The Woman, The Wilderness, and the Weapon that Slays the Dragon (Revelation 12:1-6) | Pastor Jake Sweetman

In this sermon, we launch into a captivating exploration of the book of Revelation, beginning our series titled "The Wonderful World of the Apocalypse." Dive into Revelation chapter 12 as we uncover the rich symbolism of the heavenly woman and the menacing dragon, unveiling the spiritual truths that shape the narrative of our faith.

This message invites believers to look beyond the surface, challenging us to understand the heavenly perspective of our earthly struggles. Through this teaching, discover how Revelation is not just about future events but is profoundly relevant to every generation of the church. Gain insights into the triumph that comes through following the Lamb and living as faithful witnesses of Christ.

Whether you're new to the book of Revelation or looking to deepen your understanding, this sermon sheds light on the powerful themes of promise, victory, and discipleship. Perfect for listeners eager to engage with scripture in a meaningful way, each week of this series offers new revelations and blessings.

Tune in to be inspired, encouraged, and equipped to see your life from heaven's perspective. Subscribe now to stay updated with every weekly message as we journey through the book of Revelation together.

Keywords: Revelation, Apocalypse, Book of Revelation, Dragon, Woman, Jesus, Serpent, Faithful Witness, Christian Message, Sermon, Bible Study, End Times, Spiritual Warfare, Church, Prophecy, Discipleship, Christianity, Hope

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Transcript

 We are kicking off our brand new series today called The Wonderful World of the Apocalypse as we are going through the entirety of the book of Revelation.

Who thinks that that sounds exciting?

Good.

Why don't you high five your neighbors?

I'm really glad I'm sitting next to you.

Go ahead and grab your Bibles.

Open them up to the book of Revelation.

If you don't know where that is, that is the last book in your Bible.

The last book in your Bible.

Just flip back to like the maps.

 Go to the maps in the very back and then just turn to the left a few pages.

Yeah?

Revelation.

We're actually going to begin in Revelation chapter 12.

So go right to the middle of the book.

Revelation chapter 12 is where we're going to begin the series.

And I am starting in verse 1.

Revelation chapter 12, beginning in verse 1.

Do you have it?

Yeah?

If you need more time, say, I need more time.

Oh, come on.

It's not that hard.

It's the last book of the Bible.

It's the Bible.

It's the Bible.

 For those of you who are new to church, welcome.

So good to have you here.

I'm Jake.

Nicole and I get the great privilege of being able to lead this amazing community of people that we just love with all of our hearts.

Revelation chapter 12, beginning in verse 1, says this, a great sign, everyone say sign, a great sign appeared in heaven, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of 12 stars on her head.

 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 wilderness to a place prepared for her by God where she might be taken care of for 1260 days.

Do you ever get the feeling that maybe there's more to the story of your life?

 Like there's something deeper beyond the surface and beyond the veil of what you can see that's somehow factoring into the choices you're given and the reality you're experiencing or maybe even the direction that you're heading or perhaps even the opposition that you're facing.

Revelation is the exploration of that more.

 It is the exploration of that beyond.

It is God pulling back the curtains so that we can see things as they really are.

It's heaven's perspective on what's true.

And an invitation to live by what's true in heaven, not just what looks true on earth.

 That's the heartbeat of the whole book.

We'll keep coming back to that throughout the series.

That's our lens.

Today we begin our journey through Revelation.

We're going to spend approximately 39 weeks in this book.

 And we will break every four to five weeks or so for other voices, other scriptural topics to keep a healthy diet of scripture and spiritual gifting on the platform.

But the main course pretty much for the next year is the revelation from and the revelation of Jesus Christ.

And that's good news because we desperately need his words.

Our aim is not to geek out over every single detail in the text.

Our aim is to grow as disciples.

 And that was John's aim when he wrote this one-of-a-kind spirit-inspired document.

His aim is discipleship.

His aim is to equip followers of Jesus to remain faithful in their witness to him.

So this isn't about decoding symbols.

This is about forming people.

 Over these next months, we're going to see the Lamb conquer, the church persevere, the enemy rage and lose, and the world made new.

But this is not just a story for us to admire.

This is the story that we're living.

And every single week will be another step into that story until we see the very end from God's point of view.

 I believe that we simply will not be the same by the time we reach the end of the series because the book of Revelation is where casual, cultural, lukewarm Christianity goes to die.

 Now in case you're more on the nerdy side of the spectrum like me and you do want to explore as many details as possible as we go throughout this series, we put together a list of resources on the book of Revelation for you.

These are six phenomenal scholarly works that all harmonize with one another but also have varying perspectives in certain places of the text.

 There are obviously so many resources on the book of Revelation.

These ones have been my closest companions as I've been preparing for this series and I will continue to utilize them a lot as we travel throughout.

Maybe you want to snap a photo of that text or maybe we'll send it out in an email to the congregation so you guys can have that.

 And you can dive into all the nerdy details as well and study even more deeply if that's your cup of tea.

But I just want you to know that as I am unfolding Revelation to you, it's not my own ideas, it's not rogue interpretations, it will all be the result of many, many hours of study.

For those of you who have grown up with a certain view of Revelation and its relationship to the news cycle, to technological developments, to Russian helicopters, and to the latest events surrounding the nation of Israel, this series will be a bit of a shift for you.

