Alan Dunn

There’s a storyline that you will often find used in books and movies, and the storyline goes something like this: there’s a modern person who somehow discovers that they’re caught up in a great battle, a battle that has been going on for a long time, and, lo and behold, they become a character in this battle, this story, that the whole movie or the whole book gets caught up in. For example, if you’re aware of the old movies Indiana Jones where Harrison Ford goes to look for treasure and he begins to discover that there are evil people, that they’re from the history past, and he now is caught up in all of this great story. Well, we learned that we’re part of a very ancient, ancient war, a battle that has begun since the very dawn of time.

I direct your attention, as we begin by way of review, to Genesis chapter 3. The first of several texts that we’ll look at is perhaps one of the most foundational passages which gives to us the promise of the Gospel, and describes the triumph of Christ over Satan. In Genesis 3, verse 15, the Lord says to the serpent, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed. He shall bruise you in the head, and you shall bruise him on the heel.” We learned, in our last study, that we are called to be witnesses for Jesus Christ and we are to bear witness not only with our words and with our deeds of benevolence, but we are also to bear witness when we are called to suffer for Christ’s sake, and in that suffering to endeavor to advance the Gospel and the Kingdom of God. We learned that suffering in the way of obedience to Christ is, in fact, the strategy of victory for us in this spiritual warfare that we are fighting against Satan and against demonic powers of darkness. You remember how the Apostle Paul ends the letter to the Romans in Romans chapter 16? He draws upon the words and the concepts of Genesis 3:15, where in Romans 16:20 Paul says, “The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. The grace of our Lord Jesus be with you.” We are called to enter into this ancient battle, and we are called to fight in a very unique way: to learn the strategy of the Lamb, how it is that through suffering, experiencing the fangs of Satan piercing our heels, that we are yet to crush the head of the serpent in our obedient witness to Christ.

We learned, in our last study, that we are to fight with fang-pierced heels. I want to continue in that study to encourage you and to exhort you and to let you know in all seriousness: you must overcome. That’s the title of our message, it’s the sum of my call to you in our study of the Word of God, and it is the first heading of the sermon: you must overcome! You are familiar with the Greek word “overcome.” You know it. If you’re saying, “Well, I’m not sure that I know it,” well, have you ever bought any athletic, running shoes from a company called Nike? Nike is a word that is taken from this Greek word: “overcome, to be victorious.” The idea is if you buy these athletic shoes then you will win all of your races, you will be the victor, you will be the Nike, the overcomer. The word “overcome” is a military term, it means “to conquer,” it means “to prevail over your enemy” and “to triumph in conflict.” It is also a term that is used in the court system, it is a legal term, and it is coupled with the term “witness,” which is a legal term of the court. The Greek word “witness” is transliterated into the English word “martyr,” so that in our witnessing we are, in fact, martyrs, and we are engaged in this spiritual conflict in which we are called to overcome.

I ask you to turn to the book of Revelation chapter 2. In the book of Revelation we learn that we are to overcome by being witnesses. It is when we witness, when we embrace the role of martyrs, that we, then, overcome in this spiritual battle. You’re familiar with Revelation chapter 2 and chapter 3, Jesus, the Exalted Lord and King, writes seven letters to seven churches, and I address your attention to the way in which each letter concludes. In Revelation chapter 2 and verse 7, to the church in Ephesus: “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes, I will grant to eat of the tree of life which is in the Paradise of God.” In chapter 2, verse 11, the conclusion to the letter to the church in Smyrna: “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. He who overcomes will not be hurt by the second death.” In chapter 2, verse 17, concluding the letter to Pergamum: “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes, to him I will give some of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone, and a new name written on the stone which no one knows but he who receives it.”

Again in verse 26, the message to Thyatira: “He who overcomes, and he who keeps My deeds until the end, to him I will give authority over the nations.” Then chapter 3, in verse 5, the letter to Sardis: “He who overcomes will thus be clothed in white garments; and I will not erase his name from the book of life, and I will confess his name before My Father and before His angels.” And then to the church in Philadelphia, chapter 3, verse 12: “He who overcomes, I will make him a pillar in the temple of My God, and he will not go out from it anymore; and I will write on him the name of My God, and the name of the city of My God, the new Jerusalem, which comes down out of heaven from My God, and a new name. He who has an ear to hear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.” To the church in Laodicea, in chapter 3, again, there in verse 21: “He who overcomes, I will grant to him to sit down with Me on My throne, as I also overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.”

