So Revelation chapter 12 and
verses one through 10, I guess we'll read those 10 verses and then begin to look
verse by verse. So Revelation 12, when in there
appeared a great wonder in heaven, a woman clothed with the sun
and the moon under her feet and upon her head a crown of 12 stars.
she being with child cried travailing in birth and pained to be delivered
and there appeared another wonder in heaven and behold a great
red dragon having seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns
upon his heads and his tail drew the third part of the stars of
heaven and did cast them to the earth and the dragon stood before
the woman which was ready to be delivered and to devour her
child as soon as it was born and She brought forth a man child
who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron and her child was
caught up unto the unto God and to his throne and The woman fled
into the wilderness where she hath a place prepared of God
that they should feed her there a thousand two hundred and three
score days and And there was war in heaven. Michael and his
angels fought against the dragon. And the dragon fought and his
angels and prevailed not. Neither was their place found
anymore in heaven. And the great dragon was cast
out, that old serpent called the devil and Satan, which deceiveth
the whole world. He was cast out into the earth
and his angels were cast out with him. I heard a loud voice
saying in heaven now is come salvation and strength and the
kingdom of our God and The power of his Christ for the accuser
of our brethren is cast down which accused them before our
God day and night now a Great wonder that's the title of the
message tonight a great wonder appeared in heaven a woman a
Woman, we haven't seen this Yet, nor will we again. A woman, what's
this woman in heaven? Well, there can only be one woman
in heaven. It's Christ's church. It's the
church of the Lord, the one that is purchased with the blood of
Christ, Acts 20, 28. Listen to Revelation 21 too.
And I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem. That's the church,
the new city, the city of God, Jerusalem. The new one, the heavenly
one, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride,
adorned for her husband. So this is clear who this is,
and she's seen in our text giving birth to the Savior, which we'll
talk about in a minute, Lord willing, but let's look at her
first. It says she's clothed with the sun. The Lord told his
disciples in Matthew 5.14, you are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill
cannot be hid. And by God's design and his doing,
his teaching us and him sending us forth, we set forth the light
of Christ in this world. Just as our Savior appeared on
the Mount of Transfiguration, it says His clothes were white
and glistering. We wear the same robe. We wear
Christ. We wear the robe of His righteousness. It's bright. It signifies the
light of our Savior. We've put on the Lord Jesus Christ. as the scriptures exhorts us
to do. In Romans 13, 14, put ye on the
Lord Jesus Christ and make not provision for the flesh to fulfill
the lusts thereof. So this woman, the church, wears
him or is clothed by him who is the source of all light. He
is light. And then it talks about the moon
and the moon under her feet. What does the moon do? Well,
it reflects the light of the sun. The church is called the
moon in scripture in places. Now that reflection of light,
the moon has no light of its own, but it reflects light pretty
well. You can see very well by it at
night when it's fully reflecting. But this picture is the light
of Christ being shown forth to the world. We wear the sun. We wear Christ. We wear him who
is light. But the reflection of light to
this world is pictured by the moon here, and it's under her
feet. Something being under someone's feet pictures domination or authority
over that. When the Lord says He's going
to put all of His enemies under His feet, that means He's going
to have all authority over them. Sure enough, He already does,
but right now we see not all things put under Him. They already
are in His eternal purpose and power. But we're going to experience
that. And what that means is He alone
is exalted, and all of his enemies are his footstool. But here,
this being under the feet of the church means that the church
has authority over the moon, that is, the reflection of the
source of light to the world. And God's church has that authority
to shine forth the light of the gospel into this world, given
by Christ that authority is given by him in Matthew 28, 18, Jesus
came and spake to his disciples saying, all power is given unto
me. Wait a minute, it's not our authority,
it's his authority, that's right, but listen. All power, authority
is given unto me in heaven and in earth, go ye therefore. There's
our authority, he just authorized us right there to go and spread
the light of his gospel. Go ye therefore, because I have
all authority, you go and teach all nations, baptizing them in
the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost,
teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded
you." Everything Christ said, that's what we say. And lo, I'm
with you always, even unto the end of the world, amen. Now all
authority is his, not ours, but he thereby authorized us on his
authority to go. To spread the light, to be the
light of the world. He said I'm the light of the
world, but he also said you are the light of the world. To go
and preach the gospel of Christ. His truth is light. The life was the light of men,
John said in chapter one. That's the life of Christ, it's
the light of men. Now the false church of this
world claims weird authorities that some of them don't even
make any sense. They claim the authority to forgive
sins, which is absolute blasphemy. But other things too, the church,
the so-called church of this world, claims these authorities
that they don't really possess, and that's repugnant, absolutely
repugnant. But the true church of Christ
is authorized by Christ to preach his doctrine, what he said, what
I've commanded you, that's what you teach, everything I said
to you, you teach it to all the world, go you into all the world. So we have that authority in
this world. Very few recognize it, but it's
just the truth. Who else is gonna do that now?
