Take your Bibles and turn with
me to Revelation chapter 12. I had intended to go all the
way through this chapter, but I just, there's just too much
in it, I couldn't do it. So, we're going to attempt to
go through verse 11, and then maybe I'll come back and recap
a little bit and finish the chapter after the conference. Let's just
read the first 11 verses. And there appeared a great wonder
in heaven, a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her
feet, and upon her head a crown of 12 stars, and she being with
child cried, prevailing in birth, and pain to be delivered. And
there appeared another wonder in heaven, Behold a great red
dragon having seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns upon
his head. And his tail grew the third part
of the stars of heaven. And he'd catch them into the
earth. And the dragon stood before the woman which was ready to
be delivered for to devour her child as soon as it was born. And she brought forth a man-child
who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron, and her child
was caught up unto God and to His throne. And the woman fled
into the wilderness, where she had a place prepared of God,
that they should feed her there a thousand, two hundred, and
threescore days. And there was a war in heaven.
Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon
fought against his angels, and prevailed not. Neither was their
place found any more in heaven, that is, for the dragon and his
angels. And the great dragon was cast
out, that old serpent called the devil, and Satan, which deceiveth
the whole world. He was cast out into the earth,
and his angels were cast out with him. And I heard a loud
voice saying in heaven, now is come salvation and strength 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
God day and night. And they overcame him by the
blood of the lamp and by the word of their testimony. And
they loved not their lives unto the death. Revelation 12 sets before the
church a very vivid picture of the person and work of our Redeemer.
And it begins with His incarnation, that is God condescending to
take on Himself human flesh and bone to become a man. and yet
remain God. And it begins with the incarnation
of Christ and in the first verse he speaks of a great wonder,
a great wonder in heaven. A woman clothed with the sun
and the moon under her feet and upon her head a crown of twelve
stars. Now there, I didn't look it up
but there's no doubt in my mind that Religions that worship Mary
take this verse to speak about Mary. This verse is not speaking
about Mary, it's talking about the church. The woman here is symbolic of
the church. This is his elect. This is his
sheep. This is his children and his
bride. This is the church as she is represented in both the
Old Testament and the new, and here, here is an Old Testament
saint, Mary, giving birth to the Christ. So this is symbolic,
not just of the New Testament church, there's religions out
there that only believe the church, the church is New Testament.
The Old Testament's about the Jews, the New Testament's about
Gentiles. But this is the church as she
is represented in both the Old and New Testaments, both in the
Jews and the Gentiles. Well, what's the great wonder?
What's the great wonder? Well, the wonder begins with
the fact where she is. She's in heaven. Think about it. She's in heaven. She's on earth, but she's in
heaven. She's here giving birth, but she's in heaven. Here's the
wonder. John must have, on that Isle
of Patmos, must have seen these visions and was just filled with
wonder. You're here this morning sitting
on this pew, but you're in heaven if your name's in the Lamb's
Book of Life. How so? Well, in the person of
our representative. We're in heaven. We've always
been in heaven. You can go back to Proverbs and
read it, and he'll tell you about the Lord Jesus Christ. And he'll
tell you about his glory, and he'll tell you how he fellowshiped
with his people before there was ever a world, before there
was ever an earth. So she's in heaven in the person
of a representative. She's in heaven in the purpose
of God. In the purpose of God, she's
always been in heaven. Always has been. And she's in
heaven in the everlasting covenant of grace. And being in her covenant
surety. Now this is how you have to consider
her as she's in heaven. There's no way this verse fits
any man on this earth. But it fits him or fits her as
they are in their holy representative in heaven. And being in their
covenant charity, she is clothed with the sun. You don't think
of yourself that way, do you? But that's how you are in Christ.
