Advent Apocalypse Pt. 2 // Baby and the Beast

Visit our website
Follow us on Facebook
Follow us on Instagram

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:01

Hi, welcome to the Fun Live Church Podcast. This is all if we can help you in any way. Here's a short sermon from last week. Again, thanks for joining us.

SPEAKER_02 0:34

Alright, you guys ready to jump into the word today? No? Yeah, okay, we can go home too. I'm joking. Oh, I'm sorry I need that. So this morning, we are going to continue in a series we started last week. If you were with us last week, uh we kicked off uh our Christmas series, which we're calling Advent Apocalypse, which sounds so warm and inviting. I know on first glance. And uh if you weren't here, basically what we're doing is we're we're layering up our journey through the book of Revelation with the beautiful season we are in called Advent. We um the word Advent actually means arrival, and this is what we're doing is we're celebrating the first coming of Jesus and then turning our attention to the second coming of Jesus all at the same time. And that's the invitation for the season. The word apocalypse just means revealing. Some of us think it means end of the world or the destruction of everything, right? That's not actually what it means in the Greek, it just means revealing. So in Advent, something is revealed of Christ, and in the second coming, something is revealed of Christ. And in the book of Revelation, it's not a book about the end times, it's a book about Jesus. It's a book about the revelation of Jesus Christ. It's literally the first words of the book of Revelation. And so we're we're jumping into this. It's a letter we talked about last week, written to seven churches in the late 90s of the first century. Uh it's apocalyptic, which means that as we explore this book together, maybe you've read the book of Revelation and just really got confused and kind of gave up on it. Uh, and I want to encourage you to not do that. Maybe you've read that and you've heard a lot of different interpretations. There's a lot of things to there, a lot of ways to go about the book of Revelation. Um, but you'll notice that there's a lot of numbers, there's a lot of symbols, right? There's the seven seals and the seven lamps and the and and and um the seven churches and the seven spirits and the hundred and forty-four thousand of this, and the twelve of this, and the four of that. There's a lot of numbers, and as we're going through it, we're gonna find that a lot of these things aren't necessarily meant to be read literally. They are symbolic of what God is doing. There is a completion that's happening in the book of Revelation, all right? But then also you we we come across a lot of animals, and so we read this as a story. It's a fascinating story. It's a hard book to read literally because literally the the protagonists of the story are a dragon and a lamb. And so it's really difficult to kind of try to read everything at face value because there's a lot here that's not necessarily in chronological order. It's not necessarily meant to be uh read as an instruction manual, but it's meant to be provocative. It's meant to invite us into this epic thing that we are, this epic story that we are a part of that does have a climax, has a conclusion with the second coming of Jesus, the resurrection of the dead, the final judgment, and essentially uh eternity with Christ at a wedding feast of the Lamb. And this is where this book heads. In the meantime, we have to kind of wrestle with it. So I'm gonna say some things today that you may or may not even agree with me, and that's totally okay. Um the the point of this book is to be provoked and in the context of community, go hash it out, wrestle it out with each other. But these symbols are hard to identify because we're not the same readers as the first readers. It would be similar to a thousand years from now if somebody picked up some kind of American um news article and saw a cartoon of a donkey and an elephant with boxing gloves, and they were wondering what the heck was going on in America? Right? And of course, we know what that means. We know that they're symbolic of something else happening. It's the same thing as we're reading through. The early readers, as they were steeped in Old Testament prophecy, as they were steeped in the scriptures, a lot of the symbols, the terminology, the events that unfold um have to do with the fulfillment of all of these things. And at the end of the day, here's what I want to um uh offer to you. Whatever your interpretation of the book of Revelation is, just learn to hold it very loosely. Okay? There's one thing I know with this. If you think you know what's happening, it's likely you don't. All right? Um, that's the one thing I've learned about this book. So we're approaching it with humility, we're approaching it to receive a gift, a blessing from the Lord. That's what happens, as it says, will happen as we read it together. It's a revelation of Jesus above everything else. So I'm gonna invite uh Neil Armstrong to come and read the uh text for this morning. We're gonna fly through it. Um turn to your neighbor and say, buckle your seat belts. Turn to your other neighbor and say, let's we need to rearrange lunch plans already. I'm joking. We're gonna get into some deep water here today. And so let's turn our attention to the word. We're gonna be in Revelation chapter 12 together.

