Thank you. Let's go back to Revelation
chapter 12 this morning. Revelation chapter 12. We know that from the fourth chapter
and the first verse that John saw a door open into heaven. Thank God there is a door open
into heaven. The door is Christ Jesus himself,
opened for poor unworthy sinners like us by his substitutionary
justice satisfying death. John said he saw a door open
into heaven and a voice said to him, come
up here. and I'll show you things that
must come to pass." He received this vision when he was on the
island, Patmos, exiled there because of the glorious gospel
of free grace that he boldly proclaimed. The voice said, I'll show you
things that must come to pass hereafter. That is, from then
on throughout the church age, throughout this gospel era, things
that must come to pass. They must come to pass because
God's ordained them. Everything God's ordained must
come to pass, and I'll tell you this, whatever comes to pass,
it comes to pass because God purposed it. And now John, getting
to the twelfth chapter, still observing things from his viewpoint
in heaven, for he has gone up to see these miraculous, unusual
things. You'll remember from chapter
four the very first thing that caught his attention was the
very throne of God. Symbolic of the sovereign authority
of God. And now he sees two other things. He sees, the scripture says,
two wonders My brother just read them to us. One is said to be
a great wonder. The other one is said to be just
a wonder. The word wonder means sign or
miracle. One is greater than the other. You'll notice in the first verse,
chapter 12, there appeared a great wonder. Just one great wonder. And then in the third verse,
and there appeared another wonder. So as we talk about these two
wonders this morning, that's the title of the message, Two
Wonders. We keep in mind one of them is
a great wonder. A great miracle. something unusual,
something vastly extraordinary, great wonder, great sign. The other one is a miracle, but
it's not as great as the other one. Now here's what we're going
to notice about these two wonders. They're vastly different. Vastly
different. The first wonder is that of a
woman expecting a baby and then delivering this baby that the
scripture identifies as a man, man-child. This mother, this woman, in John's
vision, she has a wonderful radiance to her. She's just glorious. I mean, she's something to behold. There's a light about her, a
radiance from the very top of her head to the bottom of her
feet. No one is like her. She is especially beautiful.
this woman is. She has the moon under her feet and then it says and her head,
on her head was a crown of 12 stars. She's just all glorious, this woman is. She's magnificent. She's an object
of beauty and glory. And John says she was pregnant. That's what he says. And she
is pictured as travailing in birth. And then she delivers
a little boy. And don't you know the travail
and the labor pains that she suffered, they're all forgotten
because she delivered a fine little baby boy. There's joy, celebration, and great anticipation before
the baby was born. When she said, if I may kind
of indulge a little bit when she told the family, and this
is symbolic language you got to understand now. Think about our day and when
you ladies become pregnant and you tell the family, you tell
others, oh, what joy. Oh, what celebration. And you
wait. You wait. Great anticipation. Oh, I can't wait till this one
arrives. I can't wait till this little
boy comes. You go to the doctor. They say,
you're going to have a little boy. Oh, he's going to be wonderful. We just can't wait. We're going
to love him and delight in him. Oh, it's a time of gladness.
