The Gospel-Shaped Mission

Listen as D. A. Carson speaks on the topic of missions and the church in this address from The Gospel Coalition sermon library.

In this last session, I would like to invite you to turn in Scripture to Revelation 12. Instead of running through vast swaths of Scripture, I want to focus on this chapter.

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“A great and wondrous sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head. She was pregnant and cried out in pain as she was about to give birth. Then another sign appeared in heaven: an enormous red dragon with seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns on his heads. His tail swept a third of the stars out of the sky and flung them to the earth.

The dragon stood in front of the woman who was about to give birth, so that he might devour her child the moment it was born. She gave birth to a son, a male child, who will rule all the nations with an iron scepter. And her child was snatched up to God and to his throne. The woman fled into the desert to a place prepared for her by God, where she might be taken care of for 1,260 days. And there was war in heaven.

Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back. But he was not strong enough, and they lost their place in heaven. The great dragon was hurled down—that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him. Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say: ‘Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Christ.

For the accuser of our brothers, who accuses them before our God day and night, has been hurled down. They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death. Therefore rejoice, you heavens and you who dwell in them! But woe to the earth and the sea, because the devil has gone down to you! He is filled with fury, because he knows that his time is short.’

When the dragon saw that he had been hurled to the earth, he pursued the woman who had given birth to the male child. The woman was given the two wings of a great eagle, so that she might fly to the place prepared for her in the desert, where she would be taken care of for a time, times and half a time, out of the serpent’s reach.

Then from his mouth the serpent spewed water like a river, to overtake the woman and sweep her away with the torrent. But the earth helped the woman by opening its mouth and swallowing the river that the dragon had spewed out of his mouth. Then the dragon was enraged at the woman and went off to make war against the rest of her offspring—those who obey God’s commandments and hold to the testimony of Jesus.”

This is the Word of the Lord.

One day when my son was about 3, I asked him where he obtained his huge, wonderful, deep blue eyes. He answered, “From God!” And of course, he was right. Mind you, he might have answered, had he been a biology student and about 20 years older, “I have my blue eyes because both Mum and you, though neither of you have blue eyes, must carry the necessary recessive genes, which happily supported each other in the formation of my DNA.” Which description of reality is truer? They’re equally true. Which is more fundamental?

Another question: What caused the destruction of the southern kingdom of Judah in 587–586 BC? Well, we could mention the rise of the Babylonian regional superpower, the decline and decay of the Davidic dynasty, the tragic pride of Hezekiah, the criminal stupidity of Zedekiah despite Jeremiah’s warnings, and the sins of the people that attracted God’s judgment. Or we could simply say, “God did it.” Which is truer? They’re equally true. Which is more fundamental?

What made Job suffer? Well, we could mention the Sabaeans and the Chaldeans and their bands of marauding riffs who came in and took all of his cattle and his sheep. We could mention the natural elements, the storm that took down his house and killed the 10 children that he had while they were having a party. We could mention the bereavement that he suffered. We could mention his loss of health. We could mention the torment of his friends. Or we could up the ante and say, “Satan.” But if you read the first two chapters, you could also say, “God.” Which description is truer? They’re equally true. Which is more fundamental?

So a final question: What causes the church today her greatest difficulties and sufferings, her greatest challenges? Well, I’m sure that the answers you might want to give would vary somewhat with your location. If you’re in the Southern Sudan, for example, which has lost something like two million people to violence and persecution in the last three decades, then you are inevitably going to talk about the marauding attacks from the Northern government and the hatred that is held against them both on tribal and religious grounds.

In some parts of the world, parts of central Africa, you might mention tribalism, lack of trained leadership, and pressures from AIDS. South of the Sahel, you might speak of drought. In the West, you might mention material prosperity, the rapid pace of life, the impact of mass media, rising secularization, pluralism, moral indifferentism, prayerlessness, and much more.

But if you noticed, most of these categories are sociological, historical, occasional, demographic, and psychological. All of them are performance-related. Nothing about the Devil and nothing about God. Do not misunderstand me. I kept saying in each of these descriptions that both the descriptions were true. But which one is more fundamental? I am certainly not saying that there is nothing to be learned from, say, sociological analysis. There is much to learn by reading, say, Peter Berger.

But if all of our analyses are cast in such terms, not only are we too superficial, but we will be tempted to provide answers that are in the same scale, on the same dimension. We have sociological answers, sociological explanations, and sociological resolutions. Suddenly, we have become practicing atheists. That is to say, our analyses and our solutions are devoid of any unambiguous reference to God, or to Satan, or to the cosmic struggle that the Bible insists we are in.

