Revelation chapter 12. Titled
the lesson this morning, and they overcame. Last week, we
ended our lesson in verse 10, where we saw Satan was cast out
of heaven. Verse 10 says, And I heard a
loud voice saying in heaven, Now has come salvation and strength
in 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 was cast out of heaven.
And we saw how Satan tried to destroy the Lord Jesus. Our Savior
was caught up away from him, caught back up to God after his
resurrection. And Satan can no longer touch
our Lord Jesus Christ. He's not allowed back in heaven
where Christ sits enthroned. He's been cast out. But Satan
has been cast from heaven into the church. entering to the earth
where the church is. And Satan's going to try to cause
them big problems to take them away from Christ. That's what
we read in verse 12. Therefore rejoice ye heavens
and ye that dwell in them. Woe to the inhabitants of the
earth and of the sea for the devil has come down unto you
having great wrath because he knoweth that he hath but a short
time. Heaven rejoices that Satan is
cast out of their midst, but Scripture says, whoa, whoa, to
the inhabitants of the earth, because Satan is cast into the
earth where we dwell. And while he's in the earth,
Satan is going to attack the church with a great fury. He has a very short time left
to try to derail God's purpose of redemption in Christ Jesus.
And he's going to fight with a great fury. It's like I thought
of like the The Japanese army in World War II, you know, they'd
expanded and expanded, expanded. And as their territory shrank
and shrank and shrank and shrank, got closer, the closer they got
to their homeland, the closer they got to that island of Japan
with more fury that they fought with, they had just a short time
left. Their backs were against the
wall. That's a, he knows he just has a short time. He doesn't
know the time, but he knows it's short. He heard the Lord saying
quickly, I come quick He knows it's just going to be a short
time and he fights trying to disrupt and take away the church,
take the church away from Christ with a great fury. So he says
he can't get his hands on the Lord Jesus. Now he attacks his
bride. Verse 13. And when the dragon
saw that he was cast under the earth, he persecuted the woman
which brought forth the man child and that woman we saw as a picture
of the church. Now Satan is determined to persecute
the church. He is just his goal to take the
bride away from the bridegroom. But there's no reason for the
church to fear. See, we're told the outcome of
Satan's war before it even begins. Look at verse 11. And they overcame
him by the blood of the lamb and by the word of their testimony,
and they loved not their lives unto death. Before the church
even comes under attack from Satan, We're told the outcome. Satan's going to fail in this
attempt. No one that's in the church,
no one that Christ died for, will ever lose their salvation. The church shall overcome. I want to give us four reasons
from our text this morning, four ways that the church will overcome
Satan. First one is this, says it plainly,
verse 11, and they overcame him by the blood of the lamb. Now,
the blood of Christ is central to salvation. The blood of Christ
is central to the gospel that we preach. We preach a bloody
gospel with good reason, good reason. There is forgiveness
of sin, but only in the blood of Christ. Without the shedding
of blood is no remission. There is a blood sacrifice that
atones for sin. It's the sacrifice of Christ.
Forgiveness of sin is found in the blood of Christ. The only
way to avoid God's wrath against our sin is to be under the blood
of Christ. God said, when I see the blood,
I'll pass over you. Now, if there's no blood on the
door, the firstborn is going to die. There must be death for
sin. God's justice has got to be satisfied. There's got to be death for sin.
If there's no blood on the door, the firstborn is going to die.
But if the blood of the sacrifice, the blood of that Passover lamb
has been applied to the door, the firstborn is going to live.
There's life in the blood, isn't there? The firstborn is going
to live because a substitute died in his place. There's still
death for sin in that home. It's just that the substitute
died. So the firstborn would live. That's the only way to
avoid God's wrath against our sin is to be under the blood
of Christ. Now Satan is called, we just
read, the accuser of the brethren. He accuses them night and day,
just without stopping, he's accusing the brethren. Listen, his accusations
aren't made up. They're true. He's telling the
truth. But the church overcomes Satan's accusations by the blood
of the Lamb, by the blood of Christ. The church will overcome
because there is life, eternal life in the blood of Christ.
John 6 verse 54, our Lord said, whoso eateth my flesh and drinketh
my blood, hath eternal life. That's not literally being a
cannibal, eating the flesh and drinking the blood of Christ.