Clothed with the sun. What's that mean? That means
she's clothed in light. In light. Not just any light,
not some reflective light, not some tiny light, but the light
of the sun. Now these things are given to
us for our understanding, and so he takes things that we deal
with on an everyday basis, and we wait for that sun to come
up. And when the sun comes up, it lights up everything it shines
on. She's clothed in light in the
revelation of God who's altogether light and in whom is no darkness
at all. She's clothed with light, the
light of mercy and grace, the light of love and kindness, the
light of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. So
as she's represented in Christ, she's clothed with the sun. And secondly, it says the moon
is under her feet. She has the victory in the Lord
Jesus Christ. She has the victory. The war's
still being fought here every day, every hour. There's still a warfare going
on here, but she, in her holy representative, she has the victory. The moon is under her feet. And there's going to be great
obstacles and raging persecution and great battles shall be fought,
but in the end, she'll stand victorious because she stands
in Him. Thirdly, it says she wears a
crown of twelve stars. What's these twelve stars mean? What are they symbolic of? The
whole house of Israel. She wears the crown. She is and
represents the whole house of Israel. And though she was found
cast naked on the ground as Ezekiel saw her, yet her beauty was made
perfect through his comeliness. And his church is a royal priesthood,
and so she appears in her great representative. And then in verse
2, we're told she was with child. and crying in her travail and
pain to be delivered. She must bring forth the man-child. She must bring forth the Christ
because God had promised that in Genesis 3.15. The woman's
seed is going to crush his head. He's going to bruise the Christ's
feet. He's going to bruise it. But
Christ is going to crush his head. He's going to defeat him. And she must bring forth the
man-child, the promisee. The wonder of the woman is not
the woman. Catholics do everything except
bow down and maybe they do that. I don't know. I'm not a Catholic.
I just know what I've read about them. But they worship Mary. And they have her images all
over and wear them around their neck and say prayers to her and
all this kind of stuff. The wonder of the woman is not
the woman. The wonder of the woman is the
seed she carries. Do you see what he's talking
about here in these pictures and how vivid this picture is?
The woman is the church, his bride, and his bride is going
to give birth to the Christ, to the seed. Brother Don said this in his
book on Revelations, he said divinity took humanity into a
permanent union with itself in the person of Jesus Christ. We don't often think about that,
do we? He was made of a woman, made under the law to redeem
them that were under the law. But having redeemed them that
were under the law, and being raised from the dead, He didn't
go back to His form as God, but He ascended, the man, Christ
Jesus, ascended into glory. and there's a man in glory. That's our hope, isn't it? That
man, that representative man, is seated at the right hand of
God. That's what the scripture says,
when the fullness of the time was come, God sent forth His
Son, made of a woman, made under the
law, to redeem them that were under the law that we might receive
the adoption of sons. Now for nine months, a woman
carries her child within her. Further along she gets, the more
evidence of her pregnancy is seen until she begins to cry
out and pains to be delivered. And all the hopes and dreams
of the woman of the church, all of the promises of God to her
are all wrapped up in this promised Redeemer. I'm trying to think of the man's
name, but it was told him that he wasn't
going to die until he'd seen the Lord's Christ. Simeon. And here he is, and he's
waiting and waiting and waiting, and finally Mary and Joseph bring
Jesus to the temple to do according to the law to him, according
to Jewish law, and they brought him to the temple. And old Simeon
seen him. And he went out and held him
in his arms. And he said, now my eyes seeth
the Christ. He said, this is my salvation.
I see my salvation. I'm holding my salvation in my
arm. He said, now I'm ready to go.
I'm ready to go. All of the hopes and dreams of
the woman, all of the promises of God are all wrapped up in
the promised Redeemer. All right, Revelation 12, verse
3. Another wonder. We've looked at the wonder of
the woman, now look at this. There appeared another wonder
in heaven. Behold, a great red dragon, having seven heads and
ten horns and seven crowns upon his head. What on earth is a
dragon? You ever seen one? Huh? You ain't never seen one. I've
never seen one. I don't know if an actual dragon
ever existed. I don't know. But a dragon is
an ancient, legendary creature. Typically in all of the pictures
that men have drawn of him, all these artist's conceptions of
the dragon, he has scales, and he has serpentine qualities,
and he has wings with which to fly. And the most universal aspect
of the dragon is that all of the dragons depicted by men breathe
fire. But this dragon had seven heads. Seven is the number of perfection
or completion. And his seven heads, I believe,
mark his character as altogether and completely evil. There's
no good in him. None. Altogether sinful. And the ten horns are symbolic
of his power. Whenever you read about horns
on a creature that the Lord's using to symbolize something,
the horns are talking about power. It's talking about power and
authority. He's very powerful. He has ten horns. He's very powerful,
yet He is not all-powerful. And the crowns on His head symbolize
His desire to sit in Christ's seat and be glorified of all
who see Him there. Verse 4, And His tail drew the
third part of the stars of heaven and they cast them to the earth
and the dragon stood before the woman which was ready to be delivered
for to devour her child as soon as it was born. This has always been the objective
of Satan from the beginning. Always has been. He never had,
I know he attacks men and I know he deceives men but It's not
you he's trying to get out of the way, it's Christ. It's Christ. This has always
been his objective. And there can never be a reconciliation
between the woman and the dragon because there was no reconciliation
