Now turn in your Bibles with
me to the book of Revelation chapter 12. Revelation chapter 12. The title
of the message is Persecuted but Preserved. Persecuted but Preserved. And
of course what this is speaking of is And you can look at this
kind of like a drama. This drama is played out in the
last days of the church on earth. And remember that the last days
always refers in the Bible to that time period in between the
Lord's first coming and his death, burial, resurrection, his ascension
unto glory, and his second coming. That's the last days. That's
the last age. That's the time of the new covenant,
the new covenant church, the new covenant age. And in this
drama, we have three main characters mentioned here in Revelation
12. We have a woman who represents
the church, the true church of the Lord Jesus Christ here on
earth. And when you think about church now, don't think about
a building, Don't think about a denomination. Think about the
true people of God collectively. All of God's true children, Jew
and Gentile all over this world, who believe the truth. Now there
are false churches. In the Bible, they're known as
Satan's tares. We're coming to that passage
in our study of Matthew, in our Bible study at 10 o'clock, of
the kingdom parables. And he mentions the wheat and
the tares. And sometimes people will look
at the tares as individual false believers, and they can be called
tares, but that's mainly false churches, organizations, collections
of people who claim to be Christian, but they're not. They don't abide
in the doctrine of Christ. And I've told you this now to
understand, false religion, false churches, they all believe that
salvation, in some way, to some degree, at some stage, is conditioned
on sinners, on man and women. In other words, I make the difference,
I do. I'm the captain of my own salvation,
the determiner of my own fate. And then they always measure
righteousness on a sliding scale to say, well, I may not be perfect,
but I've done enough. Well, you've never done enough
to be saved. That's why Christ had to come
to this earth and do it all. He did enough. And that's why
Paul said, I'm persuaded he's able to keep that which I've
committed. And so when we speak of the church
here, we're talking about the true church and this woman that
appeared in this great wonder in heaven, a woman, look at verse
one of chapter 12, a woman clothed with the sun. What does that
mean? Well, individual believers and
the church collectively, they're all clothed with the son of righteousness
that we read about in Malachi chapter four. That's Christ who
is the Lord our righteousness. And that being clothed with him
is a metaphor for God imputing, charging, accounting that righteousness
to us. We don't actually wear it like
I'm wearing this coat and it's not just on the outside of it,
it's put to our account. We stand before God in a righteousness
A perfect righteousness that we didn't produce. But it was
produced for us by Christ in his obedience unto death. And
that's what's called the righteousness of God that's revealed in the
gospel. You remember Paul wrote about that in Romans 1, 16 and
17. I'm not ashamed of the gospel
of Christ. It's the power of God unto salvation. To everyone
that believe it, to the Jew first, the Greek also. For therein is
revealed the righteousness of God. and from faith to faith, from
knowledge revealed to knowledge received, as it is written, the
justified shall live by faith. So those who are justified based
upon the righteousness of Christ, they're clothed with the sun
of righteousness, and that's every individual believer, sinner
saved by grace, the elect of God, who have been redeemed by
the blood. That's who he died for. died
for my sheep, he said, and they've been called out of the world
by the Holy Spirit and the preaching of the gospel. It's to everyone
that believes. How do I know that I'm one of
God's elect? How do I know that I'm clothed
in this righteousness? How do I know that I'm a member
of this collective body called the church, the woman clothed
with, how do I know that? Do you believe the gospel? Do you believe in Christ, the
true Christ? Do you submit to him? and His
truth, whatever it is, in this Bible. That's the evidence of
being one of God's people. And so here's this woman clothed
with the sun, the moon is under her foot. You know, the moon
shines with the reflective light of the sun. And that's what the
church does. We're the light of the world.
We shine forth, not in our own light, but with the reflective
light of Christ. We preach Christ. We testify
of Him. I'm not here this morning telling
you to look at me as your savior, or as your mentor, or as your
example. I'm here to point you to Christ.
You understand that? And that's what the good works
of believers are to do, Matthew 5, 16. Let your light shine before
men that they may see your good works and do what? Glorify your
Father which is in heaven, not glorify you. not point to you,
not draw attention to you, but draw attention to God Almighty
who saves sinners by His grace through Christ. And then the
second person in this drama is the child. She's with child.
