We're going to look at Revelation
chapter 12. But I want you to turn to 2 Corinthians chapter
4. 2 Corinthians chapter 4 to start
off with. The title of the message, as
I said, is Satan's Goal Defeated. And what we need to understand
in this before we get started is, do
we really understand what Satan's goal is? And that goal, it's
an evil goal, it's an evil motive, you know that. Satan is the embodiment
of evil. That goal is stated in several
passages of scripture. We don't have time to look at
every one of them. But look at 2 Corinthians chapter
four. We need to understand not only
Satan's goal, but Satan's devices. And it says in verse three of
second Corinthians chapter four, Paul writes by inspiration of
the Holy spirit. He says, but if our gospel, the
good news of salvation by the grace of God in Christ, Jesus,
the God man who established righteousness in his death, burial and resurrection. And incidentally, that's what
the resurrection is all about. I'm gonna talk about that a little
bit when we are preaching from the book of Isaiah in the main
message today. Resurrection is not just a historical
fact. It is a historical fact. And
I believe that we have proof of that. And then the apostle
wrote about that in 1 Corinthians 15. But it's not just a historical
fact. And it's not just a miracle of
raising the dead. I mean, God created this world.
God spoke this world out of nothing into existence. And he, he breathed
the breath of life into Adam. So it's, it shouldn't amaze us
that one could be raised from the dead. The miracle of the
resurrection is the justification of God's people before God. What
that means, the resurrection means that our sins in Christ
have been put away. They've been paid for, the debt
is paid. Satisfied justice and righteousness is established.
That's what the resurrection is all about. He was raised again
for our justification. Talking about his people now,
believers. And so that's what this gospel is. That's why Paul
wrote in Romans 1, 16, 17, the gospel is the power of God unto
salvation for therein is the righteousness of God revealed.
What is the righteousness of God? Well, Romans 10, 4 tells
us Christ is the end or the fulfillment. That's what the word end means
there. E-N-D. Christ is the fulfillment, the
completion, the perfection, the finishing of the law. in its
precept and penalty for righteousness to everyone that believeth. So
that we who truly believe the gospel here, if our gospel, he
says, we stand before God, not in our own works, not in our
own goodness, and not even by our own will, but we stand before
God in Christ, having his righteousness accounted, reckoned, imputed
to us. Now that's the miracle of the
resurrection. That's why when we say the gospel is the death,
burial, and resurrection of Christ, we don't mean just historical
facts or words. We mean life from the dead based
on righteousness established. One of the verses I'll quote
in the next message, I'll quote right now, Romans 8, 10. This
body is dead because of sin. Why are we getting older? Why
do we get sick? Why do we die physically? Because
of sin. That's the problem. But he says
the body is dead because of sin, but the spirit, talking about
the Holy Spirit, is life because of righteousness. Sin demands
death. Righteousness brings life. Now,
laying that foundation, here's what Paul says in 2nd Corinthians
4 3 if our gospel be hid that message is hidden today I'm telling you and we're gonna
see that in Revelation 12 here in just a moment if it's hit
it's hid to them that are lost he says in verse 4 in whom the
God of this world Satan is called the God of this world now we
know the that God himself is the ruler of this universe But
in the divine providence of God, and I know people buck at this,
and they bow up at this, but I'm gonna tell you something
now. Satan is not the evil counterpart of God. Satan is nowhere near,
Satan was a created being, Lucifer, you know, the angel of light,
and he fell. So it's not like you've got two
equal, two equal gods here, one good and one evil, no. Satan
is on God's leash. He had to come and ask permission
to Buffet Job, you remember. And whose permission did he ask
there? Yours? Mine? God's. God is sovereign. But he's called the God of this
world because he deceives the whole world. First John 519,
John wrote, we are of God, that is believers, sinners saved by
grace, sinners who are washed in the blood of Christ, clothed
in his righteousness. And he says, and the whole world
lieth in wickedness, literally in the original language, lieth
under the wicked one. So Satan deceives the whole world.