 You will see how Revelation is relevant to all times, not just the very end of time.

How Revelation is relevant to all people, not just the people of Israel.

For those of you who have stayed away from Revelation, whether for fear or confusion, this series will fill you with hope and courage and maybe, just maybe, inspire you to begin including Revelation in your morning devotions.

 along with the Psalms and the Gospel of John and maybe the letter to the Romans.

And in doing so, by reading this text, you will be blessed.

In fact, seven times throughout Revelation, the Apostle John pronounces a blessing upon those who hear and obey.

 The number seven, of course, is symbolic in Revelation of wholeness, of completion.

So there's a whole blessing being bestowed upon you as you read this text.

We learned about that word blessed last year when we were going throughout our Sermon on the Mount series.

The Greek word is makarios.

It means flourishing.

So Revelation is offering you the whole flourishing life in God as you hear and obey what it has to tell you.

The first thing that we must understand about the book of Revelation is what genre of literature it fits into.

 If you don't know what genre you're reading, you won't read it correctly.

You don't read a novel the same way that you read the Financial Times.

You don't read fantasy the same way that you read history.

Genre dictates how you interact with and interpret the words on the page.

So what genre is Revelation?

The answer to that question is actually that Revelation is not one, but three genres.

It is a letter.

It is a work of Christian prophecy.

And Revelation is an apocalypse.

 First, Revelation is a letter.

It opens with the same kind of greeting in chapter 1 that the Apostle Paul often opens his letters with grace and peace to you.

 This letter is unique in the fact that it's a circular letter.

That means that it's meant to be carried by a messenger and circulate amongst seven different churches in the Roman province of Asia, and we'll meet those churches soon.

But because it was written to specific people in specific places who were facing specific challenges, Revelation is what you call situational.

It's addressing a specific situation.

John is riding to strengthen their faithfulness to Jesus in the middle of a pagan and oppressive empire.

 historical context and yet john's choice to address not six not eight but seven churches is also symbolic as i said seven represents completeness and these seven churches in john's mind they stand for the whole church in all places and all times so while this letter is immediately addressed to those seven it is also by extension addressed to every generation of christianity

 This matters because it often gets overlooked.

People sometimes treat Revelation as if it's mainly a prediction of events at the very end of history, usually the generation that they're living in, convinced that the end has come upon them.

But Revelation cannot mean to us what it never could have meant to its first readers.

It is relevant to them before it is relevant to us, and its relevance to us flows out of its relevance to them.

 We must understand how they understood it.

It was a letter to them.

Second revelation is a Christian prophecy.

I'm going to struggle this whole series in my brain, not confusing revelation with relevance.

I'm probably going to say relevation at some point in time, just so you know.

I'm figuring out right now, real time, I think I'm dyslexic.

 Revelation is Christian prophecy.

That means that it is a divinely inspired message from God through John that helps the church, listen, that helps the church understand its present circumstances in light of God's ultimate purposes and instructs them how to live faithfully to God in light of those purposes.

That's what prophecy primarily is.

Prophecy is not primarily foretelling the future.

 Prophecy is primarily speaking God's word into the present, calling God's people to live faithfully in light of what's really going on.

You see, revelation isn't only about what will happen one day.

It's about what is always happening and how followers of Jesus are to live throughout the entire age of the church.

The phrase that revelation uses to describe the way of living that we're called to is this phrase, faithful witness.

Everybody say faithful witness.

Faithful witness.

 That's the main prophetic theme in the book.

Faithful witness means living so that your words and your actions say the same thing, that God alone is God.

Not money, not sex, not self.

God alone is God and through Jesus alone, God offers salvation to the world.

That's what we bear witness to.

To bear witness simply means to declare what you believe is true.

 The word witness comes from the Greek word martis.

It's where we get our English word martyr, somebody who dies for their faith.

And while in Revelation, God calls his church to be faithful to him, it's not necessarily true that every person will die for their faith, but it must be that they are willing at risk of their lives to proclaim the truth of his kingdom over and against the lies and the deceit of Satan and his earthly and spiritual agents.

That's the power of the prophetic word to you.

Lastly, Revelation is an apocalypse.

 We usually hear that word and we think of cataclysmic world-ending events.

We think Hollywood movies, but the Greek word apocalypsis literally means unveiling.

Apocalyptic literature pulls back the curtain to show you what's really happening in human history by giving us heaven's point of view.

And it reminds us that things are not always what they seem.

There is indeed more to the story.

That's why Revelation is full of sometimes strange, sometimes stunning imagery.

 It's a glimpse of the world that we know from a perspective that we don't.

Revelation is your life from heaven's perspective.

And in a culture that is bent on shaping us into nihilists who are addicted to despair and hedonists who are addicted to pleasure, we need an apocalypse.

We need an unveiling of the truth.

 It put all three genres together, letter, prophecy, apocalypse.

And you remember that this document was intended to be read out loud in each of the seven churches.

And you have what one scholar calls a visionary drama.

 Picture it like a spoken word artist, really talented, presenting this text to congregations.

It's like a live enacted monodrama presented to people.

It's a story of the way things really are, but it's not a story for you to get lost in.

It's a story for you to find yourself in and for you to ground yourself in.