The church is represented as a woman with child and a man
child. And that's talking about Christ,
the man child who came forth from Mary. We talked about that
last week. But He's represented as being
the seed of woman coming forth in His humanity through the church. He's God-man in one person. He's the Savior of His people.
He's the Lord of His people. He's the Redeemer. He's the Keeper.
He is everything to us. That's the second. participant
in this drama is the red dragon, the terrible red dragon, and
that's Satan. And what is being said in this
passage is this, Satan having been cast out of heaven, he was
cast out before this world was created, and then in a sense
he was cast out when Christ died on the cross because that's represented
as Satan's defeat Remember in John chapter 12, when Christ
died on that cross in time, He removed all the sins from all
His people in a legal, judicial way, and those sins are paid
for. The sin debt. Our debt, if you're
one of God's own, if you're one of His chosen people, if you're
one of Christ's sheep, if you're a member of this church, your
debt to God's law and justice has been fully paid, not by you. And not by your faith. Now this
is one of the things that people today get confused. They think
it's their believing that kicks it into gear. Oh no. It's the
blood of Christ that did it all. He washed my sins away. That's the metaphor that we use
for that. What can wash away my sins? Nothing but the blood
of Jesus. What can make me whole again?
Nothing but the blood of Jesus. He did it all. And because he
did it all, every one of his people will come to faith in
him. And that's a gift from God. He said, and all that the Father
giveth me shall come to me, and him that cometh to me I will
in no wise cast out. And so, he's the second person,
but when he died on that cross, Satan was cast down from heaven
so that he could not accuse, before the court of God's justice,
the people of God anymore. Because the accusations don't
stick. I love That passage in Romans chapter 8, that seals
in the minds of God's people the security of the saved. All
things work together for good to them that love God, who are
called according to His purpose. All whom He foreknew, He predestinated,
all of that. Who shall lay anything to the
charge of God's elect? It's God that justifies, who
can condemn us? It's Christ that died. You see
that? Nothing shall separate us from
the love of God. What security there is. You know, the only
security that comes from false religion is the deception of
self-righteousness. That's it. Because if you're
in false religion and you have an assurance or security of salvation,
it's either based upon the fact that you think you've met certain
conditions or you think you've done enough. It's just like a man told me
one time, he said, I know I'm not perfect, but I've not done
anything that deserves to send me to hell. I said, well, you
don't know yourself. All have sinned and come short
of the glory of God. And what is the glory of God?
It's Christ. the perfection of righteousness
that can only be found in Him. And look here at Revelation 12,
when it says in verse 10, or look back at verse nine, it says,
the great dragon was cast out, that's at the death of Christ.
The old serpent called the devil and Satan, which deceiveth the
whole world. How does Satan deceive the whole
world? Mainly with the deception of false security. The deception
of false religion. And it says, he was cast out
into the earth and his angels were cast out with him. And I
heard a loud voice saying in heaven, now has come salvation
and strength and the kingdom of our God and the power of his
Christ. You see the applause, the honor,
the credit goes to Christ, not to you or me. For the accuser
of our brethren is cast down which accused them before our
God day and night. And what is Satan's accusation? Well, they're sinners. That's
true. We're sinners. But God doesn't
charge us with our sins. He charged them to Christ. And
Christ paid the debt. That's what he says. Blessed
is the man to whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity. And it says, look
at verse 11. This is so precious. And they
overcame him, Satan who accuses them, they overcame him by the
blood of the Lamb. They didn't chant. They didn't hold up a cross.
They didn't throw holy water on Him. What'd they do? They appealed to the glorious
person and the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ, the
Son of Righteousness. And that's all. Looking unto
Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. That's, he says,
and by the word of their testimony. That's the word of our testimony.