Now, Jesus has different things to say in each one of these churches, but you notice that Jesus has the same thing to say to each one of these churches. You heard that in the repeated phrase, “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches,” and in the promises that are given to the one who overcomes. There is no escaping this reality: those who enter the Kingdom of God are those who overcome. You must overcome! I pray that you have the ears to hear that message from the Spirit of the Living Christ. Now, this doctrine of overcoming opens us up to the subject of sanctification, to the doctrine of the persevering of the saints, to the necessity of good works that give evidence to a living faith. It speaks to the Christian life, which is to be lived actively, intentionally, purposefully. It is pictured in the Bible as a military conflict, the Christian life is pictured as an athletic competition.

We read of the Christian life with verbs like: striving, agonizing, endeavoring, and enduring. Jesus says in Matthew 11:12, “From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and violent men are taking it by force.” Who’s going to Heaven? How can you tell if someone is going to Heaven? They are actively, aggressively, intentionally, relentlessly, violently pursuing discipleship to Jesus Christ and taking the Kingdom by force. After these seven summons to overcome, John, then, in Revelation 5, presents us with the Overcomer, the One who has overcome. We read of Him in Revelation 5, verse 5 and 6. You remember that John, here, is given a vision of God’s throne room, and he is weeping in verse 4, because there is no one found worthy to open this book of seven seals, this book in which history is administered, this book of rule and government. “And one of the elders…” Revelation 5:5, “…said to me, ‘Stop weeping; behold, the Lion that is from the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has overcome so as to open the book and its seven seals.’ And I saw between the throne (with the four living creatures) and the elders a Lamb standing, as if slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God, sent out into all the earth.”

“The Lion of Judah” is a military name, it’s the name that would bring to mind King David and all of his victorious, military exploits. You hear the words “Lion of Judah,” and you get in your mind this picture of an ancient warrior with his sword in his hand and his shield dented and spattered with the enemies blood and his hair matted down and sweat and the dust of the battlefield clinging upon him. You think of this glorious warrior coming out of the dust and dirt of the conflict in the battlefield, with the corpses of his enemies lying on the ground behind him. John says, “I look, I look,” as it were, “to see this glorious Warrior, this Lion, and I see a Lamb!” It looks like he’s been slain—and that’s a word from the temple, it’s describing the way a priest would cut the sacrificial lamb in an offering of worship—but he’s not lying down dead, he’s standing! “Having been slain, and yet standing,” He’s a resurrected Lamb! We are told this is the One, the root of David, He has overcome. You must overcome! He has overcome, you must overcome as you follow Him who is the Overcomer.

This is what it means to overcome: it means to be a follower of the Lion/Lamb, to trust in Christ, and to overcome by faith; to love Christ in a life of obedience, and to overcome by obedience. And that obedience, dear brethren, will lead you on to the battlefield! That obedience will lead you into conflict with Satan, that one who from the dawn of time has been intent upon killing the seed of the woman. That one who is yet, as we read briefly from Revelation 12, still intent upon killing the seed of the woman. We are to follow Him as He puts His heel down upon the head of the serpent, and the serpent’s fangs dig into His heel. We too are to walk that narrow way, and that way is paved not with gold, not a warm walk on a beach, that way is paved with the serpent’s open fangs piercing into our heels! As we press down upon that head of the snake, we feel it’s bones crushed, and it’s through suffering for obedience, for the name of Christ, that we overcome. It’s an overcoming through suffering for righteousness, and we all must overcome, we are called to overcome.

I want us to see this summons to overcome, by reviewing with you the main portion of Revelation chapter 11. Brethren, I believe that the church, the bride of Christ, I believe that she is victorious. I believe that she will complete the work that her Lord has given her to do. She will, indeed, bear witness, and that to all of the nations, and she will accomplish the great commision that the risen Christ has given to her. She will take the Gospel through all the world. However, many who, in this age, profess faith in Christ will, in these last days, fall away, apostatize, as we also are taught today, and there will only be but a remnant, a residue of true believers, the true seed of the woman, the true sons of Abraham, the true circumcised of heart. They, the true people of God, will, indeed, endure till the end, but, like their Lord Jesus Christ, they will be called to suffer, and the church will experience its own form of crucifixion. After that experience of crucifixion, she, like her Lord, will rise from the dead and ascend into the glory of her Husband. I believe that is what John tells us in Revelation chapter 11: that it is through suffering, through the tribulation, by persevering, in obedient faith to Christ, in the midst of the opposition of a world that hates us, demonic demons that are lying to us, and Satan, who is orchestrating his rage and hatred against Christ directed at us, it’s in the midst of that spiritual conflict that we will be given the power of the risen Christ to overcome, through death if need be.

