this morning as we come together as we enter a new chapter in the book of Revelation as we enter a new section in the book of Revelation, I pray that you would come and you would awaken us. Even as we sing that last hymn about martyrs bending their neck to the steel or facing the lions, gory main we ask the question who shall follow in their train, I pray father, that would it be necessary we would be those people. We would be willing to bear witness to the cross of Jesus. I pray for those who don't know Jesus that you would open their eyes. I pray for those who do and know Jesus that you would open their eyes wider. I pray that you be in my head and in my thinking, in my heart and in my understanding and in my mouth and in my speaking. In Jesus name we pray these things, amen, amen. You know I was thinking last night in this morning about what how to open, you're always thinking about how to open, what's the best way to open a sermon, right? What's the best way to get people's attention or what's the best way to tie things together and what came to my mind was the whole idea of assessment. Like do you like being assessed for things? Like maybe get a work assessment or the standard if you're a kid and you got to take SATs do you like those kind of assessments? Most people don't like to be assessed unless it's interesting, right? Like the personality tests who doesn't like taking those because you like to find out who you are, right? You know so I've had to take them in business world, I've had to take them for church planting, right? So for example, for your familiar with the disc test, DISC, my profile is D equals I, almost none of those exist by the way. On the Myers-Briggs, I'm ENFP, extrovert, intuitive, feeler, perceiver. I know when you guys think of me, you think of a feeler. That's exactly right. That's what my personality test bears out. But there are other tests that we would rather not look at. You see when I was, we moved out here to plant a church and then eventually we planted it was successful and I resigned and went back into the business world. And then when Judy and I were attending here, I was asked to come on staff and in order to come back to be ordained again, it was a different denomination. I had to go through the whole process again. And at some point they wanted me to take this very in-depth psychological profile. I mean like 800 questions. Some of you are probably familiar with it. And it's the kind of profile that is trying to root out whether or not you are a serial killer or something like that. And I remember when they told me I had to take it, I said, I thought, I wonder if they make everyone do this, you know? Did they make you do that, Jamie? See? How it works is you go to a psychiatrist and you take the test and then when the results come in, he sends one to the people who asked for it, in my case the presbytery. And then if you like he'll discuss it with you. And so the results came in and I went to visit the psychiatrist and he said, well you results are in. And I said, well okay. I said, did you send them to presbytery? And he said, yes. And I said, anything else? No, I said, did I pass? And he said, you passed? And I said, good. I'll see you. And he said, don't you want to know what your results say about you? And I said, I passed, right? And he said, yeah, I said, I'm good to go. And I took it and I left. I don't even know where that is. So for all I know, I'm like one hair underneath crazy. But there's some things you don't want to know. There's some assessments you don't want to take, some that you do. And so I was thinking, you know, we've been in the book of Revelation, we're halfway through. And I thought, how would you assess if you really understood the book of Revelation? What assessment would you use? And see, if you've been here for longer than let's say two weeks, you should subject yourself to this assessment. Because if you ask yourself, okay, we're going to assess ourselves as to our knowledge of the book of Revelation. Here's what I'm not going to ask you. Do you know the content? Could you give me an outline of chapters one through eleven? Could you explain the purpose and all of these things? Could you do that? The assessment that is most important with regard to the book of Revelation is whether you are becoming more and more outwardly faced. That's it. If you're becoming more and more outwardly faced, you can say, I think I'm beginning to understand the book of Revelation. And if you're not becoming more outwardly faced in the past say six or seven months, if you've been here the whole time, then you're not, you don't understand a thing that it's saying. You might have lots of notes, you might have notebooks. People have come out the back and they're like, man, that was the greatest thing ever. If it might sound like the greatest thing ever. But if it's not transforming you, really the assessment is maybe you need to revisit it. Like what is it saying? You see because when you look at the book of Revelation, just by way of review, we tend to talk about purpose a lot, I have. But really, everything in the New Testament, at least, is occasioned by something. There's some problem that it's seeking to address. And if you remember, in the book of Revelation, the problem that was being addressed was that these seven churches, which really represent all churches, were struggling to be outwardly faced. Or to be able to bear witness to those around them. In other words, not just