Well, good evening. We’re going to be in Revelation. If you want to turn with me in your Bibles to Revelation chapter 12.

I know this summer I’ve kind of bounced in and out of Revelation, kind of been looking at prayer from a few different angles, and we may look at some other things this summer, but I want to make it through the next section here in Revelation. Revelation chapter 12.

And John writes, And a great sign appeared in heaven, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars. And she was pregnant and was crying out in birth pains and the agony of giving birth. And another sign appeared in heaven. Behold, a great red dragon with seven heads and ten horns, and on his head seven diadems. His tail swept down a third of the stars of heaven and cast them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman who was about to give birth, so that when she bore her child, he might devour it.

She gave birth to a male child, one who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron. But her child was caught up to God and to his throne, and the woman fled into the wilderness where she has a place prepared by God in which she is to be nourished for 1,260 days.

Revelation. I remember in seventh grade,

it’s my history teacher, as tacky as it was, it made the point, but he on purpose kept his and story apart up on the board there because he wanted us to remember human history is his story, right? History, human history is not a story about people. It’s not the story about development of cultures and nations. It’s not the story about humans and technologies and all the things you can look at. Certainly that’s happening. But history is about God. Everything that happens is God’s big grand story. And when we read the Bible, the Bible is not about people. It has people in it. It’s not a story about Adam and Eve. It’s a story about God. And when we go all the way to… To Revelation, this is not a story about the end of the human race. It’s a story about God and how he’s bringing his story to a close for his glory. And I think if we don’t have that framework, when we come to the Bible or to Revelation, we’ll come to different conclusions about how important we are versus how important God is. Because here’s the thing. While it’s God’s story, we play a role in God’s story. And I want you to think about that. What role has God called you? What role has God called us as his church to play in his big, great, grand story that he is unrolling, unveiling for his glory?

This passage that we’re looking at here, I don’t think I have to tell you. It’s weird. It’s really odd, isn’t it? It’s a highly symbolic, very colorful retelling of the great struggle between God and Satan. So, as we’ve seen this happen before in Revelation, it’s not really the continuation of the Revelation. It’s kind of the suspended vision that John is getting in one moment. And it’s this hyper-condensed story of good and evil, God and Satan, and everything that’s happened and is happening. And it reads very much so like a mythological ancient Greece tale. It reads in the same kind of way. One commentator notes, The vision transcends the usual categories of time and space. It’s not meant to be a foretelling of history, but a representation of the struggle in the spiritual world which lies behind history. In other words, it embodies a surrealistic word picture which, in other words, describes the spiritual struggle standing behind historical events. So, John sees this celestial cryptic tale unfold in the heavens. And it’s a behind-the-scenes view and overview of the whole story behind real-life events of human history. And the first thing he sees is this woman. And this woman, she’s clothed with the sun.

And what do we think about when we think about the sun other than radiance? We think about bright light. We think about what’s above us. I think there’s an allusion to purity here. And she has the moon under her feet and these twelve stars for a crown. And it seems to indicate she is someone with great honor. She’s someone of… who is royal with great position. It’s this very fantastic, honorable, majestic woman clothed in the sun, over the moon with stars on her head. And we’re told she is pregnant. And John’s catching her in the very moments of giving birth and the very agony of it.

And so you say, okay, well, who’s the woman? Who’s the child?

