The Rage of the Dragon & The Reign Of God (Revelation 12:13-17)

In this powerful sermon, we delve into Revelation chapter 12:13-17 to uncover the spiritual battle between the dragon and the church. Explore the depths of God's protection and provision as His people navigate the wilderness of life's trials. Discover how to hold fast to Jesus, finding strength and significance even as the enemy attempts to deceive and distract. Whether you are new to the faith or looking to deepen your understanding, this message will inspire you to live a life of faithful witness to Christ. Tune in for a transformational journey that reveals the importance of embracing your role in God's unfolding story. Subscribe for more insightful messages, and if this sermon impacts you, please share it with others.

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Transcript

 Open your Bibles to the book of Revelation chapter 12.

That's where we've begun our series, going to the book of Revelation.

Revelation is not written in strict chronological sequence, and so you don't read it like a linear narrative.

John is shown all these signs from God, and he sees a lot of the same stuff from various angles and perspectives.

 so that we can understand who we are and the days that we live in as the people of God in between the first and the second comings of Christ.

And Revelation 12 is a really powerful chapter because it's like the curtain gets peeled back even just a little bit further and even deeper unveiling so we can see things the way that they truly are.

And so we've opened up first few weeks in this chapter and we're finishing that today.

Revelation chapter 12, we're picking it up in verse 13.

Did you find it?

Yeah, good.

You need more time?

Say any more time.

 Revelation 12, verse 13 says, when the dragon, who does the dragon symbolize?

 Satan.

Yeah, that one's pretty easy.

When the dragon saw that he had been hurled to the earth, he pursued the woman who symbolizes the church who had given birth to the male child who symbolizes Jesus.

We have the dragon, the devil.

We have the church, the woman.

We have Jesus, 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 wilderness.

 where she would be taken care of for a time, times, and half a time, out of the serpent's reach.

The serpent is another name for the dragon.

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.

So the earth has a 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 wage war against the rest of her offspring, those who keep God's commands and hold fast their testimony about Jesus.

If you woke up tomorrow and you knew that the enemy was going to throw every single thing that he had at you, what would you do?

What would be your plan?

 And what do you think it is that God would expect of you?

Imagine with me for a moment that you are caught in a crowd.

And in a split second, a panic breaks out and everyone around you is rushing and pushing forward.

 running and doing everything possible to get themselves out of that place because there is little time.

And you can feel fear in the air.

Alarms are sounding.

Bodies are pushing past you.

The chaos of ungoverned instinct.

And then right in the middle of that moment, you see a father.

And that father is carrying his child.

 The child hears the noise.

They feel the pressure.

Maybe they even feel the fear.

They're caught up in all the same chaos, but they are not frantic like everybody else.

They're not running.

They're not fighting.

They're not pushing.

All the child has to do is cling to the one who is carrying them.

 This image helps capture the message that the end of Revelation 12 gives us.

The dragon is frantic.

He's pursuing and spewing and raging, but God is faithful.

He is giving and preparing and nourishing.

And the church, she does not strive.

She does not scheme.

She simply holds fast.

This whole passage is a story told through the verbs.

 The dragon does much against the church.

God does much for the church.

And the church does one thing.

 Today we conclude chapter 12 of Revelation and we finish laying the groundwork for the story that we are meant to find ourselves in and the story that is meant to govern the way that we live our lives as we make our way through the wilderness of this age.

We have been given an apocalypse, an unveiling, so that we can see the world that we know from a perspective that we don't.

And today we get a glimpse of just how intimately involved God is with His church as she journeys faithfully and patiently towards the new creation.

Today we

 we learn about the rage of the dragon and the reign of God.

Let's take it from the top and go back to 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.

Now we learned back in verse 6 at week 1 that the woman is in the wilderness.

And now here in verse 13, we are reconnected back to that part of the story.

The dragon has been hurled to the earth where he meets the woman in her wilderness and the dragon pursues her.

 Satan, having lost the war in the heavenly realm because of the cross, the resurrection of Jesus, has now been hurled down and he has turned his attention to the Messiah's faithful followers, to the church.

And this communicates to us that the church's suffering is not without explanation.