serving their community, but actually bearing witness, telling people about the gospel of Jesus. That was a problem. And if it makes you feel any better, it's always been a problem. All the way back in the Old Testament, God started with Abraham and he called him and said that his descendants would be a light to the nations and they would draw people in. And then in the New Testament, we were all called to go. It's a command to go into all the world with the gospel. And yet, we wouldn't have the New Testament if people didn't struggle with that. In other words, you almost never, or you don't ever hear a New Testament letter that's addressed that says something like this. Dear Philippians, praise God, you are the greatest church ever. You never fight, you never complain. And all you do is take the gospel of the people around you. It will be a really short letter. Instead, all of the letters say basically, you know, Philippians, you audience, I beg you, please get along. Stop fighting. In other words, all the letters revolve around problems that are happening in the church, every letter in the New Testament at some level has to do with the fact that the church is being inwardly faced as opposed to outwardly faced. That they're more concerned about what they're concerned about than they're concerned about what Jesus is trying to do in the world. And so it makes sense that the culminating book in the New Testament of the whole Bible that says, if you haven't got it yet, here's the problem that the church always struggles with. And is it what does it mean to bear witness to those outside of us, the outside of our walls? And the question to the extent you understand the book of Revelation is the extent to which you will be outwardly faced. You'll be concerned about those outside. And so there are a couple of members of the purpose is this, though, you might be afraid, you know, in the original context, there was persecution by the Romans and say, well, gosh, you're telling us we're supposed to be outwardly faced, but that could get us killed. Fortunately, that's not the case in the United States. But remember, the purpose is basically to encourage the church that say, even though you have this problem, that you need to engage it because Jesus has won already. That at his death on the cross and his resurrection, he completely conquered sin and death. There's nothing more for him to accomplish as far as that's concerned. The book of Revelation teaches us that he will win in the future. In other words, he has won completely, but in the future, everything will be cleaned up in the way it's supposed to be. But even more so, that even now he is winning. Even now, as we engage the world, Jesus is winning, even when it doesn't look like it, he's winning. So we had this problem that's addressed with the purpose. And then finally, I just wanted to remind you of this word recapitulation. It's a fancy word that theologians use for basically repetition. That when you read the book of Revelation, this message is so important, I think, to be outwardly faced or to bear witness to the world as more of what John would say, that he repeats it over and over and over and over again. You know what you're going to hear today? The same thing you've heard every week that we've been in the book of Revelation. It's always from a different angle. Maybe sometimes it's deeper, sometimes it's not. Sometimes it's more forward-looking, sometimes it's more backward-looking, but it's almost always the same. So when we looked at the seven seals, we talked about the fact that that's basically from the time of Jesus' resurrection. So the time he comes back again, that's what it looks like. In the same time frame is covered with the seven trumpets and they will be covered again with the seven bowls of God's wrath, the same time frame is covered today in chapter 12. But chapter 12 begins a new part of the book of Revelation. So with all of that said, as we jump in, I just want to, if you're note-taker, there are basically two signs and a child. That's all we're going to look at this morning. This is one of those weeks where I thought, okay, I need to do all of chapter 12. And then after about Thursday afternoon, I said, I'm not going to do verses one through six. So two signs and a child is all we're going to look at. Some people, all the way as just a side note, have asked me where the growth group questions. You're not in a growth group, but you like the homework to follow along. We're only producing those now when growth groups are in session because there are a lot of work. So if you're wondering where they are, they don't exist right now. So your notes will have to do. Let's look at the first thing, the sign. Look at verse one, it says, in a great sign appeared in heaven, a woman clothed with sun with a moon under her feet and on her head a crown of 12 stars. The first thing, remember, it's hard to preach one chapter in Revelation without always going back to the last because they're interlaced. And so chapter 11, John is having this vision of heaven. And the last thing he saw was heaven opened up and he saw the ark of the covenant and he saw the thunder and rumbling of God. And this is just following right into it. And the first thing he says is I saw a great sign. Now that should tell you right off the bat that whatever is coming next is not to be taken literally. But we talked in this book that when you should take things symbolically, whenever you can take them symbolically