Isaiah chapter 66,

there’s a very popular Old Testament allusion to this. It says, before she was in labor, she gave birth. Before her pain came upon her, she delivered a son. Who has heard such a thing? Who has seen such things? Shall a land be born in one day? Shall a nation be brought forth in one moment? For as soon as Zion was in labor, she brought forth her children. And then again, Paul spells it out clearer in Galatians chapter 4, verse 26. He says, but the Jerusalem above is free. And what does he say about Jerusalem? Paul says, she is our mother. So the woman is, if you will, the ideal people of God. It’s God’s perspective of true Israel. All saints from Old Testament and New Testament in an eternal heavenly sense. This is just all of God’s people. Zion is a very important motif in the Old Testament. And Zion represents all of God’s ideal people in the very end. It’s a perfect vision of the church, if you will. Old and New Testament. Bill Mounts writes, although the woman gives birth to the Messiah, she is not to be understood as Mary, the mother of Jesus, but the messianic community, the ideal Israel. Zion as the mother of the people of God is a common theme in Jewish writing. And it is out of faithful Israel that the Messiah will come. It should cause no trouble that within the same chapter, the woman comes to signify the church. The people of God are one throughout all of redemptive history. So Jesus was the long-awaited Messiah and he came from God’s people for God’s people. It’s really important. Jesus came from God’s people. But he came for God’s people. And if that feels like novel and kind of like a strange idea, it’s really an old idea. Because if we go all the way back to Genesis chapter three, we read this, that God says to the serpent, I will put enmity between you and the woman, between your offspring and her offspring. He shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel. So this heavenly tale that John is witnessing is a cosmic behind the scenes reality of all of Christianity, which started with a woman in a dragon. It started with a woman being ruined by the fall, by the works of this snake, of this serpent. And just like in the beginning, we’re told, same in this apocalyptic vision, a child will come from this woman. And again, it’s not specifically Eve or Mary. It’s much more general. Now, that kind of was popularized in the Middle Ages and that fits nicely into Catholic dogma that, no, this has to be the mother of Mary that would really deify Mary to see her. But that’s really not been a historic view amongst the church. But these are events that are happening. The woman is the messianic community through whom and for whom Christ would come. True Israel. And I want to run through a few verses. Luke chapter 1, it says, He will be great and will be called Son of the Most High and the Lord God will give to Him the throne of His Father who? David. There’s true Israel. And He will reign over the house of Jacob. That’s Christ coming from true Israel for true Israel. Jeremiah 23, Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous branch. He shall reign as king and deal wisely, shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. In His day, Judah will be saved. Genesis 49, 10. The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet until tributes come to him and to him shall be the obedience of the people. Micah 5, 2. But you, O Bethlehem, who are too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come, for me, one who is to be ruler in Israel. So it’s not at all a weird, novel idea. It’s just a very poetic, strange picture to tell us God always intended for God’s people, by His grace, to see God’s Savior be raised up to save that people.

Now, of course, in a historical sense, that was mostly ethically, because you have from Genesis all the way up to the birth of Christ, the ethnic line of Israel. And what is Israel supposed to do but be God’s faithful witness, even though they failed at that? But you have among ethnic Israel faithful believers, right? What God always called the remnant. And how often were God’s people in the pains and agonies of waiting for their Savior to come, much like a woman and child labor? How often did Israel, Israel have enemies all around her? How often did Israel have to deal with pagan nations? How often did they go into slavery and captivity? How often was Israel inwardly destructive by wandering from the Lord, by chasing after sin? Israel had to deal with the law of Moses that was a constant reminder and gave them constant consequences for their wrong. So the whole story from Genesis up to the birth of Christ is very much so God’s people in great labor waiting finally for a Savior to come.

God’s perfect Messiah came God’s way. And really, we should say, despite Israel.

Despite God’s people, God’s Savior came. Because it’s easy for you not to look back in Israel and say, boy, y’all sure made a mess of things and you’re lucky Jesus finally showed up. I can look in the mirror as a New Testament Christian and say the same thing and say, gosh, I’m unworthy. I’m unworthy to be called true Israel. I’m unworthy to have such a Savior come from among God’s people for God’s people. And when we as Christians read this description of the true church, a woman crowned with stars, clothed in splendor of the sun, and she’s got the moon below her feet. I don’t know about you, but that feels like a little too wonderful of a description for me.

Maybe it feels like too wonderful of a description for you. Yet we see this. This. Catch this. That’s how God views the church.