God gives us an apocalypse here to show us that the dragon is in pursuit of the church.

That word pursuit can also be translated as persecuted.

 It's the same word that Jesus uses in the Sermon on the Mount when he says, blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness.

The dragon is pursuing the church for one reason only, to do harm, to persecute.

Why?

Because he hates righteousness.

And some of you know what that feels like in your own life when you can't sleep, when your soul feels disoriented, when every step of your obedience feels like it's being tracked by something you can't see.

 That's not random.

That's Revelation 12.

The dragon spends his days in pursuit of the church.

Now, I'm not saying that every stubbed toe and lost job is a demonic attack, okay?

Sometimes you just got fired because you weren't very good at your job or you were kind of lazy and that's something to work on.

And we can help you with that here at Cathedral because we value discipleship.

 But let's not be naive.

The scriptures are clear.

The dragon is after the church corporately and after Christians individually, especially those who are intent on faithfulness to Jesus.

The whole picture of the dragon being defeated by God and then pursuing God's people echoes the Exodus story.

 In the Old Testament, through the ten plagues, God defeated Pharaoh.

He defeats the false gods of Egypt.

Pharaoh and the Egyptian gods are brought down and God's people are set free, rescued from death and oppression by applying the blood of the land to the doorposts of their home.

And as they make their escape, what does Pharaoh do?

He and his army pursue God's people until they are trapped against the natural barrier of the Red Sea.

So here in Revelation 12, we are immediately thrust into a new exodus.

 between the dragon and the woman, between satanic powers and God's people.

And the point is for you and I to understand is that the church should know themselves as the final fulfillment of God's people journeying through a wilderness on their way to the promised land.

Wilderness is where we are right now.

It's important to talk about in evangelical circles because to us, wilderness is a season of singleness.

 To us, wilderness is when we're not in the tax bracket that we want to be in.

But wilderness is not a season in your life that you somehow exit because you reached your income goal.

Wilderness is the age that we are living in until Christ returns.

Which means that wilderness is not something you go in and out of depending upon your circumstances.

Wilderness is something you embrace for the formation of your character.

Listen, if the dragon is in pursuit, then a pain-free life was never the point.

 We are not called to chase comfort.

We're called to follow the pillar of fire and the cloud of smoke, to follow Yahweh through the wilderness.

The dragon's motive for pursuing the woman is twofold.

First, the dragon pursues the church because he has lost his place in heaven and he is hysterical about it.

 He can no longer accuse God's people before God's throne because they have triumphed over him by the blood of the Lamb.

The cross is your victory as much as it is Jesus' victory.

So if the devil can't accuse us before the throne of God, his next best move is to harass us here on earth.

The verse preceding the one we picked up today, for the little time he has left.

Ooh, that's important.

The wilderness age may feel long to us, but it's short to the one who knows his time is running out.

 And here's the tragic irony.

The church has eternity ahead.

And we often squander what little time we have here on earth.

All the while, the one who is bound for eternal torment uses his time with relentless strategic urgency.

Because we misjudge the length of this age, we lose sight of what truly matters.

 The devil, however, knows exactly how short the time is and he acts accordingly.

The same brief window that should stir us up to good works often more effectively motivates him to evil one.

The second reason the dragon pursues the woman is because of her connection to the male child.

That is Jesus, the very one who cast the dragon out of heaven.

And it's that connection to Christ that makes the church both significant and dangerous to the dragon.

Jesus is what makes the church matter.

 I said, Jesus is what makes the church matter.

Not branding, not a good building, not stained glass, not talented musicians.

Jesus is what makes the church matter.

Jesus is what makes the church a threat.

The dragon hates God and his Messiah, and in his remaining time, he will spend himself in a self-destructive war against the people who belong to him.

The underlying message of this is very clear for us.

When you read the scriptures, it sticks out pretty obviously.

If you follow the Lamb...

 You become a target for the dragon.

That's not a possibility.

That's a promise.

And let's be honest, the tempting solution to that is not very hard to find.

You want to solve the problem of being a target for the dragon in your life, it's very easy.

Don't go all in on Jesus.