 And so as we delve into this prophetic apocalypse addressed to the seven churches and by extension addressed to us, I want to begin in a place that helpfully introduces us to the main characters and to the heartbeat of the plot.

And interesting, that place is not chapter 1, it's chapter 12.

Now, we'll dig into the structure of Revelation another time.

For now, just know this, that the book is not written in a strict linear sequence.

It is not a chronological order of history.

 So if you're the kind of person who thinks missing the first five minutes of the movie is the worst thing that could ever happen to you and you're already freaking out that we're not starting in chapter 1 but starting in chapter 12, calm down.

The structure of Revelation allows us to do this.

It's designed to be seen from multiple angles and we will spend our first four weeks in chapter 12 and then we'll go back to the beginning and work our way through in order.

 Chapter 12 pulls the curtain back even further, revealing the root cause behind the church's ongoing struggle.

Through the first 11 chapters, Satan is present in the story, but he stays out of sight.

His influence is clear, yet the focus remains on the people and the powers that seem to be shaping history.

And all the while, the real enemy is there, but he's hidden.

 That is until chapter 12 brings him into full view in the form of a dragon.

We meet the dragon, but he's not the only character we meet.

We also meet the church as heaven sees her.

We see Jesus at the moment of his birth, and we learn the foundational truth of how God and his people triumph over Satan and triumph over the demonic powers.

All told in Revelation 12, we are thrust into the wonderful world of the apocalypse.

The story for us begins with the woman, the wilderness,

 and the weapon that slays the dragon.

Back to verse 1.

A great sign appeared in heaven.

A woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and a crown of 12 stars on her head.

She was pregnant and she cried out in pain as she was about to give birth.

So here we have this picture of a celestial woman in heaven who is pregnant and in the pains of childbirth, and she is called a great sign.

 We'll come back to the significance of that word great in a moment.

But first, let's lock in on the word sign.

That's a significant word in Revelation.

As we might expect of an apocalyptic book that unveils the supernatural world, Revelation is a book of signs.

In fact, back in the first verse of the book, God tells John, Hey, I'm going to communicate this apocalypse to you through the Greek word is semaino.

 It's where we get our English word semiotics, the study of signs and the study of symbols.

Semino means to communicate through signs and symbols.

It doesn't mean cryptic codes.

It means symbols, most of which draw directly from the Old Testament's imagery.

And here's why that matters.

A sign in Revelation is not a random image to decode.

 It's God's way of showing you ultimate reality.

These signs, they tell you who's really in charge, who the real enemy is, and who you really are in Christ.

For the first century church, the signs reminded them that reality was not just the fragile, suffering community of Christ in the oppressive shadow of the mighty.

 Roman Empire.

Rather, reality is God sovereignly reigning on His throne, the raging satanic enemy at work behind the scenes, the Lamb winning through the faithful witness of His church.

God is trying to show them, if you can see what's true in heaven, you can stand strong on earth.

And that's why these signs matter to you.

If you can see what's true in heaven, you can stand strong on earth, no matter what stands before you.

 Because Revelation is a book of signs, it must be interpreted accordingly.

That is, it must be interpreted symbolically.

We're not looking for what are often called literal interpretations of these pictures.

The mark of the beast is not a microchip.

It's not 5G.

It's not a barcode.

It's not a vaccine passport.

The locusts are not helicopters that shoot missiles.

The Antichrist is not the Pope.

 There were no microchips or helicopters in the first century.

And the word Antichrist doesn't even appear in the book of Revelation.

But that's for another week.

The point is, when you make revelation about the latest gadget or the latest headline, you shrink it down to conspiracy theory.

 When you read it as God's symbols, you see the cosmic truth, and therefore you are actually able to stand strong in your faith.

I love this G.K.

Chesterton quote.

He says, and though St.

John saw many strange monsters in his vision, he saw no creature so wild as one of his own commentators.

You'll get it later.

 Just like the entirety of the book, the signs cannot mean to us what they did not mean to John's original audience.

The signs must point to truths that were relevant in the first century as much as they are relevant today.

Literal interpretations simply are not capable of uncovering that relevance.

So what is it that this great sign in the heavens is communicating?

It's described as a woman in heaven who was in the agony of childbirth and is clothed with the sun, crowned with 12 stars, and she's standing on the moon.

 I remember back in 2017, very vividly, there was widespread attention online as some were claiming that a rare astronomical alignment involving the constellation Virgo fulfilled the great sign of Revelation 12.

And proponents argued that this alignment of the stars and the planets was extraordinarily rare and prophetically significant and therefore a harbinger of the very end being upon us.

 We actually had a gentleman in our church who went down the YouTube rabbit hole and he was convinced that the end of time was on our doorstep.

Needless to say, 2017 came and went.

And the great sign of Revelation 12 has nothing to do with the constellation Virgo.

And it is not about the end of the world.

The sign is not literal.

It is not a constellation.

It is symbolic.

So if we lift our eyes above the headlines, God will show us actually something far bigger.

 Symbolically, this sign symbolizes, listen to me, it symbolizes the people of God in their heavenly glory.

You and I in our heavenly glory.

Frequently throughout the Old Testament, God's faithful people are represented by the symbol of a woman,

 They are also associated with the sun, the moon, and the stars.

