D. Scott Meadows
Would you like to see things in the world as God sees them, beholding not just physical realities but spiritual? With our sermon text and the Holy Spirit’s blessing, you can. We come in our consecutive exposition of the last book of the Bible, Revelation, to the twelfth chapter, verses 13-17.
13 And when the dragon saw that he was cast unto the earth, he persecuted the woman which brought forth the man child. 14 And to the woman were given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness, into her place, where she is nourished for a time, and times, and half a time, from the face of the serpent. 15 And the serpent cast out of his mouth water as a flood after the woman, that he might cause her to be carried away of the flood. 16 And the earth helped the woman, and the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed up the flood which the dragon cast out of his mouth. 17 And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.
The apostle John beheld a vision of spiritual warfare that centered upon Christ in the realms of heaven and earth. The archenemy is the Devil or Satan (v. 9), here characterized as a great red dragon throughout the chapter, “that old serpent,” doubtless alluding to the original tempter in the garden of Eden, a liar and murderer from the beginning. This most important of all evil beings is, in the vision, one of “great wrath” (v. 12), particularly at this time in redemptive history, when his opportunity to war against Christ and the saints is almost expired. A paraphrase says here that the devil is “filled with rage.”
That Satanic rage is portrayed in the first six verses first and foremost against Christ, the Son born of this glorious woman in the wilderness. Then Christ is, in this vision, snatched away and taken to God and His throne, that is, to heaven (v. 5). And the battlefield in this vision changes from earth where Christ was born to heaven in 7-12, where Michael and good angels successfully repel the attack. The passage suggests that the dragon chases the despised child to heaven, but it is all in vain. Satan was defeated and excluded from heaven once and for all.
That brings us to the third and final part of the vision of the woman and the dragon in verses 13-17, “The Rage of Satan on Earth.” One might think that Satan’s prospects for victory are better here, but he is being and shall be foiled again by the power of God. The true Church of Jesus Christ should be greatly encouraged by this message of our ultimate triumph over the Devil. I firmly believe that was its purpose from the first century onward—to embolden and strengthen beleaguered believers, harassed by a host of spiritual enemies, with Satan as the ruler of all hostility to God and His people.
The theme of this chapter can be stated in words taken from Martin Luther’s most famous hymn, “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God”:
The prince of darkness grim, we tremble not for him;
His rage we can endure, for lo, his doom is sure.
How real is the Devil to you? I am posing the question to each of you. Probably most of you would say you believe he’s real, but do you look at world events and even things that happen in your own life by taking into account the hidden activity of unseen forces of evil, not only of Satan but an innumerable host of demons influencing the circumstances and the outcome? The Lord gave the apostle John these visions in Revelation to teach us to think about very earthly, natural events in supernatural terms. The devil sends storms that kill people, the book of Job reveals to us. The devil stirs up wicked men to kill people, Job also says. The devil puts evil thoughts in people’s minds, aggravates sinful passions, fosters hatred, and inspires violence. Yes, every person is responsible for what he or she does, but there is far more than meets the eye in all this.
As a pastor, I am concerned that we have embraced a kind of intellectual worldliness. Most people are probably functional atheists, even though they say they believe in God. Our highly-educated, 21st century Western society adheres to a religion we could call “scientism,” where any actual involvement of God and the devil in the physical world is considered superstitious. We are stepchildren of the Enlightenment and its counterfeit theology called Deism, where God only created in the beginning and got things going, but after that, natural laws of science take over, and creation runs by itself. Without any exaggeration, Deism is a complete repudiation of the biblical worldview, yet many Christians seem to accept it.
The devil was very real to Martin Luther, because he believed the Bible. In a confession of his faith, he wrote,
I believe in the resurrection of all the dead at the Last Day, both the godly and the wicked, that each may receive in his body his reward according to his merits. Thus the godly will live eternally with Christ and the wicked will perish eternally with the devil and his angels (Confession Concerning Christ’s Supper, Part III, 1528).