We’re getting a beautiful picture of how the Father sees the church in His Son, Jesus.

Not according to what the church has done. Not according to what the church innately is. But only according to God’s unconditional love to perfect His people in holiness and righteousness, true Israel, in His Son, Jesus. And that’s so important to hold on to because it’ll change, I think, the way you think about yourself. And if you don’t see yourself as one who is made pure and holy as if you were dressed with, you know, the purity and righteousness of the Son, it’s going to change the way that you live your life for God. God has decreed in His Son, Jesus, you are loved. He has decreed that you are radiant and pure and holy in His Son, Jesus. I did not say, you of your own accord are lovely. You are pure. You are holy. And that’s why God loves you. No. Friends, the Father sees us as pure and holy and lovely because His Son is pure and holy and lovely. And we are seen as covered in Christ Jesus.

Don’t dwell then on the greatness of your sin, of your unloveliness, and those things are great. I want to encourage you, dwell on the great and perfect love of God that keeps you pure and holy in Christ Jesus. And it’s about God’s grace and God’s grace alone. Our Savior came from among true Israel for true Israel. And that means that you and I are eternally beloved of the Father in Christ Jesus.

If there’s one thing I try to remind the men and women of the church, and that I interact with at the Pregnancy Center a lot, is this. You don’t have a potential child. You don’t have a potential child and maybe you’ll have a child nine months from now. You have a child today. That’s a real person inside of her womb. That’s a real person.

And in that same way that an unborn child is a real child and you don’t really experience the fullness of it until the child is born, friends, in some mysterious way, it’s an already not yet that you and I, though, we’re still trapped in these bodies and we still struggle with sin and we don’t love God the way that we ought. We don’t walk in holiness and righteousness as we ought. We are declared righteous in Christ Jesus. That is true. So the Apostle Paul can write, sin will have no dominion over you. Let who God says you are in his son Jesus, friends, shape the way that you think about yourself so that you can live a victorious life over sin. Don’t believe your feelings. We’re a generation driven by our feelings and our feelings tell us I’ve gone too far. I’ve messed up. This isn’t me. I can’t possibly be saved from this. My shame is too great. Look at my failures. Look at my mistakes. I want you to be refreshed in your identity this evening that the father sees you as this woman clothed in the purity and righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ.

That’s your role in God’s story. Embrace it and live out of it.

But there’s a second thing. Looking at verse three,

it says in another sign appeared in heaven. Behold, a great red dragon with seven heads and ten horns and on his head, seven diadems. His tail swept down a third of the stars of heaven and cast them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman who was about to give birth to a child. She gave birth so that when she bore her child, he might devour it. She gave birth to a male child. One is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron. But her child was caught up to God and to his throne. So John gets a second little picture that comes after this one. And this one is a little more ominous, isn’t it? He sees a great red dragon, seven heads, ten horns, seven crowns. This is the same. This is the same as Daniel’s fourth beast in Daniel chapter seven, verse seven. After this, I saw in the night visions and behold a fourth beast, terrifying and dreadful and exceedingly strong. It had great iron teeth. It devoured and broken pieces and stamped what was left with its feet. It was different from all the beasts that were before it. And it had ten horns. So this is the embodiment of Satan. That’s who this dragon is. Says, behold, a great red dragon. Of course, it’s red. What other color would a great evil dragon be? But red. But I think it lends to its murderous characteristic. It’s got seven heads. Now, remember when we talk about the number seven in Revelation, it always represents some kind of completeness. So I think that is to say that for a time, this dragon will be able to exercise a certain destructive power. Power among men.

And we’re told that he has these diadems and these crowns and the horns. The horns are obviously of great strength. But the crowns, it’s interesting. There’s a different Greek word for the crowns that this dragon has and the many crowns that Jesus has in the very end. And I love what Bill Mounts says about it. He says,

And his tail sweeps. We’re told to knock stars out of the sky. We’ve seen that already. There’s a lot of disruption in heaven and earth. A lot of cosmological happening. And this dragon positions himself to intercept and devour the woman’s child.