Who else is gonna be the light of this world? You think? Who else is gonna to shine forth
the truth and teach people, sinners, about who Christ is and what
he did and why he did it, what he accomplished on Calvary and
where he is right now? The schools? You think the schools
are going to do that? You want God in the schools?
Which God do you think is going to be in the schools? It's not going to be the God
of this Bible. It's not going to be. No, no. No, I want the
schools to teach our children reading, writing, and arithmetic.
That's about it. That's not the authority of this
world, or the government, or any school. When I want my children
to hear from God, I'm going to, by God's grace, bring them to
a church where the gospel is preached. So that's what we're
talking about here. Where a preacher is called by
the Lord, and we know that because he preaches the gospel of the
sovereign savior of sinners. Well, upon her head was a crown
of 12 stars, and notice it doesn't say a crown with 12 stars in
it. It's not talking about some great
reward that we're gonna have Christ as our reward. If it was
a crown, it would be Christ. It's 12 stars that were around
her head, though. A crown of 12 stars. A crown
signifies victory. The crown goes to the victor.
And we know that the stars are the ministers of the gospel that
Christ held in his right hand in Revelation 1.16. Seven there,
meaning all of them, and 12 here, perhaps, representing the 12
apostles, the first ones that he called to preach his gospel
in this world. And I think maybe it does signify
them because of the way he chose them. They were all a bunch of
losers, weren't they? Saul of Tarsus, the biggest one,
if you called him a loser, he'd say, what are you talking about?
Everybody knows who I am. He was the worst of them. He was the worst. So I believe that maybe is what
the 12 is. But they represent all of God's
preachers, don't they? Just like the seven stars in
his hand do. It's the same thing. In that
they do preach the gospel. They did. And we do. We preach the same thing that
they did. By God's grace. And this shows
the reason the 12 stars are around the church's head is to show
that in the preaching, it's in the preaching of the gospel that
the victory is won. That's how the victories won,
not by us having an award-winning choir, which we could do if we
wanted to, right? You betcha. But the victory is
won by Christ through his church in the preaching of the gospel. Turn with me to 2 Corinthians
2. 2nd Corinthians chapter 2 This
is why those stars are around her head 2nd Corinthians 2 14 Now thanks be unto God which
always causes us to triumph in Christ. That's the crown that
we were he causes Us it doesn't just say we triumph He causes
us to triumph always. And here's how he does it. He
makes manifest the savor of his knowledge by us in every place
we preach. For we are unto God a sweet savor
of Christ. This is why it's a win. Well,
nobody even heard what you were saying. They were all laughing
at you, Chris. They were all shaking their heads. That's all
right. That's all right. I wish it wasn't that way. But
that's still a win. Because we're a sweet saver unto
God of Christ. In them that are saved and in
them that perish. I would rather that God save
everybody I speak to. Believe me. But it's probably not going to
happen. You reckon? He might just do that. And not because
it's me. The one we're the saver of death
unto death, and to the other the saver of life unto life. And who is sufficient for that?
Of course he has to cause us to triumph, because we're nothing. For we are not as many which
corrupt the word of God, but as of sincerity, but as of God,
in the sight of God speak we in Christ. That's why it's a
victory every time. Every time. And the victory is
won by that means, and it's God which causeth us to triumph.
All the glory is his. The stars are around our head,
but the stars are in his hand, and he gives the victory. So
he gets all the glory. First Corinthians 1557, but thanks
be to God, which giveth us the victory. Through our Lord Jesus Christ. That's the way he gave the Israelites
victory over the Egyptians, was to tell them to stand there and
shut up and watch me save you. You remember that? That's how
he saved me too. That's how he gave me the victory
too. I just watched him save me. And I couldn't have done
that except by his grace. He gave me eyes of faith to see
him save me. Verse two in our text, and she
being with child, Cried, travailing in birth and pained to be delivered. It's a great wonder,
this woman in heaven. It's a great wonder that she's
there. It's a great wonder who she is.