Now if I understand the passage before us aright, God here gives us a deeper analysis of the difficulties and sufferings of the church. Chapters 12 through 14 mark a major division in the apocalypse. Before the final display of God’s wrath, seen in the seven plagues of chapter 16, John traces in these chapters the underlying cause for the hostility and suffering that fall upon the church, and it is nothing less than the rage of Satan.

So you see, if we’re going to address something like, “What is the mission of the church? What is a gospel-shaped mission?” then part of our answer will depend on how big the challenge is that we envisage. I thoroughly recommend the little book by Gilbert and DeYoung, What is the Mission of the Church? If those are the kinds of helps you need, by all means read that book.

But supposing you see that the issue at the moment is not, “How do you define evangelism? What is the Great Commission? How does that relate to the gospel?” Supposing you widen the lens and say, “What is the nature, in the final analysis, of the struggle in which we find ourselves?” After all, does not Paul say, “We do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against rulers and principalities and powers of darkness in the heavenly places”? Now what’s the mission of the church?

So what I want to do this afternoon is rapidly run through chapter 12, just so that you see how it’s put together to come to this powerful attestation of the mission of the church in verse 11. There are three steps.

1. John outlines the occasion for this satanic rage.

Revelation 12:1–9. In John’s vision, the scene opens with a great and wondrous sign, we’re told, which appeared in the heavens. Sign here, as sometimes elsewhere in the book of Revelation, is a great spectacle that points in some way to the consummation. It is a spectacle that is “sign-nificant.” That’s how it’s a sign; it’s significant.

The content of this spectacle is a woman, and what a woman she is: clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of 12 stars on her head. She is not Mary. Although she gives birth to the One who is to rule with a rod of iron, which has prompted many people to think she is Mary, she can’t possibly be Mary because down in verse 17, we’re told that the Dragon was enraged at the woman who “went off to wage war against the rest of her offspring, those who keep God’s commands and hold fast their testimony about Jesus.”

This woman is the messianic community, whether under the old covenant (this messianic community which gives rise to Jesus) or the new. Just as Zion is seen in the Old Testament as the “mother of the people of God,” so also Messiah comes out of this messianic community. Hence, for example, in this song of Zion in Isaiah 54, we read, “Sing, oh barren woman, you who never bore a child; burst into song, shout for joy, you who were never in labor …” And clearly, the reference is to Zion, to Jerusalem.

Or again in Galatians 4:26, by which time Jerusalem has already become a kind of figure, we read, “But the Jerusalem that is above is free, and she is our mother.” The messianic community, the heavenly Jerusalem, is our mother. Messiah comes out of this messianic community. “She is clothed with that sun …” That is, she is utterly radiant. She has her feet on her moon, which is a symbol for dominion. “… with 12 stars on her head.” Under the old covenant, that ties her to the 12 tribes; under the new covenant, it ties her to the 12 apostles.

We’re told in verse 2, “She is pregnant; she cries out in pain as she is about to give birth.” The Jews sometimes spoke of the birth pains of the Messiah. These are not the birth pains that the Messiah has, as if the Messiah is a pregnant woman, but rather the birth pains that are necessary to bring forth the Messiah.

These are based in such texts as Isaiah 26:17: “As a woman with child and about to give birth writhes and cries out in her pain, so were we in your presence, O Lord.” In other words, it was anticipated that before the Messiah came, God’s covenant community would go through very significant sufferings. In other words, what we have in this symbolism, is true Israel in an agony of suffering and expectation, as the Messiah comes to birth.

Then there is another sign that appears in verse 3, a second sign in the pageant, in the spectacle: this time, an enormous red dragon. We read, “Then another sign appeared in heaven: an enormous red dragon with seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns on its heads.” Now in case we have any doubt as to his identity, John identifies him for us down in verse 9: “The great Dragon was hurled down: that ancient serpent …” This ties us to Genesis 3. “… called the Devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him.”

Dragon, or Leviathan, or Monster of the Deep: these are standard symbols for all who oppose God. In the Old Testament, Leviathan or the Dragon is associated with Egypt in Psalm 74, with Assyria and Babylon in Isaiah 27, and with Pharaoh in Ezekiel 29. In fact, this sort of association can be made at the personal level: what is it that Jesus says to Peter when Peter gives Jesus some very bad theological counsel?

“Never Lord; this shall not happen to you. No, no, you’re mistaken on this point, Jesus. You’re pretty good as messiahs go, but when you start speaking of the death of the Messiah, it’s really not on, you know.” Jesus does not turn to him and say, “My dear Peter, at this juncture you’re making a mistake; let me correct you.” What he says is, “Get behind me, Satan.”