So he says, if our gospel be hid, it's hid to them that are
lost in whom the God of this world hath blinded the minds
of them which believe not. If you don't believe this, what
this book is telling you, whether you agree with it or not, is
your mind is blinded. The title of the message in the
next message is when a sinner sees the Lord. You see, until
God gives life by the Holy Spirit from Christ, who was raised from
the dead, until that happens, you don't see the Lord. You have
physical eyes, but you don't have spiritual eyes. And so your
mind is blinded. And it's the minds of them which
believe not, now look at it, lest the light of the glorious
gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto
them. Now there's Satan's goal. It's to keep sinners from seeing
the glory of God in Jesus Christ. The glory of his person and the
glory of his righteousness. That's his goal. And let me tell
you something now, here's a way we've got to learn to think if
we're going to understand the Christian warfare. The three
great enemies of the Christian, true Christian, the world, that's
talking about the unbelieving world, the flesh, that's talking
about the remaining corruption of sin in ourselves, in other
words, we're at war with ourselves, and the devil. And any good general
going into battle would tell you that the more he knows about
his enemy then the greater uh... opportunity for victory well
of course we know that the victories already been won because christ
is our victory isn't he over the world the flesh and the devil
and we know that we saw that last week i'll refer to that
in just a moment but you see satan in order to blind the minds
of people from the glory of God he'd just as soon have you in
a false church believing a false gospel with an assurance of salvation
that's based upon a refuge of lies as he would have you down
at the bar drunk, crawling out. Do you understand that? Know
his devices. And so that's what Paul's talking
about. Now look back at that. With that in mind, look at Revelation
12. Now as you know, Book of Revelation
is highly symbolic. And not everybody agrees on these
symbols, who they are, what they are, all of that. Most people,
when they look at the Book of Revelation, they have a wrong
approach to it because they try to interpret biblical symbols
through the local newscast or current events. And that's a
wrong way to do it. interpret Scripture with Scripture. So I'm not going to go into all
the Old Testament references. I have some in your lesson now
that you can look up if you want to. But I'm not going to go into
all the Old Testament references to show you what I believe these
symbols mean because the symbolism of Revelation is ensconced in
the Old Testament. And so what he's talking about,
look at verse 13 of Revelation 12. Now what he's talking about
here is Satan in the last days attacking the true church. Satan
in his work in the last days. And you remember what Satan means.
Look at verse nine, that great dragon, that's Satan, the red
dragon. He was cast out, that's referring
to the death of Christ on the cross where Satan was defeated
in time. And we looked at John 12. That
old serpent, remember he appeared to Adam and Eve as a serpent,
called the devil and Satan. These are all names that reflect
his character, his methods, and his goal. And it says, which
deceiveth the whole world. Now remember I told you last
week that anytime you see the word world in scripture, don't
just automatically assume it means everybody without exception.
That's what people do today and they go wrong. The word world in the New Testament
has so many different meanings. I think somebody counted 16 different
meanings, maybe more than that, that the only way you can determine
it is by studying the word or by its context. So who is he
talking about here? The whole world, he's deceiving
the whole, talking about the whole world, that's deceived,
that's who he's talking about. Now, when God the Holy Spirit
brings one of Christ's sheep, for whom he died under the preaching
of the gospel, and gives that spirit eternal spiritual life
in the new birth, what happens? He's not deceived anymore, not
in these areas. He sees the reality. He sees
the reality of the holiness of God. I'm going to be talking
about in the next message. Isaiah, in the year that King
Uzziah died, I saw the Lord when a sinner sees God. Remember Christ
said, except you be born again, you cannot what? See the kingdom
of heaven. What is he talking about? You
can't understand and know the reality of who God is. You can't understand and know
the reality of who you are, a sinner. Listen, a sinner who deserves
nothing but death and hell. That's what we are by nature.
Now if that's not true, then throw this book away. Isn't that
right? That's what this book teaches.
We're sinners. And you know, people will go
around all the time quoting Romans 3.23, for all have sinned and
come short of the glory of God. Well, what does that mean? That
means we missed the mark. We fall short. The best of the
best among human beings, mere human beings, has no righteousness
to recommend them unto God. I don't care how hard they try.
