Now open your Bibles with me
to the book of Revelation, chapter 12. The title of the message this
morning is Christ Defeating Satan. Christ Defeating Satan. One of
the reasons I had Brother Mark read that 1 Peter 5 passage,
you know the whole letter, first letter of Peter to the church
is to believers who are scattered throughout the area, who are
being persecuted, who are suffering for righteousness sake, for the
gospel. And of course, we know that the
great persecutors of the church We always divide them into that
we suffer, we're plagued by sin outside of us and within us,
the flesh, the world, the flesh, and then the devil, and that's
what we're going to be talking about this morning from Revelation
12. This is what Peter is trying
to encourage the people of God to stand firm in the faith and
the word of God, realizing that we are safe in Christ, even though
we're persecuted in this world, even though we suffer in this
world, that we're safe in Christ. The battle is really won. It's
already won. Christ won it. And we're going
to see that in Revelation 12. But there in 1 Peter chapter
5, he tells them, he says, He says, be sober, be vigilant because
your adversary the devil as a roaring lion walketh about seeking whom
he may devour. You know, the apostle Paul dealt
with that in Ephesians chapter six when he commanded the people
of God to put on the whole armor of God that we may withstand
the wiles of the devil. Satan, the great deceiver. We'll
go back to Revelation 12. You know, last week in the first
verses, first five verses of this, we were introduced to the
three main characters in this drama. And it's not a fictional
drama, it's a real drama. We have symbols and types and
pictures here that point to real people, real entities, real spirits. First of all, we talk about the
woman, a great wonder in heaven, a woman clothed with the sun,
the moon in her feet, and upon her head a crown of 12 stars,
and that's the church, that's the true church of the living
God, made up of God's elect, chosen before the foundation
of the world, given to Christ, all of the salvation of God's
people, individually and collectively, that they were, it's put upon
Christ, clothed with the sun, that's his righteousness imputed,
that's the glory, he's the son of righteousness, he's the light
of the world. And it says the moon under her
feet, that moon is the reflective light of the glory of God, that's
what we stand upon, the word of God, the gospel, we walk in
that light, the word is a lamp under our feet, we walk in the
gospel according to truth, we preach the gospel, we witness
the gospel, we tell sinners. of the glory of God. We tell
sinners of our state in sin and the hopelessness that we all
have in ourselves. We cannot save ourselves and
thank God the gospel is a message of salvation that's conditioned
on Christ who fulfilled those conditions. We see that she's
travailing in birth and pain to be delivered. She's pregnant
and of course that's That's showing the church brought forth the
humanity of Christ for he came through the seed of David and
all of that for his humanity because he had our sins imputed
to him. It behooved him. We read this
last week in Hebrews 2 and verse 17. It behooved him to be made
like unto his brethren And that word behoove is the Greek word
for debt. Because our sins, the sins of
God's church, God's people, His sheep, were laid upon Him. The debt accounted to Him. He
had to become flesh without sin. And that's what this child, this
man-child is. That's Christ. Born of a woman. He's the Son of God. Every big God's second person
of the Trinity, we know that, but he was born of a woman. God
sent forth his son, made of a woman, made under the law to redeem
them that were under the law. And then we see the great red
dragon, and of course, that's Satan, who is intent on destroying
the people of God. He's the devil. We'll see this
as we go through. And he's ready, he wanted to
kill the Christ child. He wanted to kill the man child.
