Revelation 12, and this morning we'll be looking
specifically at a few verses from this text, especially verse
6. It says, "...and the woman fled
into the wilderness, where she hath a place prepared of God,
that they should feed her there 1,260 days. Then down in verse
13, it says, And when the dragon saw that he was cast to the earth,
he persecuted the woman, which brought forth the man-child.
And to the woman were given two wings of great eagle, that she
might fly into the wilderness, into her place, where she is
nourished for a time and times and half a time from the face
of the serpent. And the serpent cast out of his
mouth waters as a flood after the woman that he might cause
her to be carried away of the flood. And the earth helped the
woman, and the earth opened up her mouth and swallowed up the
flood which the dragon cast out of his mouth. And the dragon
was wroth with the woman and went to make war with the remnant
of her seed, which kept the commandments of God and have the testimony
of Jesus Christ." The title of the message this morning is,
A Refuge for the Persecuted Church. A Refuge for the Persecuted Church. Now, as we have seen, at the
end of chapter 11, we find the end of the first vision. which is the final judgment of
God, the end of the gospel age, when the church of God, pictured
by the two witnesses, is raised from the dead and called to life
and glory. The last trumpet is sounded.
In chapter 11, the dead in Christ are risen, and they which are
alive and remain are caught up together with them in the clouds,
and so shall they ever be with the Lord. It is there that all
the church of God, pictured in verse 16 of chapter 11, all the
church of God, the 24 elders, which sat before God on their
seats, fell on their faces, and worshipped God, and gave thanks,
saying, Lord God Almighty, which art, which was, and which art
to come, because thou hast taken to thee thy great power, and
hast reigned, and the nations were angry, and thy wrath is
come. And the time of the dead, that
they should be judged, and that thou shouldest give reward unto
thy servants, the prophets, and to the saints, and to them that
fear thy name, small and great, and thou shouldest destroy them
which destroy the earth." You see, this then is the end of
all things. God will come and bestow His
reward to the saints. He will give to His prophets,
both small and great, the same reward. Isn't that comforting
to know this, that our reward is the same? It is the righteousness
of Christ. It is the righteousness of God.
It is eternal life and peace with God. And all those outside
of Christ will be forever destroyed. The end. So we have the end of
the first vision in chapter 11. Now then, in chapter 12, what
we have then is a beginning of another vision. This is the second
division, the second main division of the book here in chapter 12. And this vision continues until
chapter 14, when again we find the Son of God with the sickle
in His hand ready to harvest in the final judgment. So this
vision now begins afresh. And in verses 1 and 2, we saw
this last time, that the glorious woman clothed in the sun." This
is the vision. There's a glorious woman, a wonder
in heaven, and she is clothed with the sun. The moon is under
her feet, a crown of twelve stars is on her head, and this woman
is pregnant. She is about to deliver a child. But in verses 3 and 4, there
is the antagonist, the one that is the dragon, having seven heads
and seven crowns and ten horns. And he is so large and fierce
that a third of the stars are dragged down by just his tail. And his one aim, his one goal
is to devour the child as soon as it is born. But in verse 5,
we see that all the dragon's power and all of his dominion
are nothing, because he fails to deliver. And she brought forth
a man-child that was to rule the nations with the rod of iron,
and her child was called up to God and to His throne. The dragon then fails, not for
effort, not for desire, but because of divine power, he fails. The child is caught up to the
throne of God. Now, as I've said, we've gone
over this part of the vision. I'm just going to recap it for
you because this is important to know who the characters are.
Now, the woman clearly is the church. She is a picture and
representation of all the glorious church of God. She is seen with
clothed in the sun. as her clothing, which is, she
is clothed in the righteousness of Christ. She is clothed in
the sun of righteousness. Under her feet is the moon, which
is the lesser light. And there are several things
this could mean. It could definitely mean that
she, it shows her understanding that the law, which is the lesser
light, is now over. The law being put under. the
feet of the church, we recognize that Christ is the end of the
law for righteousness to everyone that believe it. That also could
represent her authority and dominion over the lesser things of the
world. Concerning the gospel of Christ, we have authority.