ever purposed or decreed or promised. As far as Satan and the falling
angels, you can read about it over in Jude chapter one, the
angels which kept not their first estate, but are reserved in darkness
unto the judgment. No reconciliation made. And no
matter what his pretended motives might be, his ultimate goal is
to devour the woman's seed. All right, verse five. And she
brought forth a man-child, who was to rule all nations with
a rod of iron. And her child was caught up unto
God and to His throne. Now the reason for the incarnation
of Christ, the reason why He must be made of the woman is
to accomplish the redemption of God's people. There's no other
way to redeem a fallen sinner than for a representative to
be chosen of God and for that representative to come here and
do what that sinner cannot do for himself. Salvation is not
getting you to do something. Salvation is God appointing the
Christ and the Christ coming down here in the form of a man
and accomplishing what you couldn't accomplish. Doing for you what
you cannot do for yourself. That's the reason for the incarnation
of Christ. It's to accomplish the redemption
of his elect which God has decreed and purposed before the world
began. Salvation is never represented in the scriptures as a possibility. You hear somebody talking about
salvation that might be or salvation As a possibility, you just check
his name off of the people that you're going to listen to because
he don't know the Christ. Salvation is never set forth
as a possibility, an opportunity, or an offer. Never. Salvation
is represented in the person and work of the incarnate Son
of God. He must be born of a woman and
made under the law to redeem his people. And he must, by an
active obedience, provide us with a righteousness acceptable
to God and suffer and die on the cross to put away our sin.
And having accomplished our redemption, he was caught up to God and to
his throne where he now sits, expecting till his enemies be
made his footstool. Now that's the picture that is
set before us here in Revelation chapter 12, verse 6. And the woman, Christ was caught
up to God and to His throne. He took His seat at the right
hand of the Father. And the woman fled into the wilderness
where she had a place prepared of God that they should feed
her Feed her there in that place where God prepared 1,203 score
days. Now this, let me just get this
number out of the way. 1,360 days simply is symbolic
of the rest of the gospel age. From the time that he ascended
up to glory, whatever amount that time is, I know it's not
actual days because that much time's already gone. But this
is symbolic of the rest of the gospel age. And then the wilderness into
which his church flees is this present evil world. I don't know if you look at it
that way or not, but this world is a wilderness. Spiritually
speaking, this world is a wilderness. It's got no spiritual bread.
Got no water of life, no land for a sacrifice, no tree of life,
no pasture for a sheep. It's a wilderness. Men tell me all the time, you're from Danville, Kentucky,
and you went all the way to Arkansas. Well, there's a church on every
corner. Is there? The only building that I can
read that's on every corner is the harlot's house. Now she builds
on every corner. So you see something on every
corner? According to the word of God, it's the harlot's house.
It's not his house. This world is a spiritual wilderness. Religion is on the airways, it's
on the internet, it's in the libraries, it's everywhere you
look. But when you investigate just
a little bit, When you investigate, when you go there, when you listen,
when you ask some questions, all you find is scorpions and
snakes. It's a wilderness. God's church
flees into the wilderness because she has no other choice. This whole world is a wilderness.
But I want you to notice this. I want you to key in on this.
The woman fled into the wilderness where she hath a place prepared
of God. She didn't just run out into
the wilderness. She didn't just run out into
the desert and pitch her tent. She ran to a place that God prepared
for her. Now in general, this is talking
about his church being preserved in this world to preach his gospel
and to fulfill his purpose of grace. He makes a place in this
world for us. The world doesn't crush us, it
doesn't put us to death, but like Him, it preserves us until
that appointed time. Paul said we are laborers together
with God. And God has a purpose in His
church, living out our days in the wilderness, and that purpose
is to warn men to flee the wrath to come, and to call out His
sheep, and to feed His sheep. But there's another thing I see
in this verse that's a little more particular and not so much
in general. And that is the local church
itself. All over this world, he has local
churches. And the local church is a place
where his bride can flee in this wilderness. It's a place prepared
of God. It's a special place. It's a
precious place. I can't tell you how precious
it is for you to be able to come here and hear the gospel. I wish
sometime you could travel from church to church with me and
hear these believers that God called out of this wilderness
of a world and called them into that place and they just think
they fell into Shangri-La. They can come here and hear what
this world wouldn't tolerate for 10 seconds. If I was to stand
in the average Southern Baptist, I'll just use Southern Baptist
as an example. If I were to go down here to
the First Baptist Church, stand in the pulpit, and teach Revelations
12 like I'm teaching you this morning, they would have already
escorted me out to the parking lot. That's how precious this
is. And you can't make the place,
God makes it. He makes the place. It's a place prepared of God,
a place to protect and teach the little ones, a place to comfort
one another and see to the needs of one another, a place to defend
and preserve as best we can the gospel that we believe. And the
local church is a place prepared of God in the wilderness. And
it's here alone that he establishes his pastors and matures his church. You know where Israel learned
to worship? in the wilderness. Where did
God ordain and give them all the information they need to
build the tabernacle and to build the ark and hang the veil and
the curtain off that big area? Where did he teach them that?