What is our testimony? Christ crucified and risen from
the dead. And they loved not their lives
unto the death. In other words, they didn't want
to hold on to their lives here and face the death, final death. They want life in Christ. For
by grace are you saved. As sin hath reigned unto death,
even so might grace reign unto eternal life through righteousness
by Jesus Christ our Lord. And then look at verse 12. Therefore
rejoice, ye heavens, and you that dwell in them. That's what
the people of God are. We're on this earth, but we're
not of it. We're citizens of heaven. Woe
to the inhabitants of the earth and of the sea, those who dwell
in this earth, who are so connected to it that they have no interest
in the things of the Spirit of God and salvation and truth.
He says, for the devil has come down unto you having a great
wrath, anger, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time. The devil knows that he's already
defeated. And he knows his time is short.
He doesn't know when the Lord is coming back again to call
it all and to bring it all down and to glorify his people, but
he knows it's a short time. And what's he trying to do? He's
trying to get as many to perish with him as he can. Short time. Well, look at verse
13. When the dragon saw that he was
cast unto the earth, He persecuted the woman which brought forth
the man-child. He persecuted the church. Now
that's what we're going through in the last days. Persecution. Persecution from Satan, persecution
from the world. And none of that feels good,
does it? It's not easy. You know, the health and wealth
false preachers of today. Oh, if you'll just apply these
biblical principles, you'll be rich, you'll be healthy, that
kind of thing. They are liars sent from Satan. Is that too hard? It's true. Because Satan wants nothing more
than to have people in a false security of false religion, anything
that will make you comfortable enough to keep you from running
to Christ and begging him for mercy, like that old publican,
God be merciful to me, the sinner. I have no hope but Christ. Whether you're rich or poor,
healthy or sick, male or female, Jew or Gentile, There's only
one hope for a sinner to be saved and to live forever. That's Jesus
Christ and Him crucified. And Satan persecuted, it says
in verse 13, he persecuted the woman which brought forth the
man child. All the true followers of Christ,
all sinners saved by God's grace in Christ. Now Christ spoke of
this quite often to his disciples. He told him in Matthew 5 in verse
11. Here's what he said. Blessed are you when men shall
revile you and persecute you and shall say all manner of evil
against you falsely for my name's sake. What? Blessed? To be persecuted? For righteousness sake? And when
Peter spoke of that, being blessed for righteousness sake, being
persecuted for righteousness sake, he wasn't talking about
just being persecuted, for being a moral person or a principled
person. He was talking about being persecuted
over our testimony of the gospel. Look at John chapter three with
me. It's our testimony of Christ
that people by nature hate. And he says this in John three
and verse 18. Look at John chapter three verse
18. Now Christ is speaking to a religious man here named Nicodemus. A lost man, but religious. A
moral man, but lost. And he says in verse 18, he that
believeth on him is not condemned. He that believeth on Christ is
not condemned. But he that believeth not is
condemned already. It doesn't matter how you appear.
You may be trying to be the best person you can be, moral, religious,
sincere, dedicated, charitable, but if you don't believe in Christ,
if he's not your Savior, your Lord, your righteousness, the
only thing you can say about yourself at that time is you're
on a road to condemnation. And he says, because he hath
not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. And
verse 19 says, and this is the condemnation, that light is coming
to the world, that light of truth that reveals this reality, and
men loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were
evil. Now what are their deeds there?
It's their religious deeds. It takes the light of the gospel
to reveal that those kinds of deeds are evil, not because they're
immoral, but because they don't glorify God. You understand that? A person who's trying to do their
best to work their way into heaven, that's evil in God's sight because
it doesn't glorify God. It denies Christ because He came
to do the whole work. It exalts sinners. It's self-righteousness. And it says in verse 20, for
everyone that doeth evil, hateth the light, neither cometh to
the light, lest his deed should be exposed, reproved. And that's
why Christ told him over in John 15, he said, marvel not if the
world hates you. It hated me before it hated you. Why did the religious majority
hate the Son of God? Because he told them the truth.
He said, you're of your father the devil. What were they doing? What were they preaching? They
were preaching that a sinner can be saved and made righteous
by his works. That's what they were preaching.