SPEAKER_00 6:01

Hello. Okay, Revelation 12. And a great sign appeared in heaven. A woman clothed with the sun with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars. She was pregnant and was crying out in birth pains and the agony of giving birth. And another sign appeared in heaven. Behold, a great red dragon with seven heads and ten horns, and on his head seven diadams. His tail swept down a third of the stars of heaven and cast them down to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman who was about to give birth, so that when she bore her child, he might devour it. She gave him 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 is to be nourished for 1,260 days. Now war arose in heaven. Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon. And the dragon and his angels fought back, but he was defeated, and there was no longer any place for them in heaven. And the great dragon was thrown down to that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world. And he was thrown down to earth, and his angels were thrown. And I heard a loud voice in heaven saying, Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come. For the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God. And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they love not their lives even unto death. Therefore, rejoice, O heavens, and you who dwell in them. But woe to you, O earth and sea, for the devil has come down to you in great wrath, because he knows that his time is short.

SPEAKER_02 8:49

Thanks be to God. Thank you, Neil. So every epic story, every epic story that we read has a villain that must be defeated. Um you have probably spent some time in the the work or the film depictions of Lord of the Rings, uh, Chronicles of Narnia, any Avengers slash Marvel movie. Um they all capture something about this epic battle, and they all have a villain that must be defeated. In the scriptures, our villain shows up very early on in the book of Genesis as a serpent and is defeated in the book of the Revelation in the form of a dragon, uh, with minions known as beasts who deceive the world. Um, and I want to turn our attention briefly to what is going on in this epic battle here today. These characters, I know at many times, depending on your reading of the scriptures, they seem very intimidating, they seem very scary, they seem frightening, but they don't have to be, and I'm gonna tell you why today, okay? But we're gonna walk through the scriptures today, we're gonna look at this epic story, we're gonna look at what God is doing, what he has done, and what he will be doing in the in the future we are headed to. Amen. So in Genesis, in God's good world, we read how a serpent slithered into the garden and fed lies to Eve and Adam, influencing them to question the goodness of God and take matters into their own hands, pushing beyond the loving wisdom and the limits that the Father had placed on them for their flourishing, they believed through the enemy's lies they could do better on their own. And so we read very early on in the scriptures, in God's good world, how the serpent comes in, sin enters the picture, and as they they they stepped out of this loving union with the Father, sin enters and like cancer grows into them and every future generation and gets a grip and tangles them up in sin. But we read in Genesis 3:15 that God preached the first good news message or gospel of Jesus to our sinful first mother Eve. God promised that Jesus would be born of a woman and would grow to be a man who would battle with Satan and stomp his head, defeat him, even as the serpent struck the serpent strike his heel, killing him, and liberate the people from their captivity to Satan, sin, death, and hell. From there on out we read in the scriptures how God initiates this promise that he will bring a great reversal. But until then we read that as his people are still living in the effects of this sin, his love begins to pursue them. He pursues them with this covenantal love that comes, it just enters the story over and over and over and over again, reminding them to come back to him, to return from, do not be distracted, do not be pulled into false idols, but come and live in my love. And and still they grappled with the effects, this these crippling effects of their condition. And from there on out, as he was pursuing his people, the enemy also continued to lie, to steal, to kill, to grow in power and authority on earth. And he grows, um, we get this picture that it's almost as if his power grows from that of a serpent to that of a dragon over time. And so eventually, war is declared against this dragon through a newborn's baby cry. Not the it wasn't a declaration that came through through trumpets, it wasn't through through earthly um warmongering, but through a newborn baby's cry in Bethlehem, Jesus came. And in this first advent, our arrival, he was born ultimately to defeat this dragon, liberating his people and all who trust in the power of his cross and his blood. And the writers of the New Testament picked this up, and I just want to invite you, feel free to get excited about this one. Colossians chapter 2, verse 13 says this and you who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses by canceling the record of our debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame by triumphing over them in him. Alright, we're getting there, guys, we're getting there. And so he, through a decisive victory on the cross, he he upended the authority, this grip that the enemy had on humankind, on the human race. But that kind of begs another question. If the enemy is defeated, why does it sure seem that he is still controlling the world at some point in time? Or why does it seem that he still has a lot of power in our lives, maybe individually or in our society, in or in our culture? Jesus declared that all authority is now in his hands. So what does that mean? And we are where are we at in the story? See, the enemy, what we need to know is that the enemy's defeat is certain. We read about this in the book of Revelation, we read about this in the scriptures. His defeat was certain, but the only weapon Satan still has is the power we give him when we believe his lies. He came to deceive the world. And he is a defeated foe, he is a defeated adversary because of the work of Jesus on the