In Revelation chapter 12, we're
going to continue in beginning at verse 9 with the issue of
warfare in heaven. You remember we began this back in chapter 12, verse 1, the wonder
in heaven, speaking of Christ and his church. And then the
other wonder, which was the red dragon. Remember that word wonder
is another word for sign. These are symbols. This language is not, you know,
people say, well, we interpret the Bible literally. Well, you
gotta be careful when you use that kind of language because
to me, interpreting anything literally is finding out what
it literally means. You see, what does it mean? And
so you have these symbolic pictures here. You have a symbolic picture
of the Lord Jesus Christ himself in his person as God manifest
in the flesh. God with us. That's who Jesus
Christ is. He is the God-man. And that's
a marvelous truth. What a wonder that is. That's
a mysterious truth. We can't explain all that. And
we don't attempt to, but we believe it because that's what the scripture
says. In order to save us from our sins, this is who Christ
had to be. You see, only God can give and
sustain life. Man cannot do that. I hear all
the time, you know, scientists trying to create life in a test
tube. Man cannot create life. He is
allowed for a time to manipulate certain things, but he can't
breathe the spark of life into a person, into a cell, or whatever. Man doesn't have that ability,
but only God does. And Christ, who is God, He gives
and sustains the life of His people eternally. He is the way,
the truth, and the life. No man comes unto the Father
but by Him. And that's what he said. He is
the life of his people. And then man who cannot give
life, Christ is fully man without sin. He has a human body and
soul, the infirmities, weaknesses that man experiences without
sin, Christ experienced all those. I mean, Christ, we don't experience
them without sin, but Christ experienced all those without
sin. Now, God cannot die. But Christ did die and he is
God. That's attributed to his humanity
without sin. So here's a symbol of Christ,
the Savior, the Lord, our righteousness. We have symbols of the church.
The unnamed woman here is the church of the living God. And
then we have the symbol of Satan under the red dragon. And then
it says this warfare is in heaven. Now understand when the Bible
says warfare in heaven, it's not talking about warfare up
there. All right? It's not talking about
geography. It's talking about the nature
of the warfare that Christ and his church is engaged in throughout
the New Covenant age, the New Testament. And what it's showing
when it says warfare in heaven, this is a spiritual warfare. Remember Paul told the Ephesians
that we wrestle not with flesh and blood, but with principalities,
with powers. This is a spiritual warfare is
what he's telling us. This is not an earthly warfare
that's to be fought with knives and guns and atom bombs. That's not what he's talking.
There is that kind of warfare on earth, but that's not the
warfare that the church is engaged in in the New Testament. You
see, that's why we have absolutely no mandate from Christ to take
up physical arms to promote the gospel. I hear these people talking
about atrocities. that have been done in the past
under Christianity. Well, let me tell you something.
Any atrocity, any physical torture or any physical killing that
a person does and calling that Christian, it is a lie. Now,
you need to understand it. Paul said in 2 Corinthians 10,
the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, not physical. They're
not fleshly. Our warfare is a spiritual one.
Our weapon is the truth of the gospel, the sword of the Lord.
And our battlefield is the mind, the heart. You see, I have no
mandate to pull a gun on you and get you to confess Christ,
because that wouldn't be a true confession anyway, would it?
So you understand, this fellow out in Texas talked about how
we need to apologize to the Jews because of what the Spanish Inquisition
did to the Jews back in those days. The Spanish Inquisition,
my friend, that was not Christian. You need to understand that.
You say, well, that's awful hard. Well, it's just true. They were
not Christian. They called themselves Christian.
Hitler called himself a Christian. Did you know that? But he wasn't,
and anything he did in the name of Christ was nothing but a big
lie. So then I understand this warfare
in heaven. Now, this warfare, he says, look down at verse 9.
He says, and the great dragon was cast out. Now, the great
dragon there is Satan. When was he cast out? Well, look
back at John chapter 12. John chapter 12. Now this is
where we need to interpret scripture with scripture. And I don't have
time to explain all of this, but I'll just give you some places
to go and you can look at your lesson too and study it on your
own. But look at verse 31 of John
chapter 12. The great dragon was cast out.