The gospel I preach to you is one of power and authority. And she is crowned with seven
stars. Now, last week I did not give
you this because I was not sure. But as looking at this, the stars
have already been determined as to who they are. In chapter
1, we read that the stars were in the right hand of Christ.
These are the ministers of the gospel. the ministers of the
gospel, especially the 12 apostles, whose record we believe. And so as she is crowned with
this crown, it pictures the reception of the gospel that was preached,
the reception of the church believing the gospel of Jesus Christ. And she being with child, speaks
to us of the Old Testament church from whom Christ should come. Remember, this was the prophecy
from the beginning. The seed of the woman shall crush
the head of the serpent. In Isaac shall thy seed be called. To David it was said, Thy seed
will I establish and build up the throne to all generations. Therefore, this seed is Christ. This child, this man who was
to be born and rule the nations with a rod of iron is nothing
but Jesus Christ, the Son of God who was to come. And because of this prophecy
from the beginning, God has set enmity between Satan and Christ. From the beginning, this red
dragon which we know to be Satan, you can see that in verse 9 of
our text, it clearly says who the dragon is. It says the great
dragon was cast out, the old serpent called the devil and
Satan. And so we see that Satan's one
aim, one desire then is to devour the Son of God, to stop His birth
from coming. Yet we know this, in every way
he failed. In every age. In every age he
failed to stop the line of Christ. So then as God ordained, even
so the woman delivers the child. The virgin conceived, Christ
was born, and Satan failed to kill the lion. But seeing now
Christ had come, what did he do? He tried to destroy him as
a child by Herod, that wicked king. And yet again he failed. You remember, he tried to ruin
Christ by his temptations. And again, he failed. He tried to even crucify the
Son of God as though that would destroy him. But rather, the
crucifixion was the very nail that killed Satan, the very thing
that destroyed him. And so then in every effort,
Satan failed. And in verse 5, we have the shortest
declaration of the whole of Christ's work on earth. Look at this.
And the child was caught up to God and to His throne. These
are 11 words. And the child was caught up to
God and to His throne. Christ, who was promised to come,
had come. He who was to rule, being anointed
the King by God over all the nations, had come into the world,
and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself and
became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross." Therefore,
Christ has become the author and the finisher of our salvation. In these words, he was caught
up by God. You see, everything that Christ
did in this world, he did in obedience to God. He did in submission
to the will of God. He did not even take to himself
bread except God give it to him. He was so faithful in everything. So then, in all his temptation,
he was delivered by God. This Christ, in order to destroy
the works of the devil, isn't that why He came? He came to
destroy the works of the devil. What is the works of the devil?
Sin is the work of the devil. He is the father of sin. He came to destroy sin. Therefore, Christ has come, the
author and finisher of our salvation. He has come to give life to dead
sinners, to establish righteousness and atone for sin by His one
offering. And by that offering, He purged
our sins. And what happened after He had
purged our sins? He was caught up by God to His
throne. He ascended to His throne on
high. After purging our sins, after
suffering the full vengeance of God for the sins of His people,
conquering death, God raised Him from the dead to eternal
glory and dominion. And by this, He cast out Satan. Jesus said this in His last day
with His apostles. He said this, now is the judgment
of this world, now is the prince of this world cast out. But now Christ has borne our
sins, satisfied the justice of God, seeing therefore there is
now no condemnation. no condemnation to them which
are in Christ Jesus. cannot and will not remember
the sins of His people, nor can He, by searching, find them out."