The devil was so real to Luther that supposedly he once threw his ink bottle at him! But Luther served the Lord with confidence because of confidence in the Lord. He knew the outcome of this cosmic battle was in God’s hands, not ours. Commenting on Romans, he wrote,
In chapters 9, 10, and 11 [the apostle Paul] teaches of God’s eternal predestination—out of which originally proceeds who shall believe or not, who can or cannot get rid of sin—in order that our salvation may be taken entirely out of our hands and put in the hand of God alone. And this too is utterly necessary. For we are so weak and uncertain that if it depended on us, not even a single person would be saved; the devil would surely overpower us all. But since God is dependable—his predestination cannot fail, and no one can withstand him—we still have hope in the face of sin (Preface to the Epistle of St. Paul to the Romans, 1522, Revised 1546).
Luther’s confidence in God’s sovereign grace and repudiation of a sinner’s will to determine his own destiny was a very practical matter with him. In one of his most important books, The Bondage of the Will, arguing against Erasmus’ idea of free will, Luther wrote,
Christians know there are two kingdoms in the world, which are bitterly opposed to each other. In one of them Satan reigns, who is therefore called by Christ “the ruler of this world” [John 12:31] and by Paul “the god of this world” [2 Cor. 4:4]. He holds captive to his will all who are not snatched away from him by the Spirit of Christ . . . In the other Kingdom, Christ reigns, and his Kingdom ceaselessly resists and makes war on the kingdom of Satan. Into this Kingdom we are transferred, not by our own power but by the grace of God, by which we are set free from the present evil age and delivered from the dominion of darkness.
For my own part, I frankly confess that even if it were possible, I should not wish to have free choice given to me, or to have anything left in my own hands by which I might strive toward salvation. For . . . I should be unable to stand firm and keep hold of it amid so many adversities and perils and so many assaults of demons, seeing that even one demon is mightier, than all men, and no man at all could be saved; . . . But now, since God has taken my salvation out of my hands into his, making it depend on his choice and not mine, and has promised to save me, not by my own work or exertion but by his grace and mercy, I am assured and certain both that he is faithful and will not lie to me, and also that he is too great and powerful for any demons or any adversities to be able to break him or to snatch me from him (Introduction, Part VI, “The Two Kingdoms of Christ and Satan. The Assurance of Faith”).
These thoughts help us appreciate better his perspective in his famous hymn (vv. 1-3):
A mighty fortress is our God, a bulwark never failing; our helper He amid the flood of mortal ills prevailing. For still our ancient foe doth seek to work us woe—His craft and pow’r are great, and, armed with cruel hate, on earth is not his equal.
Did we in our own strength confide our striving would be losing, were not the right Man on our side, the Man of God’s own choosing. Dost ask who that may be? Christ Jesus, it is He—Lord Sabaoth His name, from age to age the same—and He must win the battle.
And tho this world, with devils filled, should threaten to undo us, we will not fear, for God hath willed His truth to triumph thru us. The prince of darkness grim—we tremble not for Him; His rage we can endure; for lo! his doom is sure—One little word shall fell him.
Now let us work through the biblical text found in Revelation 12.13-17. I have noticed a pattern of reciprocation. Do you know that word? It has to do with a back and forth, and means to “respond to (a gesture or action) with a corresponding one” (“reciprocate,” SOED). Tennis is a game of reciprocation, and so is chess, because the players take turns in attempts to prevail.
