Revelation chapter 12. We'll be looking at verses 1 through
12 this morning. And the title of the message
is, Christ's Success and Satan's Defeat. Christ's
success or victory and Satan's defeat. Now before we begin into
the text, we want to go back and look and see what led to
this. The previous chapters, you remember
the apostle having seen Christ coming down in a vision as an
angel from heaven, having the book of salvation in his hand,
the book which Christ took from God and opened by His blood. He now gives it to John. He gives
it to John. and says, take eat of this book. And this is a picture, we know,
of both the salvation of the sinner as well as the feeding
of his sheep. And at this point, John was told
then that he must prophesy to all nations and people. In chapter 10 and verse 11, he
said, Thou must prophesy again before many peoples, nations,
and tongues. And what is this but the commission
of the church? Go you into all the world and
preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized
shall be saved. He that believeth not shall be
damned. So then, as we preach the gospel, as our commission
is given to us, we recognize that this message that we preach
is a divisive message. It is a message that divides
and separates, which is pictured to us at the beginning of chapter
11 when he measures out the temple. The measuring out of the temple
is nothing more than preaching the gospel, describing those
who are in Christ, And those who are not in Christ are most
definitely outside of Christ. We go and preach the gospel.
We go and preach Christ. And we know this, that all who
are in Christ are safe and in a refuge. And then in verse 3,
we begin to see the church in another capacity of these two
witnesses. The two witnesses. Though we are safe in Christ
and though we suffer persecution and affliction in this life,
yet we are still the witnesses of Christ. He calls these two
witnesses like unto two olive trees, verse 4 of chapter 11,
like two olive trees and two candlesticks before the God of
the earth. That is what you are, believer.
You are the light of the world. You are the source of grace in
this present age. because it is only through the
means of preaching that God is ordained to save His people. And so we are the means of grace
to this lost and dying world. And our Word, He says, is like
fire. He said, if any man would hurt
them, fire proceeded out of their mouth. Well, what is that but
our Gospel? Believer, are you afraid of their Word? Are you
afraid? Are you afraid to confront them
when they are in error or lying concerning Christ? Are you afraid?
Do not be afraid. Our Word is as fire to the chaff. The truth is as fire to the chaff. It burns it up. And so our Word,
the Word of the gospel of grace, comes by the authority of God. Yet because of our foes, the
Lord tells us in this chapter 11, tells us there will be a
season. He will allow a season that the
wicked should have their way. And look at that in verse 7. And when they have finished their
testimony, the beast that ascended out of the bottomless pit shall
make war against them and shall overcome them and kill them.
and their bodies shall lie in the street in the great city,
which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord
was crucified." We know this, there's coming a time of great
apostasy. There's going to come a mass
exodus of the true church. But here is our hope. Here is
the hope that Christ gives His church. Though dead to the world,
our gospel dragged through the streets and mocked. When the
last one comes in, when the last soul is brought in, when the
last of the 144,000 are sealed, which is only a definite number
of an indefinite number. God's elect. When that one is
brought in, the end will come. The end will come. And look what happens in the
end. After these days, after three days and a half, the Spirit
of life from God has entered into them. Verse 11, And they
stood on their feet, and great fear fell upon them, they saw.
And there was a voice of heaven saying, Come up hither. And they
ascended to heaven in a cloud, and their enemies beheld them. You see, one day this is all
going to wrap up. This is all going to end. When
that last one is called in, God will call His people upward. When the last trump shall sound,
and the dead in Christ shall rise first, and we which are
alive and remain shall be caught up in the air with them, and
the end. So shall we ever be with the
Lord. But notice what happens after
the ascension. It says that hour, that great
earthquake in a tenth part of the city fell, and the earthquake
slain of men 7,000. That's a perfect number, 7,000. They're all slain. And they give
glory to God in heaven. What does this mean? It says,
since everything now is made manifest, all they can do is
say that we were right. They can only admit the truth.