cross. And so, what does that mean for us? The world that Christ has given us is to dis the work that Christ has given us is to disarm the work and the lies of the evil one and appropriate his victory over every human heart and nation. We are not actually fighting an enemy. Jesus already did that. We are disarming his schemes and trickery that we have come into agreement with and have affected homes and neighborhoods and cities and nations and systems of the world. And we're the work that Jesus commissioned us into is to walk in his truth and his light. And this kingdom of God is advancing still on this earth through the sacrificial love and the declaration of the truth of God into every realm of society. And so now we are living in the in between his first coming and his second coming. We are in a time, that means, of great turbulence where the darkness is trembling and the light is gaining ground, the light is getting traction as hearts unlock in the presence and the power of Jesus, as minds are renewed and begin to cooperate with and align with the work of God and the victory of the cross and the victory of God as that begins to unlock the hearts of humans. What's happening is it's moving out. It's moving out and like seeds being planted, like yeast going into every nation and city on the earth. Light is coming to dismantle the darkness once and for all. Woo! Come on, you're catching up. Let's do it. So we're living in between this time of God has come and come, Lord Jesus. God has come. Thank you, Jesus, that you came. And Jesus, we turn our eyes to your second coming. When you'll finish once and for all what you started. So we read in this passage that this enemy, this wicked, slimy dragon, he knows his time is short. And so he's thrashing. He's thrashing on the earth, doing everything he can possibly do to reach for hold while he's marching to his defeat. And you get this picture of him in a cage and yet hurling as much as he can, for all who will listen, hurling lies into the world, into the hearts of people. In this passage, we read how the devil comes to make war against a woman and her child and to devour them. This is the passage about the incarnation. This is the intention of the evil one to go devour this child who would raise up and become king and rule the nations. And he he set his intentions to kill and to devour Jesus. And then also anyone who would follow Jesus, and I would say, if you were a follower of Jesus Christ today, you need to be reminded the enemy seeks to devour you. He seeks to devour you. To shut you down. This is the work. He is on his way to defeat. He's doing any, using any means necessary through any person necessary, through any situation necessary to crush you, to silence you, to shut you down, to diminish the image of God inside of you, to destroy your identity, to mangle the purposes of God that have been decided about you before the foundations of the world were laid, every good work that was deposited in you, every piece of light that God has put inside of you, the spark of his image and likeness, the enemy is thinking anything I can do to mar and to mingle and to distract you from an abiding relationship with Jesus, to get you to walk away, to give up on, to isolate you, to cut you off, to consume, his desire is to consume and swallow you. Any chance he can get. Whoever will give ear to what he has to say, he intends to consume, to swallow you, to cut you off from the victorious Christ and his people, from being a witness to his name. And he's got a few friends with him. And in the book of Revelation, we are introduced to these characters called affectionately the beasts. He knows his days are numbered. He's seeking to grab and to reach and to take whatever he can get while he can. The next chapter of Revelation, we read about these beastly figures that rise up under the authority, the authority, the influence of Satan, these beasts would be forces that would deceive the world. They would be influential to seek to persecute believers, to shut down anyone who would not offer allegiance to the dragon. Now, the second of these beasts, we probably know better than the other one, the second of these beasts would cause all people to receive a mark on their forehead with the number 666, which would be required for economic purposes, buying and selling. Now, start cueing all of the movies and all of the books and novels about the mark of the beast and the whole thing. And I'm sure you've heard it all. Um in my lifetime, we've we've talked about barcodes, but then barcodes went extinct, and talk about microchips, or we're talking about whatever vaccines. Now, there's a couple interpretive decisions that you know you you have to make in the reading through Revelation. There's a lot of ways to interpret this. This will cause great turmoil potentially between you and other believers, and that's okay. Just wrestle with it. There's ways to look at this symbolically, there's ways to look at this historically, there's ways to look at this literally, there's ways to look at this futuristically. Um, I would offer to you that as it relates to the work of the Satan and his work to influence systems and powers, um, that the imagery of the beast is not new. Daniel 7 in the Old Testament, the prophet refers to a dream in which there were four beasts. Who would come into the earth and they would be kings. They would come in governmental with governmental authority. While some believe the beasts to be individual figures in the future, many scholars, though, have made a different connection that connects this letter very specifically to the time this was written in. So hang with me for a second. Having been written to the seven churches of the first century were actual literal churches happening at a specific place and specific time. This picture, this metaphor likely starts out as a wild and creative portrayal of the beastly empire of Rome. Okay? Now, it doesn't mean it's only that, but let me just read to you a connection between the beast and what the early church would be would come to know as the Empire of Nero, Caesar. So Emperor Nero hated the Christians. He executed them in great numbers. In fact, he would light them, he would gather them and light them as candles in the street. He would burn them alive and light them as candles in the street. That's