And again, I don’t think this is a direct correlation to Mary. But if this is a behind-the-scenes picture of human history, we do have to think about King Herod. Remember, Herod wanted to destroy Jesus. So he slaughtered all the babies and they had to run for refuge from Egypt for several years. Think about how we’re told Satan entered Judas. We’re told about how Satan tempted Christ in the wilderness. So all of these things tell us that this dragon did work or attempted in his time to defuse and compromise Christ. But as much as this great red dragon would want you and I to tremble, to quake, to submit, to bow the knee, we can’t and won’t do that. And I think the answer is plain. Because this is a superficial, and for all the lies, the deceit, the manipulation, the power, the warring against God in the spiritual realm, verse 5 happened. The child was born. Jesus was born. Jesus grew up. Jesus never compromised. Jesus lived a perfect life before the Father. Jesus did all the will of God. Jesus in humility lived for the Father, not himself. Jesus pushed back the darkness. Jesus in active obedience was holy and pure. And Jesus in his passive obedience was crucified according to the will of the Father. And so in the very moment that Satan would have a victory over Christ by crucifying him, it’s in that moment that the dragon loses.

And Jesus does what only Jesus can do. Jesus fulfills Psalm 2.9. When we’re told here that he will rule the nations with a rod of iron, that is Psalm 2. Psalm 2.9. Satan is grossly unqualified to be ruler of the nations. It’s only this Jesus who was caught up to heaven, to his throne. Reminds me of Hebrews chapter 1. It says, In these last days he has spoken to us about his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom he created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God, the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sin, what did Jesus do that only the word can do? Jesus, who is the exact imprint of the Father, whom Satan can never be, who’s only a wannabe, Jesus in victory sat down to rule next to and with the Father. Nobody can contend with our Jesus.

Jesus is second to none. Amen. Amen. In the physical realm and in the spiritual realm, Jesus rules and reigns. And guess what? If Jesus rules and reigns, that means that you and I can know we’re not only eternally beloved in Christ Jesus, you and I are eternally defended and preserved in Christ Jesus because there’s no force on earth that could undo God or his people.

The cross of Jesus shows us it doesn’t matter how industrious, crafty, evil can be. Nothing can challenge God’s decree that Christ Jesus will rule and reign forever. That’s God’s authority. Our king is unmatched and he’s unparalleled. Perfect in wisdom, knowledge, and power.

Do you have that kind of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ? Do you believe against all the things that you see, all the evil we see, in our world, all the things we read about in Revelation? I’m not going to fret. I’m not going to fear. You know why? Because Jesus has an iron scepter and he can bust up the pots of clay like they’re nothing. That’s how Jesus rules and reigns. And because we’re in him, we will overcome. But that takes us to verse six. And I think you can come to verse six and be a little puzzled because in verse six, it says the woman fled into the wilderness into the wilderness where she has a place prepared by God. Now, when I think about victory and overcoming and busting up nations with iron rods, I don’t think about the wilderness. That seems like where you go like if you’ve lost. That seems like where you go if you’re in retreat. Why are we told if Jesus is such a ruler, why do his people go to the wilderness?

Well, I want you to think about Egypt or when God’s people were saved out of Egypt. Did God take the people immediately to Canaan?

No. He took them on a several week tour, which ended up being a 40 year tour into the wilderness.

And it was in the wilderness that God took them there so that God could show them how powerful he was and how powerful he was to preserve them. That’s the point of the wilderness. Was Israel ever overtaken in the wilderness? Nope. Did Israel’s clothes or shoes wear out in the wilderness? Nope. Did they go hungry? Nope. Did they go thirsty? Nope. The wilderness proves God’s might and power of preservation for his people. And in fact, it’s the wilderness where true and false Israel are exposed.