It's a great wonder what she does. What she's wearing is wonderful. But also, she's a mother. She's
a mother. The church travails. There's
no work in this world harder than this. If you're doing it,
you know that. Most people don't understand
that because they're not doing it. They're not in on it. But
if you are, you understand. It's not just about building
things and doing physical labor like that. It's about overcoming
yourself. It's about striving to keep the
unity of the spirit. That's touch and go sometimes,
isn't it? There ain't nothing in this world
like this. It's impossible. It's not just difficult. It's
impossible without the grace of God. And I tell you this,
he'll put us through things. He solves the problems. He's
the one that does it, but he don't do it without putting you
through some blood, sweat, and tears. You don't do that. Not usually. And me. So it's a travail. She's crying.
She's crying out. And her labor is spent in the
bringing forth of life. If it wasn't for that, that's
what all of this is about. You know, there's a lot of troubles
that we have, that I know you have and I have, that we wouldn't
have if we didn't do this. But our labor is spent in the
bringing forth of life. not giving life, not creating
life. I told you before, I've seen
this little sentimental thing that people give to one another
on Mother's Day, I guess, people give to their mother, you know,
or something, or maybe mothers give to their children or something,
and it says, I gave you life, but I can't give you happiness.
You didn't give me life. I love my mother. She did not
give me life. Only God can do that. So the church isn't giving life,
we bring forth life. A mother, when God gives you
a child, that's God blessing you, in case you didn't understand
that. I know y'all do. That's God blessing
you. That's God giving life to you. Children are an heritage of the
Lord. And the fruit of the womb is
His reward. So that's what's going on here. Travailing and bringing forth
life, but not producing it, not causing it, not giving it. The
church is involved in the process of God birthing sinners in Christ. Isn't it a privilege? What a
wonderful privilege. Must be born again. How's that
gonna happen without the church? How shall you hear without a
preacher? How are you going to call on
the Lord if you don't know him? How are you going to know him
unless you hear about him? How are you going to hear about him
unless God sends somebody? He's always sent the base and
the lowly and the foolish, but he does send them. Paul speaks of the saving of
sinners by God as being a birthing process in Galatians 4.19. He
said this, my little children of whom I travail in birth again
until Christ be formed in you. Travail on the part of him who
is bringing forth life. Christ in you is the life. So the church and the life is the means that
God uses to bring forth the life which is Christ himself. It's
the life of Christ that quickens sinners, dead and trespasses
and sins. We travail by God's commission,
his blessing, his authority. Christ is set forth and sinners
are saved by hearing of him. And that's the picture in our
text. For Christ to be brought forth a savior by the church,
he had to be born a savior also into this world. And this reminds
us of that too, doesn't it? Did you think about Mary, maybe,
when we saw this is a woman that gave birth to God's son? Well,
that's perfectly natural. It's not talking about Mary,
but she's part of it, isn't she? She was one of the church. The natural is a picture of the
spiritual. Mary was a member of Christ's
church, but she represents the church in the spiritual, universal
sense, bringing forth Christ into this sin-wrecked world in
a spiritual sense, as she was chosen to do in a
physical sense. And neither one, physical or
spiritual, had anything to do really with the one that brought
forth life except God chose them, God blessed them, and God caused
it to happen. The Lord Jesus had to be born
of a woman made under the law that he might redeem them that
are under the law. That's us. And so we ought to
thank his holy name when we think about his birth. We're reminded
of that because he was because he Unto us that day in the city
of David a Savior was born which is Christ the Lord Now we the
church can bring forth that Savior to this wretched world to sinners
and be glad to do it By that means God saves his people from
their sins Salvation is a person Bring forth to this world a person Verse 3 in our text and there
appeared another wonder in heaven notice this one's not a great
wonder It's pretty unbelievable that
you're gonna be in heaven In it and me too. It's pretty Emma.