The prophet Isaiah prophesied that God's faithful people would be like a bride wearing her crown.

So all of the Old Testament background for this image points to the faithful people of God.

And so it's no surprise if you jump ahead and you want to skip to week four of the series, John will define at the end of chapter 12 that this woman is symbolic of the church.

The 12 stars that form her crown are significant for this interpretation because throughout Revelation, the number 12 symbolizes the complete number of God's redeemed people.

 And so what is the significance of her wearing the sun?

Why in the world is she standing on the moon?

And what's up with the star-studded crown?

Well, collectively, the whole image stands in contrast to the other primary symbolic woman in Revelation, affectionately named the prostitute of Babylon, who is associated with the idolatrous kingdoms of this world and who is clothed with all kinds of earthly splendor.

 Both these women are depicted as queens, but the Babylonian woman is a parody of the true glory of God's people.

Look at how the Babylonian woman is described in Revelation 17, 4.

The woman was dressed in purple and scarlet.

 that's like those were materials that were expensive to acquire, and was glittering with gold, precious stones and pearls.

She held a golden cup in her hand filled with abominable things and with the filth of her adulteries.

So the wicked, idolatrous woman is clothed in earthly garments and riches while the holy, righteous woman is clothed in heavenly splendor.

Her riches, we might say, are in heaven.

To quote Jesus from the Sermon on the Mount.

 The sun communicates her radiance, which is a reflection of Christ, who back in chapter 1 of Revelation is said to have a face that shines like the sun.

Standing on the moon communicates her dominion.

The crown communicates her royalty.

Her location in heaven communicates her closeness to God.

Friends, by all accounts, this lady is killing it from heaven's perspective.

 And so what God is saying to His church with this sign, He's telling them the reality of who they are and what they possess.

That God's church is royal, that she is crowned, that she is glorious, that she is reigning like a queen right beside Him.

But the tension is that this glorious image from an earthly perspective often felt far away for the first century Christians.

They were mistreated, they were ridiculed, they were sometimes physically attacked and harmed.

They had hard days.

They struggled to pay bills.

 They clashed with their spouses.

They endured unfair bosses.

They woke up tired because they had kids.

They battled anxiety.

They faced cultural pressure.

They dealt with sickness in their bodies.

They were coerced to stay silent about their faith.

They stumbled into old sinful habits and patterns.

They felt like the odd one out even amongst their friends and their family.

They would often have felt like anything but royalty.

 the crown in heaven would have felt like light years away from the dust on their feet.

And we know that feeling.

When telling the truth might cost you your promotion.

When honesty about your faith could make a friendship awkward.

When purity feels lonely.

When choosing holiness makes you look strange.

Those are the moments that the earth says, this is foolish, but heaven says, this is royal.

 In the midst of our hardships and trials and suffering and our struggle against sin, you are actually the glorious, powerful people of God.

And this is a frequent picture all throughout the book of Revelation.

It's going to come up so much for us that we are vulnerable on earth, but we are protected and provided for in heaven.

 We are under the rule of the Lord over the whole cosmos who is faithfully leading his people to eternal life.

This image of the celestial woman is meant to encourage every single generation of the church because Jesus said, in this world you will have trouble.

 Paul said to his disciple Timothy that anybody who is even attempting to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will face persecution.

If you truly are living faithfully to Jesus and rejecting the lies that this world tells and believes, then you will experience ridicule and exclusion.

 If you are a force for the kingdom, then you are a threat to the enemy.

And therefore, you will experience demonic opposition in your life.

If you care anything about holiness, then you will experience grief over your sin.

You will suffer.

You will have trials.

There will be moments where you feel lost and attacked and forgotten.

But Revelation 12 declares, bride of Christ, you are the royal people of God.

 Now, for the first century church, the threat to them was an oppressive state that claimed a monopoly on ultimate truth.

That was Rome's stance.

In the West today, it's kind of a different picture, but it ultimately nets out in the same place.

For us, our challenge is a culture that doubts truth even exists.

Or if it does, they don't care.

 But in both of those worlds, the only way the church will make an impact is by staying faithful in its witness to the truth that is worth living and even dying for.

And as we do that, in spite of the bruises we may bear in our bodies, as a result, God says, you look glorious.

It's a clarifying vision for a church whose spiritual spectacles had grown dusty and smudged from the difficulties of life.

Look at what is ultimately real.

You are adorned with the glory of heaven.

So no matter how much

 Dirt life throws at you.

The story of the church ends amongst the stars.

That's the communication of the symbol.

Think about this image from a historical perspective.

By the end of the first century, when the apostle John likely wrote the book of Revelation, the population of Christians in the Roman Empire, sociologists estimate, was no more than 10,000 people.

Friends, that's a mega church in Dallas.

And that's it.

 But the population of Rome was somewhere between 60 and 70 million.

Christians were made up of a tiny fraction of a percent of Rome.

They were on the margin of the margins all the while still being in the center of Roman life.

Imagine how insignificant they would have felt.

How delicate and vulnerable they would have been.

 And yet when God shows John this picture of his church, he shows him a great sign in heaven.

The word great throughout Revelation communicates that something is cosmically significant.

Imagine that.

A tiny minority of faithful people.

A drop of faithfulness in an ocean of idolatry.

A modicum of truth amidst a mass of deception and lies.