Salvation cannot be attained. Righteousness cannot be attained
by their works. All right? So he deceives the
whole world. He deceives the whole world by
false religion. In Revelation 13, we're going
to talk about the two beasts, agents of Satan, Antichrist. One is ungodly governments and
economies. The other is the false prophet
who preaches a false gospel, who deceives people with that
false religious message. that feeds the pride of man,
makes you feel good about yourself. And I often tell people, I said,
as a preacher of the gospel, I'm not here to make you feel
good about yourself. Now, what I'd like is by the
power of God that you go out feeling good about Jesus Christ,
the Lord, your righteousness. That's what we want. Because
our hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness. My hope is not in myself. So
here he is, and look at verse nine, he says, he was cast out
into the earth and his angels were cast out with him. Verse
10, I heard a loud voice saying to him, now has come salvation. The word salvation, you know,
is interpreted, it's the same word that we get the name Jesus
from, Yeshua. Did you know that? That's what
it is. His name shall be called Jesus
for he shall save his people from their sin. And strength,
where's the power of salvation? It's not in you, it's not in
me, it's in God. And the kingdom of our God and
the power of his Christ for the accuser of our brethren is cast
down which accused them before our God day and night. Satan
accuses, how does he attack the church? He attacks the church
by accusation. He attacks the church by trying
to bring in the spirit of error He attacks the church by attacking
the doctrine of Christ. He attacks the church by promoting
compromise. That's how he does it. And he
deceives the whole world. Well, how do we defeat Satan?
Look at verse 11. They overcame him by the blood
of the Lamb. You see, when Satan accuses me,
what turns back his accusations and makes them powerless to condemn
me? I mean, Satan could look at me
and say, Bill Parker, you're a sinner. You know what? He's
right. I'm a sinner. Well, why doesn't
that accusation stick in the court of God's justice? Huh? Well, because I had a good day
today and I prayed hard and I did what I should have done. Is that,
is that why Satan's accusations? No, that's a deception. I've
heard people say, well, I did some bad things and I'm not worthy
to pray. If you do some good things, you're
still not worthy to pray and you're by yourself. Our only
worthiness in salvation, our only worthiness in prayer, our
only worthiness in obedience, our only worthiness right now
as we're worshiping is Jesus Christ, the Lord, our righteousness.
And we don't have any other worthiness. Worthy is the lamb that was slain. Isn't that the song of the redeemed,
Revelation 5? So our worthiness is always in
Christ. That's the life and the walk
and the triumph of faith. So they overcame him by the blood
of the lamb and the word of their testimony, and they loved not
their lives unto death. What is the word of our testimony? We can state it in a lot of different
ways, but I love the way Paul stated in Galatians 6.14, God
forbid that I should glory, boast, or have confidence, save or accept
in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. Christ is my boast. And if I plead him and the merits
of his obedience unto death, then I don't have anything to
be ashamed of. Now, if I stand before God and plead my faith
or plead my repentance or plead my obedience, I'm going to tell
you something I got a lot to be ashamed of there. I do believe,
and that's by the power of God, but my believing is not perfect.
I struggle. We all do. Now be honest. We
all struggle. You know, have you ever said,
why me, Lord? You know, that's a statement of unbelief. But
we all do it because it's just, that's the flesh, isn't it? So
our faith is not yet perfect. We won't be perfect until we
die and leave this life and go to be with the Lord. But Christ
is our perfection. Now, go down to verse 13. It says, when the dragon, that's
Satan, saw that he was cast into the earth, he's defeated. What
did he do? He persecuted the woman which
brought forth the man-child. The woman there is the church.