Because you know, false Israel, who maybe they were ethnic Israel by blood, but not by faith. They mumbled and they grumbled. They swore against God and they died and they weren’t brought into the promised land. So it’s in the wilderness experience, friends, that God challenges our faith to believe he is in control and no matter what, he will keep us. That’s the wilderness experience. So it does not undermine God’s power. Friends, the wilderness experience proves God’s power.

And in this end times passage, we’re looking at, God’s people will have a wilderness experience before they’re brought into the final and perfect and eternal Canaan to come in the last days.

And it’s in this end times picture, the wilderness. It doesn’t mean, because we’ve looked at so many other passages, it doesn’t mean that you and I are going to be insulated from any sort of physical harm or suffering. What it means is this, God is going to keep our souls for him and he’s going to keep us, faithful to Christ, not to compromise or to fall away or to surrender to the false Christ. He’s going to keep us until the very end secure. It reminds me of Psalm 46. God is our refuge

and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore, we will not fear though the earth gives way, though the mountains be moved into the hearts of the sea. As God is our refuge and in Christ, we have spiritual refuge to be kept through whatever wilderness God takes us. And we all have wilderness experiences and you shouldn’t shun the wilderness experience. I mean, no one asks like, God, I’d really like a wilderness experience, but you can be sure if you’re true Israel, God’s going to take you there sometimes and God’s going to challenge you. Do you really trust me? Do you really believe me? And it’s in that place where we find out how good God is to us. What God is to keep us.

Again, it’s one of those already not yet spiritual realities. And I was kind of thinking about the Chronicles of Narnia. You know, if you’ve seen those, Peter and Edmund and Lucy, they’re just some ruddy kids on this side of life in a war-torn world. But in another world, they’re kings and they’re queens and they’re royalty and they’ve got the power of Aslan on them no matter what. It’s kind of like, it’s kind of that same thing, friends. We’re in a tough spot now and we’re being challenged to believe and to walk by faith and to know that God is keeping and preserving us. But the day will come when the true and better and fair Canaan comes and it will never pass away.

So my final word to us from this passage is let’s not fear because Jesus is a great shepherd. He’s the great shepherd of our souls. And if he brings us into a desert place, it’s because he wants to show us how great and wonderful he is. Let’s be faithful. Be faithful. Be faithful. You and I have our short little lives to live for this great, wonderful king. As Chase was talking about, man, go and proclaim Christ. Go be a witness. Go and don’t compromise on truth. Go and don’t compromise on what it means to be God’s people in the midst of a wicked and crooked and twisted generation. And lastly, I want you to keep longing for that fair and eternal Canaan because it’s coming. And let’s keep that before us to know that God will eventually dwell with man forever more.

This is God’s great story. And it’s all about God getting glory through the salvation of sinners and the destruction of evil. And if you’re in Christ, you are eternally beloved. You’re eternally defended and preserved. That means you and I can now and forevermore live wholeheartedly for the glory of God and for King Jesus because we are true Israel. So don’t let that pass you by. It’s not a small little thing that God by his grace has awakened you to his story of life. And redemption and your identity is one who is kept in Jesus. Let’s pray together.

Father, it’s no small thing

that you would call a dead man to life. It’s no small thing that you would

show us the beauty of your son, Jesus. It’s no small thing that you would call sinners to holiness and purity and to labor and to work for your name’s sake to be soldiers in your army. Father, I pray that we would feel the great privilege and the great weight

of being allowed to know you, to serve you.

I pray through, Lord, every trial, every

every fearful battle that we would know you are with us and you’re keeping us and you’re preserving us and you’re working all things together for the good of those who love you and in the end, Lord, we will be with you and we will see your glory.

So Lord, we just pray you keep us faithful

in the present and keep us longing for your glorious end.

And we pray that in Jesus’ name. Amen.