God says, that is significant to me.

God is not impressed with Rome.

No.

 God is impressed with his faithful people.

God is not enamored by the towers that Babylon is able to build.

God is enamored with his bride.

 And as the one who is clothed with the sun and crowned with the stars, it's the heavenly woman, not glamorous, glittering Rome.

It's the woman who is responsible for shining the light of God into this world.

The whole sign was wrought with tension for the first century church, still is today for the persecuted church in the Middle East, for the underground church in China.

The question is, does it hold tension for us?

 Are we following the land and carrying our cross in such a way that we read this picture of the celestial woman and go, wow, that doesn't quite add up with my earthly experience.

You see, our lives should be marked with the kind of witness to Jesus' lordship that looks costly in our lives.

 Our witness should cost us our time, our money, our personal preferences, our self-prioritization, our limitless sexual freedom.

It should cost us the weaponization of our autonomy in the name of authenticity and doing what feels right to us.

It should cost us all of that gladly, even though it makes us a peculiar people to the world.

Why?

Because that kind of cost is actually great gain from heaven's perspective.

 This is what seems to be God's point of view about the church right here, is that the woman looks weak, but is actually powerful.

As we keep reading, we see that the woman's greatness and power are tied to the image of her giving birth to a son, who, as we will see soon, is Jesus.

And it says that she cried out in pain as she was about to give birth.

Moms, where are you at?

 I've already told you that the woman is symbolic of the church.

But when I say church, I don't want you to think only in New Testament terms.

I want you to think bigger than that.

I want you to think God's people across the whole biblical story, starting with Adam and Eve, moving through Noah and Abraham, the people of Israel, all the way up until the people of God are fulfilled in Christ Jesus, who unites both Jew and Gentile in himself as the one new people of God.

 In other words, this woman represents God's faithful people throughout the entire narrative of Scripture.

Those who have trusted in God to fulfill his promise of a Messiah to bring salvation.

That's really important because if you only think of the church in New Testament sense, it'll be hard to wrap your mind around the idea that the church is somehow giving birth to Jesus in this vision.

 The point is this, that the Messiah enters the world through the lineage of God's faithful people, those who have lived in hope, waiting for the fulfillment of God's promise of the Messiah, a promise that goes all the way back to the book of Genesis.

This image, at first glance, might seem to be about Mary giving birth to Jesus.

Maybe it might seem to be about the faithful remnant of Israel through whom Jesus came.

And those images are, in fact, part of the picture.

But if you zoom out, it's even bigger and broader than that.

This is reaching all the way back to the beginning of the biblical story.

 This is ultimately about what God says to Eve and the serpent in Genesis 3 in verses 15 and 16.

To the serpent, God says, I will put enmity between you and the woman, between your offspring and hers.

 He will crush your head.

You will strike his heel.

And to the woman, God said, I will make your pains in childbearing very severe.

With painful labor, you will give birth to children.

Now note here the pain of childbirth, the enmity between the offspring of Eve and the serpent figure, which ultimately results in the offspring of Eve crushing the serpent.

 Scholars identify this verse in Genesis 3 as the first instance of the gospel in the Bible, prophesying the arrival of a Messiah who would defeat the devil.

Well, back up in Revelation 12, you have a very clear fulfillment of this whole scene.

The woman is in the pain of childbirth.

The dragon, whom the chapter will later call the serpent in this text, is poised to attack him, to strike his heel, so to speak, that the son triumphs over the serpent, thus crushing his head.

 It's incredibly significant because it communicates that God's oldest promise has been fulfilled through the arrival of Jesus.

 that many thousands of years on, God does not lose track of His promises.

And to a suffering church, how encouraged they would have been to know and be reminded, God does not lose track of His promises.

If He's fulfilled that promise, that ancient promise, then we can trust in the Lord to fulfill every single one of His promises.

Now pay really close attention to how the conditions, the conditions through which the Messiah enters the world.

 It's symbolized by the heavenly woman crying out and the agony of labor as she brings Jesus forth.

And that points to the fact that God's word to Eve about the pain of childbirth was about more than physical pain.

It has cosmic significance.

It is ultimately about the turmoil through which Jesus would come into the world.

It was about the curse of darkness and destruction that would overlay the entire earth due to the influence of Satan's sin upon humanity.

 That through pain and suffering, the Messiah comes into the world.

This preaches to us in a couple of different respects.

First, if you are suffering here today, you are experiencing God's preferred conditions to come into your life.

And perhaps you are experiencing the very conditions that best enable you to see him.

You see, when God comes walking into your life, he does not come as a walking suit.

He comes as a fellow sufferer.

 He comes as the one who went to the cross in order to show you the extent of his compassion and the extent of his love.

For those of you who do not know him, your labor pains of suffering and hardship are the perfect time to look to God, to call upon his name.

The light of Jesus has come shining into this world and he will shine upon every single person who calls out to him.

He comes to pour the spirit of life out from his wounds that he received in his body for the sake of your healing.

 There is a universal longing in humanity for salvation.

In many people, it is suppressed as they've given themselves over to nihilistic worldviews.

But the longing is there all the same.

We look to technology and politics and identity exploration and money and sexual partners.

We look in all kinds of places for the salvation that we long for to shine some kind of light upon the darkness we live in and the darkness we harbor within.