That brings us, secondly: overcoming until the end. Now, how are we to understand this time that leads to the end of this present age, that period of time that precedes the coming of Christ Jesus? I submit to you that the best metaphor, the best picture that we have—in order to understand this present age as it leads to the resurrection of the dead and results in the glory that’s to come—that the best picture of the present age is: a pregnant woman. Jesus tells us—in Matthew 24, verse 8; in Mark 13, verse 8; in John 16, verse 20-21—that the times in which we live are like the times of a woman who experiences the contractions of birth pains just before the birth of a child. Jesus would have us understand, brethren, that this world, this age, this period of history, has been impregnated, it has been impregnated with life, a new order of life, resurrection life.

This age has been impregnated with life. That’s you! You’re that life if, indeed, you are born again, alive by the Spirit, given that life of the risen Christ. The resurrection life of Jesus Christ is deposited in you by the gift and indwelling of the Spirit. You’ve been given a downpayment of your eternal inheritance, which is life forever in the new heavens and the new earth! You already taste of those good things to come, because you have been made alive through the ministry of the Holy Spirit sent from the resurrected Jesus Christ, and if you’re born again, you’re born with a life of the age to come. The world is pregnant with you! Paul tells us in Romans chapter 8 that the world is groaning as a woman in travail, who is waiting for the birthing of the sons of God, which is the resurrection of our bodies! The world is like a pregnant woman who’s in travail, waiting for the delivery of the sons of God, so that the world might also enter into the glories of that resurrection life! Your resurrection is part of God’s goal for history.

That description of a pregnant woman describes this entire age until the end, where Christ returns, but I also believe the Bible would have us understand this metaphor of a pregnant woman to understand smaller subsets of tribulation, briefer periods of time, localized, regionalized, where there is this pattern of contractions and then relaxations, and then contractions and then relaxation, and contractions. They get more and more intense, and then they build up, and more and more intense, and then sometimes they can dissipate. Now, we can find this pattern occurs, sometimes, in your dealings with individuals when you attempt to sow the good seed into the heart of a man or a woman and they begin to work against it, and again there’s rise, and again; and you begin to realize, “Wait a minute here, this could be very well what Jesus says that I’m not to throw my pearls before the swine, lest they turn and trample.”

You can see the increased opposition, sometimes from individuals, sometimes, you can see it in localized communities or cultures: Chorazin, Bethsaida, where there was a community determination to reject the light of the Gospel; where Jesus, as it were, was run out of town as He was in Nazareth, and experiences the hatred that rises up from the world and the sons of this present age. And I believe, that these contractions will build, as history proceeds, until the very end of history when the entire world will experience these contractions, and the final culminating contraction which will, in fact, result in the resurrection of the dead and the return of Jesus Christ. In that time, I understand the words of Revelation 20, verse 7 and 8, to be that little season in which Satan is released to, once again, go forth and deceive all of the nations. I believe that little season is a time of birth contraction that is characterized by an intense, an extensive, virtually worldwide opposition and persecution to the church of Jesus Christ.

Now, having said that, let’s look then to Revelation 11, reading verse 1 and 2, “Then there was given me a measuring rod like a staff; and someone said, ‘Get up and measure the temple of God and the altar, and those who worship in it. Leave out the court which is outside the temple and do not measure it, for it has been given to the nations; and they will tread under foot the holy city for forty-two months.’” Here, I believe, the church is represented, the church as the temple of God. In our studies today, when Pastor Cook asked us about the pictures that the Bible gives us of the church, and we studied the church as the bride of Christ and the church as the body of Christ, the church as the temple of God is another Biblical picture! Here, John is given a measuring rod. Measuring is mapping out a boundary, and to measure in a temple is to identify the boundary in which the God of that temple will be present. Simon Kistemaker comments, “Measuring the temple of God symbolizes the knowledge and care of God for His people.” The reader of Revelation 11 would immediately think of Ezekiel, and how, at the end of his prophecy, there are several chapters in which he is doing what John does: he measures all of the temple of God. What is he doing? He’s giving to you a communication of prophecy, and he’s saying, “Here’s the boundary, here’s the landscape in which the living God will dwell with men.”