You can think of this passage of Revelation in this way. Satan naturally plays the black pieces, and the Lord, of course, the white ones. Satan makes a move in verse 13, and the Lord counters him in verse 14. Satan plays again in verse 15, and the Lord frustrates his plan in verse 16. Satan concentrates his efforts on the best people in the visible church in verse 17a, but they are clearly safe in the grace of God, verse 17b. Notice this reciprocation in our outline:
Satan Persecutes the Church (v. 13)
The Lord Preserves the Church (v. 14)
Satan Lies to the Church (v. 15)
The Lord Saves the Church from Satan’s Lies (v. 16)
Satan Focuses on the Remnant of True Believers (v. 17a)
True Believers Bear the Marks of Spiritual Victors (v. 17b)
Try as he might, the devil is no match for Christ. When the game is over, Satan will be checkmated to the glory of God! Now consider, first of all, that
Satan Persecutes the Church (v. 13)
Identifying the Woman
The text says, “And when the dragon saw that he was cast unto the earth, he persecuted the woman which brought forth the man child.” We have established that before and during the birth of this child, who certainly represents our Lord Jesus Christ, the woman symbolizes God’s chosen people known as the nation of Israel, especially associated with the Old Testament scriptures. The physical descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were the ancestors of our Savior Jesus. But once He is born, lives, dies on the cross, rises from the dead, and ascends to heaven, a spiritual transformation of “Israel” begins. Virtually all the first followers of Jesus were Jews in the physical sense, and they made up the membership of the first local church of Christian believers in Jerusalem. But Jesus had commanded His disciples to preach the gospel far and wide, even to Gentiles, and as more and more were added to His church, this “spiritual Israel,” made up of those who shared Abraham’s faith, not just his genes, were also being saved.
It is hard for us to appreciate now how dramatic such a development was to Peter and other Jewish Christians in the first century. Peter found it so hard to accept that God gave him a heavenly vision and a miraculous sign to prove it. You remember that he saw a sheet let down from heaven with all kinds of animals in it, some which were not “kosher,” so to speak, labeled ceremonially unclean and forbidden to Jews in the law of Moses, like pork, for example. And Peter heard a voice say to him, “Rise, Peter; kill, and eat,” and even though Peter protested three times, the voice kept insisting, “What God has made clean, do not call common.” You can read about this in Acts 10.
Well, the meaning of the vision would soon become clear to Peter. God was sending him, totally against his Jewish inclinations, to preach the gospel to some Italians—Gentiles—in Cornelius’ household. When they heard the gospel, they believed it and were saved, just as saved as Peter the Jew was. And to convince Peter and his brethren according to the flesh, God gave these Gentile believers a miraculous sign proving they now possessed the same Holy Spirit. They praised God in human languages they had never learned, just like the Jewish Christians on the Day of Pentecost (Acts 2). Now Peter recognized that anyone who really has the gift of the Holy Spirit as an indwelling presence is accepted with God and ought to be accepted by other Christians as part of God’s chosen people destined for salvation, and so he baptized them in water upon their profession of faith in Christ. From then on, they were considered part of the new, spiritual Israel.
So the glorious woman in Revelation 12, formerly OT Israel, is now NT Israel, after Christ has ascended to heaven. And this Christian Church for 2000 years has been the special object of Satan’s malice ever since.
I know many of us have a background in churches with teaching that is called “Dispensationalism,” and so I want to stress something here. Over a period of decades in the first century, there was a transitional period between God’s dealing with OT Israel and with what Paul calls “the Israel of God” (Gal 6.16). Within one 40-year generation from that day when Jesus was crucified and the Jews cried out to Pilate, “His blood be on us, and on our children” (Matt 27.25), a final, decisive judgment fell upon OT Israel in the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple there, about 70 AD, and the relatively few Jews who were not slaughtered were scattered to the four winds, never again to have that place of OT sacrifice and ritual. What more convincing symbol of irrevocable judgment could we possibly imagine?
This is what Jesus was talking about when he said to his Jewish contemporaries “That upon you [shall] come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar. Verily I say unto you, All these things shall come upon this generation. O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee!” (Matt 23.35-37). In a parable, our Lord explained to them that “the kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof” (Matt 21.43). Peter calls the Christian church a “holy nation,” the same phrase that had described OT Israel in the days of Moses (1 Pet 2.9; cf. Exod 19.6).