 And the image of the woman crying out in agony as she brings the Messiah into the world is a message to every single one of us.

You can stop looking for salvation now.

It has come.

His name is Jesus.

 The second way that this image preaches to us as the heavenly woman, we, the church, must recognize that as much as we share in her joy of delivering the Messiah to the world, so also in some sense we are meant to share in her labor pains even up until the present day.

For there is none who can give Christ to the world who do not share in the heavenly woman's labor.

It's like Paul said to the Galatians, I am in the anguish of childbirth until Christ is fully formed in you.

 That's an eternal truth for the church across all generations.

That the people of God are meant to labor for the sake of giving Christ to the world.

But these labor pains are our joy.

And we often forget this in the West because we're distracted by the temptation to labor for a different kind of delivery.

One where we are busy delivering ourselves to the world.

 Because of the privilege of abundance, we have permission to give our time to dream boards and personal vision statements about how we can give more of ourselves to the world, all the while we lose sight of the reality that we're supposed to be living in light of, where we give Christ to the world, and we share in the pains of that labor.

And so our abundance becomes excess as we turn it in on ourselves, and we think that that's what makes us rich.

But in reality, it only makes us empty.

 If giving Christ away is your aim, then you will be truly wealthy.

Listen to me.

You are never poorer than when you are trying to give away yourself to the world.

Because when your thoughts are consumed with self, you are anxious.

You are comparing.

You are depressed.

That's not rich.

You are never wealthier than when your aim is to give Christ away to the world.

Because you are free.

You are secure.

You are...

 Makarios.

You are most blessed, most flourishing, most happy when your life does not orient around giving away yourself but giving away the Lord of all the cosmos.

To lose sight of that is to lose sight of the reality that God is unveiling to us through the wonderful world of the apocalypse.

And it's so easy to lose sight of because according to the apocalypse, the world that we live in is fundamentally a war being waged for your allegiance.

Look at verses 3 and 4.

Then another sign appeared in heaven.

 An enormous red dragon with seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns on its heads.

Its 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 it might devour her child the moment he was born.

Now again, a few verses later in the chapter, we learn that this dragon figure is Satan, the devil, the ancient serpent, John calls him, the deceiver of the world.

 And our initial introduction to him here shows us, shows him waiting to devour the son the moment he's born.

And historically, this reminds us of when King Herod attempted to kill Jesus as a baby in the Gospel of Matthew.

And so what appears to be on the surface human envy and evil in Matthew's Gospel, Revelation unveils as the scheme of the devil, that he is the root of all the evil in the world, no matter how it is manifested.

 And in contrast to the woman who is adorned with the sun and the stars, the dragon flings a third of the stars out of the sky.

Later in the chapter, we'll learn that these stars are symbolic of the angelic horde that came under Satan's influence.

Right now in the text, this image serves to counteract the brilliance and brightness of the woman.

Because while the woman is clothed with the stars, Satan sweeps stars down, thus bringing darkness upon the world.

He is a usurper.

 He works to undermine God's order in the cosmos through bringing his evil influence upon creation.

He is red not simply because that's the color of dragons, but because red in the book of Revelation symbolizes bloodshed and violence and war.

And the dragon is not to be underestimated.

He appears with seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns, each number symbolizing the fullness and the far-reaching nature of his influence.

Listen, the dragon's influence is not regional.

 It is not bound by borders.

It's not primarily a problem for the Eastern world, for the mystical world.

 It is not primarily a problem for the left or for the right.

The reach and the influence of the dragon respects no boundaries of mankind.

He operates through kingdoms and ideologies, economic systems and social movements.

Revelation shows us the dragon's reach is cosmic.

It infects the rich and the poor, the great and the small.

Which means that our true enemy is not ultimately Rome.

 It's not the left.

It's not the right.

It's not the elephant.

It's not the donkey.

Our true enemy is the dragon.

And while he often hides behind political and cultural masks, Revelation teaches us to see through the disguise and to overcome him by following the Lamb.

The word for the crown that the woman wears is the Greek word stephanos.

It's the kind of victory wreath that an athlete would wear at the end of competing in athletic games after winning.

The kind of crown that the dragon wears is the Greek word diademata, diadem.

 The only other character besides the beast who's closely allied with the dragon, the only other character in the whole book of Revelation who wears diadems is Jesus.

In Revelation chapter 19, John sees Jesus wearing many crowns.

In other words, more than John could count.

So even in the picture of the crowns, the contrast is clear that Satan's power is real, but it's limited.

He's got seven crowns.

 Christ's power is unrivaled.

The dragon's rule is permitted for a time, but Jesus' reign is eternal.

The dragon's crowns are a costume.

Jesus' crowns are the real thing.

So Satan's power is real, but it's a parody of God's true power.

That's the picture.

But that's not what the devil wants you to believe.

He wants you to believe that he is omnipotent.

He wants you to believe that he is unstoppable.

 The dragon wants you to believe that he is capable of enslaving you with his insipid lies of destabilizing God's people with fear tactics and temptation to sin.

He wants you to believe that resistance is futile, repentance is useless, and chains cannot be broken.

 But he is a liar.

And he is not as powerful as he portrays.

And so pay attention to how the text clues you into the devil's deceitful presentation of himself.

