Revelation chapter 12. Let's
begin in verse 1. Let's just look at least two-thirds,
maybe, at this chapter, as far as we can get. This chapter,
as most chapters are in the book of Revelation, is full of symbols.
And sometimes when you and I begin to read the Old Testament or
the New Testament, we spend a lot of time, and maybe it's okay
to do that, trying to figure out what something symbolizes.
But sometimes we spend so much time trying to figure out what
something symbolizes, we miss the big picture. We get bogged
down in the symbols. So let's just try to go through
here and let Let our imagination, let this speak to our imagination,
and just see how this chapter works out for us. Let's begin
in verse 1. Revelation chapter 12. Now, if
you remember chapter 4, John heard this voice from heaven,
and the voice said, John, come up here. And he ascended up to
heaven in a vision we don't know, literally we don't know, but
here he's still in heaven. And he's telling us what he's
seeing here in heaven. Now look at this. There appeared
a great wonder, a great sign in heaven. A woman clothed with
a son. Now you just get a picture of
this in your mind. What would a woman look like
if she was clothed with the sun? Can you imagine her brightness,
her glory, to be clothed with the sun? Now, whether we know
what that symbolizes or not, we get a picture in our mind
of a woman who is gloriously arrayed, don't we? And we get
a picture of a woman, not only who is bright and glorious in
herself, but can you imagine the light that she's shining
on others? Because she's arrayed with this
glorious sun, she's shining all these rays and giving light to
other people. But not only that, but look how
exalted she was. She had the moon under her feet. Now that's pretty high. You talk
about being exalted now, to have the moon under your feet. That's
where she was. And we're told something else
here in the last portion of that, that she must have been some
kind of queen, because it said, upon her head was a crown of
twelve stars. So you see a picture of this
woman. She was gloriously arrayed. Like she was clothed in the sun,
she was exalted so high, she had her feet on the moon, and
she had this star, this starry crown. Twelve crowns. Twelve stars for a crown. But
we're told something else about her in verse 2. She, being with child, cried,
travailing in birth and pain to be delivered. This woman who
was so glorious and so bright and so exalted, and had this
crown of stars upon her head, was pregnant. And she was crying,
she was in so much pain. She was tossing about. Some of
you ladies know what that is, don't you? That's what she was
doing. She was longing and tossing,
praying to be delivered of this child. Now there's the picture
we get. If we just look at that, that
sort of speaks something to us, doesn't it? Without knowing what
it means, we say, boy, this is something to see there. In verse
3, he sees another sign. He sees the woman. In verse 3,
he sees another sign. There appeared another wonder
in heaven. And it's concerning a dragon.
Behold, a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and
ten crowns upon his horn. Now, up on his head, now when
you think of a dragon, what do you think of? And you know one
thing that seemingly has never changed. As far back as you can
go, the authors and poets drawing pictures of dragons, they all
appear just about the same way, don't they? They've got these
ugly bodies. and breathing fire out their
nostrils or out their mouth. When you think of a dragon, you
think of something that's fierce and something that's dangerous.
Well, this was a dragon. And he was a great dragon. He
wasn't a little dragon. He was a great dragon and a strong
dragon. When Nebuchadnezzar had come into Israel, and taken so
many of the Jews captive and killed so many of them, burnt
the temple and tore so much of the wall down. Jeremiah said,
you're a dragon. You're a dragon. That's what
he called him, a dragon. Because he was so fierce, so
vile, so mean. And this dragon here, it says
that he's a red dragon. Now, he wasn't called that because
of his redeeming qualities. He may have been called that
because of the blood of the innocents that he had killed, that he had
trampled or devoured. May have been red with people's
blood. Or it could have been he was called that because of
his rage. You ever seen pictures of these
dragons where they're mad, and they're so mad they look like
they're embarrassed? All the blood rushes up in their skin.
And they're a red dragon. That's the kind of dragon he
was. He was a great dragon. He's a red dragon. Fierce and
angry. And he was ugly. Can you imagine
a dragon having seven heads? You've seen pictures of him having
all these long necks and all these heads running everywhere.