And this does not mean they will repent. But think about what
happened in Noah's day. He had preached 120 years and
they had all despised him and despised him. But that day, there
was one day that God came and shut the door. And there was no hope. You mark it down and you keep
it. That day is coming. Soon and very soon, God will
shut the door and no more will be allowed in. Do you not suppose
that during the flood when that last bit of ground was being
swept away underneath their feet that they tried to get into that
ark? But they were not allowed. Friend, that day is coming. The
final trumpet sounds now in verse 15, And the seventh angel sounded,
and there was great voices in heaven, the kingdoms of God.
The kingdoms of the world are become the kingdoms of God. What is that saying? Now we know
this, all things belong to our God. All things are His from
the beginning. Scripture says that all things
were made by Him and for Him. And without Him was not anything
made that was made. Everything was made for God.
Everything is under the authority of God. I don't care what you
see, feel, or touch. Everything is moving exactly,
precisely as God decrees. I don't care what men say about
that. That is so. That is right. God is sovereign and moving all
things after the counsel of His own will. So then what does this mean that
the kingdoms of earth become the kingdoms of God? They become
manifest that they are the kingdom of God. It becomes evident to
everyone Because Christ literally will come and rule over all things. He will rule over all things. And so some may ask, if God is
sovereign, then why is there such disarray and sickness and
trouble? Why is the gospel so small? Why
is the church so insignificant? If God is sovereign, then why
is there such things? Why does He not come and do what
you claim? Our reply is this, our God is
in the heavens and done whatsoever He pleased. But soon the rule of God that
is now hidden and rejected by the lost will be revealed to
all His creation, that the kingdoms of God are now manifest to be
the kingdoms of Christ forever." And notice what happens then.
Twenty-four elders bow down. They sat before God on their
seats, fell down on their faces and worshiped God. You know,
when sovereignty is mentioned in Scripture, this is the result
every single time of the saints. The world is at enmity. Matter of fact, that's what the
saints are telling them. They said that the world, in
verse 18, the nations were angry. You see, what sovereignty does
for everybody else is anger them. What it does for us is it causes
us to worship it. We worship Him. You know what? If God is not sovereign, there's
no sense in worshiping Him. Any God that's not sovereign
is not God. They bow down and worship and
say, O Lord God Almighty, which art and which wast and which
art to come, because Thou hast taken to Thy great power to Thee, Thy great power, and
has reigned. And the nations were angry, and
Thy wrath has come, and the time of the dead, that they should
be judged, and that Thou should give reward unto Thy servants,
the prophets, the saints, and to them that fear Thy name, small
and great. And Thou shouldest destroy them
that destroy the earth." The end. He wraps up the vision. This
is the end of this vision right here. This is the end of this
vision. As I've told you before, the
revelation and these visions, they're circular. They always
begin at Christ and at His first advent. They go through all of
the dispensation of grace, tell you everything that's going to
happen, and then the end. And you know what He does now?