Now do not misunderstand; the text is not saying that Satan somehow took over Peter so that Peter was demon-possessed and wasn’t giving his opinion. Peter was giving his opinion, but it was a satanic opinion. It is pretty hard to decipher exactly the role of Satan in that satanic opinion, but Jesus would not have used words so serious if he did not detect, behind Peter’s stupidity and theological blindness, the very counsel of Satan himself.

So Satan, the Dragon, can stand behind Egypt as Egypt oppressing the people of God, behind Assyria, behind Babylon, and behind Pharaoh. He’s a red dragon, probably symbolizing his murderous intent. John elsewhere says in John 8:44, quoting the words of Jesus, that he was a murderer from the beginning.

The seven heads is the universality of his power. In apocalyptic literature, numbers are symbol-laden. In most of the rest of the Bible, it’s much more disputable that they’re symbol-laden. Seven suggests universality, the universality of his power and authority, like the seven heads of Leviathan in Psalm 74.

The 10 horns recall the fourth beast of Daniel 7 that Dr. Hugenberger mentioned a few moments ago (I wish I had time to unpack that one at length, but I’m going to skip it by here): awesome power, kingly authority. The crowns here are not a victory wreath, but crowns of arrogated, usurped authority against him who is described in this book as “the Lord of Lords and the King of Kings” (Revelation 19:16), the One who “will rule the nations with an iron scepter” (we read in chapter 12, verse 5). They are arrogated signs of authority against him.

Now those are the two spectacles. Then the drama plays out in verses 4 to 6: “Its tail swept a third of the stars out of the sky and flung them to the earth.” Now this springs out of typical Hebrew nature poetry. When things are going well, then the hills dance for joy and the trees clap their hands. When things are going abysmally, then a third of the skies fall from heaven. It’s not giving you details of astronomy. It is part of Hebrew nature metaphor that speaks of how catastrophic this creature’s activity really is.

But it’s the next line that is stunning. It’s grotesque. It is meant to be shocking. “The Dragon stood in front of the woman who was about to give birth, so that it might devour her child the moment he was born.” So the covenant community, pictured as a woman, is described with this woman with her feet in the stirrups, pushing, about to give birth.

There is the Devil himself, standing between the woman’s legs, ready to grab the baby as it emerges and eat it. You’re meant to be shocked at that! The historical reality behind it? It’s called the Slaughter of the Innocents, and it’s described in Matthew 2. The historical reality behind it? It’s the Devil trying to ensure that Jesus would be pushed off a cliff. Ultimately, the historical reality takes Jesus to the cross.

But at this juncture, the child is spared. We read verse 5, “She gave birth to a son, a male child, who ‘will rule all the nations with an iron scepter.’ ” This is an anticipation of Revelation 19. “… and her child was snatched up to God and to his throne.” You say, “Whoa, wait a minute, you go from birth narrative to ascension? I mean, there are some things that happen between the two, you know. Why aren’t they put in here?”

But there is a reason. The reason is because before you read Revelation 12, you’re supposed to have read Revelation 1–11, and that includes Revelation 4 and 5. Revelation 4 and 5 is another large coherent vision; you’re supposed to have that tucked away in the back of your mind. Revelation 4 is to Revelation 5 what a setting is to a drama. Revelation 4, full of apocalyptic symbolism, describes the throne room of God, God, and all of his majesty.

So many of the metaphors of the symbols point to God’s spectacular transcendental glory. He is the One who is so magnificent that even the highest order of angels cover their faces with their wings and cry, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty” (picking up the language of Isaiah 6). They dare not look on him and live. The song of heaven blesses God because he made all things, and all things exist because of his will. That’s just the setting (chapter 4).

Then in chapter 5, in the right hand of this God is a scroll sealed with seven seals. It turns out that this scroll has in it all of God’s purposes for judgment and blessing for the entire universe; that’s what’s in that scroll. In the symbolism of the day, to effect what is in that scroll (that is, to bring to pass all of God’s purposes for judgment and blessing) requires that someone slit the seals of the scroll, that the scroll be unfurled, in order to bring about all of God’s purposes.

So an angel with a powerful voice offers the challenge to the entire universe, “Who is able to approach this God, take the scroll, and open the seals?” This God, described in the setting in the previous chapter? Someone so glorious that nobody can even look on him, not even the highest order of angels? You can’t expect someone to saunter up and say, “I’ll give it a try, God. Just give me the scroll.”