And it says that he, in verse 9 there, that he was cast out,
that old serpent called the devil. We'll get back to that. But look
at John chapter 12. Look at verse 31. This is Christ
speaking of his death on the cross. He's telling them about
his death. He had already said, he used
a metaphor, a symbol to describe it. He said, except a corn of
wheat, a seed of wheat fall into the ground and die, it won't
bring forth fruit. Well, what's he talking about?
What lessons is he teaching? He's saying that his death was
going to result in the salvation of God's chosen people. That's
what he's saying. And look at verse 31, he says,
Now is the judgment of this world. The death of Christ was a judgment
against this world. And then he says, Now shall the
prince of this world be cast out. You see that? That prince
of this world, that's Satan. He's going to be cast out. Now
what does that mean? Well, hold on. We'll go back
to Revelation 12 and I'll show you. It says, in verse 32, And
I, if I be lifted up from the earth, What's he talking about? He's talking about his death,
burial, and resurrection, which resulted in his ascension. Remember
he said over in John 3, as Moses lifted up the serpent in the
wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that he should
die. He said, I, if I be lifted up
from there, will draw all unto me, all of his people, all of
his sheep. The Good Shepherd gives his life
for the sheep, And he says he'll find his sheep, he'll bring them
into the fold. Now look at verse 33. This he
said signifying what death he should die. Talking about his
death. Now go back to Revelation 12.
This is what he's talking about. The great victory. And this was
prophesied back in Genesis chapter 3 with the seed of woman who
would be an enmity with Satan. And there'd be a continual warfare.
Now, the outcome of that warfare has never been in doubt. I heard a preacher one time when
I was at a youth camp years ago and he described the warfare
between Satan and Christ like a baseball game. And he virtually
said this, he said, whoever's got the biggest score at the
end wins the game. No. Listen, Satan's defeat has
always been imminent and sure. There never has been any possibility
that Satan could win this battle. Now, did Satan know that? Well, I don't really know. The
scripture doesn't give us any information on that except we'll
see here in Revelation 12 where he knows his time is short. At
this point in time, when he's cast out, he knows his time is
short. His time's coming. But Satan is not the equal counterpart
to God, friend. Listen to me. You know, sometimes
people act as if Satan has got the same powers of God, but he's
just an evil side. No. You know, somebody said,
well, Satan's everywhere. Satan is not everywhere. Satan
is not omnipresent. Only God is omnipresent. Now,
Satan has his cohorts. He has his demons. Satan is powerful. He's more powerful than us. You
can't defeat him. I'll show you that here. But
Christ can and did defeat him. And look what it says here, now
he was cast out, that's when the victory was won in time at
the cross. Because that's when Christ, that's
when Christ defeated Satan, bringing in in time the only ground of
the salvation of sinners, that's his righteousness imputed. His
blood His blood and his righteousness are equivalent. You understand
that? That is what happened there. Christ, by his substitutionary
sacrifice on the cross, satisfied the justice of God and brought
in everlasting righteousness. And that's when Satan was cast
out. And it says here, look at verse 9, he says, that old serpent,
remember when Satan appeared to Eve as a serpent, He says,
called the devil and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world. Now, do you see that? You know,
a lot of people, they always want to go to the scripture.
And they'll say, now, anytime you see the word world, I had
a fellow tell me this a couple years ago. He said, anytime you
see the word world, it means everybody without exception.
No, it doesn't. The word world in the New Testament has so many
meanings that you can only determine it by its context. I'll give
you an example. Turn over to 1 John chapter 5. And look at verse 19. And you
know what 1 John is? It's what we call a polemic.
And what that means is that John is presenting ideas and truths
that are poles apart, like the North Pole and the South Pole.
Polemic. And that's what John is saying.
Here's the children of God. Here's the children of the devil.
That's the polemic, you see. Poles apart. Children of God,
children of the devil. And he has three benchmarks that
he uses throughout 1 John. The first one is light. Now what
is light? That's truth, the truth of Christ,
the gospel. The children of God walk in light,
the light of truth, the light that exposes our sin, and the
light that shines the way of righteousness in Christ. The
gospel light. It's called in 2 Corinthians
4, 6, the light of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
So that's the first bench. The children of the devil walk
in darkness. Now understand now, when you
say they walk in darkness, that can be a religious darkness.