He starts over. He starts over. Right now, at
this particular time, we have now the beginning of another
vision. A beginning of another vision. At the end of this vision, the
children of God are at rest. The punishment of the wicked
has come. Those that were angry at God
and hated God are destroyed, and the reward is given to the
saints. and they worship Him forever. Therefore, seeing we know the
end of all things, Peter asked this question of us. What manner
of men ought we to be? Now, I've just told you the whole
thing. We know the end of this thing. We know how it's going
to work out. All this stuff is going to be
burned up. The lost will be cast into hell. We shall be ascended to the glory
of God and worship Him forever and ever and ever in His very
image. We shall worship Him. Now then,
what kind of man ought you to be knowing this? What should such knowledge cause
us to be in this world? Let us therefore live soberly,
righteously, and godly in this present world. Let us be faithful
and about our Father's business, witnessing of Christ and loving
His people and serving Him. Not setting our affections on
the things of this earth. Isn't it foolish to set your
affections on those things that will be burned up? Is it? It's
foolish. It's foolishness. But set our
eyes and hearts on the promises of God looking for a new heaven
and a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness. Now, in verse
19 we see the beginning of something. The temple of God. is open in
heaven. This is the beginning of the
vision. And there was seen in the temple the ark of the testament,
the covenant. And there were lightnings and
voices and earthquakes and great hail. We have here the sense that we
are being brought to the end of all things. We are now returned
to the beginning. From the beginning when God created
the heavens and the earth, you remember the earth was without
form and void and darkness covered the face of the deep. There were
thunderings and lightnings. There were trouble. There was
trouble. But yet God had a covenant and
it was open. The covenant was open. And so now we're going to see
this covenant, this testament that is open to us in the Word
of God, this vision that now reveals to us the beginning of
the gospel age. And the purpose of the Holy Spirit
is to tread the same ground as He has done in the past, thus
to shore up our comfort, to shore up our encouragements and strength. to build us up in the faith.
That's the purpose of the Spirit of God here. The gospel is repetitious
for a reason. You know why it is? Because we are forgetful people. We must have these things repeated
over and over and over again. Paul said this, he said in Philippians
3, he said, I write unto you the same things, and it is not
grievous for me to do so, but it is safe. Don't you like safe things? I
like safe things. I'm going to preach those things
to you that are safe, that are sure. In each vision then, we
make a journey. We make a journey that spans
the entire era of Christ's first advent to His second. And now
the Lord in this vision carries us backward. Backward to the
moment of Christ's birth. Actually before Christ's birth. He carries us back even further
all the way to the beginning. In verses 1-5 of chapter 12 it
says, And 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 twelve stars. And she, being with child, cried,
travailing in birth, in pain, to be delivered. Now the Lord, in this vision, The vision then begins here,
but it will not end until chapter 14 and verse 14, when the Son
of Man is on His throne and ready to come in judgment. And that day of judgment we've
already just seen, that's happened in chapter 11. He sewed up the
vision there in chapter 11, but now we begin a new one, and this
one will have an end. This one will show the full revelation. And here, in this passage before
us, we clearly see Christ, His church, and Satan. These are the three characters
here presented for us. The woman is a picture of Christ's
church. Christ, of course, is the one
born of the woman. And Satan is the dragon. The dragon. And so here, the
woman, we see her, and she is clothed with the sun. Her moon
is at her footstool and has a wreath of twelve stars upon her head.
She is pregnant and about to give birth to a son. She cries
in pain." But notice this, another wonder
in heaven. John says, "...there appeared
another wonder in heaven. And behold, a great red dragon
having seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns upon his head.
And his tail drew a third part of the stars of heaven, and it
cast them to the earth." And notice the position of the dragon.
The dragon stood before the woman, which was ready to be delivered.
And notice his purpose, "...for to devour her child as soon as
it was born, the sole purpose of the dragon was to kill the
sun. You see how large he is, how
big he is in his vision. He is so large that his tail
swipes a third part of the stars. You see the woman, You see she's
about to deliver and who then could stop him from taking the
child? Does he succeed? No. No, this vile creature does not
accomplish his purpose, but rather fails. The woman gives birth
to the Son, a mighty Son, who should rule the nations with
a rod of iron. Then suddenly the child is snatched
up into heaven to sit upon the throne of God. And this vile
beast, having failed in his attempt to devour the child, being cast
down from heaven, he now channels all his fury against the woman,
seeing he can do nothing now against the child. And notice his failure is complete,
because the woman flees to a place prepared of God and is safe. She is sheltered. Notice this. The child is born. He's called
up to heaven. And the woman fled to the wilderness
where she had the place prepared of God that He should feed her. Listen, 1,260 days. Did we not go over this before?