Don't get water baptized.

Don't be public about your faith.

 Don't bring up Jesus at work.

Don't talk about Jesus on social media.

Don't show up when the church gathers.

Just blend in.

Keep your head down.

Worship Caesar quietly, subtly.

Pay homage to the local idols.

The tempting way to get the dragon off your back is to abandon the lamb.

But for the churches that John is writing to and for every faithful Christian since, that option isn't really on the table because the lamb is not only what most provokes the dragon, the lamb is also our only hope against the dragon.

 Listen, you cannot hold on to the strength of Christ if you're trying to avoid the cost of following him.

Where Christians often go wrong is thinking that they can stay safe

 By stepping away from bold, faithful witness while still expecting to walk in Jesus' power, but it will not work.

The very things that make you feel unsafe, the things that make you feel exposed, obedience to God, purity in the midst of a corrupt culture, sharing your faith with the lost, those are the things that actually keep you clinging to Christ.

Walk away from those and you may feel like you're out of the dragon's sight, but in reality you've played into his hand.

It's better to be a target for the dragon than a tool in his hand.

 And so right off the bat in this first verse, as we see Satan scheming, we're also reminded of the church's calling, that the church is called to identify herself, stand for, and bear witness to Jesus.

He is her strength.

He is her significance.

Jesus is the governing story of the church, the truth by which she lives and is guided through the wilderness of this age.

And this is a theme that has come up for us every single week in the last three weeks of this series because it's such a prevalent theme in Revelation that the church is called to faithful witness.

 And that means we are meant to bear witness through our words and through our actions, through the totality of our lifestyles, to the truth that God alone is God.

Not Caesar, not Roman idols, not the preferences and practices of a pagan culture, not the prescriptions of an anti-Christ worldview, the triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

This is the essence of our faithful witness that Christ is Lord and Christ is King.

 This is the high calling of the church and the only true strength and safety we have.

Jesus is the reason the dragon hates us, but he's also the reason the dragon can't stop us.

 At this point in Revelation 12, I imagine the apostle John's first hearers may have been reminded of Jesus' words in John's gospel as Jesus headed to the cross.

He says in John 12, 31 and 32, now is the time for judgment on this world.

Now, the moment of the cross, now the prince of this world will be driven out, a.k.a.

hurled down.

And I, when I am lifted up, the Greek can also be translated, when I am exalted, that is on the cross, lifted up from the earth, I will draw all people to myself.

 So here in this text, we see that the cross is both the devil's downfall and the son's exaltation.

Therefore, when the church bears witness to Christ and his cross, in spite of the cost, we are feeding the devil dust and we are participating in the rule of Christ the King.

This whole picture matters for you because it shows you how to live.

 That if your significance is found in your witness to Jesus, that means that your way of life is clear.

You follow in his footsteps by carrying your cross.

That is the only real path to life, the path to flourishing.

And the evidence for that is all around us.

Jesus wants you to know the truth of the cross so deeply that he wove that truth into nature itself.

Everywhere you look, life comes through death.

Fruit comes through pruning.

Growth comes through surrender.

 Jesus said it like this in John chapter 12 and verse 24.

Same chapter, same context as the verse we just read about the cross.

He's talking about himself.

He says, unless a seed falls to the ground and dies, it remains alone.

But if it dies, it bears much fruit.

You see, the truth of the cross is so deeply embedded in creation that Jesus could point to a seed and say, hey, look, consider this.

It's not just farming, it's the kingdom.

It's the kingdom.

 If the seed stays above ground, if it clings to its life, it stays solitary, isolated, and fruitless.

But if the seed dies in the soil, it grows, it bears fruit, and it multiplies.

It goes from solitude to significance through surrender.

That's how the kingdom of God works.

That's how the cross works.

Just like Revelation shows us that Jesus secures his sovereignty through his suffering.

So also the church secures her significance through her surrender.

 And deep down, this is how you long to live.

You long to live in the path of the cross.

You long for the fruit of peace and joy and friendship and meaning.

But those do not come from grasping.

They come from giving.

Jesus is the ultimate seed who died and brought life to the world.

And now he calls us to live like him.