He was ready to do that. Remember when Christ was born
on this earth, Satan put it into Herod's heart to kill this child. But of course he couldn't do
it. He failed. He fails at every turn because
it's just not in the plan. God's plan for his son to come
into this world and be murdered by Satan. was going to be killed. He came to die but he came to
die according to the purpose of God to put away the sins of
his people. And look at verse six, this is
where we'll begin today. It says, the woman fled into
the wilderness where she hath a place prepared of God. She fled where God led her, put
her, that they should feed her there a thousand two hundred
and threescore days Now that 1,203 scored days, that's the
equivalent of the three and a half years that symbolizes the whole
time period of the New Covenant, the New Testament, the last days,
the time between Christ's first coming and his ascension and
his second coming. And so the church, this woman,
and she's the bride of Christ, and you know, as I said, clothed
with the sun, you know, often in the scripture, Individual
people of God are said to be clothed with the righteousness
of Christ. Here the whole church collectively is clothed with
that because that's the basis of our salvation. That's the
ground of our salvation. His righteousness imputed. But
she's fled into the wilderness. You think about that. Think about
it. When Christ was born, And Herod put out that decree to
kill every male child from two years and under. Remember the
wise men went and told Joseph and Mary, and the angel told
him to take the child and flee into Egypt. The woman fled, Mary
fled. But also, I'll tell you another
thing I think about when we go to this passage. Think about
the type in the Old Testament of the Hebrew children in Egypt.
Now those Hebrew children, we know that this is just a type. We know that not all of them
were believers, were God's elect. In fact, the Bible tells us in
Hebrews chapter three that most of them died and perished in
the wilderness. But think about Moses bringing
them out of Egypt into the wilderness where they were fed with the
manna from heaven and their thirst was quenched with water from
the rock All that's a type of Christ leading his church out
of the bondage of sin, out of the deception of Satan. And this
is what's happening here. The church was led out. Think
about it this way. Think about after Pentecost,
when the Spirit descended in such a special way to inaugurate
the new covenant church and gave forth those gifts of ministry
before the word of God came together, completed, which is our authority. And what happened about three
and a half years after that, when Stephen was killed and the
church was shot out into the Gentile world, and that's where
we are now. We're in the wilderness, the
true church, as small as we are, as little as we are, as few as
we are, whatever, we're in the wilderness of this world, preaching
the gospel, the light of the world, however little it is.
and we're being fed by the word and the water of God. And that's
the type here, this woman fled into the, and that's where we'll
remain throughout this age until Christ comes again. This world
is not our home. This world, listen, this world
is a foreign area to us. We live in this world, but we're
not of the world. We're citizens of a heavenly
kingdom. We look for a city that's not
on this earth. We look for the city of God,
the heavenly Jerusalem, it's called. And that's the people
of God. That's our citizenship. But as
long as we're in this world, we're to persevere, as Peter
said, we're to stand fast. Be firm and immovable in the
gospel. And of course we know that that's
by the power and grace of God, isn't it? Our perseverance, you know, we
talk about perseverance of the saints. Well, that means the
continuing of the saints in a state of salvation from which we cannot
fall. And the only reason we persevere
we continue is because God in his grace through Christ preserves
us, he keeps us. I know whom I have believed and
I'm persuaded that he is able. Aren't you persuaded that he's
able to keep that which I've committed unto him against that
day? So there you have the scene, the church in the wilderness,
the church in the world. Now there are many false churches
But this is talking about the true church of God where the
gospel is preached, where the word of God is the rule and not
man's opinion, not false gospels. Well, look at verse seven. One commentator said, this is
kind of like a behind the scenes glimpse of a struggle in heaven. that culminates in the banishment
of Satan from the presence of God. You remember, for example,
in the Old Testament, we see one episode where Satan came
before God and he wanted to expose a false convert who was not false
at all and his name was Job. You remember that? And God said,
have you considered my servant Job? And he said, well, Job's
only serving you because he lives lavishly. You've blessed him
with material blessings. And so God allowed Satan to deal
with Job. Of course, Job, it turned out,
Job was one of God's sheep, one of God's true people. Well, it
says here, look here in verse seven. It says, there was war
in heaven. Michael and his angels fought
against the dragon, fought against Satan, and the dragon fought
and his angels. Now you know the Bible teaches
us that when Satan fell, he drew a lot of the angels with him. The
non-elect angels, there were elect angels. The Bible teaches
that. This Michael, who is Michael?