So the solemn sentence is pronounced, “No one was found who was worthy.” No angel, no human being, no necromancer, no one in the abodes of the dead.… So John, the seer, he weeps and weeps, not because he’s a nosy parker and his curiosity is frustrated, but because of the symbolism that says in effect, “This means that God’s purposes will not be brought to pass.”

So the sufferings of the church are meaningless. Morality is lost. Things happen in this world; there is no significance, meaning, destination, goal, justification, vindication, righteousness, or truth, anywhere. It just happens. So he weeps. Until an interpreting elder touches him on the shoulder and says, in effect, “John, stop your crying. Look. The Lion of the tribe of Judah has prevailed to open the scroll.”

“So I looked,” John says, “and I saw a lamb.” You’re not supposed to think of two animals parked side by side, a lion and a lamb. One of the things that apocalyptic literature does is mix its metaphors. The Lion is the Lamb, and a stranger lamb you never saw. It’s a slaughtered lamb, we’re told. So it’s a sacrificial lamb, but it has seven horns on its head. So it has the perfection of all kingly authority, and it comes from the center of the throne. So it didn’t have to come from the outside; it actually came from God himself!

That’s why when you go to Europe and you see, in some European cathedrals in the stained glass windows, pictures of a strange beast that’s half lion and half lamb, with a sword coming out of its mouth. You think, “Boy, do we have some confused literalists here.” Because the point is, Jesus is not half lion and half lamb; he is the Lion and he is the Lamb. You do that with apocalyptic imagery, but you can’t possibly draw it. How do you make a lion-lamb? Half and half? Thirty-seventy? What do you do with that? That’s why it’s stuff that you have to preach, not draw pictures of!

Now he is able to open the scroll, and because he opens the scroll, he purchases men and women from God from every tongue, and tribe, and people, and nation, and brings all of God’s purposes to pass. You see, all that’s already established before you get here to chapter 12. When you get to chapter 12, that’s all presupposed. John doesn’t need to fill all that in again.

So he goes from his birth immediately to his ascension to the Father’s right hand, because the focus here in this chapter is not on Christ. The focus of this chapter is on the woman. In our terms, the focus of this chapter is on the church, on the covenant people of God and the church’s ongoing struggle with Satan himself.

“The woman fled into the wilderness to a place prepared for her by God, where she might be taken care of for 1,260 days.” There are two bits of symbolism here that we should pick up. First, the desert or the wilderness: for anybody reading the Old Testament, the wilderness or desert was the place through which the people of God passed on their way to the Promised Land.

But the desert or the wilderness keeps cycling back in Old Testament prophecy. For example, in Hosea 2:14 where the people of God are seen as, as it were, a prostitute running after other lovers and chasing away from God, anything to abandon God, the supreme husband. God says, “I will allure her and bring her into the wilderness and speak tenderly to her.” So the wilderness is simultaneously a place of testing and a place where God is wooing, winning, and attracting his bride.

So this woman goes out into the wilderness, waiting for the promised consummation. What should we make of “1,260 days”? Well, an illustration I’ve sometimes used about the danger of numbers is this.… Not all numbers in Scripture are symbol-laden, but in apocalyptic they regularly are. Have you ever noticed that in John 21, there are 153 fish? I keep files on bizarre interpretations I have read, and I have quite a fat file on 153.

Did you know that if you put one dot, and then in the next column, two (dot, dot), and the next column, three (dot, dot, dot), and the next column, four (dot, dot, dot, dot), and you keep adding one dot until you finally have an equilateral triangle of 17 dots on each side.… Do you realize the total number of dots in that equilateral triangle is 153? Mathematically, this means that 153 is the triangular number of 17, and 17 is seven plus 10.

Ten is the number of the Ten Commandments. Seven is the number of perfection, and of course it’s made up of three plus four. Three is the number of the Trinity, and four is the number of the church built four-square. One hundred and fifty-three fish: you see what it really means is, since we’re supposed to be fishers of men, that in preaching the gospel and becoming fishers of men, eventually we preach the commands of God in the name of the Holy Trinity to the church of God built four-square.

I guarantee I could preach that in most of your churches with a straight face and people would say, “Deep, deep.” Now let me tell you the real reason why there were 153 fish. Because there was one more than 152 and one less than 154. Some character said, “Boy, that’s a lot of fish; I wonder how many?” and they counted them!

But when you get to apocalyptic literature, the numbers really are symbol-laden; it’s why this book is stuffed with seven, and three, and four, and 12, and 10, and so on, and these numbers recur and recur and recur. Then you get multiples of 12 times 12 is 144: that’s deeply symbol-laden. I don’t have time to go through them all, but that’s pretty standard.