You understand that now? All right, the second benchmark
that he uses is righteousness. The children of God walk in righteousness. Children of the devil walk in
sin. Now, righteousness has to do with a right relationship
with God based on the obedience unto death, the merits of the
righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. We follow Christ. We
believe in Christ. Christ is our life. Christ is
our hope. Christ is our assurance. Christ
is our glory. You see that? The children of
the devil walk in sin. That's unbelief. And that's the
polemic, see, that pulls apart. The third benchmark is love.
The children of God walk in love, but now it's not just this romantic,
poetic, syrupy love that people talk about. It's love in the
truth. It's love that tells the truth.
It's love that honors and glorifies God and not man. It's not love
that makes you feel good. Some people say, well, if you
don't tell me what makes me feel good, then you're not loving.
This is love that tells you not what you want to hear and makes
you feel good. It's love that tells you what
you need to hear and point you to the cure. You see what I'm
saying? I mean, look, I don't enjoy walking
into the doctor's office and him telling me, now, Bill, your
heart disease is getting worse and you need to go in and have
another stent put in. You think I want to hear that?
But if it's true, do I need to hear it? You see what I'm saying?
That's the love. It's the divine. That's the agape
love. And people have watered that
down to the point where it means nothing anymore. It's love that
accepts everybody, speaks peace to everybody. No, no. The love
of God tells the truth. Now, we ought to do it lovingly.
We ought not do it with hateful attitudes and mean-spiritedness,
of course. But you know what the Bible says
about the light, how men receive it. Well, the children of God,
they don't walk in that love because they walk in unbelief.
I mean the children of the devil, rather. They don't walk in that
love. They walk in unbelief. Now, here's what he says. Look
at 1 John 5, 19. He says, and we know that we are of God. There's one pole. And the whole
world lieth in wickedness, literally in the wicked one, the whole
world. Now the whole world, there's not everybody without exception,
is it? No, he'd already said, we are of God. What is he talking
about, the whole world? We'll go back to Revelation 12.
Here he is in verse nine, the great dragon was cast out, That
old serpent called the devil and Satan, which deceiveth the
whole world." Who's the whole world there? Everyone who's deceived
by Satan. Jew and Gentile. Those who are
connected to this world to the point that they have no interest
in the gospel of God's grace. That's who he's talking about.
But look at this. Here's Satan's name. You know,
he says in verse 9, the devil, the serpent called the devil,
Satan, which deceiveth the whole world. He was cast out into the
earth. Remember, into the abyss. And what is that abyss? That's
the darkness of this world. That's not a hole in the ground
now. That's the bottomless pit of
a lie, of deception, because it has no end. And he says, and
his angels, his demons, those who fell with him in the beginning,
were cast out with him. They were bound and then later
on released to deceive the whole world. And look at verse 10,
he says, and I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, this is the
word of God now, This is not the word of men, the opinions
of men. This is not a consensus among men. A loud voice from
heaven. This is the authority of Almighty
God. He says, now has come salvation. Now has come salvation. What
is he talking about? When did salvation come? When
Christ came. What does the name Jesus mean?
Salvation. Same word. Now has come salvation. The Lord of glory has come. He
has accomplished his work in time. He has, as Daniel prophesied,
he's made an end of sin. He's finished the transgression.
He's brought in everlasting righteousness. That's what Christ did. He didn't
come just to be our example. Now he is our example. When we
seek, we as believers are to seek to be like him in our character,
in our attitude, in our conduct. We fall short, don't we? That's
why we need grace. That's why we need a righteousness
we can't produce. But he didn't come just to be
our example. He came to be the savior of his
people. His name shall be called Jesus.
What does that mean? For he shall save his people
from their sins. Matthew 121. Now is he able to
do this? His name shall be called Emmanuel,
which being interpreted is God with us. You bet he's able. He's
able to save to the uttermost them that come unto the Father
by him. So here you have, now has come salvation, now has come
strength. Well, that's power. And you see,
the power of salvation is not in you. It's not in me. It's only in God. Salvation is
of the Lord. The gospel is the power of God. Same word. We get our English
word dynamite from that word power back in Romans 116. Christ
is the strength of... Listen to this. Christ is the
strength of saving me. Christ is the strength of keeping
me. preserving me, and Christ is
the strength of glorifying me. None of it is ever conditioned
on me. It's all conditioned on Christ.