It's having union with Christ. If you have union with Christ,
you have eternal life. Well, if we have union with Christ,
nothing Satan can do is going to take it away. We have union
with him. The end the church will overcome. because Christ
has purchased the church with his blood. The Apostle Paul told
the Ephesian elders in Acts 20, now you take care of the church,
you feed them, you feed the church, which Christ has purchased with
his own blood. This church has been bought with
a great price. Well, no accusation of Satan
is ever going to make them be cast out. Christ has already
bought them, lock, stock and barrel with his blood. Then the
church will overcome Satan Because there's justification in the
blood of Christ. Romans 5 verse 9, we're now justified
by his blood, by the blood of Christ. The blood of Christ has
removed all the sin of his people. Justified means to be made without
sin. What does Satan accuse the brethren
of? He accuses them of sin. Well, then none of his accusations
can ever stick. The blood of Christ has removed
that sin. Satan accuses the brethren day and night, and day and night,
the Lord says, what sin? I don't see any sin, because
the blood of Christ is removed. We're justified by his blood.
Then the church is going to overcome Satan because Christ has redeemed
his people by his blood. Ephesians 1 verse 7, in whom
we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of
sins, according to the riches of his grace. Peter told us you're
redeemed, not with corruptible things. You're redeemed with
the precious blood of Christ. We've been redeemed. The church
has been redeemed by the blood of Christ. Then no accusation
Satan makes can ever stick. The penalty's already been paid. The price has already been paid.
We've been bought back from the penalty of the law, been redeemed
by the blood of Christ. Then the church is going to overcome
Satan because we've already been brought into heavenly places
In Christ Jesus, Ephesians 2 verse 3. But now in Christ Jesus, you
who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ. We've been made nigh to Christ.
We've been made so close to him that we're one with him. Well,
nothing Satan can say is ever going to cause the Lord to cast
his people out of his presence. He's already made them fit to
be in his presence by his blood. That's the reason we're brought
into his presence because we've been made fit to be there. Wash
clean of all of our sin in the blood of Christ. Satan can't
say anything to make the Lord change his mind and cast his
people out. They belong there. They've been made fit. They've
been made me to be there. Then lastly, the church is going
to overcome because there's peace with God in the blood of Christ.
Colossians 1 verse 20 says, Christ has made peace for us. through
the blood of his cross. Well, nothing Satan can say is
ever going to disturb that peace. Nothing Satan can say is going
to cause war to break out again. Adam did that once. Adam declared
war on God. By his sin and rebellion, Adam
declared war on God. And we found a right in line
behind Adam. But Christ came and he undid
everything that Adam did to his people. Christ undid for his
people. He undid that war and he made
peace for his people by the blood of his sacrifice. So if you believe
Christ, you can have total confidence. You can have confidence in the
outcome of Satan's war against the church. Now, we don't like
it. It's a frightening, awful thing, this war against the church,
but we can have total confidence in the outcome of the war. We
don't have any confidence in ourselves, do we? Now our confidence
is in the Redeemer, in His blood that He shed as a sacrifice for
His people. Hebrews 10 verse 19 says, having
therefore brethren boldness, boldness, confidence to enter
into the holiest of all. How is that possible? By the
blood of Jesus. We have total confidence in His
blood. The church will overcome by the
blood of the Lamb. Second, the church will overcome
by our gospel. He says they'll overcome by the
blood of the lamb and by the word of their testimony. The
word of our testimony is the gospel that we preach. This is
what we put our seal to. This is what we stand upon. This
is our testimony. The only thing we ever have to
say against Satan's accusations against us is our gospel. That's the only thing we have
to say, the only thing we have to preach, the only thing we
have to say to Satan's accusations, the only thing we have to say
to the lost, the only thing we have to say to God's people,
the only thing we have to say to our own hearts, the only thing
we have to say, the only thing we can testify to, this is the
truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. It's the gospel
of the Lord Jesus Christ. I, uh, I'm not a big fan. That's not even strong enough.