Forty-two months. The same amount of time that
the church is persecuted. The same amount of time that
the two witnesses were preaching the Gospel. It's the same amount
of time that the church is fed and protected. What is that? That's the whole gospel age. God is always going to protect
His church. And what does all this mean?
That's what you want to know. You want to know what it means.
Here it is. The radiant woman is a picture
of the church. You. God's elect. It is a picture
of God's elect from all time. This fact is seen in many Scriptures
But in Ephesians, you remember, it tells wives, it says, wives,
be obedient unto your husbands. Why? Because that's the church's
position. The church is the bride of Christ.
And as the bride of Christ, we should be obedient to our husband,
the Lord Jesus Christ. He is our husband. Husbands,
love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave Himself for
it. You do not see then that this is the bride of Christ.
She is robed in the sun. She is robed in the sun, which
pictures her purity and righteousness. So then everyone who is in the
family of God, everyone who believes on Christ, you are pictured by
this woman. You were chosen of the Father.
You were redeemed by the blood of the Son of God. And you were
called to faith and life by the Holy Spirit. And listen, none
of you shall perish. Jesus told those Jews, He said,
you believe not because you're not a Messiah. Let me tell you about my sheep.
My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow
me. And I give unto them eternal
life, and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them
out of my hand. And now this glorious, radiant
woman, the church, is not what is seen by the world in the appearance
of men, because we are small and not glorious in their sight,
but we are in God's view. How much do you see that is not real? You see, what we see doesn't
determine its reality. It's what God sees. Whatever
God sees is real. And if His sight and what He
sees opposes what we see, then our sight is messed up. Not His. This is what He sees of you.
You are a glorious church without spot. or wrinkle or any blemish. That's what God sees. You are
His glorious church. You are His wonderful. That's
why He said in the psalm of Solomon, He said, Thou art fair, my love. Thou art fair. You're without
spot. You're beautiful in His sight.
glorious and radiant. Lavished upon us is the righteousness,
the splendor, and the glory of Christ. For God, seeing us in
union with His Son, has loved us with an eternal, immutable,
unchangeable love. He has given us an effectual
love by which He has given to us all spiritual blessings in
heavenly places in Christ. When? Before the foundation of
the world. Therefore, we are clothed from
head to foot in the Son of Righteousness." And notice this, the moon is
under her feet. What is the moon? It is the lesser
light, isn't it? The lesser light. I thought of
this, and it could be many things, and I have read many things about
it, so you can take this, and I'm not as quite sure as to the
purpose of it, but I think of the law. The law being the lesser
light. It was the light given first.
It was the light given first, but now, what is that to the
Son? The law then would be under our
feet, us having, through Christ, accomplished all that the law
required, and now been given a crown of twelve stars. Perfect crown of righteousness
and life. We are the radiant woman. And now notice, she is pregnant
and about to deliver the son. Which son, no doubt, is the Lord
Jesus Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ. In verse
5, and she brought forth a man-child who
was to rule the nations with a rod of iron. Psalm chapter 2 and verse 6,
it says, You'll find it. "...Yet I have
set My King upon My holy hill of Zion. I will declare the decree,
Thou art My Son, this day have I begotten Thee." This is the
eternal Son of God. And in Revelation 2 and verse
27, the Lord gives Himself this title. He gives Himself this
title. He said, "...He shall rule them
with a rod of iron." As the vessels of a potter shall they be broken
to shivers, even as I received of my father." This is Christ
because he is the seed of the woman. Isaiah said, Behold, a
virgin shall conceive and bring forth a son, and thou shalt call
his name Immanuel, God with us. And in comparison of the verses
in verse 5 that I just read to you, if you go over to verse
10, compare this. And I heard with a loud voice
in heaven saying, Now has come salvation and strength and the
kingdom of our God and the power of His Christ. So this child
is no doubt the Son of God. And we see that this child, as
soon as he was born, was caught up by God. He's caught up by
God. And because he's caught up by
God, now has salvation come. And the third character is the
dragon. which surely is Satan. Look at
this. I don't need to turn to many
other places. Just look in this text. In verse 9, he tells you
who the dragon is. And he said, "...the great dragon
was cast out, that old serpent called the devil, and Satan which
deceived the world." So we know the characters now. The woman
is the church. The Son is Christ. And the dragon
is Satan. And now then, notice the dragon.