Why? Because the man was born. Because Christ was born. Because
Christ accomplished the work. Because sin has now been put
away forever. God will not and cannot ever
charge us with sin. This is the good news. This is
the message of grace, is that now our sins are gone forever. I like that passage in Jeremiah chapter 50 and verse 20, "...in
those days and in that time, saith the Lord, the iniquity
of Israel shall be sought for, and there shall be none." the
sins of Judah, and they shall not be found, for I will pardon
them whom I reserve." See, our sins are gone, and there is no
more condemnation for us. Satan now being cast out, seeing Satan's hatred for Christ
and his utter failure to destroy and stop the work of Christ,
seeing Christ was victorious to redeem His people and make
a perfect atonement for them, the question then must be asked,
are we free of Satan? Does this mean that we should
never be touched or persecuted by this horrific, malicious being? Our vision that is given to John
clearly states that we are by no means yet fully free of his
attacks. We are not fully yet free. Look at this in verse 12 of your
text in Revelation chapter 12. The Scripture says, "...therefore
rejoice, you heavens, and you that dwell in them." Now who are these people? Those
are the saints who have gone to glory. Those are the saints
who have died and have now been, their spirits have ascended to
God. Rejoice! Why? Because they're
completely free of Him. They're completely free of sin
and His attacks and this flesh and the world cannot touch them
anymore. But notice this. Whoa! unto the
inhabitants of the earth and of the sea, for the devil is
come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that
he hath but a short time." And when the dragon saw that he was
cast to the earth, listen, he persecuted the woman which brought
forth the man-child. Those who are going on to heaven
have no need of worry or woe. But the woe is given to us who
remain in the earth. And so then Satan, seeing he
has been defeated concerning the Christ, now turns his attention
to the church. Now it is clear We, like this
fallen world, we live in a fallen world full of troubles. Is that
not clear to you? Have you missed the memo? Did
you not get the memo on this? This world is full of trouble,
full of sickness, pain, sorrow, and death. There are wars, there
are floods, there are earthquakes, and these troubles, These troubles
are common troubles. They are common to men. Now let me be plain about this. These troubles may be the result of Satan's
work against the church. But I want you to understand
that no matter what power he has, no matter what power he
has given to persecute the church, you should know this, he's still
God's devil. That's good news, isn't it? He
is still God's devil. He uses Him as He does all creation
and men to accomplish His purpose. Are you being attacked by the
malicious one? The church is always under attack.
The church will always be persecuted by Him. But know this, that God
is only using Him for your good and the salvation of His people.
You remember what happened when Herod and Pontius Pilate got
together and did what they desired to do. But we know this, they only did
what God ordained before to be done. And so it is with all the
acts of the wicked one. God is in absolute sovereign
control of His devil. And He does with him as He pleases.
Job is an illustration of this. This is meant for your comfort
because his attacks are malicious. They are painful. They cause
us great sorrow. and woe, and believe me, we know
we are no match for Him. We are no match. Luther said,
on earth is not His equal. We recognize that. But in the illustration of Job,
you remember where Satan was? He was not in the bars. He was
not in the prostitution places. He was in the church. When the
sons of God met together to worship God, to give account to God,
where was Satan? He was there. He was there. And you know who instigated Satan
against Job? It was God. God said, has thou
noticed my... Now, this is a rhetorical question. Of course, he's noticed Job.
Hast thou seen my servant Job? There's none like him, a man
that feareth godness, doeth evil." And surely Satan saw an opportunity. He said, does Job serve God for
naught? I'm going to prove him to be
a vain liar. And God said, okay. I give you
all that he has." And when that didn't work, he said, give me
his body. And he said, okay, but don't
kill him. Do you not see this? That God controls Satan. He is only permitted to do what
God allows. And remember how that worked
out for Job. Job benefited. As a matter of
fact, the Scripture says he had more at the end than he did before
his temptation. And so then, though Satan is
given to afflict us, He is given to afflict men, yet His main
desire is to persecute the church. So then all that He does, all
that He thinks, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, knowing His time
is short, He is actively engaged in one work, destroying the church. That's it. He is actively engaged
to ruin God's saints and cause them to fall from the faith.