That's a great wonder my goodness that God would have anything
to do with us and Wonder Satan's just a wonder And that's only you know it's
a mystery and kind of a it's intriguing that God would use
Satan the way that he does and That he has the power that
he has knowing that God has all power and gives to whoever he
pleases Whatever power they have it's it's a wonder. It's it's
a wonder and Behold a great red dragon having
seven heads and ten horns and Seven crowns upon those heads
and his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven and did
cast them To the earth and the dragon stood before the woman
Which was ready to be delivered for to devour her child as soon
as it was born of course. It's it's Satan It talks it names
him for a little further along here also in the Third part of
the stars refers to those who were cast down with Satan. You've
read that passage of scripture where Satan said, I will, I will,
I will be like the most high. I will ascend to the throne of
heaven. And God said to him, I will put you in the dust. Guess
who's I will one out. Just like Simon said, I will.
I'll follow you to the end. I will not betray you. I will
stand with you. And the Lord said, you'll betray
me, but I will. I will go and prepare a place
for you, Simon, and I'll come again and receive you unto myself.
Don't be troubled. Just because you're a worthless
idiot, don't be troubled about that. You gotta just put it in
plain language sometimes, don't you? Not that the language of
scripture is not good enough, but you know what I'm saying.
That's what he's saying to Simon there. You're gonna betray me,
you're gonna deny me, and it's gonna break your heart. But don't
be troubled about that, because I will, I will. You can't do what you say you're
gonna do, but I can, I will. And of course, Satan said, I
will, and God said, here's what I'm gonna do. And he cast him
and a third part of the angels into perdition. Now the seven crowns on his seven
heads, seven is the number of completion. We know that that
doesn't signify that he has complete power. He's crowned here with
some authority and with some victory. But it's not universal,
it's not complete power, we know that. He has some power on this
earth, but the Lord, Runs him just like he runs everybody else
and everything else So it can't be that But we know this that
in all of the earth satan has power Every corner of this earth. He's given power right now. I
believe that's what the seven is there I'm, not sure about
the numerology of the horns there Did that make me sound smart
when I said numerology That's why I said that, so y'all don't
think I was smart. I don't know why I T in there,
but it's real power, I know that. This power's real, I've seen
it, I believe. We don't even know what we see,
do we? But it kinda looks like I've seen Satan destroy some
people, by God's permission. I tell you what, I've seen people
ripped from top to bottom, their whole life just in shreds. And
I'm sure Satan's got something to do with that, knowing what
happened to Job and why and how, and by whose permission. And Satan knows that he doesn't
have any authority, but what God gives him, you remember in
the case of Job, we see that, don't we? He knew he didn't have
any ability over Job. He said, you've hedged him about.
That's why, you know, nobody can touch him. I can't touch
him. You've hedged him about. That's why he honors you. Take
down that hedge for a little while up me in there and it'll
be a different story And so that's what the Lord did When he when he did have permission
from God he didn't hold back a whole lot did he he didn't
hold back on Job man The notice where Satan is in
this in our text he stands before the woman and People think Satan's in the bars
and the brothels and such, you know. I'm sure he has something
to do with that. But I tell you what, Satan is standing before the
church, and it's because of the child. You see that? He's waiting
to destroy the child. That's what he's wanting to do.
And he wants to destroy everybody You remember the Lord told us
that. The Lord told us that. You're hated, but I was hated
first. You're hated for my namesake,
for my sake. Satan hates the Lord Jesus Christ
and his people, and his efforts are concentrated there, at the
church. He stands at the church. So let me just say this, be careful,
beware. I'm just echoing scripture here.
Be wary, be on your guard. You won't even know it's him.
I'm telling you tonight, you won't even know it's him. You're
not looking for a hideous, demonic monster. You're not looking for
that. That's what he is, but that's
not what he looks like. What you're looking for is the
pride in your heart, like that which rose up in Adam's heart
in the garden. That's what you're looking for. You're looking for that desire
for what this world will give you, like Judas did when he betrayed
our Lord. He went to the enemies of Christ
and said, what will you give me? He left the one who not only
has everything, he is everything. And said, what will you give
me? That's what you're looking for in you. Satan entered, remember at the
table? Satan entered into Judas Iscariot.