And you say, what an ugly monster. This dragon is ugly. But we're
told something else about him. He must be powerful. Because
he has ten horns. When we see horns in the Scriptures,
that's what we often think of. Power. And he must have some
kind of authority because it said here that he had crowns
upon his head. So there's the monster we're
looking at. But he's wicked. He's sinful. He's vile. Look what's said about him, the
same monster in chapter 13, in verse 1. I stood upon the sand
of the sea, and saw a beast," Jesus called a beast, "'rose
up out of the sea, having seven heads, ten horns, and upon his
horn ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy.'"
He had ten heads. What does that mean? I don't
know, but we're just looking at the big picture of it. Just
seeing what this dragon looks like, and he has all these heads.
He's ugly, and on each head he's got blasphemy. Blaspheming. He's blaspheming God. He blasphemes
Christ. He blasphemes the saints. He
blasphemes the Gospel, the Word. All of his heads got blasphemed.
Look in chapter 17. We see the very same dragon.
He's called here a scarlet-colored beast that carries this horror
around. Look in verse 3 what's said about
it. So he carried me, the angel carried
me away in Revelation 17. In the spirit into the wilderness,
and I saw a woman set upon a scarlet-colored beast. If you'll read, he's the
same one. Same head, same crown, same horn. And this scarlet-colored beast,
this dragon, he was full of the names of blasphemy. Having seven heads and ten horns.
He was full of blasphemy. So whatever this dragon is, he's
no good. He's vile. He's cruel. He's a blasphemer. Blasphemes
God. And back over in chapter 12,
verse 4, notice something else about this dragon. Notice the
power here that's in his tail. Just in his tail. This is a picture. Let's get a picture of this.
And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did
cast them to the earth. Can you get a picture of this
huge tail? That he wrenched up into the sky, and with his tail,
with one giant swipe, he took one third of all the stars and
cast them down to the earth, to the ground. That's a pretty
powerful dragon, wasn't it? And we're told here in the last
portion of verse 4, "...and the dragon stood before the woman
which was ready to be delivered." Now, can you get a picture of
that? Here's this woman, and she's with child, and she's crying
to be delivered. And we have this dragon that's
standing face to face with this woman. Can you imagine what a
tendency that would be to make her so afraid? Why is he standing there? Why
would he do that? Well, we're told, to devour her
child as soon as it was born. To destroy the child. Her child. Now, in verse 5, we have this
woman, we have this dragon, We see the glory of this woman.
We see the cruelty of this dragon. And now in verse 5, we're told
something of this woman's child. And first of all, in verse 5,
and she brought forth a man child. A male child. Not neutered, gendered. It wasn't it. It was more than
just a person. He didn't say she brought forth
a person, did he? She brought forth a man Child. And we're told of the purpose
of this child. We're told of the power of the
child. Look at this. She brought forth a child who
was to rule all nations with a rod of iron. He was to be a
ruler. He was to have authority. He
was to rule. And we're told the extent of
his rule. Did you notice that? He was to
rule all nations. Everybody, Jews and Gentiles,
civilized nations, hostile nations, all nations. And wouldn't you
think that probably all nations of all time? When he was born,
he took absolute rule of all nations. And we are told here
of the means by which he rules. Notice this, he would rule all
nations with a rod of iron. Now, why not a stick? A stick
might break, mightn't it? You can resist a stick. But I tell you what, you take
someone with a rod of iron, that's out not to break. That's out
to be irresistible. You may get a stick across your
back, and that may hurt, but nothing like a rod of iron. Somebody
may hit you with a stick and you'll say, I'm not going to
submit, but let somebody take a wrought iron. So what it seems
to appear here that He's going to rule and He's got the means
to cause to come to pass whatever He intends to do. Irresistible. A rod. A rod of iron. And we're told another thing
about Him. Notice this. This child. And her child was
caught up unto God. He was caught up unto God. He doesn't tell us here, but
obviously, he was delivered from this dragon. What happened when
she brought forth her child? Well, we're not told here. He
doesn't say. He just says the child was caught
up, delivered out of the cruelty and from the cruelty of this
dragon. And he was caught up to this place of honor, this
place of blessing and joy and safety unto God. He was caught up unto God. But
we're told one more thing about him. And this is why I guess
we're told here that he ruled. Because he was said not only
that he was caught up unto God and unto the throne. Here's a
child that was born, and he was caught up and set there on the
throne. Unto a throne. A man-child is
on a throne. Now, in verse 6, we're told something
about the woman. Some more about the woman. In
verse 1, we're told what we saw there about her. And now here,
after that she had the man-child, here's what we're told about
her. And the woman fled into the wilderness. She didn't flee
into a city. It wasn't a strong place where
all was bright lights and loud music. She fled into the wilderness,
a solitary place, a desolate place, a wasteland. We're told
this about her also, where she had a place prepared of God. Now, ain't that amazing? Ain't that amazing? We're not
told what kind of place it was. All we're told was that God was
so careful of this woman that when she fled into the wilderness,
God had a place prepared for her. Just for her. Nobody else. Just this woman.