Listen to me.

You can be and do a lot of things in this world.

 You can be an actor.

You can be an inventor.

You can be a scientist.

You can be a school teacher.

You can make coffee.

You can make beets.

I don't really care what you make as long as it's pure and holy.

But in a world where you can be so many things, make sure you be the one thing that truly matters.

Make sure you be a seed.

Let God bury you in service, in humility, in self-giving love.

 all as a lifestyle of faithful witness to him.

Rather than clinging to your life, lay your life down.

This is the only true way to experience life and to give life away is through following Jesus in the way of the seed of self-sacrificial servanthood.

Parents, as you raise your children, as you raise your kids according to their giftings, according to their passions, that's all well and good.

Just make sure you also raise them according to the truth of the seed.

 For some of you today, it's time to die the first death, to surrender the lordship of your life, to publicly identify with Jesus Christ in the waters of baptism that we will do after the service.

You need to be like the Ethiopian man who heard the gospel from a stranger named Philip while riding along in his chariot through a desert, through a wilderness, and he responded to Philip after hearing the gospel, look, here is water.

What is to stop me from getting baptized?

 As we read this passage, it becomes clear.

Faithful witness is the one thing God cares about.

The one thing He requires.

And it's the one thing that is needed.

It is enough.

Because it's the one thing that touches everything.

Your time, your money, your words, your actions.

If you make witness to Jesus, your aim in all these things, then you will have done what God desires.

God does not desire, does not require you to be extraordinary.

God requires you to be faithful.

 That's one thing he requires.

In fact, if we pay attention to the rest of the text, it does not emphasize what we do for God.

It emphasizes what God does for us.

Look at verse 14.

The woman was given the two wings of a great eagle 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 out of the serpent's reach.

Notice how every single verb about the woman in verse 14 is passive.

 She was given wings.

She goes to a place prepared for her.

She's cared for.

These are what we call divine passives, where the doer of the action is left unnamed because it's obvious who's at work.

 That God is the hidden actor in every single line.

He's the one who gives wings to fly.

He's the one who prepares a place in the wilderness.

He's the one who nourishes and sustains the woman.

Again, the verbs tell the story.

The dragon pursues.

God gives.

The woman receives.

 She does not escape by her own cleverness.

She doesn't survive by her own strength.

Every step of her protection is God's initiative, God's provision, God's care.

The overwhelming point is that God spends himself working on behalf of his church as the dragon pursues her.

Sometimes we allow ourselves to be more convinced of the dragon's pursuit than we are of God's provision.

 But the text is clear.

As sure as the dragon pursues, God provides.

God protects.

We can trust him to lead us safely into eternity, even if his definition of safe is much different to our own.

Remember, we talked about it last week.

Safety to God does not mean freedom from hardship.

Safety to God means overcoming Satan and sin.

 Just like Adam and Eve were placed in that garden to overcome the serpent, they were born for a battle, so you also were born again for a battle.

You were born again to overcome the dragon.

That's what safety looks like in your life, is taking up your post and your position to overcome the dragon who is presently working in this world.

And so in that sense, the dragon's pursuit and the Lord's protection are two sides of the same coin.

They are not incompatible.

There is no true safety that does not involve overcoming the dragon.

 This ties to the significance of the church.

What?

Having a place prepared for her.

That's an image of protection.

Where?

In the wilderness.

That's an image of trial.

Again, this is New Exodus imagery.

In the first Exodus, the Old Testament says that God carried Israel on the wings of an eagle.

 out of Egypt and brought them safely to the wilderness.

What did God do for Israel in the wilderness?

He protected them from the enemy tribes.

He provided manna, quail, and water.

Their clothes and their shoes did not wear out.

And most importantly, he provided them with his word, the law of Moses, the Ten Commandments, and with his presence, both in the heart of the tabernacle in the midst of their camp.

So though wilderness is a place of testing for God's people, it is also a place of blessing for God's people.

 And that's the point that John is heavily driving home here in this text with all of his emphasis on God's activity on behalf of the church.

It's the strange beauty of the wilderness that even as the dragon rages, God reigns.

And he sustains actively his people.