I hate this thing. People getting up and giving their testimonies
because it's always, what always degenerates to is it's about
me. But if you want to know my testimony, this is it. I was
lost in Adam. When Adam sinned, I sinned. When Adam sinned, I lost life. I lost righteousness. I lost
holiness. And more than that, I lost any
desire for life or righteousness or holiness. When Adam sinned,
I hated God. I fell into sin, I hated God.
And if God left me to myself, I'd have gone straight to hell
as fast as I possibly could because that was my will. But God intervened. God imposed His will upon my
will and His mercy and His grace. God sent His Son to do for me
what I could never do, to keep the law for me. He sent His Son
to make me righteous through His obedience to the law. And
then the Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, took my sin and His precious
body upon the tree. The Father made His Son sin. He made Him my sin. By His sacrifice,
He bore the full wrath and fury of God against my sin. And by
His sacrifice, He put my sin away forever, made me righteous
in Him. Father gave evidence that the
Son justified me in His death because He raised Him from the
dead. He raised Him from the dead because all that sin charged
to Him is gone. Christ died for me, so my sin
is gone. It doesn't exist anymore. Then
in the fullness of time, God the Holy Spirit came and gave
me life. He gave me faith. Now I repent of my sin and turn
to Christ. I trust Christ to be all I'll
ever need to stand before God accepted. That's the testimony
of every believer you'll find anywhere. That's the testimony,
that's the word of our testimony. That's the gospel of our salvation.
In just a phrase, this is the word of our testimony. Christ
did it all. That's our testimony. Christ
did it all. When Satan makes any accusation against the church,
when he attacks the church in any way, we just look to Christ. We just look to Him to be everything
we need. We just look to Him to defend us. When Satan makes
an accusation to our conscience, all we have to say is Christ
did it all. When he makes an accusation of
sin to our conscience, we say, oh, how can you be a believer?
How can you be a Christian? How can you love Christ? Thinking
the way you think and acting the way you think or act. Our
only defense, the only thing we can say is Christ is my all. Christ paid it all. Christ my
Savior is my surety. He's my righteousness, he's my
sanctification, and he's my keeper. Not only did Christ do it all,
Christ is all. That's the word of our testimony.
And I'll tell you this, if we just stick to our testimony,
just stick to the word of God, We cannot fail. Now, if we start
trying to take God's word and prove our point or prove our
doctrine or make people do what we want them to do, we're going
to fail and we ought to. But if we just testify to what
the word says, we just make the point that the word makes, we
can never fail. Ever. Ever. Because you know
what the point every verse of scripture is making? He's all. He did it all. He is all. Then
if we make that point in our preaching, in our testimony,
what we believe, we can never fail. The church will overcome
by our gospel. This is a powerful gospel. All
we need to do is declare it. Then third, the church overcomes
by the power of God's grace in us. God says here that they loved
not their lives unto death. They would rather die than deny
the gospel. They'd rather die than recant
the word of their testimony. Now, I've read some about some
martyrs who really did this, who gave their life for this.
I tell you, the only way a person would do that is by the power
of God's grace in them. It's the only way. That new man
who's born of God, he can't deny Christ. That new man cannot deny
the gospel. That new man cannot love a lie.
This is how we overcome. It's by the power of God's grace
in us. Salvation is not just a powerful
work of grace for us, although it must be. If we're going to
be saved, God's got to do work for us. Salvation is also a powerful
work of God's grace in us. He's got to cause a new man to
be born. There's no salvation without
it. If all you have is a work of Christ for you, you're not
saved. There also must be a powerful
work of God's grace in His people. There's got to be a new man born.
And it's that new man who's born by the power of God's grace that
will overcome. Satan very well may touch these
bodies, huh? Did you learn that with our brother
Job? That new man's going to overcome.