The dragon is red for fury and anger. And having seven heads
and ten horns, what is this speaking of? And seven crowns. This is
speaking of His power and dominion. His power and dominion over the
world of lost men. Scripture calls Him the Prince
of this world. He is called the God of this
world. And believer, did we not have
our conversation in time past in this captivity under His dominion? But these crowns that He has
are not victories that He's obtained, but rather usurped crowns. They are crowns gained by deceit
and lies. He deceiveth the world. He robbed
God of His glories, His attempt to usurp these crowns. And the
tin horn speaks of His great power to destroy. But I want
you to understand, His greatness is limited. You remember Job? Satan desired that God be moved
against Job, but he could not do anything to Job except God
allow it. So no matter how big this dragon
is, how powerful he seems to be, his power is limited. And yet there he stands in front
of the church waiting for the sun. waiting for the Son to be
delivered so that He might devour the child, destroy Christ. You remember, in light of this
picture now, remember the mother of all promises. It was said in the curse of Satan,
I will set enmity between thy seed and her seed, Christ. And the seed of the woman shall
crush the head of the serpent, and he shall bruise his heel." Here was the conflict announced,
and firm it pointed forward to Satan. And from that time forward, Satan
tries to thwart and destroy the coming of Christ. Look at all
history, okay? From Seth to Noah. Adam and Eve had two children.
Very first, Cain and Abel. But seeing that Cain was rejected
and Abel was accepted, Satan then saw Abel as the lion. He said, surely this is the lion. And so what did he do? He moved
Cain to destroy Abel. Seems as though he won. But ah,
God gave them more children, one of whom was Seth. And this
was the line. And from that time forward, Satan,
waiting before, using all of his power, had then brought all
men to Noah's time. And what did God say about all
men at that time? He said they were continually
evil. And so it looked as though Satan would devour the line of
Christ. And yet God says, Noah found grace in the eyes of the
Lord, foiled again, And so then out of Noah's line, we know that
Christ should come. And what does He do? He manipulates
Ham so as to his lust to look in on his father. And then that
brought about a curse. And then you have all that time
leading up to the Tower of Babel. And then all men are now separated. How then could God bring forth
His Son now, seeing that all men are scattered in different
languages? It appears as though Satan is
one. But God called Abram out of Ur of the Chaldees and said
to him, In thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed.
And there it is, he's up on Mount Moriah now and about to slay
his son Isaac. It appears that Satan would devour
the lion. It appears that all is lost.
Isaac is to be slain. And then all of a sudden God
says, hold, hold. Lay not thy hand upon the lad.
The lion is secure. And you go up to Jacob. You go up to Jacob and you see
that God preserved Jacob through that famine by Joseph. You see
how God preserved the line of Jacob even when the Pharaoh that
rose up knew not Jacob. Knew not Joseph, sorry. Knew
not Joseph. And they were enslaved. And yet
God raised up Moses. God raised up Moses. The line
is secure. And then you go from David, you
remember David and his sin and how God promised that the kingdoms
would be divided because of this. And Solomon, because of his sin,
the kingdoms were divided. It appeared as though that the
line would be now severed. The kingdoms are divided. and all those evil kings that
were rising up during those times, that one evil woman, the daughter
of Jezebel and Ahab. You remember how she had those
babies, those children of David, and she went in with the intent
purpose of slaying all of those children. Why? Because the dragon
would devour the lion. He's trying to kill the lion.