The way John drives it home would have struck his original hearers profoundly.

The church's time in the wilderness is described as a time,

 Times and half a time.

That's one plus two plus a half.

My pinky doesn't do that.

That's three and a half.

Church's time earlier in verse six is described as 1260 days.

Do the math.

That's also three and a half years.

We saw back in week one that three and a half is a symbolic way in apocalyptic literature of expressing tribulation, pressure, hardship, persecution.

 The phrase time, times, and half a time comes originally from the book of Daniel where it described a literal time of persecution in the nation of Israel's history.

But here in Revelation 12, John does something absolutely remarkable.

He flips the script in both verse 6 with the 1,260 days and verse 14 with the time, times, and half a time.

He uses the same time period not to describe persecution but to describe protection.

It's a profound shift in perspective.

 Yes, it's still a time of trial, but John wants you to see it as something more.

It's a time marked by God's care.

As the church travels through the wilderness, the same stretch of time, your life can be seen from two very different perspectives.

It all depends on how you look at it.

You can see it as the time of the dragon's revenge, the enemy chasing the church through the wilderness.

You can see it as the time of God's providential care, where he feeds and forms his people through trial.

 Because that's what God cares ultimately about, your transformation into the image of Christ.

That is what God is most interested in right now.

More than you closing the deal, more than you finding the right man, more than you finally buying the home, God cares about you looking more like Jesus.

And so often we miss how the very things we're waiting on, the things that we are desperate to get, are actually God's way of helping us become the kind of people who can actually carry those things one day.

 It's like Israel in the wilderness being fed manna each morning.

Manna is not the point.

It wasn't about the manna.

It was about learning to trust the giver.

It was about being freed from the idol of self-reliance before they go into the promised land.

And it's the same for us here as we experience the process of God's provision.

And so many times our impatience sabotages our reflection on what God wants to teach.

And so our transformation drastically slows.

 And John is trying to help the church see, yes, the wilderness is hard.

Yes, we feel the heat, the hunger, the fear.

But do not let those feelings distract you from the deeper story.

This isn't just trial.

This is transformation.

Because for the powers of evil and their allies, a suffering church looks like God's defeat.

But for those who follow the Lamb, the same suffering is very much victory.

It's seed in soil

 producing a harvest of kingdom growth throughout the world.

And so as the reader of Revelation pictures the woman majestically flying on the wings of an eagle to the wilderness, while simultaneously being pursued by the dragon, the question the reader has, is this pain?

Or is this protection?

John's answer is, yes.

So what about your wilderness?

 Is this life a time of testing or a time of transformation?

 Is it persecution or provision?

Revelation 12 says yes.

Same wilderness where the dragon pursues is the place where God provides.

The same suffering that the world sees as weakness, the suffering in your life that you often feel as weakness is the very thing God uses to form us into the image of Christ.

And when you yield to the transformation, when you actually become more like Jesus through your suffering than what the world around you formerly saw as weakness will become apparent as witness.

Because you became God.

 instead of complaining.

That doesn't mean that every pain is good.

Some pain is evil.

Some suffering will only make sense in light of eternity.

But the mystery of the gospel is this, that even when the pain isn't from God, it can still be used by God.

And when you respond like Christ to that cross, the serpent is fed dust.

 Your responses to the issues of life are just as much a part of your cross as the issues themselves.

And it's your response that will determine the most your transformation.

Do you run from marital pressure?

Or do you respond with healthy, humble communication?

Do you run from leadership challenges?

Or do you respond with patient endurance?

Do you run from hurt in a friendship?

 Or do you respond with the hard work of reconciliation?

Do you hide as a result of your sin?

Or do you submit yourself to confession and intercession?

In the war that the dragon wages, we must learn to ask God, how are you using this hardship for my good?

 How is this relational war, this fiscal war, this physical war, whatever this war is, how are you using this for the molding of me into the character of Jesus?

Pain can purify our hearts.

If we just learn to ask God, what are you wanting to teach me?

And it will always have something to do with becoming more like Christ, who is the Word of God and the presence of God made manifest to us.

I remember back to God's ultimate gift to Israel in the wilderness was His Word.