That's all he does. He does this all the time. It's
his constant desire and hatred and thought. Satan may tempt
kings and rulers to war, to destroy crops, to cause famine, but listen,
all that he does is not necessarily to destroy men, but rather the
church. That's it. His purpose is that
he can't get at Christ, but because of his hatred for Christ, he's
getting to you. But herein is our comfort. The
comfort belongs then to the church. It belongs only to those who
are in Christ. Look at this in chapter 12. It says in verse 10, "...now
is salvation and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the
power of His Christ. For the accuser of the brethren
is cast down, which accuseth them before our God day and night. And they overcame Him by the
blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony, and
they loved not their lives unto death." They overcame Him. This is encouraging, isn't it?
Because this is in the past tense. Salvation has come and they overcame
Him. All believers, the church has
overcome Satan, how? By the blood of the Lamb. Only
those who are true children of God have overcome the devil,
sin, and hell. We have triumphed not by our
might, not by our merit, not by our works. We have triumphed
over Him by the blood of the Lamb. When Jesus died, you should
know this, you died with Him. You were in such union with Christ
that when He suffered for our sins upon the tree, God counted
it as though we suffered for our sins. He was our representative. And yet it was not manifest that
we were His until the Holy Spirit came and applied that blood to
our hearts. And so then, if you are to ever
be comforted that you have overcome Him, you must know this. Are
you saved by the blood of Christ? Are you in Christ? Do you believe on the Son of
God? Because only those who have the
blood of Christ have overcome the wicked one. John says this,
"...who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth
that Jesus is the Son of God." We believe not just by mere factual
information. How many unbelievers know the
facts of Christ's death, burial, and resurrection of His person?
How many can recite catechisms and know that He is the Son of
God? Who is Jesus? Oh, He's the Son
of God. Okay. Well, they know that factually,
but we as believers, by faith, know He is the Son of God in
a very personal way. Believers, we know He is the
Son of God because we know He is victorious. You can't believe
Christ is the Son of God if you don't know He's victorious. For if Jesus is the Son of God,
we know this, He cannot fail. He cannot fail to save those
that the Father gave Him. All that the Father giveth me
shall come to me, and him that cometh to me I will in no wise
cast out. And listen, these saints, those
who are true saints, they believe this testimony and love not their
own lives. That's what it says of these
who are in this church. It says, and by the word of their
testimony, and they love not their lives unto death. You see, true believers are martyrs. are martyrs. Now, we know a martyr is one
that gives his life for the gospel. And some of these martyrs are
evident. We've seen these martyrs give
their physical lives for the cause of Christ. In Revelation
2, the church of Samarna was told by the Lord that they should
be faithful even unto death. But you know the word martyr,
you know what that means? It means witness. That's what
it means. It's a witness. And all the witnesses
of Christ, we give our lives for this gospel. Jesus said this,
if a man hate not his father and mother and sister and brother,
and yea, his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. We as believers in Christ take
up our cross. and follow Him. In fact, we know
this. This is our reasonable service.
It is the reasonable service of every believer to offer his
body as a living sacrifice. I've often thought about that.
Which would be harder? To offer yourself, body, one
time or to daily do it for 80, 90 years? But we must, if we are true believers,
we must offer our bodies a living sacrifice. And by this we do daily, we hold
loosely the things of time and earth, for our possession and
our inheritance is in heaven, not here, not here. Therefore, let us realize that
even though we have overcome the enemy, Though we cannot be
accused before God, though He will fail to overthrow the faith
of one of God's elect, yet we must realize that we are now
engaged in a spiritual struggle. Because Satan had been cast down
to the earth, we must expect persecution. We must expect it
and we must be prepared for it. We must prepare ourselves for
the engagement of warfare. Go to Ephesians chapter 6. The Apostle Paul, Ephesians chapter
6, In verse 11, the Apostle Paul,
knowing that Satan has come, knowing that we must fight the
spiritual warfare, even to the giving of our lives, he says,
"...they have put on the whole armor of God, that you may be
able to stand against the trickery of the devil." For we wrestle
not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against
powers, against the rulers of darkness of this world, against
spiritual wickedness in high places. Wherefore, take unto
you the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand
the evil day, and having done all to stand, stand therefore
having your loins girt about with truth. He begins to describe
a soldier and his uniform, and you know what holds the uniform
together? It's the belt. The belt. Without this, nothing
remains. Everything will fall to pieces
without this. Listen, Jesus Christ is the truth. and all other saviors are liars." The whole Word of God is Christ. Beginning at Moses and all the
prophets, He expounded unto them in all things in the Scriptures
concerning Himself." This is the truth. Jesus is the Christ,
the Son of the living God. He is the only Savior and Mediator
between God and men, the Man, Christ Jesus. Without that, you
don't have any clue what the Word of God is about. And so
everywhere you go, believer, in this book, take your Bible,
read it. Everywhere you go, you should
see this, Christ. Everywhere you go, you should
look for Christ. And you know what you'll find?