The man-child is Jesus Christ who came out of humanity as born
as the seed of woman. He wasn't born like us. We were born in sin, but Christ
was not born of sin. He is God in human flesh. He is God manifest with us. He's the Word made flesh dwelling
among us. He's the God man. And this is
what he's talking about. He's saying that the dragon here
persecuted. You know that word persecuted
means to follow after. Satan, as they say in the South,
will dog the church. he will continually pursue for
an evil goal because he's been defeated and his whole demeanor
is such that in the last days he will always be allowed not
only to physically torture and harm and kill believers, a lot
of that happened in the first century and some of it may be
happening today, I'm sure. But what he's talking about here
is an harassment. It's a hounding and accusing,
dividing, and any other means that he can use. And that's his
devices. His devices, accusation, deception,
error, compromise. That's how Satan works. And look
over at 2 Corinthians chapter 11. He does it under the guise of
false religion. And that's why we have to be
so, so diligent today. Listen, if you claim to be a
Christian, the best thing that you can do for yourself is put
your faith to the test. Put it to the test. And that's
what I say. Years ago, a fellow who was going
to this church, he got upset because somebody questioned his
salvation. And he was angry. And I looked
at him, I said, why are you angry? He listened. If somebody questions
your salvation, put it to the test of scripture. That's what
you need to do, not to the test of experience. You know, people
today, you ask them, you say, well, do you claim to be saved? Oh, back when I was 12, I did
this, you know, I walked an aisle and all that. They always go
back to that experience. Put your profession, your hope,
your foundation to the test of scripture. And let me ask you
this question, if it's a wrong A wrong confession, a wrong profession,
wouldn't you rather find out now than stand before God at
judgment like those in Matthew 7 and hear him say, depart from
me ye that work iniquity, I never knew you. I've often told people,
say, rock my boat now. If you could, listen, if you
can hurl anything at me, as far as testing my faith, then do
it. I don't mind that at all. It's
an opportunity for me to study the scriptures and either be
sealed in my faith by the word of God or to expose me as a false
preacher, which I've been preaching over 30 years now. I've studied
this book. I know what the gospel is. I
know what the ground of salvation is. But don't ever get upset
when somebody questions your salvation. You know what that
means if you get upset? That means you're on shaky ground. And you need to know. We need
to be diligent to test our faith. Examine yourselves whether you
be in the faith. But we need to test it by the
word of God, not by the word of men, not by what mama and
grandma tell us. Now don't get me wrong, I love
my mama, I love my grandma. But they're not the authority,
God is. Look at the word of God. Look
at 2 Corinthians 11, look at verse 13. He says, for such are
false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into
the apostles of Christ. They claim to be Christian. And
it's going to get worse and worse in the last days as we get closer
to the second coming of Christ. And he says, and no marvel, don't
be amazed at this, for Satan himself is transformed into an
angel of light. Remember, think about the arrogance
of Satan on the Mount of Temptation when he stood before our Lord.
You know what he did? He quoted scripture. And then look at verse 15, therefore
it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers
of righteousness. That's not just talking about
morality, folks. That's talking about the righteousness
of Christ. And he says, whose end shall be according to their
works. And that the tense of that verb transforming is a temporary
change. In other words, they can at particular
times say the right things, but they cannot stay there consistently
because their heart's not there. They may preach a good sermon
one day, but then the next one they may jump into the work salvation. and put you under bondage. That's
the kind of thing. Now go back to Revelation 13.
That's his way. Look at verse 14. To the woman,
that's the church. This is Revelation 12, 14. To
the woman, to the church, this unnamed woman. In the Bible,
an unnamed woman either stands for the true church of the Lord
Jesus Christ, his bride. You see his bride, Isaiah 61,
clothed in his righteousness. Or it stands for the false church,
the great whore Babylon. Here it's the church. The woman
were given two wings of a great eagle. That's an Old Testament
reference that talks about salvation and deliverance coming from heaven.
It was used in referring to the Hebrew children coming out of
Egypt. Isaiah used it in prophecy. God's gonna deliver his people
like the two wings of a great eagle. And that's referring to
salvation and security and protection by the grace of God in the Lord
Jesus Christ. And he says that she might fly
into the wilderness. The wilderness is the world.
Remember the Hebrew children after they came out of Egypt,
they went into the wilderness for 40 years and they wandered?
Well, the church right now is in the wilderness of this world
wandering. God has a people out of every
tribe, kindred, tongue, and nation, his elect, And remember Christ
said when he taught his disciples about the end days, he said the
gospel must be preached in every nation and then the end will
come. So here's the church spread out, wandering in the wilderness
of this world. And this world is not our home,
is it? We're citizens of the kingdom of heaven in Christ.