and not until you know for sure it's a literal something or other, should you take it that way? But he tells us right here, I saw a sign. And in the New Testament, a sign is just like a sign is any other place is a sign points to something else. Right? So when we do the Lord's Supper, it's a sign and a seal. What does it point to it? Points just like a road sign. What it points to the body and blood of Jesus given for us. And so this is a sign whatever comes next. And so what he says is I saw this sign and the sign appeared in heaven and it was a woman clothed with the sun with the moon under her feet and on her head a crown of 12 stars. Now who or what is this woman? Now if you read this passage, you'll be very tempted to think that it's who. Mary? It might be but not here. In order to understand this part of revelation like every other part of revelation, you've got to understand the Old Testament. And the Old Testament, Israel is often referred to as Sun, Moon and Stars, but almost every person from every different angle that comments on the book of Revelation agrees that this image comes from Genesis chapter 37. Mergenesis chapter 37 is where Joseph, the one of the 12 brothers was having dreams and he wasn't very smart about how he used his mouth. Mary told his brothers, he's like, is he guys, I had the wireless dream last night? They're all these like sheaves and they were all bowing down to me. You guys are the sheaves and I'm the other one. Isn't that wild? No. And the same thing happens in verses, in verse 9, he basically says, behold, I've dreamed another dream, behold the sun, the moon, and 11 stars were bowing down to me. Everyone I could find said that image is to take us back to Israel itself. Israel is the sun, Leia is the moon, the 11 stars are all of her 12 suns. In other words, the woman equals Israel, but not just any Israel, the woman equals true Israel because we're going to find out later in this chapter that the woman is also equated with the church. So at the beginning of the chapter, the woman is equated with Israel and at the end of the chapter, the woman is equated with the church. And if you remember, as we've gone through the book of Revelation, that Israel and the church eventually become one in the same thing. In other words, the church doesn't replace Israel, but the church is a fulfillment of what God was doing in and through Israel. And so the woman is God's covenant community. Let's call it. And so what does that mean? Well, if you look at the next verse, verse two, she's pregnant. It says she was pregnant and was crying out in birth pains and the agony of giving birth. And that woman is a shout out for all the boys who liked the Legos last week from a website, a brick testament, by the way. So on one hand, you have this woman. And on the other hand, she is crying out with birth pains and agony of giving birth. And if you've ever, if your husband, they've ever seen your wife giving birth, you realize what the Israel isn't like, right? I mean, I remember when we had our first child, my wife bears pain pretty well. So she was having contractions and she would just sort of grimace. And when I took her to the emergency room, there was a woman who was on the floor holding onto her husband's legs screaming at the top of her lungs so much so I could hardly even be in the room. And I went to the lady and I said, you know, my wife's contract is like every minute. And Judy was sitting up there. She'd go, that's not what this is talking about. This woman is the other one that she's an agony and she's in pain. What is it? But what's coming? What's going on here? So you've got this woman. If the woman is Israel, what does it mean that she was pregnant and an agony in pain? Well, simply this is that Israel, this covenant community would be the one who brought forth the Messiah, that she was pregnant with the Messiah. Israel was pregnant with the Messiah. And as you go throughout redemptive history, no one would argue that Israel's history was not agonizing. And at every point in redemptive history, it looked like it wasn't going to happen. In fact, right as soon as Abraham is called in chapter 12, he is called. I'll make you a blessing to the other nations and whoever blesses you all bless, whoever curses you all curse. And it says Abraham went and you say, and in the very next passage, there's a problem and they go down into Egypt and he says, hey, why don't we lie to Pharaoh? You tell him you're my sister and then Pharaoh takes her into his house and sleeps with her. And at that point, if you're the covenant community, you're thinking it's over. The jig is up. The God promised he would do this through Abraham and it's not, but you know what? God worked through that. He worked through with Abraham. He worked through it with Joseph. He worked through it with Moses. He worked through it with Jacob. He worked through it with all the patriarchs, ultimately through Saul and through David and all the way up to Jesus. That it was not an easy road from Abraham to Jesus and yet the birth ultimately happened. And that's what we're going to hear a little bit later. But before we do that, John wants to make a distinction. He sees two signs. He sees a great sign and he sees that another sign. In other words, one's really important and one is, I guess, of average importance. Look at verse three. He says in another sign appeared in heaven. Behold a great red dragon with seven heads and ten horns on his head and seven