This measuring parallels the ceiling of the 144,000 in chapter 7, who by the ceiling are protected and preserved as God’s holy nation, a nation of God’s priestly sons. And, like Ezequiel, who measures this untimed tabernacle or temple, this eschatological temple, like Ezequiel, who spoke to the Babylonians exiles, so to John speaks to the church when she is now exiled in eschatological Babylon, in the spiritual Babylon. He gives them encouragement that God has His temple, it’s being measured, and there is a place in the presence of God where the people of God are protected and provided for, because Babylon is a dangerous place to live. John tells us in Revelation 17:6 that this harlot, this Babylonian whore, is drunk with the blood of the saints and the witnesses of Jesus. But there is this portion of the temple, in verse 2, that is not measured, and I believe that has to do with what Pastor Meadows is preaching about, and that has to do with apostasy. It has to do with something that looks like the church, but is, in fact, not a place of God’s living presence, it is not a true temple.

The great apostasy of the last day is prophesied by Christ in Matthew 24:10, and by the Apostle Paul in 2 Thessalonians 2, verse 3 and following. I believe that this entire edifice, this entire temple, will come under the persecution and be threatened to be tread underfoot in persecution. And a great portion of this edifice, this temple, this church structure, will apostatise, not having been measured, not having received the protection and care of God; but there is that measured portion, that true, vital remnant of Believers who are identified by their worship. They are a temple of God’s priestly sons, and in their worship they are being triumphant and victorious, protected and overcoming.

Continue in Revelation 11, verse 3, “And I will grant authority to my two witnesses, and they will prophesy for twelve hundred and sixty days, clothed in sackcloth. These are the two olive trees and the two lampstands that stand before the Lord of the earth. And if anyone wants to harm them, fire flows out of their mouth and devours their enemies; so if anyone wants to harm them, he must be killed in this way. These have the power to shut up the sky, so that rain will not fall during the days of their prophesying; and they have power over the waters to turn them into blood, and to strike the earth with every plague, as often as they desire. And,” verse 7, “they have finished their testimony.” They come to the conclusion of their testimony. Now, here, I understand this text to say the church will complete the Great Commision; it will, in fact, be the witness that Christ sent the church to be. Notice, “They finished their testimony,” in verse 7. They completed the witness; they gave the proclamation; they completed the work that God had given to do; they finished it.

This is a testimony that is legally valid, because it is a testimony given by two witnesses. In Deuteronomy 19:15, a legally valid testimony requires two or three witnesses. The legal testimony of the church is accompanied by these miraculous descriptions that recall to mind the ministries of Jonah, Elijah, Moses, and John the Baptist. Here is the prophetic ministry of the church standing in line with the prophets of old, and making a proclamation like unto John the Baptist, like unto Elijah, like unto Jonah, who walked through Nineveh and cried, “Repent! Judgement is coming!” They finished their witness. “This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world for a witness to all of the nations, and then the end shall come,” in Matthew 24:14. This word “finished,” you’ve heard that word before, haven’t you? Where have you heard Someone say “it is finished”? It’s the same word that Jesus uses in the Gospel of John—in chapter 19, verse 30—when He cries out, in the cry of victory and the cry of completion of the task, a cry of conquest: “It is finished!” And so too, John uses the same vocabulary in relation to the bride of Christ, and says, “The church also will come to that time in her history where she too will say, ‘It is finished!’” But I ask you: where was Jesus when He cried those words? He was on the cross. He cried these words of completion, these words of victory, while hanging on the cross.