Now, if we look at this too closely, And we begin to pick and wonder
what the place was, and how it suited her, and all of this.
We'll miss this big picture. Here's the thing that will help
you and I just to see. God Himself had this place prepared. It doesn't matter what it was.
All that matters, God prepared it. He prepared it. And notice something else. Not
only had He prepared for this woman a place, but He prepared
for her provision that they should feed her there. Whatever she
needed to eat, she had it. We're not told what it was. That's
not important, is it? But God Himself made sure that
she was fed. They fed her. And you notice
how he says this here, they should feed her. She didn't even feed
herself. She didn't provide for her own
safety. She didn't provide her own provision.
They fed her. We're not told who they are.
But I think it just teaches us that it wasn't her provision.
It was what was provided for her. Food that somebody else
had provided. And we're told one more thing
about her, something else. That her fleeing to this prepared
place where she had provision was for a set time, an exact
time. For a thousand, two hundred,
and three score days. What does that mean? Well, it's
not really necessary. We could go and find out what
it means. This book tells what that means really. But the main
thing to see is just get the big picture. The Lord had prepared
this woman a place. He prepared her food for all
the time that He had purposed for her to be out there. It was
a set time. Exact time. Right down to the
day. I don't know about you, but I
see some comfort in that. I really see some comfort in
that. What's the meaning of all this? What is the meaning of
all this? Well, see if this makes any sense. The church in the Old Testament
was a glorious church. Even in her primitive state,
in her saddest hour, the church in the Old Testament was a glorious
church. You go all the way back to Adam
and Eve, you know that's the first church. There they stand
outside the garden. They're fallen. They'd been put
out of the garden. But you know something about
those two. Even though they had fallen and sinned, you know the
Lord had clothed them. You know the Lord had forgiven
them. You know the Lord preached the gospel to them. And when
He sent them out of the garden, you know what He did? He sent
them out with a promise of the coming of Christ. Now you know what that makes
those two? They may be a small church, but I'm telling you what,
he had some glory attached to it, didn't he? And Abel, when
he worshipped, probably a lot of times he worshipped by himself.
There was only three other people in the world. The church was
very small back then. We had them beat, didn't we?
But I tell you about Abel, when he did go to worship, he knew
what God required. And he took what God required.
And he offered to God what God required. And God accepted him
and his offering and said, Abel, you're a righteous man. Now when
God says that about you, there's some glory attached to you. And then when you and I follow
this little church, this little band of believers, a few hundred
years, when Abraham is called, And Isaac is called, and Jacob
is called, and then these twelve tribes, Jacob's children, they're
called. And God gives them His laws,
He gives them His doctrines, He reveals to them the meaning
of His Sabbaths, He gives them pictures and types and prophecies
and promises, And I tell you what, He gives
them His presence. And there was no nation upon
earth like those twelve tribes. There is nobody, no other nation
that God so joined Himself to and took a people to be His people. And look how He exalted them
above all other nations. I've chosen you, He said. You're
my people. I've adopted you. I'm even your
husband. That's what He calls me. She
was the wife. She was the wife. She was the
woman. She was God's wife. And in Genesis
chapter 3 and verse 15, God gave the promise to His church that
Christ would be born of a woman and He would bruise the serpent's
head. The dragon's head. This is the way it ran. You remember
that. I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between
thy seed and her seed, and it shall bruise thy head, and thou
shalt bruise his head. He was talking to that serpent
there. He's talking to the dragon. And ain't that an amazing thing?