And Christ fulfilled the conditions. He's able to keep that which
I have committed unto him. What have I committed unto him?
My whole salvation is committed to Christ. So he's the strength
of it. And then the kingdom of our God.
The kingdom is his rule. And it's his rule over his church
in salvation. It's his rule over the universe
in his sovereignty. And he is the king of kings.
And so he goes on, he says, and the power of his Christ. There's that word, power. It's
all the power of God. Somebody says, well, it's the
power of our will that does it. The Bible doesn't teach that.
Does God make his people willing? Yes, willing to come to Christ. But when does he do it, according
to the Psalms? In the day of his power. That's what that verse says.
God makes his people willing, willing to submit, willing to
come to Christ, willing to believe. Even faith is the gift of God.
It's not some spark of goodness in us. The Bible doesn't teach
that, folks. Here's what the Bible teaches,
and I challenge you to find anything else. That if God were to come
down here and just simply offer salvation, To anybody who would
cooperate with him, the Bible says that none of us would. There's
none that are righteous, there's none that doeth good, there's
none that seeketh after God. That's not just talking about
some bad segment of society, that's talking about all of us
by nature. That's why he told Nicodemus, you must be born again,
Nicodemus, or you will not see or enter the kingdom of God.
Because by nature, why won't men and women come to Christ?
Because they don't want to. Not this Christ now. We'll come
to a God of our imagination. We'll come to a God who will
receive us based upon what we think we have done or try to
do or promise to do or are enabled to do. But we won't come to the
true and living God until he makes us willing in the day of
his power. And look at it. He says, verse 10, for the accuser
of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our
God day and night. Now this is important. The works of Satan. Who is Satan? How does he operate? Most people are sadly deceived
concerning Satan and his methods. And all you have to do is read
the Bible to see about it. Somebody said one time that Satan's
greatest victory is to convince people that he doesn't exist.
Now, that certainly is a great victory for Satan, but that's
not his greatest victory. And I want to show you this.
First of all, most people, when they think of Satan, what do
they think of? demonic possession, they think
of somebody with two horns and a tail and a pitchfork, all kinds
of things like that. They think about the immoral
segment of society. You know, Satan's down there
in the bars or over here, all of that. If you go strictly by
the Bible, And all those things are bad now, don't get me wrong,
and to be avoided. Most of that kind of stuff is
just simply human nature acting itself out in its depravity and
sinfulness. But what about Satan? All right,
let's look at some verses. Turn to John chapter eight, John
chapter eight, and look at verse 44. You know, Paul said, I would
not have you ignorant, brethren, when he talks about the workings
of Satan. Satan's tools, what are they? Ignorance, called darkness. Accusation, that's what we read
over in Revelation 12, the accuser of the brethren, accusation.
You're a sinner, that's what Satan says. And you know what? Satan's right. We are sinners. There are only two types of people
on earth, either sinners lost in their sins or sinners saved
by grace. But his power of accusation,
and I'm going to show you about that in just a minute, and his
other tool is deception. Deception. Look at John 8. Christ is speaking, and he's
speaking to the most religious people of his day, the Pharisees.
Now, when you think of the Pharisees, that's another thing. You know,
a lot of people, when they think of the Pharisees, they think
of people with horns and a tail, too, you know, kind of like that.
The Pharisees were like religionists today. You have your charlatans,
your hypocrites, but you have your serious and sincere people
in religion, both. That's it. But look at what he
says here in John 8, 44, talking to the Pharisees. He says, you
are of your father, the devil, and the lust of your father you
will do. What is the lust? Lust is an
unlawful desire. Usually when we think of lust,
we think of unlawful sexual desire, and that's included, but lust
is any unlawful desire, anything you desire that's against God. And he says, he was a murderer
from the beginning. Now what's the beginning there?
Back in Genesis 3, when the fall came. He was a murderer. Now
did Satan pull out a knife or a gun and kill anybody in Genesis
3? No. He didn't do it. So what kind
of murder is he talking about? Look at it. He was a murderer
from the beginning and abode not in the truth. Because there's no truth in him.