 And his presence right in the heart of the tabernacle.

Those, more than the manna, more than the drink, more than protection from the enemies, the word and the presence were the preeminent gifts that God had given to Israel.

The word and the spirit.

Wisdom and worship.

These aren't just survival tools for the wilderness.

These are formation tools.

These are how God reshapes his people.

Because the wilderness will always tempt you to worry.

God will use the wilderness to teach you wisdom.

 How to grow a garden in the desert.

We were watching The Martian last night with Matt Damon.

You seen that movie?

It's a great movie.

You can garden on Mars.

Winston, my son, 11 years old, loves it.

He's watched it like 17 times.

He loves it.

It took wisdom to garden in a place where other people couldn't garden.

To be fruitful where other people couldn't be fruitful.

God will use the wilderness to teach you wisdom.

 The wilderness will tempt you to grumble.

God invites you to worship.

How to water your seeds with faith.

Worry shrinks your thinking.

Wisdom enlarges your thinking.

Grumbling makes your giants seem bigger.

Worship makes your God seem bigger.

 Worry says, I'm not sure God is with me.

Wisdom says, if I have his word, I know that he is.

Grumbling says, I miss Egypt.

Worship says, even here, God is good.

Wisdom and worship aren't just the ability to survive in the wilderness.

They are the skill of living well in it.

Wisdom is how you flourish in Babylon.

It brings the principles of God's eternal kingdom into the here and now and helps you to flourish in a place where other people cannot flourish.

 Every test in the wilderness becomes a question.

Will I give in to worry?

Or will I grow in wisdom?

Will I worry like money like the rest of the world?

Or will I listen to the guy on the stage teaching me to give to God?

Oh, but I don't have.

That's because you're abiding by the wisdom of the world.

Unless a seed falls to the earth and

 God has already given us his ultimate word and his presence through the incarnation of Christ, the outpouring of the Spirit.

Everything you need for wilderness formation is already yours in Christ.

The question is not whether God has provided for the wilderness.

The question is whether we will receive, whether we will meet him in the place that he has prepared.

Do not waste your wilderness trying to curate a pain-free life.

Oh, I've got to say it again.

Do not waste your wilderness trying to curate a pain-free life.

 Yes, enjoy what's good.

Eat the manna, drink the water, celebrate every kindness of God in the wilderness, but be careful.

There is a difference between receiving goodness and avoiding hardship.

One draws you closer to the presence of God.

The other blinds you to the presence of God.

If Christ on the cross teaches us anything, it teaches us that God is never nearer to us than in the place of our suffering.

So comfort isn't the goal.

Ooh, say it with me.

Say comfort isn't the goal.

No.

 Formation is the goal, right?

Because discomfort often reveals the places in our lives that we are least like Christ.

It is the perfect place for Christ to meet us and to invite us into transformation.

So welcome to the wilderness.

You're not stuck.

This is where you're presently staying for the sake of your salvation.

 The way that the text is written is that the woman might fly into the wilderness, into her place.

That she may be nourished in that place.

Ooh, John is very redundant with his Greek.

Wilderness doesn't mean you're out of place.

It's exactly where God intends you to be.

I have so much more on this, but I must jump ahead.

 John says that the serpent can't reach the woman.

The reason he can't reach the woman is because her mind is surrounded by a fortress of gospel truth.

Truth about who God is, who you are, what matters, what lasts.

That's why your response to pressure, listen to me, your response to the pressure you experience in the wilderness has to begin with where you direct your questions.

 So often in the pressure, we direct our questions inward.

How do I get out of this?

How do I escape this pressure?

By the way, we need to turn our questions Godward and say, God, what are you trying to teach me?

That will plant you and form you as opposed to uprooting you and deforming you.

You see, the lies of the serpent aren't just about making you anxious.

They're about making you barren.

That's his aim is to make you fruitless.

 They'll take you from self-giving love to self-preservation, from a seed that is sown to a seed that isolates.

When your mind is fortified by gospel truth, who Christ is, what he's done, what he says about you, you become someone the serpent can't reach.

You become seed in the soil.