You'll find Christ. He's the belt that holds this all together.
So take that belt as you realize that the enemy has come down
to you. Take the belt. Gurge your loins
about with that belt of truth and don't be shaken from it.
The blessed breastplate of righteousness, the righteousness of Christ is
to be kept near and dear to our hearts. The breastplate is near the heart
and consider the righteousness of Christ that He who knew no
sin was made sin for us that we might be made the righteousness
of God in Him. You should embrace that with
all of your heart. Set all your affection on it
because it's all our righteousness before God. Hold it close. Shod your feet with the preparation
of the gospel of peace." This gospel of peace is this,
"...by the blood of His cross He hath made peace with God for
us." That's the gospel of peace. Now
then, put it on your feet. What does that mean? Two things.
Spread it. That's what it means. Don't just hoard doctrine within
your own mind and self, but rather tell it. The gospel of peace. Is this not what men need? Peace? Is this not what they say, they
seek for? And yet I tell you, there's peace
with God through Christ. And not only this, but we shod
our feet with it because we're ready to go. We should be ready
to go because we have peace with God. We should be ready at any
time to be lifted up into glory. We should be ready to go. And
what they did during the Passover, they had girded their loins and
they had shoes on their feet. They were ready to go. And because
of the gospel of peace, we're ready to go. Ready to go. You go today, believer, don't
worry. You're ready. You have peace
with God. and let us take the shield of
faith so as to quench the darts and accusations of the enemy."
Listen, he cannot accuse you before God. Remember, I've told you Christ
has already paid our sins. There is therefore now no condemnation
of those who are in Christ Jesus. Christ had already put away thy
sin, and God cannot even find your sin. So there is no possibility
of Satan accusing you to God. But listen, he can and does accuse
you before men and yourself. Does he not daily accuse you? Do you not look in the mirror
and see the depravity of yourself? The wickedness of your sin? The
vileness of your being? How can you be a believer? How
can you be loved of God? How can you have peace and righteousness
with God? Take the shield of faith because
God said so. That's how. Because God said
so. He that believeth and is baptized
shall be saved. There's my hope. There's my hope
that quenches every accusation of the enemy in conscience. Take the helmet of salvation.
What does the helmet do? It protects the mind, the head. Believer, how many times has
your faith been low and exercised? Your love so diminished that
you don't feel like reading. You don't feel like hearing the
gospel. Well, I tell you, you should
take this helmet anyway. Put all you can into your mind.
Because that's how it gets to the heart. God usually goes through
the mind. And we store up these things
in our mind and God uses them. Maybe not now. Maybe today you're
not having these thoughts or these persecutions. You don't
feel persecuted. Everything's going well. Don't
worry. Just wait. It'll come. You may not need
this now, but you will need it later. Store it up in your mind
and heart. Store it up. Put on the helmet
of salvation and take the sword of the Spirit,
the Word of God, from which all these pieces of armor spring.