So what does 1,260? On an idealized month, with 30 days a month (which is the way a lot of Jewish calculations worked), 1,260 days is 42 months (which are mentioned in the previous chapter), which is three and a half years (also mentioned in these chapters), calculated as “time [one year], times [two more years], and half a time.” All four expressions … 1,260 days; time, times, and half a time; three and a half years; and 42 months … all have the same significance in the book of Revelation.

What’s the significance? Well, you’ll forgive me, I’m a Canadian. When I came down here, I made a point of reading the Federalist Papers and the Constitution and making sure I knew my share of American history, and eventually I worked my way to Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address and so on.

How does Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address begin again? “Four score and seven years …” That is iconic in America; all I have to say is, “four score and seven …” If I said, “Eighty-seven,” no one would have a clue what I was talking about, but if I say “four score and seven,” everybody knows what I’m talking about, don’t they? It’s iconic. It becomes a symbol-laden thing that points not only to the Gettysburg Address, but to the gap before which the Civil War began to address the issue of slavery in the country. It’s iconic, isn’t it?

Many, many, many cultures develop an iconic time period somewhere in their history because of something or other that has happened to them. For the Jews, it was three and a half years. This was because toward the beginning of the second century before Christ, little Israel found itself squashed between the regional superpower down in Egypt (the Ptolemaic dynasty) and the regional superpower up in Syria, up in the north. They were squashed back and forth.

Eventually the Syrians won, and Antiochus IV Epiphanes, the king at the time, decided to crush Judaism. He marched in with his troops and sacrificed pigs in the temple. He made it a capital offense to observe the Sabbath. He made it a capital offense to be a priest. He made it a capital offense to possess any part of Torah. As his troops were going through the land … killing people, slaughtering people, and imposing paganism … they eventually came to a small hill town, a little village.

There they met an old man by the name of Mattathias, who was a priest. Somehow, Mattathias killed the emissary who was sent. Mattathias had three sons. The first was called Judah, and he came to be called Judas the Hammer (in Aramaic, Judas Maccabeus), and he started a systematic guerilla warfare.

I’m told (I don’t know if it’s the case; maybe there is somebody who can tell me afterwards) that still in some military colleges in this country, people have to read Josephus’ account of that Maccabean revolt, since it’s the first, earliest description of guerrilla warfare known to us in literature. Pages and pages of Josephus (a first century historian) describe it. They kept attacking and attacking. Mattathias died, Judas died, one of his brothers took over, and so on. But eventually, there was a set piece on the banks of the Orontes River and the Jews won.

For the first time in such a long time, they owned their land again, and they cleansed the temple. That three and a half years, in other words, because symbol-laden for them of a period of desperate suffering and struggle as they’re waiting for God finally to release them again. That’s the way this is described here. We’re told she has to be taken care of by God for a set piece of time: 1,260 days. The point is not that it’s only three and a half years; the point is it’s this set period of time in God’s own design.

Verses 7 to 9 describe this struggle in heaven that finally casts Satan out. So we read in verse 10, after Satan has been thrown down to the earth, “Then I heard a loud voice, ‘Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Messiah. For the accuser of our brothers and sisters, who accuses them before our God day and night, has been hurled down.”

Likewise in verse 12, “Rejoice, you heavens and you who dwell in them! But woe to the earth and the sea [that is, our domain], because the Devil has gone down to you!’ ” So in the next chapter, the Devil calls forth two helpers, one from the earth and one from the sea, two beasts: one who is a violent beast of persecuting force and the other who is a deceptive beast, a false prophet.

The three of them constitute a kind of unholy triumvirate. In fact, when you read these chapters very carefully in the original, you see that John picks up some of the language that is used of the Trinity in John 14–16. It’s as if the Devil is trying to constitute an alternative trinity, with himself and the two beasts, against God himself. That’s the struggle that we’re involved in, in these chapters. So in other words, John outlines the occasion for this satanic rage.

2. John identifies the reasons for this satanic rage.

Revelation 12:10, 12. The reason for it is precisely because Satan knows that he’s defeated. Look at this rather quickly in verses 10 and 12. Satan knows that his time is short. He is vituperative. He is nasty. The troubles of the persecuted righteous of the church of the Living God, of the deceptive powers wielded against them, arise not because Satan is so strong, but because he’s beaten and he knows it.

Toward the end of World War II, by which time the Russians were pushing in through Poland toward Germany, by which time the Western Allies had cleared out North Africa and were pushing up “the boot” of Italy.… Eventually in June 1944, the Western Allies landed on the beaches of Normandy, and in three days they dumped in 1.1 million men and countless tons of war material.