Here we come to a surprising use of this word “overcome.” Notice verse 7, the second part of the verse in Revelation 11, “When they have finished their testimony, the beast that comes up out of the abyss will make war with them, and overcome them and kill them.” That’s just shocking! The word “overcome” previously, in Revelation, has been a word that we, the Believers, own. We’re the overcomers! We’re the Nike people! We’re the winners! We’re the conquerors; and now, we read here that there is this beast that will make war and overcome the saints, overcome the witness, overcome the church and kill them! Again, in chapter 13, verse 7, there was given to the beast “to make war with the saints and to overcome them.” And we’re told in chapter 11, verse 7 that overcoming means killing! There was given to this beast this ability to overcome. What does that refer to? Who gives this beast the wherewithal to make war and overcome the witnesses? “It was given,” that’s what you call “a divine passive,” in other words: the Doer of that action is none other than God Himself, Christ Himself, who is directing history as He opens the seals of the scroll and is given to the beast. “Rise up now,” from where? “From the abyss,” what’s that? It’s the place of Satan! It’s the synonym of hell! Here, from the abyss, comes this beast that does the work of Satan; and like in chapter 12, which we briefly read previously, here is the one who persecutes the seed of the woman to overcome the believers, to wage war against the witnesses, to trample underfoot the temple, the outer court, which has not been measured. This is bringing us back to Genesis 3:15, reminding us of this ancient battle that we now are involved in, and this is also persecution, it is martyrdom. Overcoming and being killed is martyrdom!

Now, when John says that this beast makes war with the witnesses and overcomes them and kills them, I don’t believe that we are to conclude by this: that every individual Christian and every local church on the planet has now been totally eradicated and completely absent. I’d rather believe that the overcoming and killing them is descriptive of what the beast does to the witness, to the testimony, to the message that is being born by the church. It’s a way of describing that the beast is able to work so as to shut the mouth of the church and stop that message, stop the preaching, stop the witness.

In chapter 11 of Revelation, verse 8, speaking of the two witnesses: “Now their dead bodies will lie on the street of the great city, which mystically is called Sodom and Egypt, where also their Lord was crucified. Those from the peoples and tribes and tongues and nations will look at their dead bodies for three and a half days, and will not permit their dead bodies to be laid in a tomb. And those who dwell on the earth will rejoice over them and celebrate; and they will send gifts to one another, because these two prophets tormented those who dwell on the earth.” Here the church is conformed to her Lord Jesus Christ, here she is conformed to His death and is virtually crucified, and the world celebrates the silencing of her testimony. The world rejoices, because now, in the public square, visible to all, there the two witnesses’ bodies lie; carcasses on the street, exposed in the great city, that city where the Lord was crucified. “Just like the witnesses, so to the Lord.” This city is called Sodom and Egypt, but what’s the city that the Lord was crucified in? It was the city of Jerusalem, wasn’t it? But, you see, there’s only two cities in the book of Revelation, there’s the Heavenly Jerusalem, and then there’s Babylon. When John says that “the two witnesses lie in the great city,” he’s referring to earthly Jerusalem, he’s referring to what Pastor Meadows taught us this afternoon: that now that religious system associated with earthly Jerusalem has joined and aligned itself with the powers of Godness. It is no better than Sodom, a place of sensual temptation, and it is just as much an enemy to the people of God as Egypt, a place of enslavement.

Old Covenant religion—to whatever extent—it still manifests itself here, is aligned—as Jesus says earlier—as “a synagogue of Satan,” not as true worshipers of Christ. In verse 9. the bodies are strewn out on the streets, not permitted to be buried, what does that mean? Well, it is the language of dishonor of the dead. We are experiencing that now, aren’t we? This Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the man from the Batem Both Boston Bombing, a funeral director has agreed to tend to his remains, and there’s no cemetery that is willing to allow him to be buried in Massachusetts; I know how that’s interpreted in other parts of the world: that’s a great dishonor. It’s a great dishonor, and that’s what’s being communicated here. You see, when you read about a body that’s lying exposed and you hear about the vultures that gather, the birds of prey that come down and eat of the flesh of the body, that’s the language of , Covenant Curse. That’s what Abraham attempted to prevent in Genesis 13 when the fiery oven comes between the two pieces and the great sacrifice and worship of Abraham, and he’s swooing away the birds. You see, a body not buried is a cursed body, and the world is saying, in this dishonor, in this brief period of time, the world is saying, “We do not honor this church, these witnesses.”

Kistemaker, again, says, “The witness of the church has been completed. God has withdrawn His Word and testimony, and the world now views the lifeless frame of Christian religion.” It’s but a short period of time, it’s only three and a half days, that’s short relative to the three and a half years that describes the entire church age. It is, I believe, that intensified, brief, little season in which the Evil One is released in Revelation 20, and now is able to “go forth and deceive all of the nations.” In verse 10, we see this Godless culture that could not tolerate the witness of the church, because the witness of the church tormented them with this message. It’s described earlier as fire coming out of their mouth, and the word of “repent” and the word of “sin” and the word of “judgement” and the word of “condemnation” is a word that the world does not want to hear and puts its thumbs in its ears and gnashes its teeth like it did with Stephen in Acts 8 and rushes toward him to kill him! It’s ironic, because, now that they’ve gotten rid of the witness, they can’t forget it, so now, instead of persecuting it in its presence, they celebrate its absence, and man continues to be defined in terms of the Word of God, even in his rebellion, even in his wicked, wicked opposition.