You moms. You moms, you know the joy, the
elation, you know the delight, you know the happiness of waiting,
waiting for that baby to be born and then you go through your
time of suffering and as the scripture says here, travailing. And then the baby is born. You're
so thrilled. beyond comparison. Everybody
is so happy for you. Everybody rejoices. Till the baby is born you anxiously
await the arrival of that little bundle of joy. You go through
months of longing for the child to be born and then you deliver
and the nurse or the doctor puts that baby in your arms and you're
just thrilled. And the delight just can't be
measured on the scales of happiness. You're just beyond ecstatic. Nothing can compare with that. You and everyone in the family
are thrilled. There's no joy like the joy around
the birth of a newborn. That's the great wonder. That's the great wonder. And that's the first wonder. But then there's the second wonder
and it's just like the exact opposite. Because John sees in
his vision something that is so drastically different from
that great wonder. He sees another wonder and this
time he sees a horrible monster. He sees a great red dragon. The word is, behold. Behold,
in verse 3, a great red dragon. Be amazed, be startled. Be startled
at this red dragon. Now the wonder is not great,
but He's great. He's great. That is, He's mighty. He's strong. He's red. That color suggests his fire-like
character. He breathes out fire like a great
dragon. It sets forth his great cruelty. And his bloody career. He is a murderer. He's a murderer. He doesn't think
anything of slaughter, of killing people. He is a foe that's no match for
anybody born of Adam. He's no match. He breathes out
the fire of his lies out of his mouth. He's the exact opposite
of this great wonder and this man-child. Now, it isn't difficult
to identify this great red dragon. For verse 9, we're not left to
doubt. Now, in being set forth as a
great red dragon, that's symbolic language, right? That's a picture. I know you see pictures, representations
of Satan and you know he's got horns and a pitchfork and just
horrible looking. And indeed if we could see him
as he is, he is a monster. But he comes across to people,
not as a monster, but as an angel of light. That's what the Scripture
says, doesn't it, over in 2 Corinthians? He masquerades as an angel of
light. Verse 9, he's identified that
great dragon was cast out. I'll talk about that tonight.
The casting out of the great red dragon. The casting out of
Satan. Well, who is he? He's that old
serpent. He's old. He's been around a
long time. Long time. What's he called? He's called
the devil. He's called Satan, which deceiveth,
which seduces the whole world. So it's not difficult to identify
him. He's the dragon, he's the old
serpent, he's the devil, and he's Satan. And he's deceived the whole world. And it doesn't say he deceived,
but he keeps on doing it. That's what he does. He's a deceiver. And our Lord Jesus says in John
chapter 8, and we'll look over there if time allows a little
bit later, He was a murderer from the beginning. Oh, He's so cruel. He's a killer. And you're no
match for Him. And you can go ahead and talk
about free willism all you want to. 2 Timothy chapter 2 says
this great dragon, This great red dragon holds all men captive
at His will. And you're no match for Him.
But on the other hand, He's no match for the man-child who is
Christ Jesus. He's no match for the Son of
God. But as to this great red dragon,
He's deceived and He's still deceiving the whole world. He
has blinded the minds of men. And He still blinds the minds
of men. Let's say, see the glory of God
in the face of Christ Jesus. There's that natural blindness
that we all have. And then He kind of attacks on
a religious blindness. And we can't see the gospel.
As glorious as the gospel is, substitution and satisfaction. My is filled with the love of
God. The gospel, you trace it back
to the everlasting covenant love of God toward His people. Love that's beautiful, love that's
giving, love that's gracious, love that saves. The love of
God sent Christ Jesus into the world. Herein is love. Not that
we love God, but He loved us and gave His Son to be propitiation
for our sins. Propitiation. Satisfaction of
divine justice. The mercy seat on which was the
blood. Propitiation. When we moved to
Almonte, elderly piano player. She was
pushing 90 pretty hard, and she was still good. And we hadn't
been there too long, and she gave me a little note, or she
came to me, first of all. She came to me and said, I would
like you to come over and visit with me. And I said, I will,
and went over to her house, and she had something written down
on a piece of paper, and she said, You always mispronounce
two words. And she said, that's what I want
to talk to you about. And I said, that's what you want to talk
to me about? I said, I'm sure I mispronounce a lot of words.
I'm a Southerner. Hey, we attack it the way we
can. I speak Southern. And she said,
well, you need to correct these two words. And I said, well,
what are? She was a teacher in a one-room
schoolhouse. And she said, there are two words
you always mispronounce. She said, how do you pronounce
O-F-T-E-N? I said, often. She said, there
you go again. She said, you need to get your
Webster's Dictionary and look it up. That letter T is silent. It's often. I said, well, I'm
sure I often say that. I said, OK, you got me on that
one. I'll try to do better. I still
haven't. But anyway, and she was good
natured about it. Because she had a coffee pot
going. And I said, what's next? And she showed me this. She said,
how do you pronounce this? And it was the word propitiation.