how wicked and perverse Nero was. He was barbaric, he beheaded very many of them, including Paul. He set up a huge statue to himself in Rome and many smaller statues of himself in the marketplace in Asia Minor. No one could enter the marketplaces to buy and sell unless they had stood before a Nero statue and wiped incense ash on their forehead and said, Caesar is Lord. His own subjects referred to him as the beast in Rome. In fact, the number 666, when translated from Greek to Hebrew, and this goes way above my understanding of how language and all this stuff actually works, but very well documented. You can Google it. The number 666, when translated from Greek to Hebrew in numerical value, it's equivalent, translated to Nero Caesar. Okay? So there's a lot of reasons and speculation to believe that some of the stuff that we're talking about had very specific context in that first century. Now, that being said, while the beasts most likely have something to do with this wicked, oppressive empire of Rome that demanded allegiance, we can clearly see even with the eventual demise of the Roman Empire, other nations would rise up in time to similarly act in beastly ways. And all throughout Scripture, there were beasts that existed to oppress, dehumanize, and destroy the image of God and people. We see this in the Old Testament, we see this through Egypt, we see it through Babylon, certainly we see it through Rome and over human history. We see this in empires and systems and governments that do not seek the flourishing of the people, but seek to oppress and to minimize and diminish and destroy people and even believers. And so, that being in mind, we see this pattern that while some of this is actually probably specific to the early church about the dragon and the beasts and these things that were very happening, the end of the age, which likely meant the end of the fall of Jerusalem, it also is still important for all believers of all time because it's not just a warning to the first century believers, but it's a it's a it's a caution to us. Do not give yourself to wicked and oppressive empires that demand allegiance over and above your allegiance to Christ the Savior, Christ the King. Thank you. So the beasts we can see over human history are systems of power, money, influence, government even, that exist to seduce humans into worship. They exist to suppress, to to accumulate power, to dehumanize people, and to turn it into subjects that suck the power and the life out of the people. Merry Christmas, everybody. When else are we gonna talk about this, huh? But you need not be intimidated, because there is one who has come and conquered them all. There is a conquering king who has conquered this wicked dragon and conquered all these beastly figures. So we turn our attention now to the Lamb. I wish I had seven hours to walk you through this stuff, but I don't. To paraphrase, though, in Revelation 4, after the letter to the seven churches, there's this picture where John sees a vision of a door open in heaven and a voice that says, Come up here, John. And he comes up and he sees this picture of heaven. And in this picture, there's four living creatures, and there's these elders, and there's flashes of lightning and a sea of glass. And he hears this song day and night, this whole chorus of all of heaven singing, holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and his to come. And they just on repeat, just throw it on repeat. Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, the one who was and is and is to come. And then in Revelation 5, he he sees now, he sees the right hand of one seated on a throne. And he sees a scroll with seven seals, and there's a voice that shows up that says, Who is worthy to open the scroll in the seven seals? And then it becomes clear that no one is worthy. And John begins to weep because he knows that in this scroll is it's just there's something that's gonna unlock the unfolding of things to come, and he knows this. And no one is found worthy in this picture, and so he just begins to weep with all that's in him. And so John then hears a voice that told him, Weep no more. Behold, the lion of the tribe of Judah, the root of David, has conquered, so that we can open the scroll and its seven seals. And so then John looks, he hears that voice, but then he looks to the one who's conquered. The one who has conquered all things. He looks to the throne, and what he sees is a lamb that's standing there, that had been slain. And then the song picks up again shortly after this, and he hears the voices again say, To him who sits on the throne, and to the lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever. And this is the revelation of Jesus in this book. The revelation of Jesus as a slaughtered lamb. No, we have to understand that Jesus, as we just looked at, is a roaring lion as well. And he comes later as a roaring lion to judge evil and unrighteousness decisively for all of time. In his goodness, he will judge and unleash a fury against all wickedness and evil and the effects of Satan on the people he loves and on the earth he loves. He will come and judge as a lion. And there's no one, there's no force or evil power that will escape his judgment. But first, we have to see him as a lamb. See, he didn't, he comes to judge as a lion, but he conquers as a lamb. And if we don't see Jesus as a slaughtered lamb, we will never understand the book of Revelation. You won't understand anything in the scriptures unless you your vision of Jesus can be anchored in a picture of a tiny, helpless, slaughtered lamb. Once you see that, it unlocks everything you need to know about the way of Jesus. Because it's not really a picture we would have picked. Right? The lamb is not a picture we would have picked. Lambs are not known for strength. Who wants to follow a lamb, right? I mean, so all these countries, nations of the earth all have national symbols. Russia's a bear, United States is an eagle, we have lions and tigers, right? Because these are ferocious animals. Even our sports teams are named after animals who get things done generally, right? The Broncos, right? The jaguars, the raptors, the panthers, the bulldogs, right? Like animals that have an effect on things, you know? I would give exception to the dolphins. Not sure about that one. The blue jays.