That he that was to be the seed of the woman was telling about
himself. And what he was doing was looking
at the devil right in his eyes and saying, I'm going to bruise
your head. Because he was the seed of the woman. And from that
promise, all the way through the Old Testament, to the very
birth and the very death of the Son of God incarnate, you know
what the devil did? We studied it before. He stood
before that royal seed. He stood before those women,
watching and waiting for that Messiah to be born so He could
devour Him, so He could destroy. And that's why Herod got so stirred
up when the wise man came and said, Where is He that's born
King of the Jews? The devil got so stirred up and
he stirred Herod's enmity up that he sent forth and slew all
the children of Bethlehem. from two years old and under.
Why did he do that? Trying to devour the man-child. But Christ in time, just as this
verse here tells us, was caught up into heaven. He was caught
up into heaven. John doesn't say anything about
the cross. He just wants us to get the big
picture. Jesus Christ came and He died and He suffered for our
sins. He was buried and He raised and
He was caught up unto God. And there He sits on the throne. Angels and authorities and principalities
being made subject unto Him. He reigns. He rules by His authority,
by His providence, by His gospel, by His grace. He ruled. We sang that song, and it's a
good song. Crown Him Lord of all. And we know the sense, Glenn,
in which that songwriter wrote that. But He's already Lord of
all, Annie. He's reigning right now. This
man-child, He's reigning. And this church, of the New Testament
that's now made up of Jews and Gentiles and all nationalities,
is here in the wilderness of this world. And the devil, because
he couldn't kill the man-child, he couldn't devour him, he's
angry at the woman. He's angry at the church. And
he seeks to persecute her. But day after day, God our Father
provides for His people physically and spiritually, all according
to His own purpose, all according to His own will, and all according
to His own time. He that clothes the lilies and
feeds the raven clothes and feeds His people. You thought you clothed
yourself this morning, didn't you? We think we went back and
fed ourselves. We didn't. He fed us. He fed us. I'm telling you, we
don't have sense enough to clothe ourselves. We'd be running around
out here naked. We couldn't even eat. We couldn't
get food in our stomachs to stay down if He didn't feed us. He
has provided for us. How has He provided? Every way
He's provided for us. We'll leave this place and go
to another warm place in an hour or so. He's provided this place
for us. Every place we have. Every place
we go. This is His world. This is our
Father's world. And He has provided it for us.
And He protects us in it. And feeds us in it in spite of
the devil that hates us. And brothers and sisters, that's
wonderful news. We can't figure out all the ways. That's why
we're not told here about what He provided and how He provided.
Who could tell it out? It's enough to know that He's
doing it, and He will do it. My God shall supply all your
needs according to His riches and glory. All your needs. And then we get into verse 7.
Look at this. Beginning here in verse 7, John sees another
vision. He sees something else. He sees
a war raging between these two great powers. Look at this. And
there was war in heaven. Michael and his angels fought
against the dragon. And the dragon fought in his
angels and 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. That pretty much explains
what we see up there about that big tail, doesn't it? Getting
all those stars and throwing them out with him, bringing them
down to the earth. Here we see that was his angel.
They were cast out with him. Now if you and I try to figure
this out in too much detail, we'll miss the big picture. There
was war in heaven. And there have been books written over this thing about this war.
Over this one aspect of it. The exact timing of it. When
did this war take place? And they go on chapter after
chapter after chapter trying to prove when this war took place.
The weapons that was used and who Michael really is. And the
main lesson, we missed it. We missed the main lesson because
we got off on these little details. What's the main thing that you
and I should learn from this? Well, first of all, it's this.