diadems. So what's the deal with the dragon? This is the first place that the dragon really shows up here in the book of Revelation. And it's interesting because as I was researching this, you know, every single culture in the world, but especially the cultures in the Middle East have a dragon story that sounds almost exactly like this one. I printed a couple for you because there were so many I couldn't remember. In Egypt, the mother goddess Isis is pursued by a red dragon typhon and flees to an island and there she gives birth to the sun god Horace. Eucharitic, the storm god bowed the feet of seven headed serpent Leviathan, Mesopotamia, Marduk, the god of light kills the seven headed dragon Tiamat, and Greco-Roman mythology, the goddess Lito pregnant with a poloist pursued by the dragon Python. She's rescued by Poseidon, who places her in safety and after a poloist born, he slays Python, the dragon. So what's going on here? If all these other cultures have stories where there's a woman who's pursued by a dragon, she's able to get birth and then the one she gives birth to slays the dragon, where does that come from? Any answer? I think it comes from the very beginning. In other words, why does John do this? He could have done anything else. And the answer I think first of all is contextualization. He's speaking in a language that people can understand. Everyone in the Greco-Roman world would have understand there's an issue with a woman and a dragon. And what John is saying here is that this story of this woman and this dragon is actually the true story of all, above all stories. This is the one they're all shooting for. In other words, see us Lewis, if you've read much of him, he was in a Christian growing up and yet he was fascinated by Norse mythology. And then when he finally was introduced to the person and work of Jesus, he was overwhelmed because he said in Jesus, all of the myths became reality. The myth that I've been looking for, the thing that I was hoping for, in Jesus was real. And what John is saying that you might have known your whole life that there's this story of this dragon who's pursuing the woman and this one who he'd come and conquer the dragon. Here is the true story. And by the way, every story that you like follows a pattern similar to this. I bet if you looked at the box office top 10 hits, by the way, that's what John is doing here. Some people who've been the pastor said, yeah, I don't know about you, you used to talk about movies and sermons, yeah, that's a godly or not. What John is doing is a very similar thing. He's using analogy that they would have understood to explain how the gospel works. And if you looked at the box office top 10, I didn't do this, but I'd be willing to bet if you look at the history of movies that most of the top 10 movies were all have the same plot. And the plot is basically this, that there's someone who's in distress, often a damsel. And a hero comes to save the damsel from distress. And in the process of saving the damsel, the hero either dies or at least looks like he dies. And then at the end, he comes back and he's alive and it's a happy ending, right? You know that story. In fact, you know that story so well, that's why you cry at the end of Old Yeller. Remember, if you've seen Old Yeller, if you're under 30 and your parents haven't showed it to you, shame on them. Remember, Old Yeller, he saves Arlus from a wolf. And in the morning, you expect to go into the barn and find Old Yeller wagging his tail because he saves Arlus from a wolf. And when you walk in the barn and open the door and Old Yeller is there growling with foam on his mouth, your heart sinks. Why? Because the story that your heart knows when you walk into the barn, Old Yeller is supposed to be there wagging his tail and jumping up on you because the hero always comes back from the dead. The hero always beats the dragon and comes out victorious. That's what's going on here. That's what's going on in your heart. John is just tapping into that. So he says, on one hand, I saw the sign of a woman, this community. On the other hand, I saw the sign of this dragon who was pursuing her, who was going to war. Now someone asked why does he have seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns or diamonds? Because those are numbers of perfection. We'll get into that more maybe the next time because we're going to look at the rest of the chapter. It either means he was completely evil or he was given complete control of something or he's pretending to have complete control. But that's really not important for now. What's important is his aim. So if you look at verse four, says his tail swept down a third of the stars of heaven and cast him to earth. And it's the dragon stood before the woman who was about to give birth so that when she bore her child, he might devour it. So the first thing it says is tail swept down a third of the stars of heaven and cast them to earth. We're going to talk about that again more the next time because people are divided because stars can either mean people or can mean angels. And does it mean he struck down people? Or does it mean he brought down angels from heaven with him? It's probably the latter because the next thing is about the war in heaven. What we do know is that dragons, the way they kill you as they use their tail apparently, not their fiery breath. And that's what he used to strike down a third of the heavens. What's more important I think is what comes next. Says