That's why he went and asked for, what will you give me? That's what you're looking for
in you now. That's what I'm looking for. Don't look for Satan around you
or coming at you, but look for him in you where he was when
Simon was so harshly rebuked by our Lord. Verse five in our text, and she
brought forth a man-child who was to rule all nations with
a rod of iron Now listen, there's a picture here of Satan just
standing there at the door of the church waiting to destroy
Christ. And you're thinking, oh, here's
this horrible, he's called the beast and Lucifer and the father
of lies. He is a horrible, horrible monster. He's sitting there waiting to
devour. But see if you see any of that in this passage here,
verses five and six. And she brought forth a man-child
who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron. And her child
was caught up unto God and to his throne. And the woman fled
into the wilderness where she hath a place prepared of God
that they should feed her there a thousand, two hundred, and
threescore days." Boy, it sounded like it was shaping up to be
a horror story, didn't it? But you can't even tell Satan
was there in verses five and six, can you? You see, that's
the good news. Now, he has real power from God.
I don't want to minimize that. And there may be some lives ruined
before this is all over with. I've seen it happen before, and
that's not a thing to be taken lightly. It brings heartache
and tears and people ultimately leaving the gospel. You see,
that's disaster. Disaster is not going through
bad stuff. Disasters leaving the gospel But in the overall scheme of
God's purpose here You know having to do with Christ and his people.
It's like Satan wasn't even there Christ is brought forth in spite
of him And he can't be destroyed of course he rules and reigns
in spite of Satan and In fact, that's part of his rule.
He rules Satan and uses him for what he wants to use him for.
Despite all of Satan's schemings and attempts to the contrary,
and the woman, us, we're given a place by God here in this wilderness
where we're safe, we're hidden, and we're fed. That's what's
happening tonight. I'm feeding just like you are.
on the bread of life. Here we are in the wilderness.
College Grove, Tennessee, nobody even knows what that is. And that's where we're gonna
be for a long time. Did you notice that, a thousand
some odd days? Long time, but not forever. It's
a determined, Specific finite number of days
And then he said Where did he go to the father? That's what
right there in our tech didn't he? The child went to God Christ
went up to God and he told us he told his disciples while he
was here You can't follow me now, but you will hereafter Before
too long now We're gonna be where he is And there was war, verse
seven, there was war in heaven. Michael and his angels fought
against the dragon, and the dragon fought in his angels. Now you
might think like I do, that if Christ has all power and authority,
and Satan only has what Christ gives him, and Christ is just
using him as a pawn to accomplish what he wants to, then how can
there really be a war? How can there really be a war?
Well, this is just the way God does things on this earth. It
won't be that way when this is all said and done, but right
now he does. He wrestled all night with Jacob. Jacob was nobody
like us. And God wrestled all night with
him. But when God got good and ready,
he went, bing! It probably didn't make that
noise. He touched him, didn't he? And Jacob went down. He just
touched him. So that's just the way Lord,
so now there's a struggle, there's a warfare going on. And there
are casualties in this war, it's not fake. It's not a struggle or a war
in the same sense as we wage wars on this earth where we don't
know the outcome. Whatever ability Satan has to
fight it all is given to him by the Lord, that's true. But
it is a war. But what wonderful truth we see
in this. This battle, for the most part,
is fought for us. It's fought for us. Michael here,
could be Michael the archangel, which we read about in Jude,
I believe. Or it could be the Lord Jesus
Christ. I believe it was John Gill that said, the name Michael
means Him who is like God. And of course,
you could, you know, semantics, you could say, well, Christ isn't
like God, he's equal to God. Well, when Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego
were in the fiery furnace, and you know, the evil king said,
there's one like unto the son of man, or the son of God. So
it could very well be referring to Christ he who is like God
or equal to God May be the meaning in that context you see So we don't know for sure but
either way it's him in it Who sends the angels to do what they
do he does? Who gives them power to do what
they do he does I? What a wonderful truth. We're
hidden and we're fed while this war is going on. Now we do face
consequences. We are involved in the battle
and we're told to fight. In Ephesians 6.11, we better
not turn there because we're running out of time and I'm not
running out of pages. So let me read this though. This is key. We face consequences in this
battle. And we're involved in it. In
Ephesians 6, 11, we're instructed, put on the whole armor of God,
that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil,
for we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities. We do wrestle. We strive against
principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness
of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. Wherefore,
take unto you the whole armor of God. That's important. That's vital. This is not just
something to agree with and go home and get on with your life
now. This has got to be life-changing or we're goners. Put on the whole armor of God.