Read it in Romans chapter 9. And he told them, he said, that's
evil, that's wicked, that doesn't glorify God. God saves sinners
by grace. For by grace are you saved. Through
faith, that's not of yourselves. Faith is the gift of God. It's
not of works, lest any man should boast. And we by nature hate that. And
that's why he told them, he said, they'll throw you out of their
synagogues. Remember that in John 16? He said, they'll kill
you and think they're doing God a service. What was the apostle
Paul before he was converted on the Damascus road to do? He
wasn't going to a prayer meeting, folks. He was going to arrest
Christians, throw them in jail and have them executed. Do you know Paul in the book
of Philippians in chapter one, He told the church there, he
said that you've been given a gift, not just faith, faith is a gift,
but to suffer for Christ's sake. Well, back here in Revelation
12, that's what it's talking about. Satan was allowed by God
to persecute the woman which brought forth the man, John,
in verse 13. Persecuted. But look at verse
14. He says, and to the woman were
given two wings of a great eagle. Brother Randy read about that
in Isaiah chapter 40. This type of language is also
used in the book of Exodus chapter 19 concerning the Hebrew children
brought out of Egypt. When Moses was reminding them
of how God brought them out of that bondage of Egypt, And here's
what he said, he says, you've seen what God did to the Egyptians
and how he bare you on eagle's wings and brought you to himself. And what he's saying here in
Revelation 12, 14, that even though the church, she's being
persecuted, she's under the protection and under the preservation of
God Almighty. That's what that whole chapter
was about that you read, Randy. People will turn to idols, they'll
turn to themselves, they'll turn to one another, but they won't
turn to God. And God is the only one who can
save sinners, he's the only one who can protect them, and he's
the only one who can preserve them. And who you gonna compare
him to? Who you gonna liken God to? The
idols that people have, you can compare them to a lot of different
things. And they're all inadequate. But there's none like our God.
There's none like our Savior. Look at verse 14. To the woman
were given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into
the wilderness. What's the wilderness? It's this
world. This whole world is a wilderness. Just like the Hebrew children
went into the desert. And that was a place that God
put them. She flew into the wilderness
into her place. You need to know your place.
You ever heard that? Well, what is our place? We're in the wilderness. We're
in the world. The world is our enemy, but we're
not of the world. And who gave us this place? God
did. This is God. This is not Satan's
doing. He's an evil instrument. But God's doing this to protect
and preserve His church. And you've got God's people all
over this world, though few there be. That's where we are. And we stand in this place as
a light of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Look
at what it says here in verse 14. Into her place where she's
nourished for a time and times and half a time from the face
of the serpent. Now she's in the wilderness, but she's cared for, she's fed,
Remember what God fed the Hebrew children with? Manna from heaven,
water from the rock. Both of those are types of Christ. Christ is the bread of life.
He's the water of life. We feed in the wilderness on
the word of God. We don't feed off the things
of the world. That's temporary, it's evil. We're not preserved
by the things of the world. Doesn't matter how big of a bank
account you've got, it won't preserve you, you're still gonna
die. Somebody else is gonna get it. But the word of the Lord is forever. Our salvation is forever. We
have a righteousness that cannot be contaminated or taken away. It's forever. Forever and ever
and ever. and we're nourished by the word
of God. This phrase time and times and half a time is just
another way of saying that three and a half years we've talked
about, which is symbolic of the whole time period of the new
covenant. And what it refers back, just to refresh your memory,
it refers back to the three and a half years between Pentecost
and the death of Stephen. You remember that in the book
of Acts? to where the church was so persecuted in Jerusalem
and Judah that they had to leave. And they went out throughout
the world. And that's what's happened to this woman. She's
been picked up by God in eagle's wings and spread out all over
this wilderness. To do what? To hide? No. To cower? No. To preach the gospel. And you wanna know why? Because
God has a people out of every tribe, kindred, tongue, and nation,
and he's going to bring them to faith in Christ and repentance
of dead works. We support a mission work in
Africa, Malawi. There's some of God's sheep there.