And I said, it's propitiation. She said, See, that's wrong again. She said, no, it's propitiation. Propitiation, not propitchiation. And I said, well, I may not know
how to say it, but I know what it means. And she said, yes,
you do. And we got along fabulously,
and she had a good attitude. And then she said, give me the
piece of paper. I said, that's all I want to
talk to you about. Let's have some coffee together. I said,
that's fine. Propitiation. There, I said it right. Did you
hear me, sister? I said it right that time. Propitiation. Our Lord Jesus is the satisfaction
of divine justice. He did everything that God requires
for the salvation of His elect. He said, it is finished. Now,
to me and to you, that is so simple. The work of redemption,
the work of bringing in righteousness for us, it's done. The work of removing our sins,
it's done. You see, when the Spirit of grace
when He comes to us through regeneration, the Word of God, and reveals
the Lord Jesus to us, that doesn't remove our sins. And that new
life that He gives us, the life of God in the soul, When He gives
us this new life, that doesn't make us righteous. We are already
righteous in Christ Jesus. Here's what the Spirit of God
shows us. It's already done for you. And
He brings us to embrace and believe and rest in the One who finished
the work of redemption. So, isn't that clear to you?
You understand that, don't you? But Satan blinds people's minds. And they can't see it. They can't
see it. And you've talked to some family
members and you've said, listen, salvation's all of grace. The
Lord had a people, He chose a people in everlasting covenant love. And He gave them to His Son,
the Son of God. And He became surety for those
people. He's the head, we're the body. God has always looked to Him
for satisfaction to His law and to His justice. God has always
held Him accountable for the indebtedness that those people
will run up against God through all their sinfulness. God has
never looked to us for payment of the debt. He's always looked
to His Son. And then the time arrived. When
His Son came into this world in the fullness of the time,
God sent forth His Son into this world made of a woman, made under
the law to redeem them that were under the law. God did that. Christ came and He settled the
issue by His bloody death. And we sing the song, Jesus paid
it all. That's so crystal clear to me,
and I know it is to you. But you talk to other people
about it, and you say, you know, we're justified by God's grace.
We're justified by the blood of the Lord Jesus. God has saved
us. God has justified us, God has
sanctified us, God preserves us, God grants us faith, God
keeps us through this life, and someday God's gonna glorify us,
and it's all to the praise of the glory of His grace. They'll
say, this is what they'll say, yeah, but you gotta do something.
You gotta do something. What is their problem? Well,
there's the natural blindness of their own nature, their own
heart, and there's that religious blindness. You see, Satan, oh, he's a master at this. The
scripture says here, which deceiveth, which deceiveth the whole world. He's been deceiving and he's
still deceiving. What's he like? Well, go back
up here it says he has seven heads and ten horns and seven
crowns upon his head. Daniel 7 says that symbolizes
his dominion over the world. Scripture says he's the prince
of the power of the air. See, as the woman was adorned,
so is this great red dragon. Ten horns indicates his worldwide
power. Power to deceive. Power to enslave. Power to hold men captive at
his will. The great red dragon. Master
deceiver. A beast of ferocious, ferocious
power. He's breathing out the fires
of persecution. He's that old serpent. He's subtle. He's a serpent because he's full
of poison. He's full of poison. He's very
cunning. And he's malicious. He's the
devil. He's the liar. He's the one who
twists God's Word. He's Satan. He's the accuser. He's the one who opposes the
Lord. Well, what has he done? Look
at verse 4. In addition to deceiving, still
deceiving the whole world, it says, Verse four, his tail drew
the third part of the stars of heaven and did cast them to the
earth. He led a multitude of angels
in rebellion against God and so we read with his tail. He did it with his tail. Hold
your place here, if you would, and go with me to Isaiah chapter
9. Look at Isaiah chapter 9. He led a multitude of angels
in rebellion against God with his tail. You've got to pay attention to all the
words in Scripture. None of them are needless. They're
all significant. Isaiah chapter 9. We're very
familiar with the first part of the chapter. But now look,
beginning at verse, well, for the sake of time, look at verse
13. Isaiah 9, 13. For the people
turneth not unto him that smited them, that is, Jehovah. Neither did they seek the Lord
of hosts. Therefore the Lord will cut off
from Israel head and tail. Head means noblemen, those held
in high regard, and tail, those who are the lowest the vilest
who'll cut them off. Branch, that's another reference
to the head, the branch who seems to cover everybody and provide
for everybody. And the rush, the bull rush that
has no real spine to it, it just bends with the wind. God says
He'll do it in one day. Look at verse 15. The ancient
and the honorable, he that is the head... God's going to cut
him off. And what the Lord is simply talking
about is Israel. He's going to bring them down
from the top to the bottom. The ancient and the honorable,
he that is the head, and the prophet that teacheth
lies, He is the tail. So, what I take away from this
is, when the scripture talks about
Satan caused a third of the angels to fall in rebellion against
God with his tail, I would say that with a lie, With a lie. That makes sense. With a lie.