The sword of God is the Word that proceeds out of the mouth
of Christ. We have such a poor understanding of the authority
we have in our hands. The authority you have in your
hands is above any other authority in this earth. No king or ruler
is above what you have in your hands. You have the sword of
the Spirit. And what is chaff to the fire? The Word of God is a consuming
fire. It consumes all lives. It is the sword by which that
strikes the blow to the heart of our enemies. Take the sword
of the Spirit. Praying with all prayer and supplication
in the Spirit unto all perseverance. Believer, we have an enemy. He
has come to us to persecute us, but yet God has provided ample
means by which to thwart his purpose. And listen to this,
I'm going to give you four things in closing here according to
our text. for things for your comfort,
because the enemy has come to you." Notice this, verse 14. Look at your text again real
quickly. I'm sorry, verse 6. And the woman
fled into the wilderness, where she hath a place prepared of
God, that they should feed her 1,260 days. Believer, you have
a place prepared. No matter what your enemy does,
no matter what happens in this life, we have a place. Jesus
said, I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare
a place, I will come again and receive you unto Myself. There
is a place prepared for us, it is in Christ. And listen, God
not only prepares a place, but He feeds us. He feeds us. Is that not what He does with
this Word? He feeds us. He sends a man to scatter the
seed at a venture, and the Word lands exactly and fulfills the
need that God had required. He feeds us. Look at verse 14, were given two wings of a great
eagle that she might fly away into the wilderness to her place
where she is nourished for a time, time, and half of times from
the face of the serpent. This speaks of God's deliverance. How often have you been so cast
down as to not be able to look up? and God speak one word, and the
scripture comes to mind, they shall run and not be weary. They shall walk and not faint.
They shall mount up with what? Wings of eagles. And where do they fly? They fly
to the place prepared. Always going back to Christ.
When we are delivered from our downcast position, where do we
fly? We fly to Christ. Fly to Jesus. Fly to Jesus. That's where we
go. And not only this, and the serpent
cast out of his mouth, verse 15, a flood after the woman that
he might cause her to be carried away of the flood. How much of
the flood of doubts and fears, how much of this flood of false
religion is cast out of his mouth? Lies and scourges cast out of
the mouth of our enemy seeking to drown our faith. But notice
this. And the earth helped the woman. And the earth opened up her mouth
and swallowed up the flood that the dragon cast out of his mouth."
Not only does God use these spiritual things to uplift us and deliver
us, He uses providential things. The very earth that is—the very
world that is against us, God uses to protect us. I know this, when you're in trouble,
the first thing you think, what can I do? Mistake number one. Mistake number
two is following mistake number one and doing what you think
you can do. May God give us such grace as
to trust Him in all things. to be obedient
to Him. And the earth will swallow up
all our floods. You realize that? They'll swallow
them up. And how long How long will this
warfare last? How long will God keep us in
the place? How long will He feed us? How
long will He deliver us by His gospel? How long will He deliver
us by providence? Verse 6, 1,260 days. I've already told you what that
is. That is the whole dispensation of the gospel of grace. It's
42 months. It's the 42 months mentioned
in the previous chapter in which the church is persecuted. It
is the same 1,260 days in which the two witnesses witnessed of
the gospel of Christ. It is the whole dispensation
of grace. That's how long God will keep
you, feed you, and protect you. That's meant for your comfort.
You see, the whole purpose of the vision is to let you know
your situation, where you are. You are being persecuted by the
enemy. But be of good cheer. I, Christ
says, have overcome the world. Cast out the enemy. He's God's devil. And you're God's son. Don't be afraid. Don't be afraid. Though He's coming to you, one
day soon we will be fully delivered of His trickery, of His mean,
vile hatred. And He will be cast... You know what it says in Isaiah? It says that when everything
is done, We'll look at Satan and shake our heads and wonder
that we had any fear of him at all. Is this the one that cast
down the nations? This thing? That's how we'll
see him. But now we are engaged in struggle.
Put on the armor of God. Beware of him. Don't think lightly
of him. But know this, in Christ we have
a victory. I pray God will bless this to
you.