Anyone with half a brain in his head could see the war was over: in terms of energy supplies, metal, men, money to pay for it, and renewable resources. It was over. So what happened? Did Hitler say, “Oops,” and sue for peace? No, he was filled with fury and tried to break out again in which came to be called the Battle of the Bulge. The only reason he didn’t get all the way to the beaches of France and the Atlantic again was because he ran out of gas. Some of the bloodiest fighting in the entire war was in the siege on Berlin.

In other words, the enemy we face now has been beaten decisively by Christ. Already during his ministry as the disciples were preaching the good news, Jesus could say, “I saw Satan fall from heaven.” When Jesus dies on the cross, he silences forever the accusations of the accuser of the brothers.

The accuser could say, “God, I don’t know how you go around still looking at yourself in the mirror and say that you’re holy. I mean, how can you possibly say you’re holy? Have you ever considered that Don Carson creep? He has so much sin, it’s unbelievable, and you say you’re holy?” But Christ has paid for Don Carson’s sin. The accuser of the brothers is silenced. He can’t even do to us what he did to Job.

He’s beaten, but he’s not yet chained. He’s not yet been thrown into the lake of fire. Far from being softer because of it, he is filled with fury because he knows his time is short. Do you recall how Jesus sometimes confronts demons in his day, and they say, “Do not send us into the Abyss before the time”? This shows that they know their time is coming! They’re defeated; they know it, and they’re in bleak despair and full of fury.

So Satan’s time is short. Satan’s sphere is limited. He’s been cast out of heaven and therefore, he descends to the earth and finds his two beasts. We read in verse 13, “When the Dragon saw that he had been hurled to the earth, he pursued the woman who had given birth to the male child …” That is, the covenant people of God.

Then what you get in the following description is lots of exodus typology: “The woman was given the two wings of a great eagle …” That’s language that God uses of Israel in Exodus 19. “… so that she might fly to the place prepared for her in the wilderness, where she would be taken care of for a time, times, and half a time …” That is, a stipulated period of tribulation that covers all the period from Christ’s first coming to his second.

“… out of the serpent’s reach. Then from his mouth the serpent spewed water like a river to overtake the woman and sweep her away with the torrent.” This reminds us, again, of the drowning of the people, possibly reflecting Exodus 1:22, and on and on. “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep you away” (Isaiah 43:2). These background texts are being picked up into this dynamic form here.

So his sphere is restricted and his success is limited, but he is angry and he is taking us on. Often Christians have argued back and forth: Will the earth get better and better or will it get worse and worse? Will the gospel so prevail that the earth will eventually get better and better? Or will it just get worse and worse? People quote things with proof-text fervency.

“Evil men and seducers will wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived,” but in the context, that’s not saying that every generation is worse than the preceding one; it’s saying that in every generation, people get worse. Hitler didn’t start off being Hitler; he started off as a baby. Everybody thought he was cute, I’m sure, but he got worse and worse. That’s what happens in every generation.

So will the world get better or will the world get worse? Well, I’m neither a prophet nor the son of a prophet, and as a friend of mine says, I work for a “non-prophet” organization! But I’ll tell you what’s going to happen anyway. Jesus tells the parable of the wheat and weeds that I mentioned this morning (one of the reasons that I mentioned it this morning was that I knew I was going to use it this afternoon). What Jesus says to the disciples who want to pluck out the weeds right away is, “Let both grow until the end.”

Do you hear that? “Let both grow until the end.” So let me tell you what will happen: both will grow until the end. There will be revivals, there will be times of reformation, there will be vast numbers that will be swept into the kingdom, the gospel will prevail on all kinds of fronts, and countless millions will be converted. Also there will be persecution, violence, hatred, genocide, malice against Christians taking various forms (sometimes in deceptive doctrine and sometimes in outright persecution). Both will grow until the end.

Do you realize that there have been more men and women converted to Christ in the last 150 years than the previous 1,800 combined? Don’t clap too soon. There have been more martyrs in the last 150 years than in the last 1,800 combined. Both will grow until the end. In won’t surprise me in the slightest if some who are now in this room face physical persecution, as we face now the deceptiveness of the false prophet.

So John identifies the reasons for the struggle in which we find ourselves, the woman and the children of the woman, those “who keep God’s commands and hold fast to their testimony about Jesus.” He identifies the problem, and the problem is we’re not just struggling against flesh and blood.