unknown 31:38

Yay!

SPEAKER_02 31:40

Respectable, but not, you know, not ferocious, right? We want to align ourselves with animal, like for with strength. We want to follow strength. We want to follow leaders with some capacity. They're gonna get things done, right? They're gonna make it happen. They're going to deliver. That's what we want to follow. That's the type of revelation that we want to follow. And yet, Jesus comes to us as a lamb. He comes as a lamb. It's almost like a joke. Except it's not. He comes to us as a lamb, this this helpless lamb. Imagine a DIDA instead of this big Bronco, this demon blue Bronco outside of DIDA. What if there's just this tiny little lamb? You know? Welcome to Denver. Tonight, Kansas City Kings and Arab Stadium going against the Denver tiny little lambs. Hi! Nobody would show up to that game. But Jesus comes as a lamb. He said, Listen, I am going to you need a revelation that upends the beastly ways of the world that conquer and dominate and declare war and suppress. I'm coming to you as a lamb. And we see this in the incarnation. We see this that Jesus, the conquering king, came to defeat the dragon. He came not wearing a crown, but wearing a diaper. It does, it is that ridiculous. Maxukato put some beautiful language around this. He said, Jesus was born and oppressed you, unable to do anything but wiggle, lie there, make noises. He had to be fed and changed. He needed to be taught to talk like any other human baby. Fully depend on other humans. From the grand picture we just read in Revelation, he left the throne room to enter a teenage womb. Jesus starts this grand picture, the endless worship in heaven, to come down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, so small as to become a single fertilized egg. An egg that would enlarge into a fetus and then later into a nervous teenager. And he who sustains the world with a word chose to become dependent upon the nourishment of a young girl. God was given eyebrows, elbows, two kidneys, and a spleen. He stretched against the walls and floated in the amniotic fluids of his mother. The omnipotent in one instant made himself breakable. He who had been spirit became pierceable. The one who created the heavens and the earth and the galaxies that we're still discovering, the word of God himself entered into the world as one who could not speak. The word of God became a baby who could not speak. He became fragile, unknown, obscure, helpless, dependent, hidden. And his ways stand in contrast to the ways of this world. So Jesus conquers the dragon and the beasts. Not as how we would have liked him to conquer. But he conquers as the slaughtered lamb, the helpless one, laying down his life and sacrificially. And notice in the book of Revelation how the difference between the mark of the beast and the mark of the lamb. Revelation 14 it says, Then I looked, and behold, on Mount Zion stood the Lamb, and with him 144,000, which represents the multiplication of the twelve tribes of Israel, and had his name and his father's name written on their foreheads, which stands in contrast to the mark of the beast, which was a number to be written on a forehead. See, the lamb gives you a name, but the beast gives you a number. The lamb works to seek out your identity and the flourishing of your image in God. The beasts of this world, the systems of this world only seek to turn you into a number, into a dollar sign, into a category, into a Republican or a Democrat or this race or that race. The ways of this world seek to dehumanize you by putting you into categories that rob you of your truest identity that comes with the name of God being written on your forehead. The beasts will always dehumanize you. The lamb will always pull you into your humanity, the image and likeness of God. The beast is impersonal, the lamb is very personal. And the followers of this lamb, the followers of the slaughtered lamb of God, it says will influence the world. They will conquer by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and their testimony backed by their very lives. So the words of their mouth backed by the lives that I I don't love my life enough to save it, but I am willing to lay it down just like the slaughtered lamb laid down his life. And this is how we participate. Jesus defeats the way of the world not by attacking it directly, but by undermining it through sacrificial love. Jesus could have taken on the Roman Empire. He chose not to. He undermined it by undoing the works of Satan that would create a beast like that. And he calls us to do the same. Undo the works of the enemy. And the way you're going to do it is by following it. Your mascot is now a slaughtered lamb. And it will demand everything from you. It will cost you your very life. To become a follower of the slaughtered lamb, it means to lay down your very life. Again, Merry Christmas. If you would like to know Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior, and you're willing to die today, you're welcome to come and receive him. I say that slightly tongue-in-cheek, but it's here. This is all through here. In fact, the power in the book of Revelation unlocks as the world begins to give see the witness of those who did not love their life unto death but were willing to lay it down. To not participate in a way of the world that would oppress and dehumanize, but participates in a way that gives name and honor to the people made in God's image. He says this after riding the Peace Donkey on Palm Sunday to contrast his peaceable kingdom with the violent empires of the pagan world, Jesus does not later contradict himself by riding a war horse in an exaggerated image of Genghis Khan. Jesus is ever and always the slaughtered lamb. Christ always rules from the cross. John stresses that robe drenched in blood before the battle begins. Jesus' robe is soaked in his own blood. Jesus doesn't shed the blood of his enemies. Jesus sheds his own blood. This is the gospel. The rider on the white horse is the slaughtered lamb, not the slaughtering beast. The sword the rider uses to smite the nations is not in his hand, but in his mouth. This is not Caesar's sword, but the word of God. Jesus wages war by self-sacrifice, and by what he says, Jesus combats evil by co-suffering love and the word of God, by co-suffering love and the word of God. A fallen world addicted to war does not believe this, but the followers of Jesus do or should. If Jesus conquers evil by killing his enemies, he's not, he's just another Caesar. But the whole point of John's revelation is that Jesus is nothing like Caesar. He is the slaughtered Lamb of God. He was given to us. And we get to rejoice today in Revelation 11 that now through Jesus the world has now become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ, and He will reign forever and ever. Amen. Amen. And I want to pray for us today, as we think about this here today, as this intersects with us here today. I just want to declare over you. Some of you have felt that battle. You felt the tentacles of this dragon in your life. You felt the effects of a world under his influence pressuring you. But I just want to declare over you that the enemy has been defeated in the name of Jesus Christ over you. His power can be broken as we as we trust in his work, as we index our life towards the cross and the work that he's done. The enemy does not need to be in power over you. He does not have authority over you. Jesus has authority over you. And today, if you need to feel the effect of the victory and the freedom of Jesus, I want to invite you after the service to come forward. We want to pray for you. We want to pray over your thoughts. We want to pray over your being. We want to pray over your body. And we would declare the what has been accomplished in the name of Jesus and in the work of Jesus on your behalf. And also, I want to say this next week we get to do something fun. Next week we're going to lean into this passage that they overcame, they conquered through the blood of the Lamb and what? The word of their testimony. Next week, we're going to bring testimony to the work of Jesus in our lives, in our church, in the ways that God has been uniquely working to bring transformation, victory, and freedom in our lives. And if you have something to say to bring witness to the power of God in your life, I want you to come next week and be prepared to share it with this body of believers because this is how we move forward. We move forward with a certainty and an assurance that we have been uh we have been bought with the blood of the Lamb, and his freedom is now our freedom. And we get to actually declare it and to say it. It's not just a personal, individual thing. This is something that in the book of Revelation says, this is how we will overcome. I want you to come next week. If you have a story to share that other believers in this room, other people need to share, I want you to come next week ready to share a story from this year. It doesn't have to be, doesn't it? It doesn't even have to be on the surface level be this knockout, shakedown, miraculous thing. If God has been at work, great or small, in your life, I want you to come and give testimony to his name next week. Okay? December 12th, next week. They overcame by the blood of the Lamb and the word of the testimony. And let's do this, let's stand together in this place. We're just gonna sing this chorus. Turn our attention to behold Jesus today. Behold the Lamb of God. Like John the Baptist said, this is the greatest revelation. He said, Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the Lord. Jesus, we come to you today. Father. We thank you, Lord Jesus, for deliverance. We thank you for delivering us from the evil one. We turn our attention to you this Christmas season, to him who sits on the throne and unto the Lamb.