That in contrast to the woman who is called a great sign, the devil is called another sign.

The implication is that he is lesser than the woman.

He's nothing compared to the glory of God as shown through his bride.

He's just another sign.

However, at the same time, he is an enormous dragon.

 That word enormous is the Greek word magos.

It's the same word that gives us the word great.

So the text literally says there's a great sign in the heavens.

It's the woman.

There's just this other sign, but he's a great dragon.

 So there's an intentional disparity between what the sign of the dragon symbolizes and how the dragon presents himself.

The truth from heaven's perspective is that the dragon is not great.

He is not a great sign in the heavens, but he presents himself to the world in a way that appears great.

In other words, his earthly bark does not line up with his heavenly bite.

We might say that the dragon looks powerful, but is weak.

 I don't mean to insinuate that he's not a threat.

In many ways, he is.

But listen, you can be threatening and weak.

You can be a bully and pathetic all at the same time.

And for a church who are constantly tempted to shrink back in their faith due to the menacing threats of the enemy, they need to know from heaven's perspective, who are we dealing with?

 They need to know that they can conquer him.

That the dragon has an incredible weakness that keeps him from being truly great.

And this weakness, in contrast to the church, whom God makes much of, the weakness of the dragon is that he makes much of himself.

Though he is not great, he presents himself as great.

And so his pride...

 which led to his fall at the beginning, his defeat at the cross, will ultimately lead to his destruction in the end.

You see, the fact that the book of Proverbs teaches you and I that pride comes before the fall is not just an axiom for life.

That is naming the archetypal reality which is embodied in the Satan.

It is naming the reality in which all departure from true glory and true power includes.

An estimation of ourselves that exceeds reality.

 And in heaven's view, the battlefield is drawn along this line, the dragon's swollen pride set against the lamb's willing humility.

And that contrast is key to see what happens next in verse 5, that this woman gave birth to a son, a male child who will rule all the nations with an iron scepter, quoting Psalm 2.

And her child was snatched up to God and to his throne.

So the dragon stands in position to devour the son who is the Messiah.

 the promised ruler of Psalm 2, the one who will rule the nations and defend and protect his people.

But in the moment of the son's birth, where we anticipate some great conflict between him and the dragon, something unexpected happens.

Before the dragon can even so much as salivate over the son, he is safely snatched up to the throne of God where he reigns.

 Akita understanding this verse is the fact that the whole of Jesus' mission here is summarized with both his birth and his enthronement.

And everything in the middle is assumed.

His cross, his suffering, his resurrection.

All of that is assumed in the middle of his incarnation and his exaltation.

So the picture of the text is that Jesus' mission is dramatized here as God providing safe passage to the throne.

Amen.

 But the reader knows by the time they reach Revelation 12, they know that Jesus is the slain lamb.

They know that he's the ruler of the nations because he's the faithful witness, because he is the archetypal martyr.

So they know that the cross is central to the identity of Jesus.

So the mission is dramatized as God providing safe passage to the throne.

But the reader knows that the point of the safe passage is that it involves a cross.

 That's the point of this verse, that safe passage is provided by God, but safe passage comes through the cross.

And therefore the point for the church is that the only real safe passage there is, the only real safe path for you to walk in life is the path of faithful witness to God.

To live by the truth that God is God and that salvation is through Christ alone.

And to cling and proclaim that truth

 no matter the cost or the expense that comes your way.

Just as the church looks like it's struggling from earth, but is actually glorious from heaven, so also Jesus looked like a criminal on a cross from earth, but from heaven God was leading him safely to his throne.

It just turns out that God's definition of safe is a lot different to your definition of safe.

We think safe means nothing hard ever touches us.

 But in God's hands, safe means you can walk through fire and come out the other side not even smelling like smoke.

We think safety is the absence of struggle.

God says safety is overcoming Satan and sin.

And that's a victory that you can only find at the cross because humility only wins where it goes where pride cannot follow.

And pride will not go there.

Pride will not lower itself.

 So while it may have looked as though the dragon was winning when Jesus was on the cross, in actual fact Christ was conquering the prideful one with his ultimate display of humble sacrificial love for his people and faithfulness to God.

And John emphasizes that here with the image of the dragon like lying in vengeful wait.

He's so ready to pounce upon the Son of God.

 but he's robbed of the opportunity to inflict any harm at all.

He is impotent compared to the mighty power of the cross of Christ.

The dragon is so weak that he's incapable of devouring a humble newborn child.

And so with the dragon as the image of debilitating pride and selfishness, and the child as the image of ultimate humility and selflessness, the point for the church is

 clear do not lose sight of the weapon that holds the power to slay the dragon it always has been and always will be the cross of jesus christ commitment to the truth no matter what the cost you see this is the glory of the woman though she suffers and endures much from the dragon who we will see in a few weeks has launched an all-out assault against the people of god she must remember that she is called to conquer the dragon in exactly the same way as her lord through the cross

 through faithful witness, that is her strength and her power.

And what that commitment to the truth involves is knowing your enemy and therefore knowing how to fight.

If you don't know your enemy, you will fall prey to pride.

If you think the enemy is Rome, your weapon might be violent revolution.

 If you think your enemy is another human, your weapon might be retaliation.

If your enemy were the boss who mistreats you, your weapon might be to undermine her.