Verse 11, “But after three and a half days, the breath of life from God came into them, and they stood on their feet; and great fear fell upon those who were watching them. And when they heard a loud voice from heaven saying to them, ‘Come up here.’ Then they went up into heaven in the cloud, and their enemies watched them. And in that hour there was a great earthquake, and a tenth of the city fell; seven thousand people were killed in the earthquake, and the rest were terrified and gave glory to the God of heaven.” The reader here would remember, again, Ezekiel and the dead coming to life! Where in Exequiel 37 he’s told to preach over this valley of dead bones, and, suddenly, the bones begin to come alive and sinew is grown and flesh is grown and life comes and that which was once dead is made alive by the God who raises the dead! Here, these two witnesses, suddenly, stand up! It’s the language of resurrection; and then they ascend into Heaven, and that in the sight of all of their enemies. And there is an earthquake! Now, if you trace out the theme of earthquakes in the book of Revelation, you’ll find that that is a signal that tells you, “Final judgement is occurring.” I don’t have time to prove that to you, I really don’t have time to finish this message, but you’ll have to trust me for that.

Here we have, my brethren, this voice come up here, this resurrection, this is a depiction of the return of Christ. When we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, in 1 Thessalonians 4:17, and then there is immediate judgment! The earth is quaking, the dead are rising, the wicked are being judged, and God is being glorified! Then, as Johnson says of this text, “It seems most insistent, therefore, to see the witnesses’ resurrection as a portraying bodily resurrection of all those who belong to Christ’s true church, by faith, at His return, accompanied by the great earthquake of judgment that will compel fear-filled praise even from God’s enemies. ‘Every mouth will confess, every knee will bow, and every lip, mouth will confess that Jesus is Lord.’”

Brethren, I believe that there’s coming a time when the church’s witness will consist of suffering for righteousness, a time when it will appear as though the beast of this age has overcome the witnesses, a time when our witness will, indeed, be martyrdom. I believe that here is the endurance of the saints, through this little season that precedes Christ’s return, that will be the final, birthing contraction that will, finally, issue into the resurrection of the sons of God. Satan and the beast and Babylon and the Godless culture of this age thinks that it has finally killed the witnesses and silenced this convicting message! Don’t you know that’s what’s happening now? In our culture, the media elite will not allow the message to be proclaimed! I saw a cartoon last week—newspaper cartoon—of a big football player tebowed across his back, and a man with a microphone and a press cap and a card that says he’s from the press walking in from of him, and the tebow figure says, “I’m a Christian,” and the media figure says, “Just keep that to yourself.” Then in the next frame there is a picture of a big athlete, a basketball player, Jason Collins’ name on the back, and he says, “I’m gay,” and the media character has the microphone up and says, “Oh! Tell us all about it, you big hero!” You see, it’s a silencing of the witnesses! It’s begun!

I believe, brethren, that our only hope is the coming of Jesus Christ and the resurrecting of the dead. I don’t see my Bible describing the witnesses of the Gospel in the last day as occupying places of political power; I don’t see them as being put into places of worldly influences; I see them, rather, as those who are being martyred, those who are lamblike, slaughtered like lambs prepared for the sacrifice! That they are engaged in this spiritual warfare against the forces of darkness that work through the worldviews and the value system of a Godless culture that are found in governments that make laws out of immorality! Last week Rhode Island became the ninth state in our union to legalize same-sex marriage, Delaware is scheduled to do so this week! How does a Christian live in a culture like that?! Like Lot, with his righteous soul being vexed? But I pray not like Lot, whose testimony and witness was so weak and ineffective, he couldn’t even convince his sons-in-law to flee the city.

Brethren, I believe our only hope is the day of Christ’s return, the day at which we, with our Lord, will cry out “It is finished!” In the resurrection, in the age to come, but, in the meantime, we must go the way of the cross! We must go the way of the Lamb! We must take advantage of this day in which we are still permitted to gather in a public place to preach! We must still take advantage of the opportunity that we have to send out missionaries and to be engaged in Gospel witness, and we must begin to exercise the muscles that prepare us for that kind of witness that comes in the context of suffering! Andreas Kostenberger and Peter O’Brien in their book Salvation to the Ends of the Earth say, “In the final days it is not mission, but holding to the testimony of Jesus that is needed; for the one who overcomes and endures is the one who will be rewarded eternally.” My dear brethren, you must overcome! You must endure to the end!