And yet what does God do? God sends that one woman Josiah. She saved that king,
Josiah. And behold, the godly line is
secure. And then you have them carried
away under Nebuchadnezzar. And then you have them carried
away by the Medes and the Persians. And there it is, Haman rising
up, ready to kill all the line of the Jews. And it just so happened
that the king needed a wife. And out of all the thousands
of beautiful women, he chose one Jewish woman, Esther. And for that purpose, she was
raised up. And by this one woman, God used
to save the line of Christ. And now then you come to Matthew's
Gospel and you see now that the time has come when the Christ
should be born. And then Herod gets wind of this,
that wicked evil king. And what does he try to do? He
says to the wise men, tell me where he is so I can worship
him too. No, but his intent was to destroy
the Christ, to kill the Christ. But yet God delivered His Son
to Egypt so as not to be destroyed. The lion is saved. Christ secured. Satan then, having seen the child
is born, he tries to devour him with temptation. He tempts our
Lord and then ends up crucifying our Lord, not knowing that the
very act of crucifying Him only secured his defeat. Do you not see how God, His Word
is so sure His Word is so sure that God
has guarded the line of Christ all these many centuries. And
now then that Christ has come forth, having been crucified
for our sins, raised for our justification, now is the Son
that was delivered, ascended into the very throne of God.
And now look back at your text. See what happens in heaven. There's
a battle that takes place. It says in verse 7, there was
a war in heaven, and Michael and the angels fought against
the dragon, and the dragon fought against his angels. And know
this, he prevailed not, neither was there any place any more
in heaven. And the great dragon was cast out, the old serpent,
the devil, Satan, which deceived the world. He was cast out into
the earth, and his angels were cast out with him. And I heard
a voice saying, In heaven now is come salvation, and strength,
and the kingdom of God, and the power of Christ. for the accuser
of the brethren is cast down." Listen, Michael is Christ. This
is the work of Christ. It's not the work of an angel
to cast out Satan. It was the work of Christ. Jesus
said, now is the prince of this world cast out. By who? Michael? No, Christ. Matter of
fact, Michael means one with God. Who else is one with God
but Christ? See, it's a picture of Christ
and His mighty victory. Christ had a victory. He actually
accomplished salvation. He actually finished the work
of God, bound Satan, and cast out the accuser. Believer, who
accuses you before God? Wait a second, He's cast out.
How could He accuse you? There is therefore now no condemnation
to those who are in Christ. As a matter of fact, the Apostle says
in that very chapter, Romans chapter 8, let me see if I can
find it. What shall we say then to these
things if God be for us? Who can be against us? He that
spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall
He not with Him freely give us all things? Who shall lay anything
to the charge of God's elect? It's God that justified you. Who is He that condemneth? It
is Christ that died. Yea, rather is risen again. Who then shall separate you from
the love of God that's in Christ? Nothing and nobody. You see the
importance of this? You see the importance of this
battle? Is that the battle is won. Victory accomplished. But in closing, I want you to
notice this. Since Christ hath cast him down, it says, Woe then
to the inhabitants of the earth, for Satan is coming to you." Because he cannot get to Christ,
his anger is turned to you. But this is your comfort. You,
the woman, After Christ's ascension, it says she fled unto the wilderness. Isn't that where we are? Wilderness. Listen, prepared of God. Where you are is prepared of
God. Prepared of God. And you know what He's going
to do for you? He will feed you 1,260 days. all the gospel age. He will feed His church. He will
feed His church. And though Satan, as we shall
see later, and I want to delve into this later, but as we shall
see, Satan, he opens his mouth in these last verses and a flood
comes out. And you know what happens? The
earth opens up. The earth helped her. Do you
realize the providence of God is always moving to help His
people? Always. Why? Because Christ won
the victory and Satan failed in his scheme. Therefore, we give glory to God.
Believer, all is well. All is well. Christ is one. Sin is gone. The accuser can
no longer accuse us. He's defeated. May God give us
grace to rest in that. And Stan will be dismissed in
prayer.