If your enemy were the coworker who slanders you, your weapon might be to gossip about him.

If your enemy were the person who offended you, your weapon might be to shut them out forever.

 But if the enemy is the dragon, the only way to beat him is by following the lamb.

For the only way to overcome the epitome of hubris is to ally yourself with the one who is the epitome of humility.

His name is Jesus Christ.

And following him leads you to victory over the dragon.

So the woman looks weak, but is powerful.

The dragon looks powerful, but is weak.

And the son reveals the truth of both.

 He is the great undoing of evil and the great unveiling of glory.

He is the beginning of the devil's end.

And He is the end of His people's search for a new beginning.

And if this is how the Son wins through the cross, then this is how we win as well.

 This is what faithful witness looks like, living so that your words and your actions declare God alone is God, not money, not sex, not self.

And through Jesus, he has redeemed us and is redeeming us.

The cross you carry is your willingness to live for that truth, even if you never die for that truth, knowing that it's the very truth that gives life.

That's how you walk through the wilderness.

That's how you conquer the dragon.

That's how you follow the lamb to his throne.

 Some of you here, if you trusted in him, but you've not followed him into the waters of baptism, then that is your step of faithful witness in this story.

Water baptism is how you declare, I belong to the Lamb.

His death is my death.

His life is my life.

It's a public act of faithful witness.

The very thing that Revelation calls us to as we faithfully, patiently walk through a world steeped in the devil's deception.

For how long?

 must this woman be patient?

Our final verse says that she fled into the wilderness.

Everyone say wilderness.

Say wilderness.

The woman fled into the wilderness to a place prepared for her by God.

That's interesting.

I didn't know God prepared wildernesses for us.

Where she might be taken care of for 1260 days.

We've not the time or the remaining brain space to fully unpack our final verse today.

 But note for now, the place in which the church lives after Jesus' ascension is considered a wilderness.

This is not meant to be a walk in the park.

If it's a walk in the park that you are after, then it's not the will of God you're pursuing, it's the will of your flesh.

Now, wilderness doesn't mean that God doesn't bless you, doesn't care for you.

He absolutely does.

But it does mean that comfort is not your ultimate aim.

 Now significantly, though, this wilderness is prepared by God for the church, and He cares for her there.

This evokes the idea all throughout Scripture, whenever God's people walk through a wilderness, it's always characterized by God's provision and God's protection.

The same is true of the wilderness of this age.

God's loving care shown through provision, protection, healing, forgiveness, redemption, restoration, goodness, and blessing...

 And yet it is still a wilderness where we must walk for how many?

1,260 days.

Have you been counting?

We'll explore the significance of this time stamp many times throughout the book of Revelation.

It's one of a handful of ways of communicating, do the math, three and a half years.

In apocalyptic literature, three and a half is symbolic of a time of tribulation.

 And so the whole church age, the whole time between Jesus' first and second coming is the tribulation.

We're not waiting for a time of tribulation.

We are in the tribulation.

It may dial up as we go.

I don't know.

If it does, what I do know is that when the darkness gets darker, the light gets brighter.

But we are in this time of tribulation.

Three and a half is significant because it's half of seven.

 What that's saying is that a complete time of tribulation will be cut short.

It's painful.

It's happening.

It brings financial struggle and health issues, fertility issues, relational issues, work issues.

 It brings all kinds of pain and turmoil in this wilderness.

But friends, it is governed by God.

And it will be cut short.

Weeping lasts through the night.

Joy is coming in the morning.

And in the meantime, God's people walk out their faithful witness.

The one proven weapon that slays the dragon.

 Here's how we win.

If you guys could bring up that Shane Wood quote for me.

I think this is help for us.

If the enemy we can see is killed, if you attack, if you misidentify your enemy and you get flared up with pride instead of living in humility, and if you attack your enemy, slander your enemy, you kill your enemy, then Satan's kingdom marches on unscathed.

It doesn't matter how many angry comments you fire off on Instagram, there's always going to be a reason for another one.

 And Satan's kingdom marches on unscathed.

The head of the snake, untouched.

But if our enemy is converted into our friend, then Satan's kingdom struggles to find its way.

Close your eyes.

Picture yourself in the wilderness with God's people.

 You can feel the dust on your feet.

But there's also a crown on your head.

The Lamb is just ahead of you.

And you're following His steps.

Now think about the week in front of you.

The wilderness moments that characterize your daily life that you will surely face.

 Pinpoint those moments.

See them.

The moments where you will stop and ask yourself this week, what is true in heaven right now that I am not seeing on the earth?

Now picture yourself in the middle of that fight, middle of that tense moment at work,

 In the middle of that surprise bill coming in the mail, picture yourself living from the eternal, transcendent, ultimate truth of heaven that though you may be dusty, you are actually glorious.

To live from that truth is the way of the Lamb.

That's what it looks like to live like the woman, royal, radiant, and victorious.

Now stand to your feet.

 Lift your hands.

May the one who loves you and has freed you from your sins by his blood remind you this week that the dust on your feet does not diminish the crown on your head.

 May you conquer by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of your testimony, walking through the wilderness with your eyes fixed on Him until the day you stand before His throne.

To Him be glory and honor and power and majesty and dominion forever and ever.

Amen.