she's right on about that.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
SPEAKER_00: Just isn't it wonderful that God has taken the initiative that in our darkness, in our confusion, in our frustration, in our fear and despair, God has taken the initiative to come to us.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah, this is so beautiful.
SPEAKER_00: This is this is why this is good news.
SPEAKER_00: Far as the curse is found, this is great news for us.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, third point I wanted to get to.
SPEAKER_00: Not only uh is Satan the accuser of the brethren, not only has Satan been decisively defeated, but our triumph is based on those three things that we found in uh verse 11.
SPEAKER_00: Look with me at it again.
SPEAKER_00: And they overcame him because of the blood of the lamb and because of the word of their testimony, and they did not love their life even to death.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so who is it that is the blood of the lamb?
SPEAKER_00: That's not me doing anything.
SPEAKER_00: See, this is Jesus taking the initiative, laying down his life on the cross for me and for you.
SPEAKER_00: And because of that reality, not something that I'm doing, not something that I sort of, you know, manipulate or or just have to sort of stoke myself up into believing.
SPEAKER_00: No, it's a fact in history.
SPEAKER_00: If you'd have been there that day and rubbed your hand on the cross, you could have got a splinter in your hand.
SPEAKER_00: If you'd have been that day there at the cross, you could have heard him scream in agony.
SPEAKER_00: You could have heard him forgive his those who crucified him.
SPEAKER_00: There's so many things if we'd have been there that day.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, this happened in space-time history, folks.
SPEAKER_00: And it's not about you and I getting it right.
SPEAKER_00: He did it.
SPEAKER_00: It's decisive.
SPEAKER_00: And so, because of the fact that he did it, and the he has shed his blood for me, all right?
SPEAKER_00: I now have a word of my testimony.
SPEAKER_00: I believe that when he died on the cross, he paid the price for my sins, past, present, and future.
SPEAKER_00: We ask people when we're baptizing them, before we dunk them down into the immerse them into the water, we say, uh, do you recognize that you're a sinner, that you need a savior?
SPEAKER_00: And then when Jesus died on the cross, he paid the prize for you, for your sins, past, present, and future.
SPEAKER_00: And the the folks who are being baptized all say, Yes, and amen.
SPEAKER_00: You know, it's just a beautiful thing.
SPEAKER_00: And that's the word of our testimony, see?
SPEAKER_00: That's the part that it's our story.
SPEAKER_00: See, my story isn't just me, it's not just mine to write, it's a story that's been gifted to me.
SPEAKER_00: He is at the center of history, actually.
SPEAKER_00: And he is, he, I'm his, and he's mine, and this is beautiful.
SPEAKER_00: That's a word of our testimony, right?
SPEAKER_00: And they didn't love their life even unto death.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, we've embraced an eternal perspective.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, Christ is preeminent in all things and over all things in our lives.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because he who gave us our life in the first place, once we rebelled and went away from him, he has given us our life again.
SPEAKER_00: We've been born again.
SPEAKER_00: We become new creatures, and we have him to thank twice for life.
SPEAKER_00: And and three times, really, when you start to think about eternal life with him, um, and enjoying that in heaven and enjoying the presence of the saints who've gone before us and the presence of one another.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, those of us who who believe in Christ and have embraced this eternal perspective, believing that Jesus indeed uh is our Savior and our redeemer.
SPEAKER_00: Eliza Edmonds Hewitt was born in 1851.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, she lived to uh right around 1920.
SPEAKER_00: After she graduated as valedictorian of her class, she began working as a as a teacher in a school.
SPEAKER_00: Her career came to a screeching halt, though, because she was forced to bed rest and to to by a painful uh spinal uh problem.
SPEAKER_00: One of her descendants has said it was a debilitating condition caused by another student who recklessly uh hit her with a piece of slate.
SPEAKER_00: Whether that's true or not, I don't know, but for whatever reason she ended up spending quite a bit of time in bed, lying there in bed, she could have become quite bitter.
SPEAKER_00: Instead, she studied English literature and she began to sing, and she began to write songs, hymns, some of which we actually sing today.
SPEAKER_00: One of them is sing the wondrous love of Jesus, sing his mercy and his grace.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm not very good at singing, but I'm really good at rejoicing and singing about his love and remembering his mercy and his grace.
SPEAKER_00: In the mansions bright and blessed, he'll prepare for us a place.
SPEAKER_00: She lived, Eliza did, all of her life in Philadelphia, where she was a Sunday school superintendent eventually, and uh the northern home for friendless children, and later uh at the Calvin Presbyterian Church.
SPEAKER_00: She also tried to serve there for quite a while.
SPEAKER_00: But um one of her other hymns, we'll close the service in just a minute with this.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to think about these uh these words, just be thinking about them before you sing them, though.
SPEAKER_00: She sings this I need no other argument, I need no other plea.