leave this place in ultimate victory, forever be with our
Lord. All right, here's the fourth
thing. I think this will be a blessing to you. The church will overcome
because our God is sovereign over all things. Now God's sovereign. Nothing can make God's will not
happen. Nothing. Because God is sovereign
over everything. Whatever it is that God has willed,
whatever it is God's purposed, that is exactly what's going
to happen. No variation whatsoever. And
God will use any means that pleases Him to bring His purpose to pass. He'll even use the rest of the
sinful, rebellious world to bring His purpose of redemption and
peace to come to pass for His church. Look at verse 14. And to the woman were given two
wings of a great eagle that she might fly into the wilderness
into her place where she's nourished for a time and times and half
a time from the face of the serpent. Now, these two wings of a great
eagle came and took the woman, this woman is the church, took
her to a safe place in the wilderness, in this world. Well, what are
those eagle wings? Well, I can tell you it's the
sovereign power of God to bring His people to glory, to bring
His people to His place, a place of safety and protection that
He's appointed for. And if you look at Exodus 19,
I can make good on that. Exodus chapter 19. Verse 3. And Moses went up unto God, and
the Lord called unto him out of the mountains, saying, Thus
shalt thou say to the house of Jacob, and tell the children
of Israel, You have seen what I did unto the Egyptians, and
now I bear you on eagles' wings, and brought you unto myself."
See, those eagle wings are God's purpose, His glory, His sovereign
power to bring His people to glory. We overcome. Because by his power, the Lord
brings his people, not to a place, but to him. That's what he said,
I brought you unto myself. He's not even talking about bringing
them into the land of Canaan. I brought you to myself. I think
it's interesting about this eagle. I love, especially a bald eagle,
to watch a bald eagle. I mean, they're the kings of
the sky. They're the kings of all the
birds. I mean, just what majestic, powerful,
glorious looking animals. But you know, an eagle's a bird
of prey, isn't it? I mean, that eagle just circles with that
eagle's eye. He can see some little rat down
there and swoop down and get it. An eagle's a powerful bird,
a bird of prey. But here, The eagle on those
eagle's wings is taking God's people to a place of safety.
That's our Lord who has all power, who will execute judgment against
his people or against the sin of those who rebel against him.
That eye who sees everything, that powerful, powerful bird
of prey is who brings his people to himself. I never have to doubt
that we'll be a failure in preaching the gospel. because it's God
himself who always bring his people to Christ, to bring his
people to himself. And Lord carries his people to
this specific place of safety in the middle of the wilderness.
Now, you know, that's a picture of the church, but not just this
local body, but the whole church, the body of Christ in this world
is the church in the middle of a wilderness. in the middle of
a dry, dead, barren, lifeless wilderness of this world. Yet
the church is nourished there. See this right here. This is
how God's people are fed. This is how they're nourished.
This is how they're kept healthy. This is how they're strengthened.
It's by the preaching of the gospel. This word nourished,
it means to feed or nourish, to give nourishment with good
food. But it also means cherished and pampered. God's people are
not only well fed. They're not just fed with the
best food, although they are, but they're also well taken care
of, nourished or pampered. They're cherished by our master. The Lord feeds his sheep in a
tender, compassionate way and care for their souls. And we
overcome, the church overcomes in the midst of this wilderness,
in the midst of Satan's attacks against the church, by our Lord's
provision for us the whole time, the whole history of this earth.
That's what this time and times and half a time, we talked about
this before, there's no question that that represents all the
time from when Adam fell to when Christ returns. Now, no one will
ever be able to figure out Now, I know that means the exact number
of days and years. And I know that, but we'll never
be able to figure it out because our Lord told us we'll never
figure it out. But we don't need to figure it out. We don't need
to know when the Lord's going to return. This is God's word
to his people who are under attack of Satan. This is God's word
to his people who are in the midst of this lifeless wilderness. I'm going to take care of you.
I'm going to nourish you. I'm going to feed you, I'm going
to pamper you, I'm going to cherish you until this world is no more. The church on earth is going
to exist. The church on earth is going
to be preaching the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. It's our
Lord. And this world is no more because
this is the way that the Lord has ordained to feed his sheep,
to call his people out to repentance and to faith. This is the way
the Lord has determined to care for his sheep. It's through the
preaching of the gospel, through the fellowship that we have one
with another. Now, Satan knows that and he's he sees for all
these years how he's failed to destroy the church, but he's
still he's not going to give up. He's still trying to sweep
God's church away. But God is sovereign over all
things, and he will use even this rebellious world to accomplish
his purpose, to preserve his people. Verse 15. And the serpent
cast out of his mouth water as a flood after the woman, that
he might cause her to be carried away the flood. 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 this
flood of water that comes from the mouth of Satan, it's water. It's described as water, but
it's not the water block. People are going to be deceived
into thinking it's the water of life, but it's not the water
of life, is it? It comes from the mouth of Satan. It's the
water of lives. It's the water of death. It's
a message of lives. And that's all Satan can use
is lies. He's the father of lies. The
first time we meet Satan in scripture, he's lying. You shall not surely
die. It's a lie. Now, Satan does not
know who God's elect are. So what he's trying to do is
just carry away the whole world with false religion. If he can
carry away the whole world of religion with false religion,
if he can carry all of them away, then he's going to destroy God's
church. See, all Satan's worrying about is religion. He doesn't
have to worry about people who are living in open sin, in open
rebellion. They're obviously not believers.