When he speaks a lie, he speaketh of his own. What that literally
means is that when Satan tells a lie, he's only doing what's
natural to him. When a man or woman tells a lie
on God concerning how God saves sinners, when they tell a lie,
they're just doing what's natural. Remember the Bible says, the
natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God,
neither can he know them. They're spiritually discerned,
1 Corinthians 2, 14. So when Satan speaks a lie, how did Satan
murder? He told a lie. Remember what
his lie was? Anybody know? Thou shalt not surely die. Why was that a lie? Because God
said already, in the day that you eat thereof, you shall surely
die. Satan says, oh, no, you're all
right. It's the equivalent of some preacher speaking peace
to a person when there is no peace. You say, well, I believe,
if somebody comes to you and says, well, I believe salvation
is by my works, by keeping the Ten Commandments. Well, you know,
you're all right. You know, you're just a little
different from what we believe. That's a lie, folks. Salvation
by works is a lie. It's a lie from hell. You know,
people say, well, you're being too hard. No, I'm just telling
you what God's Word says. Satan told a lie. And here's
what it says here in verse 44. It says, for he is a liar and
the father of it. Now, go to 2 Corinthians chapter
4. 2 Corinthians chapter 4. If you want to know Satan, if
you want to avoid the work of Satan, if you want to stand against
Satan, look here. 2 Corinthians chapter 4, look
at verse 3. Listen to what it says here.
But if our gospel, the good news of salvation by the sovereign
grace of God through Christ and based on his righteousness alone,
If it is hid, it's hid to them that are lost, in whom the God
of this world, that's Satan, hath blinded the minds of them
which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ,
who is the image of God, should shine unto them. You see that? You know what Satan's goal is?
It's to keep you from seeing the light of God's glory in Christ. And then look at 2 Corinthians
Chapter 11, turn over to chapter 11. He starts off here by talking
about how he fears that they would be beguiled like Satan
beguiled Eve, and look at verse 13. 2 Corinthians 11, 13. For such are false apostles,
deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles
of Christ. They call themselves Christian. That's what he's saying. And no marvel, don't be amazed,
for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. Therefore,
it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers
of righteousness, whose end shall be according to their works."
Satan's a transformer. He disguises himself. Go back
to Revelation 12 now. He's deceptive. I told you all
before I started, before we got up here, about the lady who asked
me about one of these children's books. And it had to do with
wizards and witches. Well, I don't believe in wizards
and witches as far as, I mean, and I don't think anybody should
get involved in that. But she asked me, she said, do you think
the devil's in that? And I said, no, I'll tell you
exactly where the devil is. He's preaching in the pulpits
of this world a false gospel of salvation conditioned on sinners. Look back at Revelation 12, verse
10, or verse, yeah, verse 10. Heard a loud voice saying in
heaven, now has come salvation, strength, the kingdom of our
God, the power of his Christ, for the accuser of our brethren
is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night.
Now, how are we going to turn back, stand against the accusations
of Satan? How are we gonna do that? We'll
look at verse 11. And they overcame him by the blood of the lamb."
There you go. We plead the blood of Jesus Christ. That's his righteousness imputed
to us. We plead Christ. And he says,
and by the word of their testimony. What is the word of our testimony?
The gospel. You can sum it up in a lot of
ways, but Paul summed it up in Galatians 6, 14. God forbid that
I should glory, boast, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. And he says, and they loved not
their lives unto death. Now that's not just talking about
martyrs. That's talking about what Christ said, if any man
loved his life and won't take up his cross, you see, our life
on earth, as far as a right relationship with God, really is dead to us
because we've been crucified with Christ. We have no hope
of salvation but Christ. And then look at verse 12. He
says, Therefore rejoice, ye heavens, and you that dwell in them. He
says, Woe to the inhabitants of the earth and of the sea.
That's unbelievers. That's that world that John spoke
of. The whole world lieth under the wicked one. For the devil
is come down unto you having great wrath because he knoweth
that he hath but a short time. It's a short time for him. His
days are numbered. That's what he's saying here.
And how are we to combat him in the meantime? Preach the gospel. Preach the word of God. All right.