Well you know what the word Michael, the name Michael means, it means
chief messenger. It literally means one like God
or one who is God. Now the Bible, in nowhere does
the Bible teach a hierarchy of angels. Like there's a head angel
named Michael and then there's other angels. The Bible doesn't
teach that. That's another mythology that
concocted by the Catholic Church. Michael is Christ. That's who
he is. And what Michael does, he represents
Christ as the warrior fighting against the forces of evil. And
this is war in heaven. In heaven doesn't really mean
place, it means position. It's a spiritual warfare. not
talking about geographical location, but here is God's power in Christ
fighting against Satan, fighting against the world, Michael and
his angels, one who is God, he's mentioned in Jude 9, the archangel,
which means the first messenger, the chief messenger, he's mentioned
in Daniel 10 and verse 13 called one of the chief princes, but
this would be better translated the first in rank, he is the
head of all things. That's what it's talking about.
One who is God. One who has the preeminence.
And this is none other than Christ. And his angels are his messengers.
It could be his ministers preaching the gospel of the kingdom, the
gospel of God's free and sovereign grace, for that is our sword,
our weapon. Remember Paul said the weapons
of our warfare are not carnal. It's the message of the righteousness
of God revealed, and the dragon is Satan and his angels, that's
his ministers, all of that. So here's the scene here, Michael,
Christ, and his angels fighting against Satan and his angels.
Now let me say this, when you see this warfare, it's not iffy. The warfare is really over. It's
just the fight that's going on for the glory of God in the salvation
of his people, but Christ has already won the battle. Satan
begins his warfare as a defeated warrior. We know that. There's
no, as we say, there's no chance. There's no chance that Satan
could win this battle. But they're fighting, and it
says in verse eight, here's Michael and his angels fought against
the dragon, and the dragon fought against his angels, and prevailed
not. Look at verse eight. The dragon
prevailed not. He didn't win. Neither was there
place found anymore in heaven. And verse nine says the great
dragon was cast out. Now turn over to John chapter
12. The Lord Jesus Christ spoke of this, And there are different
views on this and I don't want to get bogged down in all of
these different ideas. When you get a lot of different
commentators together, even gospel commentators, they'll have some
different ideas and they can argue over them and fuss over
them. Here's the fact of the matter. How was Satan defeated? And this is the most glorious
thing when we consider this battle. When we consider this, look at
verse 31. Christ is speaking of his going
to the cross. He is going to die, to shed his
blood. And he says, now is the judgment
of this world. Now shall the prince of this
world be cast out, Satan. This is the accomplishment in
time of all the requirements and conditions of the everlasting
covenant of grace made before time. And so it says in verse
32, he says, and I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw
all unto me, his people. That's his victory. His death
equals the salvation of all of his people, all for whom he died. I mentioned this last, there
won't be one vacancy in heaven. And we quote it all the time,
John 6, all that the Father giveth me shall come to me and him that
cometh to me, I'll know what's cast out. And this is the will
of him that sent me, that of all which he hath given me, I
should lose nothing, no one, but raise him up at the last
day. And that's what he's saying. And it says, this he said, signifying
what death he should die. Well, in the process of time,
This is when Satan was cast out and had, as some commentators
say, that he had no right to enter God's presence again and
accuse God's people like he did Job. Now how all that works out,
I'm not sure, and I'm not even gonna try to get into that, but
go back to Revelation 12. Look at what it says in verse nine. It says, and the
great dragon was cast out. That old serpent, remember Satan
appeared to Eve in the form of a serpent. He brought about the
fall of man. And he says, he's called the
devil. The word devil means accuser. And Satan, the word Satan means
adversary. which deceiveth the whole world. That's how Satan works, he's
a deceiver. The Bible says that his main
goal, Satan's main goal is to keep sinners from hearing and
believing the gospel. Now we know that he cannot prevent
God's children, God's elect, Christ's sheep, for whom he died
and was buried in a rosary, he cannot keep them from hearing
and believing the gospel. Aren't you glad? But until you
do hear and believe the gospel by the power of the Spirit, where
are you? You're in the deception of darkness,
false religion or whatever it is. That's what we are by nature. But it takes the power of Christ
through the Spirit to overcome that power of Satan and reveal
unto us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face
of Jesus Christ. But Satan deceives the whole
world. That is the whole unbelieving,
fallen, condemned world. Now, you know how people, when
they look at the death of Christ, they want to say that, well,
it's a universal death. In other words, he died for everybody,
even for those who end up in hell. That's not true. And they'll
go to passages like John 3, 16, God so loved the world. And they'll
say, well, that's everybody without exception. Well, it's not. The
Bible is very plain about that. He died for his sheep. But what
about a passage like this? He deceiveth the whole world.