Because here it is, the Lord says, the prophet that teaches
lies, he's the tail. The liar, he's the tail. In other words, he's the lowest
of the low. You talking about the scum? You talking about the
low down? It's the liar. It's the liar. And in this case, the prophets
who said they were of God. And now Isaiah, the Lord tells
Isaiah to expose them. They're like bullrushes. They
bend. They bend with the wind, with
whatever the people want to hear. That's what they preach to them.
They tickle the ears of men and say what men want to hear. They're
like bullrushes. Those who teach the lies, they're
the tail. They're the lowest of the low. Our Lord Jesus in John 8. Let's look at John 8. I want you to notice what he says
about, says to these Jews about Satan, about the devil. John chapter 8. Speaking of these, the Pharisees,
John 8, 44. This is what he says. They said
they were the offspring, the children of Abraham. He says
in verse 44, John, a year of your father the devil. Your father
is the great red dragon. And the lusts of your father
ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning,
and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in it. When
he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own, for he is a liar. It doesn't say the father of lies.
It's one lie, singular. He's a liar
and the father of it. The father of it. Which indicates to me one big
lie. Go to Genesis chapter 3. Genesis
chapter 3. Remember, we're working there
in Revelation chapter 12. He led one-third of the stars,
one-third of the angels. Star is another word for angels
in the Bible. And rebelled him against God.
And he did so, the Scripture says, with his tail. With his lie. With his lie. Genesis chapter 3, verse 1. Now
the serpent, remember, back in Revelation 12, that old serpent. That's another one of his names,
that old serpent. Been around a long time. Now
the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which
the Lord God had made. He said unto the woman, yea,
hath God said, ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?
And the woman said unto the serpent, we may eat of the fruit of the
trees of the garden, but, but of the fruit of the tree, which
is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, ye shall not eat
of it. And then, of course, she adds,
neither shall you touch it, lest she die. And the serpent said
unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die. For God doth know that in the day ye thereof, then
your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods. You'll have control. That's the
lie. You'll have power. You'll have
authority. You'll be as God. You'll be as
Elohim. You'll be as the Creator. Yourself. You won't be subject
to God anymore. You'll be a God. And you'll control
everything about yourself. You'll be in charge. You'll have
authority. You'll have power. Knowing good
and evil. Verse 6, And when the woman saw
that the tree was good for food, It was pleasant to the eyes,
and a tree to be desired, to make one wise. She took the fruit
thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her,
and he did eat. He willed to eat. There's the
first sin. He willed to eat, and then he
ate. He ate. And our Lord Jesus says in John
8, He's a liar and the father of it. He's the father of it. His lie to Eve was, you won't have to answer to God
anymore. In other words, God can't do
anything unless you let Him, because you're equal with God.