The devil is defeated. He has been defeated. That's
what I see in that. There was war. When does it matter
exactly when it was? Was it when Christ was born?
Was it on the cross? Was it at Pentecost? When was
it? We think we probably know, but
the thing to get in our hearts is, Satan is defeated. His head has been bruised. He
has lost his authority, whatever he had. Christ destroyed him. who had the power of death. He comes to destroy the works
of the devil. Now, I don't know about you, but that's good news
for me. That's good news for me. He don't
have the authority, and he's not doing what he used to do.
Look back in the Old Testament. Look at all of those nations
that lived in the dark. Absolutely ignorant. Who was
behind that? Satan. Satan. But it's changed
now, ain't it? I tell you, it's changed a great
deal. He's defeated. In verse 10, look at this. Here's
something else. And I heard a loud voice saying
in heaven, now is salvation. Now is salvation. Now is salvation. We should see that. Satan is
defeated. Christ is on the right hand of
the Father. And now is salvation. Right now,
as you and I sit here today, 2010 in Newcastle, Indiana. Today, God is saving people. There is salvation right now. From sin. From the curse of God's
holy law, from the wrath to come, there's salvation. And not only that, but he said
this, there's strength. There's strength. There is strength. Now there's strength. Strength
for what? I tell you to come out of every
temptation. to come through every trial. Strength to climb the steepest
hill in your life. Strength to go through the long,
dark, cold valleys that we sometimes get in. Strength! Be strong in the Lord and in
the power of His might. One thing I'm learning, and I
know you are too, There's no temptation that you can't finally
overcome. There's nothing in you, including
your sin, that will finally get you down if you'll trust the
Lord Jesus Christ. If you'll trust His strength,
nothing can get you down. There's power to get us through
this life and this sinful world of devils. There's strength.
There's strength. Oh, Bruce, you just don't know
me. I've had people tell me, oh, you just don't know me. You
don't know what I'm going through. You don't know how weak I am.
Yes, you're just like me and just like the rest of us. And
if you're relying upon your own strength, no wonder you can't
make it. Now is strength. When I am weak,
then I'm strong. My grace is sufficient for you. My strength is made perfect in
your weakness. If you're concerned about getting
through this world, there it is. There is strength. And look at this, not only now
is there strength, now is there salvation, now the kingdom of our God. It's
come. The kingdom of our God is come. Someone's still trying to figure
out exactly when it came. See what I'm saying? We get off
on these things. We look at this and say, well, when did it come
exactly now? I got a big article the other
day, a whole article, written on trying to make a distinction
between the Kingdom of God, the Kingdom of Christ, and the Kingdom
of Heaven. And they got to a big argument about that. And they
have forgotten that the Kingdom has come. The Kingdom of God
is here. Why is that important? We need
to know that so we can seek it. Seek it with all our heart. If
it's yours, I want to be in it. Don't you? Seek first the Kingdom
of God. Seek it according to His Word. Seek that new birth that puts
us in it. The Kingdom of God has come. Glenn, I want in it.
I want any. I don't want to miss it. If it's
here, I want any. I want any. Can you imagine, while you and
I have been here this morning, how the Kingdom of God has increased
today? Especially on the Lord's Day.
It seems like the Lord, He has a habit of increasing the Kingdom
on the Lord's Day. He did it on the first day of
the week so often in the New Testament. I cannot believe Knowing
God, like you and I know Him, that He would go for one day
without increasing the kingdom of His dear Son. I can't believe
He'd go for one hour without increasing it. Rewarded His Son. I bet you this very day, He has
saved multitudes of people. In the early church, it was said,
He added to the church daily. He increased His kingdom daily. And I believe, brothers and sisters,
He's still doing it. We may not see it here. And that
breaks our hearts sometimes. But I tell you, I bet He's doing
it somewhere. I bet He's doing it somewhere.
This Kingdom has come. And I just about bet you that
it's increasing. And something else has happened.