You must overcome, you must overcome until the end, and thirdly: you must overcome with fang-pierced heels! I want you to connect tonight’s message to my last message and the serpent and our fang-pierced heels. Brethren, that’s the strategy, that’s the picture of victory as the people of God step into the path of obedience. It’s a narrow way and the snake is on that way and the snake is hissing and showing his fangs and he’s saying, “Get off the path! Get off the path! Apostatize! Apostatize, because if you don’t I’ll bite you! I’ll bite you, and I’ll hurt you!” We’re called to press down, press on, press down. We will crush his head, but he will bruise our heel. The God of peace will crush Satan’s head through you!

In Revelation chapter 12, in verse 11, this is what history is all about. In this chapter of Revelation 12, it’s describing history from the fall of man to the exaltation of Jesus Christ, and now the church in the wilderness. In verse 11, “They overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb and because of the word of their testimony, and they did not love their life even when faced with death.” That’s the language of Genesis 3:15, that’s the call of Christ to overcome! Here is the God who gives us our marching orders, “March with your feet coming down on the head of the serpent and his fangs piercing into your heels! March! Move forward and overcome!” The challenge of this war is that we fight demonic forces, and the only way to win in this war is a repulsive strategy to us; it looks like weakness, it looks like defeat, it is painful, it seems to be turned upside down and inside out! Paul says in Romans chapter 8, “In these things we are more than conquerors,” what things? “All day long we are like sheep being led to the slaughter.” What? You look at a lamb being slaughtered and you say, “There’s victory”? You look at a naked man, pummeled and bleeding and hanging on a cross, and you say, “There’s my King; there’s victory; there it is finished”? What kind of God do you have who calls you to follow a crucified King? You see, we are so turned upside down, we don’t realize that it’s the slaughtered Lamb who wins, and it’s on the cross where Jesus, power, and Kingship is manifest, as there He is overcoming!

Gregory Beale, in his commentary on Revelation, says, “As in John’s Gospel, so in John’s Apocalypse. The death and defeat of Christ are in reality His victory over Satan! The Lamb’s followers…” that’s you “…are to recapitulate the model of His ironic victory in their own lives. By enduring through tribulation they reign in the invisible Kingdom of the Messiah! They exercise kingship in the midst of their suffering, just as Christ did from the cross! Christians are called to be conquerors by emulating in their own lives the archetypical triumph of Jesus, and though a Christian’s’ outer body is vulnerable to persecution and suffering, God has promised to protect the regenerated inner spirit of the true saints. And at the end of the sojourn of Christ’s body—that is the church—its presence, like His, will be completely removed, and then it will be resurrected!”

You realize what you’ve signed up for? “I’m a Christian; I’ll follow you Jesus!” By the way, where are you going? The scribes and the elders will persecute the Son of Man, and they’ll kill Him, but in three days He will rise again. You still coming? You still following? By faith, dear brethren, you can see through the pain. My dear pastors, friends, overcome! By faith you can see beyond the frustration and beyond the disappointments, you can see beyond the fear and you can recognize the true identity of this Lamb who is, indeed, the Lion, the King of Judah! You see, we are warriors in this battle! We are sons of King David! We are sons of the Most High God, and we are to demonstrate our royal pedigree, our warrior identity, by learning how to fight like slaughtered lambs, by learning the way of the Lamb. What did Jesus tell the church in Revelation 3 and verse 21? What did He say? He said, “He who overcomes, I will grant him to sit down with Me on My throne, as I also overcame and sat down with My Father on the throne.” “As I also overcame, you also must overcome.” How? As we read in chapter 12, verse 11, “By the blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony,” because we are the blood-bought people of Christ, and the victory that has purchased our redemption is the crucified Lamb of God, and by that Overcomer we overcome and we bear testimony to Christ, and we will do so with our lips and with the giving of our lives if need be! Because we are disciples of Christ, and by His resurrection, Satan, this world, false religion, sin, is condemned and faces the second death of eternal damnation in the lake of fire, but we who overcome will not face the second death.