There's some of those clothed with the sun of righteousness
there. All over this nation. Now, compared to the world, there
are few. Many are called, but few are
chosen. Few be there that find it. All
of that. Look at verse 15. It says here
that the serpent cast out of his mouth water as a flood after
the woman that he might cause her to be carried away of the
flood. You know what that flood is? It's the flood of false self-righteous
religion. and this world is flooded with
it. Satan's doctrine of deception. You remember when Christ is shown
in his glory, out of his mouth is a sharp two-edged sword. What
is that? That's the word of God that cuts
asunder both ways. The word of God, the word of
truth. The word of salvation for God's people. Well, Satan
has his imitation and it's called a flood. And the reason it's
called a flood, like Noah's flood, it covers the whole earth. It's
deception of false, self-righteous works, free will religion. That's
the flood. It's everywhere. It's all over
this city. It's all over this state, this
country. It's all over this world. It's
a spirit of antichrist which has already gone forth into the
world to deceive with its false teaching. Satan deceiving the
whole world, the scripture says. Satan's lies that comes under
the name of religion. False Christianity. And look
at verse 16, it says, and the earth helped the woman. What?
The earth helped the woman. The earth opened up her mouth
and swallowed up the flood which the dragon cast out of his mouth.
You know Satan's goal in setting forth this flood of false religion
is to deceive the people of God. That's what he wants. But you
wanna know something? They can't not be deceived ultimately. Always start out that way. But
at some point in time, Christ sends his spirit and reveals
the truth to us and shines the light of the glory of God in
the face of Jesus Christ. And we don't remain deceived.
Satan cannot ultimately deceive the people of God. And the earth
helps. The earth soaks it up, takes it up. And I think about
back in Egypt. Do you remember when the Hebrew
children were in bondage? How God sent those 10 plagues? And there were physical things
on earth, the plague of frogs, the plague of lice and all. You
know what that was? That was God in his power using
the earth to help his people. And that's what happens in the
last days with the woman in the wilderness. Satan, with all the
flood of his false doctrine, will not keep one true child
of God from being saved and entering heaven's glory. They belong to Christ. And he
said this in John 6, he said, This is the will of Him that
sent me, that of all which He hath given me, I should lose
nothing, but raise it up again in the last day. They cannot
be charged with their sins. They cannot be condemned because
Christ took their condemnation and nothing's gonna separate
them from the love of God in Christ. What security is that?
Oh, that's the ultimate security. So the earth helped the woman
and the earth opened up her mouth, swallowed up the flood which
the dragon cast out of his mouth. And look at verse 17, and the
dragon was wroth, he's angry with the woman. And he went to
make war with the remnant of her seed. What's the remnant
of her seed? That's believers all the way
down through until the second coming of Christ. And Satan's
not gonna stop until God puts a stop to it. And he identifies
the remnant of her seed as these, those which keep the commandments
of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ. Now you can't
separate those two things. Those who keep the commandments
of God. What in the world is he talking
about? Now, who are the members, the individual members of this
collective body called the woman who's clothed with the sun? They're
sinners saved by grace. I just found out recently there's
a few people that don't like that term. Well, We're not to wear our sin
as a badge of honor, certainly not. But here's our badge of
honor saved by grace. Only a sinner saved by grace.
This is my story to God be the glory. Can I say that I keep the commandments
of God? Somebody said, well, I'm trying.
Well, first of all, trying's not good enough. And secondly, you're not really
trying. Oh yes I am. No you're not. I
know human nature. And I know there's a lot of times
we'll break the commandments and justify ourselves. Well you
didn't see what he did to me. Do you love your enemies like
Christ loved his enemies? Now listen to that. I didn't
say, do you love your enemies? I said, do you love your enemies
like Christ loved his enemies? Because that's what his people
were by nature. Even when we were enemies, Christ
died for the ungodly. We're not law keepers. Yes, we're
to obey God. We're to try to do our best,
but that's not our salvation. That's my point. That's not our
righteousness. So what does he mean when he
says those who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony
of Jesus? He's talking about those who believe in Christ,
whose faith is in him alone, who have repented of their dead
works, who have repented of even thinking that they could keep
the commandments in order to be saved. Those who follow him
and rest in him, believe in him. He is my only hope. And that's
the people of God. That's the woman clothed with
the sun of righteousness who stands upon the moon and who
are under his wing as eagles fly. Let's sing that hymn, hymn
number 269.