And take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit,
which is the Word of God. Praying always with all prayer
and supplication, ask God, beg God, plead unto God. In the Spirit and watching therein
too with all perseverance and supplication for all's sake,
pray for me, and I'll pray for you. We don't fight alone, do we?
The angels fight for us, both Christ and his angels, and it's
certainly the Lord and his angels, and we know how it ends. We're
told in our text how it ends. Listen to verse eight, and prevailed
not. Satan and his demons fought too,
but they didn't win. They didn't prevail. How are
they going to? They're fighting against God and his people. Neither
was their place found anymore in heaven. And the great dragon
was cast out. That old serpent called the devil
and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world. He was cast out
into the earth and his angels were cast out with him. We know
how it ends. God, the Lord Jesus Christ, the
woman, the church, we win. When he gives us the victory,
of course we win. He's God. He can't fail. What kind of a God does this
world have that's trying to save everybody? What kind of a God
does this world have that's trying to do anything? What do you think
God means? What do they think God means? This is not much of a spoiler,
is it? To find out that we win because we know Him. We know
who God is. We know who Christ is by his
grace. We know that he can't fail. His
purposes of grace and salvation toward his people can never be
broken. He told us that he gave himself
for us and we shall never perish. We already know that. We're in the hand of God and
his Christ and no one can pluck us out. You know, we could say the whole
world means the whole world here, like false religion loves to
say that about John 3.16, couldn't we? World means world. He died for everybody. Oh, does
it? I guess everybody's deceived by Satan then and we're all going
to hell. Says he deceived the whole world. But the Bible also
says that the elect cannot be deceived. The whole world. Not the whole
world without exception. The whole world without distinction.
People of every nation, kindred, tribe, and tongue under heaven.
He's deceived everybody except God's elect. It's not that hard
to understand. It's just a question of whether
you believe God or not. You can't just take one verse
and make it mean what you want it to mean. You've got to read
this book and hear it preached and bow to God. But we do know how this thing
ends. And I'm thankful that it's not
possible, according to Matthew 24, 24, for us to ever be deceived
by Satan. When Satan had full power over
Job, except what did God say? There's one exception, you have
taken, he's yours except this, don't take his life. So Satan did his worst, didn't
he? And yet Job was still able to say, I know that my Redeemer
liveth. He couldn't take his physical
life, he couldn't take his spiritual life either, which is faith in
the Lord Jesus Christ. Still spoke that which was right
according to God himself didn't he at the end of the book? God
said my servant Job has spoken that which is right concerning
me you have but he has In spite of all that Satan could do to
him Well, that's a blessing So Satan gets what he always
gets ultimately cast out and And what do we get? Verse 10. And I heard a loud voice saying
in heaven, now is come salvation. Wait a minute, Chris, I was saved
when I was 10 years old. You know, what you need to know
is that you believe on Christ right now. But also, we're gonna
be plumb saved one of these days. No sin. No disappointment. No compromise. No pride. Changed. Glorified. Made exactly like
God's Son. I could talk about that for a
long time, y'all. The accuser of our brethren is
cast out. Now has come salvation and strength
and the kingdom of our God. We pray, Lord, your kingdom come.
Here it is. The accuser of our brethren is
cast down, which accused them before our God day and night.
Think about what a great wonder, in closing, it is to see us in
glory. That's a great wonder there. Much less to see us as a mother
wearing the glory of God, which is our Savior, and shining forth
the light of eternal life to sinners, the gospel of our Lord
Jesus Christ. This is that which angels desire
to look into. The Lord has presented unto himself
a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing. And there we are in our text.
Why is this name given to Satan, the accuser of the brother? Think
about that. Of all the things you could call him, and he is
called other things, the father of lies and things like that. But of all the havoc that Satan
wreaks in this world by God's permission, why this name? Why
is this singled out, the fact that he accuses us? I'll tell
you why. Because if Satan could ever accuse us of one thing that
had any basis of truth, then we lose. If he can make one charge against
a stick, it's all over. He wins. And he knows that. But who shall lay anything to
the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifies. Who is he that condemneth? It
is Christ that died. Yea, rather, that is risen again,
who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession
for us. Amen.