We are eternal victors through the blood of the Lamb. We are disciples who love not their life even to death. Remember? That’s what you signed up for! When you said, “I’ll follow you, Jesus” He said, “Take up your cross; you can’t follow Me unless you’re carrying your cross!” And if you saw someone walking down the street, in Jesus’ day, carrying a cross, you knew one thing: that guy’s a dead man walking. “That’s a dead man walking; he’s just a few moments away from death.” That’s what you’ve signed up for! One of my pastor friends says, “You know, remember, we’re pastors. We are to tend for sheep and get them ready for the sacrificial slaughter.” How’d you like a pastor like that? I pray to God you’ve got one like that! I pray to God you are one like that!

A few years ago—I think I was on my fourth or fifth visit to China—I went and had lunch secretly with a man that was our translator—and this was a skinny, little Chinaman to begin with—I sat down with him and I said to him, “Dear brother, you look like you have lost weight! Are you sick?” He said, “No, I’m fasting.” “Why?” He said, “Because I now have become a pastor in a situated, localized church, and it’s very probable that I will have to do at least two years in prison at some point. So, I’m getting ready, and I’m disciplining my body to help me to prepare for the time when I’ll be only eating measure meals in prison.” Do we have that kind of mentality? You see, it’s a war mentality.

Brethren, we need to begin to exercise our martyr muscles. We need to begin to learn how to deny ourselves some of the things that are not ours to keep. We need to learn how to bring the kingdom of God into our lives with violence, and have it displaced and push out all of the things that are vanity and empty and passing away. Pursue the Kingdom of God, and give something up for the sake of the Kingdom! Just start to exercise self-denial a little bit more! This is not a command of God, this is just a suggestion from a preacher. Do you have a favorite television program? I’m not going to ask you to raise your hand, but how many of you have been following American Idol? Do you have a favorite program that you’ve just got to watch? What was that…there was some British program that was being…why don’t you do this: why don’t you take that time that you would otherwise give to that television program, deny yourself that and pursue intentionally something of the kingdom. Take that time that you would otherwise entertain yourself, and use that time to educate yourself.

Do a study of the Scriptures! Do a study of the theme of earthquakes in Revelation; do a study of the temple in the Bible; do a study of martyrdom in the Bible; take something and push it out of your life to give room for the Kingdom of God, that you can pursue something that costs you something. I’m not talking about penance, I’m not talking about Roman-Catholic lent. See? I’m talking about exercising those martyr muscles. How many of you go out for dinner on occasion? If you have a wife, two or three kids, one of them is married, you’re going to spend 150-200 bucks to have decent meal, isn’t that right? Say, “Kids, we’re going to go out for dinner, and I would normally take you to a nice sushi restaurant, but, instead, we’re going to go to Wendy’s, and instead of spending 150 bucks, I’m going to spend 45. We’re going to take the difference and we’re going to give it to the orphans in China, we’re going to give it to the ministry in someway, shape or form.” Let your kids experience what it is to deny themselves some of this American affluence, so that they can start to exercise martyr muscles. Now, that’s not law, you can get creative on that. I’m only trying to kickstart some of your thinking.

What have you denied yourself? What is this world, being crucified to you and you to this world? What does that mean for you? Brethren, we’re in a war! We’re in a war, and we have already won, because Christ is risen, and Christ is exalted and Christ has overcome! And it’s just a little while, it’s just a little while; it’s only a few more hours, dear brethren, it’s only a few more hours! Don’t give up, don’t quit, don’t get distracted! Don’t turn away, don’t get confused, keep your eye upon Christ, and run this race, laying aside all that distracts and weighs you down into sin. Put it away, keep your eye upon Christ and run, and crush those skulls! Let the feet of your Nike feet come down on that serpent’s skull, and run across his bloody head! Overcome and be victorious, and go the way of the Lamb; and yours is the glory of the Great King and Lord Jesus Christ. The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet, and, as you overcome, remember: momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison. Dear brethren, let’s fight this good fight, let’s overcome! Amen.

Our gracious Father, give to us, we pray, a clearer sight of the Lion of Judah, the Lamb, the Overcomer. Grant us, our Father, that persevering faith; that we, as Him, in Him, through Him, for Him, that we might overcome by the strength of the Spirit of the Risen Christ who was ours to the victory, to the glory, to the praise of Jesus Christ our Lord and King, in whose name we pray. Amen.