You'll be equal with God then. And he fed some lie to a bunch
of the angels. And it was the same lie. It's
the same lie. Because everything goes back
to this. You see, there's the authority
of God, the sovereignty of God, the might of God, the power of
God, the governmental authority of God, and Satan says, wait! If you follow me, you'll get
that authority. You'll get that power. It's the
same thing he said to Eve. You eat of this fruit, you'll
be in charge. And you see, the lie of the false
gospel, it's essentially the same thing. The false gospel
that Satan spews out and his servants spew out every Sunday. And if you watch on television,
every day of the week you can find somebody on there. And you
know what? It's the lie of the serpent. It's all up to you. It's in your
hands. I'm sure you've heard the last
few lines of a poem written back in 1875 by William Ernest Inley,
Invictus. The last stanza, he wrote four
stanzas to it. The last one says, it matters
not how straight the gate, how charged with punishments the
scroll. I am the master of my fate. I
am the captain of my soul. There's the lie of Satan right
there. That's the lie of Satan. Nelson Mandela. He said that
kept him going during 27 years of imprisonment. I'm in charge. I'm in charge. I'm the master
of my fate. I'm the captain of my soul. In
fact, at the memorial service for him, that's what President
Obama, if you'll remember, he read that at the memorial service
for Nelson Mandela. But though that, those few words
were penned back in 1875, that's just the lie of the devil.
It goes back a whole lot further than that. He just put it to
poetry. You're the master of your fate and you're the captain
of your soul. You shall be as God's. You control
your destiny. That is the Satan, that is Satan's
lie. You don't control your destiny. God controls all things. God
has already ordained all things from the foundation of the world.
The devil, the old serpent, the great red dragon, Lucifer, he
rose up in rebellion against God. He rose up in rebellion
against God because God purposed that His Son, the Son of God,
would have all authority over all things, and Satan said, not
so! Not so. God said in Hebrews chapter 1,
let all the angels of God worship Him, and Lucifer and a third
of them said, we won't! We won't. Are you believing the lie of
the serpent? That this is all your salvation
is somehow all together dependent upon you? If you've swallowed
that hook, line and sinker, let me tell you something. He has
deceived you. And the only one who can break
through the deception is the sovereign Christ. You see, He is the day star. He's the sun. He's the sun of
righteousness. He's the light of the world.
He's the only one who can penetrate the darkness, the darkness, the
natural darkness of your own heart and the spiritual religious
darkness of Satan clouded your mind. You can't see the light. Bless the name of God. Christ
can pierce through that though. He can break through the darkness.
And oh, how I pray that He will. And give you eyes to see that
it's finished. You don't add anything to the
work of Christ Jesus. Why, His work of redemption is
a perfect work. Anything that you would add to
it just ruins it. It defiles it. Because anything
you can muster up is polluted by sin. You see, that's the wonder
and that's the glory and that's the beauty of this salvation.
It's all of God and it's all in Christ Jesus and it's all
finished. It is finished. What a glorious
message we have to proclaim. Now, the man-child, I'm going
to talk about him a little bit more tonight. He's God in human
flesh. He's the seed of the woman. And
then who is this woman that travails with child? It's not Mary. It's the church. It's the church
of the Old Testament. And you know, throughout the
Thousands of years of the Old Testament. Through the decades,
through the centuries, through the four millenniums. Some of
them, well, the people of God, all during those ages, they were
like a woman in travail, waiting. Waiting. Because this is what
the prophet said. He's coming. He's coming. The seed of the woman, He's coming!
And the church of the Lord, she waited. And she waited with anticipation. There's going to be a man-child
coming to this world. The Savior is coming. He's the
Messiah. And she waited and she longed
for Him. And then when He came, His people
rejoiced. Oh, the thrill! Oh, the joy!
There's Simeon in the temple. And I tell you, the Spirit of
God had come to him and said, you're not going to die until
you've seen the Lord's Christ. And he saw the Lord Jesus brought
by Mary and Joseph into the temple, and he took that baby in his
arms. He's so happy. He's here! He's come, the man-child! He
said, Lord, now let thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes
have seen. Thy salvation. And Anna, she
is close by. And she saw what was going on.
She heard what He said. And she went and she told everybody
who looked for redemption, He's here. The Redeemer is here! That child that we've longed
for, though the church has been in travail for all of these thousands
of years, He's entered into the world. And He's going to do what
nobody else could do. He's going to deal a fatal blow
to the old serpent. And we'll talk about that tonight,
the Lord willing. Let's sing it.