in the dragon stood before the woman who was about to give birth so that when she bore her child, he might devour it. Now what's going on here? You know you understand this passage by the way? If you've ever seen the movie Terminator. I'm not recommending it. It's rated R, but it's pretty good. Remember the movie Terminator basically is about these in some distant future machines have taken over humanity and there's only a remnant of humans left and the one who will come to save them is named John Conner. Interestingly enough his initials are JC. And John Conner will save them and so what the robots determined to do, the best way to stop John Conner is to send someone back in time to stop him before he's ever born to kill his mother. And so the whole movie is about the three movies about that. In some sense it's exactly what's happening right here. If you remember in the book of Genesis and when Adam and Eve sinned in the garden, curse was brought on all of creation and God came and he begins to meet out discipline. And the first thing that God says to anyone is to the dragon. In Genesis he's called the serpent by the way. Later on in this passage he says the dragon is the serpent. So what does God say to the serpent? The first thing that God says to the serpent is he makes the serpent not us a promise. He says the seed of the woman will crush your head. In other words one of her children is going to utterly destroy and kill you. You will bruise his heel but ultimately he will be victorious. And so from the beginning of creation the dragon has known that one of the seed of the woman will come and eventually kill him. And so if you were the dragon what would you do?
From Genesis 3, 15 till present day you will be doing everything you could to stop the birth of that child. You'll be doing everything you could and that's why you get all these problems with Israel. That's why you have all the nations are equated with demonic powers oftentimes because they are trying to stop the birth of the child. All the way up to even till you get to the New Testament even after the child is born the child they seek to destroy him. Do you remember? After Jesus is born Herod sends people to kill all the male children in the city of Bethlehem and it doesn't work why? Because you look at verse 5 it says she gave birth to a male child. I'm one who has to rule all the nations with a rod of iron. And he says but the child was caught up to God and to his throne. So what's going on here it says for one the dragon failed. He wasn't able to stop the birth of the child. Not only did he fail in the strut stopping the birth of the child but he ultimately failed because what you have here in verse 5 is a summary of the whole gospel that you find in the whole Bible and the whole New Testament in particular. You guys are saying what? So she get birth to a male child. One who has to rule the nations with the rod of iron but her child was caught up to God to his throne. In other words you have in this verse you have the birth of Jesus culminating in the ascension of Jesus. And the question is why didn't he include all the stuff in the middle? Well for one if you were here at the beginning during the introduction I talked about the Burger King Principle which I don't remember why it was called that but the Burger King Principle basically says anytime you treat you can't say everything anytime you try to say something otherwise you say nothing at all. So in other words if John wanted to fill in this the middle part here he would just write a gospel which he did but here he's just giving us the thumbnail sketch and just so you know I mean you see oftentimes in the New Testament. So for example let me read to you quickly Romans 1 verses 1 through 4 he Paul opens up he says Paul is servant of Christ Jesus called to be an apostle set apart for the gospel of God which he promised beforehand through his prophets and the Holy Scriptures concerning his son who was descended from David according to the flesh and who was declared to be the son of God about empower according to the spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead. So he takes him right from his declaration of being the son of God to his ascension but he doesn't cover all of the stuff in the middle. First Timothy 316 is very similar he says great indeed we confess it's the mystery of godliness he was manifested in the flesh vindicated by the spirit seen by the angels proclaimed among the nations taken believed on in the world and taken up into glory. In other words you have a thumbnail of what the gospel is or at least the person and work of Jesus is but what you see here is for one that Jesus what what's happened is this passage is almost like a funnel it starts with the covenant community and it works its way down until it actually is a woman Mary who gives birth to a male child singular Jesus but then it begins to spread back out again because this child was born to reign and so it says he is the one who's to rule the nations with a rod of iron that's from Psalm 2 by the way some translation say he's the one who will shepherd the nations with a rod of iron now with the rod of iron was for was disciplined and it was shattering those nations who would come against him but also at the end where it says that he her child was caught up to god and to his throne then the language there is actually the word snatched up it's almost a violent word that in other words there's no way the dragon could have won