We’re not just confronting New England intellectualism. We’re not just confronting a laissez-faire materialism. We’re not confronting merely the new tolerance. We’re not confronting merely a biblical illiteracy and ignorance. No, no, no, no. Somewhere along the line we have to face the fact that we face the Devil himself.

So now what’s the mission of the church? How do we prevail? That brings me to my last point, which I can run through quickly.

3. John specifies how Christians overcome Satan and his satanic rage.

Revelation 12:11. First, we overcome him by the blood of the Lamb. Revelation 12:11a. Satan (we’re told in the previous verse) accuses our brothers and sisters day and night before God, even though he’s been hurled down, but we read, “They triumphed over him by the blood of the Lamb,” literally “on the ground of the blood of the Lamb.”

You see, I have no defense against Satan by saying, “Oh come on, Satan, stop accusing me. I mean, I’m not as bad as you think. I’m a pretty nice guy, really. You know, my wife loves me; probably my mother did when she was alive. Compared to some people, I’m not bad.” Compared with the holiness of God, that gets me absolutely nowhere.

But what I can say is, “You’re right, Satan, entirely right. I plead the blood of Christ; that’s my whole answer, nothing more. I have no other argument. I need no other plea. It is enough that Jesus died and that he died for me.” That’s how we constrain all the fiery darts of Satan, seeking to destroy us and ruin our confidence and our sufficiency in Christ. We go back to the cross, again and again and again.

An illustration I’ve sometimes used pictures two men, Mr. Smith and Mr. Jones: two Jews at the time of the exodus (with remarkable names) near the night before Passover. Mr. Smith turns to Mr. Jones and he says, “Have you daubed your doorposts and lintel with the blood of a slaughtered lamb?”

“Oh yes, of course. Moses said we really had to do that.”

“Well, so have I. To be frank, I’m really worried.”

“What do you mean, you’re really worried?”

“Well, Moses says that tonight the angel of destruction is going through the land. Don’t you see? The firstborn is going to be wiped out … of animals and of children, of human beings … for every household where there isn’t blood on the two doorposts and on the lintel.”

Mr. Jones says, “Well, you put the blood on the doorposts and lintel …”

“Well, yes I know, but think of all the things that have gone on in the last few weeks: flies, darkness, frogs, you know, pretty disgusting things.… Now we’re having an angel of destruction go through the land? I’m really nervous.”

“I am not,” says Mr. Smith, “God says that if the destroying angel sees the door with blood on it, then he’ll pass over. I’m expecting a party tonight.”

“Well, you know,” says Mr. Jones, “you have sixteen kids. I only have my one son. I’m going to lose my whole family if I lose my Andy tonight.”

That night, the angel of destruction passed through the land. Which one lost his son? Mr. Smith or Mr. Jones? The answer, of course, is neither, because the condition was not how strong your faith is, but the blood. So also for us today, brothers in Christ, the issue is not how strong your faith is; it’s the blood of the Lamb. That’s how Christians overcome the Devil.

Secondly, we overcome him by bearing testimony to Jesus. Revelation 12:11b. They overcame him “by the word of their testimony.” This does not mean that they give their testimonies a lot. I mean, they may, but it’s not the point here. It means they bear testimony to Jesus. In other words, they talk about the gospel. How do you advance the cause of Christ in a broken, damned world where the Devil is filled with fury?

Well, you yourself take your stand on the blood of Christ, but in addition, what you do is you bear testimony to Jesus. You talk about his death, his resurrection. You talk about his reign. You talk about his return. You talk about his righteousness. You talk about his sovereignty. You talk about Jesus; you bear witness to Jesus! In other words, you gossip the gospel.

What shall we do to push back the powers of darkness? Retreat to a little holy huddle and say, “These are dark times, you know”? Well, they are dark times, especially in some parts of the country, but what you do is you gossip the gospel. That’s what you do. What else are you going to do, send in the Marines? We tried that once; it’s called the Crusades.

You don’t advance the kingdom that way, don’t you see? There may be a place for military strength for governments, but that’s not the way the church advances. That’s not the way the gospel advances; that’s not the way the gospel of the cross advances. That’s not the way you beat Satan. No.

Thirdly, we overcome him by our willingness to die. Revelation 12:11c. There is a third way you beat Satan: by simple willingness to die. “They triumphed over him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death.” I love to reflect on that passage in Acts 5:41, where the disciples, the apostles, face the first whiff of persecution. They’re beaten up, and the text says they rejoiced “because they were counted worthy to suffer for the name.”