I hope and pray they will be someday, but right now they're
not. He's not worrying about them. But people who are in religion,
they may be some of God's elect. So Satan tries to carry them
away with this message of false religion, a flood of false religion. It's religion that sounds good.
It might look like, it might sound like the water of life,
but it's not. It's not good. It's a lie. It's a lie. That's why we're so adamant to
never compromise, never compromise with false religion. Brethren,
they don't have some good things. They're not doing some good things. No, they're not. No, they're
not. It's satanic. That's just so. It's satanic.
And them making their focus be on taking care of battered women
and abused children and the homeless and people on drugs and stuff.
That sounds good, but I'm telling you the purpose behind it is
satanic. It's to get people carried away
with this flood of lies. Carried away with something,
anything other than Christ. It's satanic. Stay away from
them. Stay away from them. I get a little emotional about
it, but now. This is a message as opposed to our Savior. And
you don't know how much I care for your souls to see one of
us carried away with this. That's what Satan's trying to
do. It's a very real possibility. False religion is swept across
this whole world. And I know why it is. It's Satan
trying to carry God's people away. Want me to tell you how
to not get carried away by Satan? We won't get carried away by
this flood of lies if we refuse to get carried away with the
issues of the day. If we refuse to get carried away
with morality, if we refuse to get carried away with the social
aspects of the church. If we refuse to get carried away
with all the isms of religion and we just stick to preaching,
worshiping, believing and seeking Christ the truth, we won't get
carried away. We will not get carried away
by lies if we're taken up with the truth. We won't get carried
away by lies if we're carried away, we're taken up with seeking
the truth. Now this flood of lies, this
flood of satanic, this satanic message. Oh, it sounds good. It sounds moral. It sounds astounding.
The world's going to fall for it, but the church won't. Now
Satan's going to fail in this attempt to sweep away, to carry
away God's church because God's not going to allow it. God's
the one protecting and keeping his people. But one of the ways
that God's going to use to protect his church is this religious
world. He's going to use this religious
world to help protect his people. The rest of this religious world
who's against the church, who hates the church, who hates our
Savior, hates our message. They're going to open their mouth
wide and swallow up this flood that Satan, a flood of lies that
Satan sends out. And by them swallowing it up,
it helps keep God's people safe. When they swallow it up, it can't
come sweep God's people away. The church will overcome. Satan will never be able to take
any of God's people away from him. Verse 14, the end of verse
14, it says that the Lord put his church in a place that's
safe from the face of the serpent. They're in a place that's safe
from the most direct attacks of Satan that would destroy them.
And then verse 17, And the dragon was wroth with the woman and
went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments
of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ. Satan turns
from trying to destroy the church as a whole and now has turned
individuals. That's the seed of this woman,
our individual members, individual believers. And Satan's turned
his attack on individual believers because this is what he knows,
that he can take away just If he can sweep away just one for
whom Christ died, he's going to win the whole world. But that's
never going to happen. We already know the end before
the whole thing starts. God's going to protect his people.
They will overcome. Everyone God saves is going to
persevere in the faith. Now if I'm saved by my decision,
am I walking an aisle, am I doing this, am I doing that, my morality,
I'm not going to persevere in that. But everyone God saves
is going to persevere in the faith. because God gives them
his faith and they'll never be plucked from the hand of the
Savior. Every last one of them is going to be like our brothers
and sisters in Hebrews chapter 11. These all died, kept safe by the power of our
Savior. All right, I hope the Lord will
bless that too.