there's no way that that Jesus that at the cross and the resurrection of Jesus it's almost like he was he snatched victory from the jaws of the feet to use that cliche and so Jesus now reigns on high so the the dragon fights he tries to devour the child but he is born he lives he lives a life we should have lived he dies of death we should have died and he raises again from the dead to rule all of the world and then that takes us to so what about now after the the the resurrection of Jesus and ascension in verse 6 it says in the woman fled into the wilderness where she is a place prepared by god and what she is to be nourished for 1260 days now if you remember 1260 days is 42 months it's also about three and a half years we talked about that before as well 42 months basically equals the whole time that the church lives on the earth between the first coming of Jesus and the second coming of Jesus and in other words that Jesus came he was born and he raised from the dead he ascended to heaven and then at that point the covenant people of god in this case the church is actually taken to the wilderness and preserved the whole time until he comes back so there are few things that you should be mindful of there one is that the place where the church lives the place where we live is the wilderness and there's no getting around it in fact most of us when you think about like a bad thing it's like man I'm really in the weeds now I'm up stuck I feel like I'm just wandering in the wilderness and if you feel like that you're exactly where god wants you to be you're exactly where the place god has prepared you to be because when you look at the old testament the old testament was a place of of assessment for sure a place of testing for Israel in the covenant community but it was also a place of protection for the covenant community in other words the Egyptians were coming after Israel god didn't take them to a city he took them into the wilderness in order to protect them that the wilderness is a place of protection it's not a bad place and most of us think when things get difficult and when things get hard we say god has brought me to this place to punish me or god must have brought me to this place to discipline me and you know he may be disciplining you but he's also protecting you it's just a fact and he brings us to the the wilderness to nourish us and to grow us and to build us you know I read a book when when Judy and I were engaged with we read several books and one of the books we had to read was by a guy named Gary Smalley I forget which one it was and he said one of the quickest ways to build your marriage is to go camping and he said the reason for that the reason that the quickest way to build your marriage is to go camping is because camping at the end of the day is miserable and so you remove yourself from all the trappings from all the things that are convenient all the things that you use to escape and now you're out in the woods and you've got to deal with the fact that someone forgot to bring toilet paper or that someone burnt the chicken or that someone did something it's just a lot more difficult than when everyone's in a nice controlled environment you see the wilderness even in our situation as a place physically where god uses to draw us closer to each other and closer to himself I think another thing about the wilderness those I thought about camping it's not only miserable but it makes you long for home does me makes you long is there anything better after you been camping for a week to come home and take a shower in your own shower there's not heaven you see being in the wilderness is a place of protection it's a place where god builds this but it also makes us long for home it's not the perfect place but it's the place that god uses and here's the crux of it all even when we are in the wilderness which this text says we will be in the wilderness from now until Jesus comes back the thing that sustains us is just this is that Jesus himself went through the wilderness and Jesus went through the wilderness and underwent an assessment the likes of which none of us could imagine he went to the wilderness for 40 days and while he was in the wilderness for 40 days he was tempted by Satan and I always think a buddy of mine told me one time he said Tommy if you could take this much temptation and how much temptation do you think Jesus could take in other words Satan threw everything at Jesus that he could possibly throw at him and Jesus withstood the temptation of Satan and the temptation of the dragon the dragon is trying to destroy him completely successfully and then that record is transferred to us so now as we live in the wilderness we actually live in the wilderness with the record of people who have survived the wilderness now we just have to embrace it for what it is but even more than Jesus having lived it for us god sends his spirit to attend us in the midst of it think about that let me pray for us father I pray that as we wander in our own wilderness as we seek a city made by god as we we long for home I pray that you would also help us to engage the wilderness to redeem the wilderness to make it more and more like the city of god I pray that as we consider the gospel that we would be more excited about the fact that you have conquered the dragon he might rove he might be angry but he is gone and he is is crushed under the feet of Jesus I pray that you would just teach us these things in Christ name amen and amen