Is that everybody without exception? Well, we all start out deceived.
We're born, we fell in Adam, we're born spiritually dead in
trespasses and sin, totally depraved, deceived and in ignorance. By
nature, all of us, children of wrath, not under God's wrath,
but by nature, children of wrath, but God has a people that he
chose, as I've said, before the foundation of the world, and
he gave this to Christ and he sealed it by making Christ to
be our what? Our surety. putting all of the
dead of our sins before we were even born upon Christ. And that's why he came into this
world. And the whole world here refers to those who live their
lives and die in unbelief. It says, verse nine now, he was
cast out into the earth and his angels were cast out with him.
And that's their realm of existence. That's their As you say, some
people say they're bailiwick, that's where they operate. But
look at verse 10, this is beautiful. This is one of my favorite passages
in the Bible and he says, I heard a loud voice saying in heaven,
now is come salvation. This is the process of time.
What God purposed before time has its fulfillment in time.
Now is come salvation. When? When Christ came. His name
shall be called Jesus for He shall save His people from their
sins. Remember old Simeon in the temple? The old man to whom the Lord
revealed to him that he wouldn't die until he actually saw the
Christ child? remember when Simeon, when Joseph
and Mary brought the Christ child, brought the baby Jesus to the
temple, Simeon was there and they brought the child to Simeon
and he took it in his arms. Remember what he said? He said,
I'm ready to die for mine eyes have seen thy salvation. Isn't that beautiful? And Simeon died in peace. Well now has come salvation.
That's who Christ is. He is the salvation of His people.
And He didn't come to try to save us. He didn't come to make
us savable. He came to establish that which
demands the salvation of everyone for whom He died. How did He
do that? He put away our sins. Look at
the next one. Now has come salvation. Now has
come strength. Power. The power to save. You know, I've often said that
in the covenant of grace made before time, that the one who's
chosen to be the savior must meet three criteria. Number one,
he must be appointed by the father. Well, the father appointed his
son, the second person of the trinity, the Lord Jesus Christ.
He said, this is my beloved son in whom I'm well pleased, hear
ye him. He set his stamp upon his son. Secondly, that person
must be able to do what is required. Well, what did he have to do?
Well, he had to have strength to stand in our place and put
away our sins. He had to have the power to bring
forth an everlasting righteousness of infinite value that cannot
be contaminated, the righteousness of God. Well, Christ meets that
criteria. He's able. He's able to save
to the uttermost them that come unto the Father by Him. And then
thirdly, He must be willing. He wasn't forced. He willingly
accepted all the responsibility to save us from our sins. And he said that so many times.
He said, no man takes my life from me, I lay it down. He lays
it down. You remember when they came to
get him in the garden, he said, who you want to get here? And they said, we want Jesus
of Nazareth. He said, I am, and they fell back. They couldn't
touch a hair on his head except by his permission. So that's the strength, the power
of God unto salvation. Christ is the power of God and
the wisdom of God. And then look at verse 10, it
says, and the kingdom of our God and the power of his Christ,
the power to establish the kingdom, its foundation, its building,
its head, its cornerstone, everything about the church, everything
about the kingdom, Everything about heaven and glory is established
in and by the glorious person and the finished work of Christ.
And in all of that it says, for the accuser of our brethren is
cast down. That's how he defeated Satan.