SPEAKER_00: It is enough that Jesus died and that he died for me because of the blood of the Lamb she overcame.
SPEAKER_00: She overcame because of the word of her testimony, and that she had this eternal perspective.
SPEAKER_00: It is enough that Jesus died, and that he died for me.
SPEAKER_00: So the fourth thing I would say is that the future belongs to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: It's Jesus Himself who said, I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.
SPEAKER_00: Um and Mike Reeves, I love this quote by Mike, the uh pres president and professor of theology at Union uh School of Theology.
SPEAKER_00: Only when the one preeminent in reality becomes preeminent in our thoughts do we think straight thoughts are.
SPEAKER_00: That's beautiful.
SPEAKER_00: I love that.
SPEAKER_00: And here, as we consider the world that we live in right now, as I we consider your condition, my condition, our circumstances, personal, uh as well as our our circumstances in a in a world that's being plagued uh by this pandemic, uh, in a country that's just tearing itself apart over politics, um, in in a in a in a culture that is just at odds, fighting with itself about what's right, what's wrong.
SPEAKER_00: What does it mean to be a human person?
SPEAKER_00: Um uh what is it what does it mean to be a family?
SPEAKER_00: All these different things that are such a struggle for so many people, burdens that we were never meant to bear.
SPEAKER_00: Because God is giving as a gift life to us and offering us salvation and restoration in the person and work of Jesus Christ.
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SPEAKER_00: S.
SPEAKER_00: Lewis in Mere Christianity.
SPEAKER_00: This is a little bit of a longer quote, but I want to put it up on the screen for you.
SPEAKER_00: What Satan put into the heads of our remote ancestors, meaning Adam and Eve, was the idea that they could be like gods, could set up on their own, as if they had created themselves, be their own masters, invent some sort of happiness for themselves outside God, apart from God.
SPEAKER_00: And out of that hopeless attempt has come nearly all that we call human history: money, poverty, ambition, war, prostitution, classes, empires, slavery.
SPEAKER_00: The long, terrible story of man trying to find something other than God which will make him happy.
SPEAKER_00: God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from himself, because it is not there.
SPEAKER_00: There is no such thing.
SPEAKER_00: You see, we were created for God to be in relationship with him.
SPEAKER_00: And our hearts will be restless until we find our rest and our peace in him.
SPEAKER_00: Until Christ returns, we're gonna find ourselves from time to time struggling in this epic battle that's going on in the spiritual realm.
SPEAKER_00: And we'll feel the hot air breath of this dragon from time to time, the flames of temptation to sin and to unbelief.
SPEAKER_00: That that Christ isn't enough, that somehow or another his work wasn't done for us, that somehow or another our sins are just too great and too frequent for evil.
SPEAKER_00: He can't forgive me of that again and again and again.
SPEAKER_00: And there are all kinds of things that we might get into our head that lead us down the path of unbelief, and yet Revelation 12 calls us back.
SPEAKER_00: They overcame, past tense, they overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb and the Word of the Testimony.
SPEAKER_00: They didn't overcome him because they were good little boys and girls.
SPEAKER_00: They didn't overcome him because they had their theology completely airtight and figured out.
SPEAKER_00: They didn't overcome him because they go to the village, chapel, or some other church here in Nashville.
SPEAKER_00: They overcame him because of the blood of the test the blood of the Lamb and the Word of their testimony.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: And they loved their, they embraced the eternal perspective.
SPEAKER_00: They loved their lives not even unto death.
SPEAKER_00: They they they didn't they didn't love this life so much.
SPEAKER_00: They put Jesus first.
SPEAKER_00: He was preeminent in all things.
SPEAKER_00: Christian faith is a forward-looking faith, but it does not deny or dismiss the history of the past and the realities of the present.
SPEAKER_00: Here, friends, from Jesus is forgiveness for our sins.
SPEAKER_00: Here, folks, from Jesus through the work of the Holy Spirit is power for living in the now.
SPEAKER_00: And here, folks, for your future is this great hope of heaven, the great hope of the new heavens and the new earth.
SPEAKER_00: So your salvation is this almost this three-part thing.
SPEAKER_00: You know, we're saved from the penalty of sin.
SPEAKER_00: Saved from the power of sin, and ultimately we'll be saved from the presence of sin, as John Stott used to say.
SPEAKER_00: When we come face to face with God and give an account of our lives, we need no other argument than to point to Jesus, the Lamb who was slain, whose blood was shed for us.
SPEAKER_00: He is our testimony, and he is who is preeminent in our lives above all uh any and all other things.
SPEAKER_00: My faith has found a resting place, not in device or creed.
SPEAKER_00: I trust the ever living one.
SPEAKER_00: His wounds for me shall plead.
SPEAKER_00: I need no other argument, I need no other plea.
SPEAKER_00: It is enough that Jesus died, and that he died for me.