It’s taken me awhile to figure out what’s going on in their heads. Don’t forget the night before Jesus goes to the cross, Jesus had solemnly told them (according to John 15 and 16) that a slave is not above his master. “If they persecuted me,” Jesus said, “they’re going to persecute you. If they loved me, they’ll love you. You really have to expect something of the same treatment that I had.”

Then Pentecost happens. Thousands are converted. Their reputation in Jerusalem is spectacular. Oh, the authorities don’t like them very much, but the authorities are cowed. Meanwhile the crowds think they’re wonderful; they struggle for a place on the sidewalk to get Peter’s shadow to pass over them. People are getting converted. A few weeks later, 5,000 men plus all the women and children are converted. A church of, what, 20,000 in Jerusalem? Unbelievable.

You can imagine one of the apostles turning to another and saying, “You know, this is fun! It’s spectacular. The times of promise are with us. But I wonder what Jesus meant about the persecution, you know? I mean, I’m glad it’s not here and all that, but you remember what Jesus said on the night that he was betrayed. Are we doing something wrong? How come so many people like us? Nobody has even been beaten up. Not a single jail sentence. Not a martyr in sight …” Then the apostles get beaten up, and they say, “Yes! It’s about time!” and they rejoice because they were counted worthy to suffer for the name.

Now suppose, brothers and sisters in Christ all throughout New England, that every time you are belittled or mocked, every time you’re told that you’re a nitwit because you believe all those silly, bigoted superstitions, every time you fall under what Jesus describes as “Blessed are you when men revile, persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you for my sake and the gospel’s” …

Suppose that every time you said to yourself, “Yes! What a privilege to suffer for Jesus. Bring it on.” I guarantee that would change the witness in New England. Because instead of being inward and frightened and concerned, it would be effervescent, irreplaceable, irrepressible, and powerful, all the time. You’d get all kinds of people really ticked, yet you yourself would be rejoicing because you were counted worth to suffer for the name.

That’s how you beat the Devil: you hide under the cross, you bear witness to Jesus, and you do not shrink from death of any sort. That’s how you have a gospel-shaped mission in the church of Jesus Christ. I tell you, there are two application of overwhelming importance …

First, we must analyze our situation biblically and theologically, not simply sociologically and psychologically. Then we will be able to say with Luther, who understood this, “Though this world, with devils filled, should threaten to undo us, we will not fear, for God has willed His truth to triumph through 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.” The next stanza shows that that word is the gospel word.

Secondly, we must recognize and use our weapons. The only effective weapons we have are all that are based on Christ’s atoning death, including: the gift of the Spirit, the assurance of sins forgiven, all the authority based on proclaiming the word of the cross and the word of the gospel, bearing testimony to Jesus, and all the courage of integrity that emerges because death cannot frighten those who follow the Prince of Life.

I told the folk I cherished how my sins had been forgiven,

How Jesus changed my outlook, took my guilt, and gave me heaven.

They thought I’d lost my senses, turned fanatic, lost my reason.

They charged me with betrayal, with a vicious kind of treason.

And I wondered why salvation should cause me so much pain.

If they persecuted me, they will persecute you;

For the slave is not above the Lord he serves.

My assignment was the cross; you my slave will bear some loss.

My disciple takes his cross and daily nerves his heart and mind to follow me.

Then soon I learned my brothers and sisters in the Savior

So often shine in suffering with astonishing behavior,

Adorn the blessed gospel with forbearing perseverance,

Forgive their cruel tormentors with a graceful, firm endurance.

Still I wondered why salvation should cause them so much pain.

What alien perspectives I’ve pursued with willful blindness.

For apostolic servants would rejoice at God’s great kindness

In reckoning them worthy to take on a little battering.

They longed to know Christ’s power and the fellowship of suffering.

For they understood their calling to trust and suffer pain.

“To you it has been granted, on behalf of Christ, not only to believe in his name, but to suffer for his sake” (Philippians 1:29). “If they persecuted me, they will persecute you, for the slave is not above the Lord he serves. My assignment was the cross; you my slave will bear some loss. My disciple takes his cross and daily nerves his heart and mind to follow me.” Let us pray.

Steel our hearts, Lord God … to resolution, to perseverance, to courage, to so loving the approval of the Master, to becoming indifferent to the opinions of the world that knows not the Master … that when we face a little condescension, a little intellectual slighting, a little of the mockery of friends and family, we will follow the apostolic example and rejoice that we are counted worthy to suffer for the name.

So return us again and again to the cross and plead the blood of Christ. Give us boldness to bear witness to Jesus, and grant that we may so look at all things from eternity’s perspective, that we will not shrink from death itself. For Jesus’ sake, amen.