And again, Satan is known here as the accuser of our brethren,
which accused them before our God day and night. Accusation. I love that passage over in Psalm
130. I think it's verse three. And it says this, it says, if
thou, Lord, shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who would stand? If someone accused you or me
of being sinners, would they be right? Sure they would. And to deny
that is to lie to yourself. I've heard people say, well,
I'm not a sinner, I'm a saint. Well, what is a saint? Sinner
saved by grace, that's what a saint is. And I'll hear people, you
know, they'll say something like, well, we're not to refer to ourselves
that way and all that. Well, you know, you can fool
yourself all you want, But you know what a believer is? He's
the wretched man of Romans 7, 24. Oh, wretched man that I am,
who shall deliver me from this body of death? Now, I don't think
that we should wear the name sinner as a badge of honor. It certainly is not. The fact
that we're all sinners is really nothing we should relish in,
even though we do realize that that's the kind of people that
Christ came to save. We know that those who don't
know Christ, who don't know the gospel, who are not submitted
to his righteousness, they may claim to be sinners, but they
really don't know what a sinner is. None good, no not one. None righteous, no not one. I've
made this statement from the pulpit many times, if God were
to judge me, right now based upon my best efforts, I would
be condemned. I believe that, don't you? I
believe that. I'm not just trying to wax eloquent. I'm telling you the truth. I
have no righteousness but that which I find in the person and
work of Christ. Now, I have the power of the
Holy Spirit. I have new life. I have a new heart, new eyes. But I cannot tell you that anything
I do or say is perfect before God. It all has to be washed
in the blood of Christ. Now, I'm not talking about that
every time we do something, he washes it anew or something like
that. That's a metaphor. Our persons and our works are
cleansed by the blood of Christ, which was shed one time on the
cross and has eternal implications and qualities and power. He is our everlasting, eternal
intercessor. But whenever we do, when we pray
a prayer, He's not up there taking that prayer and washing it in
some bath. That's not what he's doing. It's all covered by the
blood of Christ. That's satisfaction to God's
justice. Now I'm saying all that to say
this. There's no time that Satan's accusations or the accusations
of men and women can stick In our case, in the court of God's
justice. Now you may say, well Bill, you
told a lie, and I may be guilty of that lie. I may be guilty
of a lot of things like that. But when it comes to my standing
before God, I am perfectly sinless in Christ. And that's a legal
matter. That doesn't tell you about my
state here on earth. I'm struggling here on earth. I struggle with sin every day,
don't you? But if the Lord would mark those
iniquities, that means if the Lord would record them against
us in the court of His justice, none of us would stand. We'd all be condemned. and perish. But listen, listen to this. Look at verse 11. And they overcame him. Now Satan
accuses, remember he accused Job, look at Job. They overcame him by the blood
of the Lamb. Now how did they overcome Satan? Well, they dropped to their knees
and prayed all night. That's not what it says. They
didn't miss a church service. No. They gave to charity. No. They simply stood before
God washed in the blood of the Lamb of God. Now, how powerful is that? We
were talking about it last week. Somebody might look at that and
say, well, that's too easy. That's just not enough now. We
gotta have more than that. Well, it says, and by the word
of their testimony. Well, what is the word of our
testimony? What do we testify of? I'm only a sinner saved by
grace. Yes, I'm a saint. And if you
wanna call me Saint Bill, that's okay with me. I'll call you saint
too. But what does that mean? By what
offering? Christ hath perfected them that
are sanctified forever. That's the word of our testimony.
We speak what God has put upon our hearts. My hope is built on nothing less
than Jesus' blood and righteousness. I dare not trust that. That's
the word of our testimony, you see. and they love not their
lives unto the death. You notice it says the death?
What death you think it's talking about? It's talking about eternal
damnation and death. In other words, as Christ told
us, he said he that's going to save his life will lose it. If
you're intent on pleading your own works, your own experiences,
your own goodness, your own efforts, then you love your life more
than you do Christ. That's it. But those who are
brought to believe in Christ and repent of dead works, we
don't love our lives unto the death. Because I know that to
plead anything but Christ's righteousness alone, to plead anything but
His blood alone, that's death. That's death. And so what do
we do? We turn from ourselves to Christ. And the blood of Jesus Christ
cleanses us from all sin and all iniquity. And we stand before
God in His righteousness. Isn't that a beautiful message?
And that's what inspires us to seek to please God and to obey
God. Motivates us by grace and gratitude
and love. We realize that Jesus paid it
all. That's what we're gonna sing
as our closing hymn. Hymn number 125. Jesus paid it all. Let's stand and we'll sing this
as our closing.