Now there really is only one Israel that matters, and that is the Church of Jesus Christ. The apostle Paul, who formerly, as a Pharisee, was so proud of his Jewish heritage, put it this way, “Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing, but what matters is the keeping of the commandments of God” (1 Cor 7.19 NASB). The nation in the Middle East today called “Israel” is not the same thing as OT Israel. Jesus teaches us that Jerusalem on earth is spiritually insignificant, except for our religious history (John 4.21). Being “Jewish” as most people mean it certainly doesn’t make anyone closer to God; if anything, it gets in the way. After he had become a Christian, Paul called his Jewishness in that sense “rubbish,” that is, completely worthless, “More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ” (Phil 3:8 NASB).
Now the only Israel that God treasures is the holy church of our Lord Jesus Christ, and Christians are all one in Him, no matter what our ethnicity or background. The woman of Revelation 12.13 is Christ’s church, period.
So this vision teaches us that ever since Christ ascended to heaven and Satan was cast out, the Church has been the bull’s-eye on the target of his malice.
Recognizing Satan’s First Line of Attack
Verse 13 says that “the dragon . . . persecuted the woman.” Several modern translations (ESV, NIV, GNB) use the verb “pursued” instead of “persecuted,” and that is understandable, since the terms are very closely related. “Persecute” comes from the Latin for “pursue,” from two words meaning “to follow through” (MWCD). The Greek word has several senses. Translators are choosing between these two: 1) to harass someone, especially because of beliefs, persecute, and 2) to follow in haste in order to find something, run after, pursue (BDAG, διώκω). Even if we choose pursue, in this context it has very ominous overtones. This is the chief adversary of God, Christ, and the church coming after her, and clearly the dragon has evil intent. He is the predator and the church is his prey. He is the hunter and the church is the hunted. He is the aggressor and the church is the vulnerable one who needs protection.
The vision carries overtones of overt, physical violence toward the church, and that therefore, the choice of the word “persecuted” (KJV) is justified. In his rage against God’s people, Satan resorts to physical violence. He deals out literal, physical death whenever he can—especially the death of Christians.
Let me make it very personal. If you are a sincere Christian, the devil wants you dead, especially before you can accomplish much of anything in this world for the glory of Christ. Peter says Satan is like a roaring lion, roaming about the earth, seeking whom he may devour (1 Pet 5.8). Christians still face the lions, and sometimes they kill us.
To a degree greater than anyone before or since, Jesus Himself faced this wrath of the devil, and it ended in a bloody, torturous crucifixion. And before He died, Jesus explained to His followers that He is calling us to the way of the cross, that may very possibly require our martyrdom, even at the hands of so-called Jews. Using a metaphor, Jesus told Zebedee’s sons, “Ye shall indeed drink of my cup” (Matt 20.23), clearly alluding to His imminent suffering. He forewarned His disciples that men would “scourge you in their synagogues,” that is, places of Jewish worship (Matt 10.17). Paul testified of his sufferings this way, “Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one” (2 Cor 11.24), that is, 39 searing lashes on his back, leaving him dreadfully wounded.
In one of the most tender passages of Jesus’ counsel to His disciples right before He was crucified, He told them—and tells us who love Him today:
If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you. If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you. Remember the word that I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you (John 15.18-20).
And for twenty centuries the prophecy has been very horribly fulfilled. The true Church of Jesus Christ has been meek and mild like the Lord Himself, true lambs among wolves, and she has been slaughtered often without so much as a peep. Her pilgrimage has largely been a trail of blood. Just read a book like “Martyrs’ Mirror,” or “Foxe’s Book of Martyrs,” and you will find many hundreds to stories of men, women, and even young children who have been stoned, burnt, hanged, drowned, and decapitated, for no other reason than that they refused to recant their faith in Jesus. And the horrors continue today, with a campaign going on in many places throughout the world to exterminate the Christians completely. The news is filled with these reports. The “Open Doors” organization states on their website that
According to The Pew Research Center, over 75% of the world’s population lives in areas with severe religious restrictions (and many of these people are Christians). Also, according to the United States Department of State, Christians in more than 60 countries face persecution from their governments or surrounding neighbors simply because of their belief in Jesus Christ.
https://www.opendoorsusa.org/christian-persecution/#what, accessed 7 Mar 2015
My friends, the hateful Devil is behind all this.
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