In the wilderness. In the wilderness. And it was
a place that he prepared. He prepared. Alright, verse 7. And there was a war in heaven.
Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon
fought against Michael's angels. Verse 8. And the dragon prevailed
not, neither was their place found any more in heaven. And the great dragon was cast
out, that old serpent called the devil, And Satan, which deceiveth
the whole world, he was cast out into the earth, and his angels
were cast out with him. John Gill said that he believed
that Michael is another name for Jesus Christ. And I believe
he's right. I believe he's right. You know
what the name Michael means? One like God. That's what the
name means. Who else fits that bill? Huh? The Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the angel of
the covenant. So it's not unusual to see him
depicted as an angel. He's the angel of the covenant.
He's the minister of the new covenant. And who but the Son
of God could defeat and cast out the prince of darkness? Who
else could do that? He was cast out by the victorious
Christ and forbidden any place in his heavenly kingdom. He was
exposed and he was revealed who deceiveth the whole world. And
now the church sees him by faith, but they see him cast out. They
see him defeated. His victory over God and His
Son is never even hinted at in the Word of God. I see movies
and they personify this Antichrist and they've got him coming into
this world and doing battle and, man, you just don't know who's
going to win the battle. It goes right down to the last
second. And then I hear churches talking
about him having the victory over men, over believers. and backsliding into hell and
all this kind of... I'm going to tell you something.
The victory of the Lord Jesus Christ and the victory of Satan
over him, let me put it that way, the victory of Satan over
him is never even hinted at in the Scriptures. What is plainly declared in the
Scriptures is the Lord Jesus Christ putting a collar on his
neck Or the Lord Jesus Christ judging him in the last day and
casting him into hell. Or the Lord Jesus Christ and
his angels defeating Satan and his angels and casting them out
of heaven. But you never find even a hint
of his overthrow by Satan. And I tell you, when you come
to some understanding of this, you'll come to the same situation
that John did on the Isle of Patmos here in verse 10. He said,
I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, now is come salvation
and strength 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. And they overcame
him." Who? Satan, the old dragon. They overcame
him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony,
and they loved not their lives unto death. Now, strictly speaking, The blood
of Christ is that which testifies or evidences his death. The death of Christ. The lamb
itself was to be roasted on the altar and eaten by the priest. The blood was to be presented
within the veil. It tells us in Hebrews chapter
9 that this man entered in once by his own blood. into the holy
place, having obtained eternal redemption for us. And the eating of the lamb is
symbolic of faith, which feeds on the person and work of Christ.
Our Lord said, except you eat of my flesh and drink of my blood,
you have no part with me. So the church overcomes Satan
by their understanding of the body and blood of Jesus Christ. and by the redemption of their
souls which he accomplished on Calvary. And then it says they overcame
him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony. What is their testimony? Christ and Him crucified. That's
the testimony of the church. They ain't got anything else
to say. They don't have anything else to preach. They preach Christ. Who is this man? Why did he come?
What did he do? Where is he now? What's he doing
in glory? That's their testimony. The gospel is the testimony of
all who believe. There are three that bear record
in earth, the Spirit, the water, and the blood, and these three
are one. And if we receive the witness of men, the witness of
God is greater, for this is the witness of God which He testified
of His Son. The Spirit, the water, and the
blood, they all testify of the person and work of Jesus Christ. 1 John 5 verse 10, He that believeth
on the Son of God, hath that witness in himself. That's what
he testifies. God testified of it. The blood
of Christ testified of it. The water of baptism testifies
of it. What does a believer? He testifies
of it too. He testifies of it. The church
has and shall to the end triumph over Satan by the blood of the
lamb and by the word of their testimony. And also by their affection for
him, they love not their lives unto death. They'd rather be
dead than change their testimony about Christ. Let me ask you something. What's
your life worth without Christ? What would you give in exchange
for your son? What's your life worth without
the Son of God? That's why they wouldn't give
up that testimony. Because apart from Christ, they're
nothing. They had nothing, they could
do nothing, they're doomed. And they love not their lives
unto death. And you won't either if you ever
come to that understanding.