And so we're wandering in this world, seeking his sheep by preaching
the gospel, evangelizing, Seeking to build up the church edification
by preaching the word is what we're doing now. We're in this
world as witnesses of his glory and he saves us, he protects
us, he keeps us, he secures us. It's all by his power like two
wings of an eagle. And he says he puts her into
her place in verse 14. You know where you are. You say,
well, that's a stupid question. I'm in Albany, Georgia. No, you're
where God wants you. That's what that means, into
her place. Somebody said, well, I wish I wasn't here. Well, you're
where God puts you. And it's for his purpose. And
it's for his reason. And we don't see the whole purpose
of God as it works out in Providence. We just go along. It's in his
hands and we depend on him. And then he says, where she is
nourished for a time and times and half a time. Now, there's
several ways of the Bible symbolically stating the time of the New Testament,
the time of the end, called the last days. And that's one of
the phrases, and I went into that pretty heavily earlier,
so I'm not going to go into that today. But it's called 40 and
2 months, 1,200 and 1,280, I can't remember now, 1,260 days. Those
are all terms that mean the same time period that symbolized the time between Christ's
first coming and his second coming. And what he's saying is the church
in the New Testament age is in the wilderness as a witness to
the glory of God in preaching the gospel and she's been delivered
by the power and grace of God, two wings of an eagle. She's
in her place, she's where he put her for his purposes and
she's being nourished. Now how are you being nourished?
By the word of God. we feed upon his word. And he
says, from the face of the serpent. Satan cannot achieve his goal
in the church. The true church now. Now he's
deceived the whole world. Even the whole religious world.
But the true people of God, his goal is defeated. By the power
of Christ. and when the Holy Spirit turns
the light on and shows us the glory of God in Christ. You see,
what did Christ tell the apostles? He said, the gates of hell will
not prevail against His church. And you know why? It wasn't because
of Peter. It wasn't because of James. It
wasn't because of John. It was because of Him. The Rock
is Christ. The church is built upon the
Rock, Christ Jesus. Not upon any man. Christ is our
rock, the solid rock. That's what the church is built
on. And Satan, the gates of hell, though they attack and come against
them, they will be defeated, they will not prevail. Verse
15, 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. Water coming out of his mouth
means his false doctrine, his false message. That's what it's
talking about. Remember in the first part of
Revelation, when Christ opened his mouth, What was the vision? It was the sword. That's the
Word of God. Satan opens his mouth, it's the
flood of false doctrine, false religion, salvation by the works
and the wills of men. And it says, he does this, and
verse 16 says, and the earth helped the woman and the earth
opened her mouth and swallowed up the flood which the dragon
cast out of his mouth. Now that might seem to be a difficult
verse, but here's what you gotta think of. God's in control of
this earth. And ultimately, even through
the physical world, the church is going to be preserved. Go
back to the Hebrew children coming out. Look at the plagues God
sent on earth. God controlled that. Look at
when they came out of Egypt. He opened the Red Sea and they
were delivered. how he preserved them throughout
their wanderings in the wilderness with the rock that water came
out, the manna from heaven. You see, in other words, this
physical earth under the control of God will help us. In other words, God's gonna use
all means to preserve his people. And so verse 17 says, the dragon
was wroth, that means he was angry, with the woman. And he went to make war with
the remnant of her seed, that remnant. The concept of the remnant
is a very important concept in the Bible. That's the elect of
God. And so when he goes to make war,
he goes to make war with the remnant of her seed, he said,
which keep the commandments of God. Now what is he talking about
there? And have the testimony of Jesus
Christ. He's not talking about perfect people there. Somebody
asked, said, well, do you keep the commandments of God? I asked
him, well, what do you mean by that? And the guy asked me one
time, said, do you keep the Ten Commandments? And I said, no,
and you don't either. We're sinners. Somebody said, well, do you try
to keep the commandments? Well, whatever commandments Christ
gave, I try to keep them. But notice here, it doesn't say
which tried to keep the commandments of God. It says which keep them. What is he talking about? What
is the commandments of God that he's talking about? He's talking
about believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved.
Submit to him and his righteousness. We have the testimony of Jesus
Christ. What is your hope? What is your
salvation? What is your ground? What is
your security? It's Jesus Christ, the Lord,
my righteousness. And yes, we're to walk in obedience
to whatever Christ commanded us to do. Yes, not in order to
be saved, but because we already are. Not in order to be made
righteous, but because by his grace we're already righteous
in him. All right.