Boy, there's a lot of things that took place here around this
time, wasn't there? The devil was cast out. He's been defeated. No place
found in heaven for Him. Salvation has come. Strength
has come. The Kingdom of God has come. And the power of His Christ. That word there means the authority,
the jurisdiction, the force. The force of Christ has come.
The power of Christ has come. He's reigning, ain't He? He's
reigning. That's very competent for me to just repeat. the power of His Christ. King
of nations. That's one of the things that
He's called, Jeremiah. King of nations. The King of
nations. He has under His feet all principalities
and powers. That's the Savior that you and
I love and trust. In the last part of verse 10,
the accuser of the brethren is cast down. He accused them before the Father.
Spent a lot of time, you find it in the Old Testament. But
now he wasn't allowed seemingly to do that anymore, to accuse
them before God. Who did he accuse? Our brethren. The accuser of our brethren. Brothers and sisters, ain't this
a lesson for us? If God won't let him in his presence
to accuse the brethren anymore, don't let him in our minds to
accuse one another. That's what he is, an accuser.
And when we get it in our heads that, oh, Terence, he just ain't
doing like he ought to do. Oh, oh, Gail, why would she do
that? She probably didn't even do that.
Well, somebody told me, who was it told me? That was the devil
told me that. And I listened to it. If God says, don't you
ever let me catch you back in my presence again, accusing one
of the brothers, let's tell him the same thing. Don't you ever
let me catch you in my mind again, accusing one of my dear brothers
and one of my dear sisters. But they're guilty, what of it?
So am I. But look in verse 11. This is
a wonderful thing. And they overcame him. Who are
they? The brethren. Our brethren. The brethren overcame
him. Now this is amazing in itself.
And every time I read this, I told you the other day, I just can't
hardly keep from laughing. Because we're just told about
this dragon. And how powerful he was. And
how huge he was. How violent he was. And how he
took all of these stars and slammed them down to the ground with
him. And now he turns it right around and says, the brethren
overcame him. They defeated him, Glenn. Isn't
that amazing? I just can't keep from laughing when I read that. I just have to believe that the
devil is one of the most frustrated beings this world has ever known.
In spite of all of his violence, all of his power, here's a poor
man and poor woman that's whipped him, that's defeated him, that's
overcome him. And he goes off with that red
tail between his legs. All he can puff is smoke. He's
defeated. He's overcome. That's amazing,
isn't it? That's amazing. They overcame Him. They overcame Him. If you and I get to heaven, and I pray God all of us do,
but if we do, we're not going to get there without a fight. And the one you're going to have
to fight is this cruel dragon. And you're going to have to overcome
it. And I'm telling you this, this is not a game. And there's no ties in this game. There's no reaching the end where
we say, let's reach a truce and call it quits. Somebody's going
to be defeated. Somebody's going to be whipped.
Somebody's going to be overcome. Somebody's going to get the victory.
Either He's going to get it over you and me, or we're going to
get it over Him. But somebody's going to have
to fight to the end. That's what He's telling us here. They overcame Him. And that tells us there was a
battle going on, doesn't it? And we're told three things,
three ways that they overcame Him. Here in verse 11. They overcame Him, first of all,
by the blood of the Lamb. By the blood of the Lamb. I wonder
why He mentions that first. I'll tell you why He mentions
it first. How could you and I, being what we are, stand before
our accuser, being what he is, with guilt upon our conscience? How can we stand before him being
charged with our sins? We could not. Our guilt would
drive us to despair. Why, He would open up sins and
show them to us that we never dreamed were so black. He would bring sins to our conscience
that we had long time forgot about. Sins of our youth. And
He would drive us to despair. But when He brings our sins to
mind, what do we do? There is a fountain open for
sin and uncleanness. And we fly to it. This is my
blood, my blood of the new covenant which is shed for many for the
remission of their sins. The life of the flesh is in the
blood and I have given it to you. I've given you my blood.
For it's the blood that makes an atonement for your soul. I've redeemed you with My blood,
My precious blood. The blood of Jesus Christ God's
Son cleanses us, justifies us, washes us whiter than snow. And
we overcome the devil by it. We overcome by that precious
blood. God doesn't condemn His little
children. But I tell you, the devil does. The devil does. And here's the way we overcome
when I see the blood. When I see the blood. Devil,
it doesn't matter how you accuse me. It doesn't matter that it's
true what you say. You tell me I'm the vilest sinner
that ever lived. Yes! Yes! That's so. You bring all these sins to my
mind that I had forgot about. You make the blood rise up in
my face. You make me ashamed of myself.
Yes, but there's a fountain filled with blood drawn from Emmanuel's
veins, and I, a sinner, plunge into that fountain, and I've
lost my guilty stains. I've lost them. They're gone.
The blood reaches deeper than the stains has gone. The blood
satisfies my conscience because the blood satisfies God. And
if God is satisfied, it doesn't matter if the devil accuses.
And when we bring this to his attention, he cannot fight with
us. He has no grounds to war with.
He gets all frustrated about it. The blood. The blood. The second thing that is said
about them is this, they overcame him by the blood of the lamb.
Not a chicken. Not a chicken. The lamb. And secondly is this, they overcame
him by the word of their testimony. I can sum this up in one passage
of Scripture. You know what your testimony
is. You know what my testimony is. I'll sum it up in one statement. The Apostle Paul made it himself.
Remember when they had the shipwreck in Acts chapter 27? Paul went down below, was absent
for a while. He came back up and said, the
Lord spoke to me. And he said, we're going to land
upon a certain island. We're all going to be saved.
We're going to lose the ship, but all of us are going to be saved.
And then he made this statement. Sirs, be of good cheer, for I
believe God that it shall be even as it was told me." Ain't
that your testimony? The devil comes and accuses and
rants and raves and makes us doubt and fear, but here's our
testimony. I believe what God says in His
Word. And I believe it's going to come
to pass just as it was told me. And that settles it. But look
how you fail. That's not my testimony. Look
how you fail. That's not my testimony. My testimony,
what has God said? What has God said? To the law
and to the testimony. Scriptures alone. You remember
when the Lord Jesus faced the devil during the Mount of Temptation? Three times? He faced the devil's
temptation three times. He quoted Scripture. He quoted
Scripture. That's what I'm talking about.
That's our testimony. We don't have opinions, do we?
If you've got them, you're welcome to them. Try to keep them to
yourself. Our personal convictions, we all have them, but we don't
try to force them off on somebody else. We have our preferences,
but that's not our testimony. We don't need covenants hanging
on the wall to live by. Here's what we live by. This is our testimony. What saith
the Lord? I believe it. And notice this,
the last thing. They love not their lives unto
death. Boy, that's important. That's
important. How important that is. They love
not their lives Put little value upon your own life. You're going
to die. That's alright. Who am I anyway? What is my life? I lost my life
when I come to Christ. I put a little article by Paul
Mahan. If you haven't read it yet, let
me read it to you. It's in our bulletin this week. The evil
man called self. Maybe you read it, but listen
to this. Self is an evil man. He is very selfish, thinking
of no one but himself. He loves himself while hating
others. He loves to talk about himself and no one else. He is
self-righteous. He thinks he is right and everybody
else is wrong. He is very touchy and easy offended. He is defensive and offensive. He is mean, vindictive, vengeful,
cynical, hypocritical, and proud. If we spend all our time with
Mr. Seth, we won't have a friend.
If we give our time and money to him, he will take it all and
leave us poor and miserable. If we follow him, he will lead
us into trouble. We've got to get away from that
fella Seth. We have to deny him. When he
pour mouths, rebuke him. When he cries and complains,
don't pity him. When he comes calling, don't
answer him. Avoid him, shun him, get away from him. If we don't
get away from him, we will be stuck with him. And
if we don't deny him, he will ruin us. He will ruin us. If any man come after me, hate not his father and his mother,
his children, his brothers, his sisters. and his own life also. Brothers and sisters, we've got
to learn to hate ourselves. We've got to learn to deny ourselves. And I tell you who can teach
us to do it? Our God. And usually the way He does it
is giving us a view of Himself. And then when we see Him, what
do we say? I'm a war master. They overcame him.