Jonathan Edwards once said that nothing sets a Christian so much out of the devil's reach than humility.

 Let's look at verse 15.

How you doing?

You settle in for a little longer?

You don't need lunch that bad.

Then from his mouth, the serpent spewed water like a river to overtake the woman and sweep her away with a torrent.

But the earth helped the woman by opening its mouth and swallowing the river that the dragon had spewed out of his mouth.

 There's two images in this verse.

The first one is a serpent spewing a river from his mouth.

That's symbolic of his deception, his lies.

It's also standing in contrast to the river of life that flows from the throne of God elsewhere in Revelation.

God's river is a river of life that is teeming with life.

The river of the serpent is polluted with death and destruction.

God's word brings life.

The devil's word brings death.

It advertises life, but it brings death.

It's like Proverbs 14, verse 12.

There is a way that appears to be right...

 but its end leads to death.

And we see this all the time.

We may even experience this from time to time when we are not careful about the voice that we listen to.

In the culture, we see deceptions around sexuality and identity, around fame and fortune, vengefulness as the path to flourishing, isolation as the path to safety, choice as the path to liberation, and autonomy as the path to authenticity.

But these are lies that the dragon has successfully embedded into the world, and they must be resisted.

 They are counter to the kingdom of God.

They are counter to all the blessing that the human soul actually craves.

They are not life as a seed.

They are life as thorns that choke out seeds.

They do not yield the peace that they promise.

They yield physical, emotional, and spiritual decay.

And for every single one of us who has fallen prey to those lies, God says, come.

Let me heal you.

As a little bit of homework, go read Psalm 107.

For those of you who suffer in your own bodies and minds as a result of your own rebellion, God does not say, stay away.

God says, come.

 Cry out to me.

Just like the Israelites whose cry ascended to God in the midst of their slavery, God hears and devises an exodus for all of those who cry out to him in the midst of their trouble.

Not once they figure a way out of their trouble, in the midst of their trouble.

The second image in that verse is the earth helping the woman by opening its mouth and swallowing the river that the dragon had spewed.

This echoes God's activity in the original exodus.

 When Pharaoh turned the Nile River into a grave for Hebrew boys, God turned it into a place of rescue for Moses.

When Pharaoh chased Israel into the sea, God turned the sea into Pharaoh's tomb.

When Korah rebelled in the wilderness, the earth opened its mouth and swallowed his deception before it could spread.

And here in Revelation 12, the symbol communicates that God does it again, that the enemy spews deception.

He spews a river of death, but the earth swallows it.

 The church is not swept away.

The church is delivered.

It's all a picture of divine intervention, a reminder that when lies flood the world, God still reigns.

Again, some of us are more convinced about the dragon's ability to deceive than we are God's ability to deliver.

 And so we live in fear instead of walking by faith.

Where has fear become your decision-making paradigm?

Because you've made your giants bigger than your God.

Listen, the dragon has a mouth, but evidently the earth has a mouth too.

In fact, the earth's mouth is bigger than the dragon's mouth because the earth swallows the entirety of the river that the dragon spews.

And this communicates something significant for us.

It means that you do not need to spend your life trying to outrun the river.

 There is nowhere you can run in this world to escape the lies that pervade human culture.

Round another corner, you will meet another manifestation of the dragon's lies.

It doesn't matter if you're in Los Angeles, or you are in Nashville, you are in the city, or you are in the suburbs.

So many times over the last five years, well-meaning people have said to Nicole and I, are you sure you're safe to raise your kids in LA?

What about the schools?

 Meanwhile, family and friends living in the suburbs of the South are pulling their kids out of the school system, the public school system, because the school board got overrun by progressives with an ax to grind.

The goal is not to run from where the lies are.

They live everywhere.

The goal is to fortify yourself and circle yourself with truth.

You stay rooted in truth and you let God deliver.

The serpent opens his mouth to drown.

 God opens the earth's mouth to deliver, and the people who hold fast to Jesus are kept.

The people who worship their way through are kept.

The people who keep coming to the table of communion are kept.

The people who embrace the mission of the wilderness instead of trying to escape the wilderness and build your picture-perfect Pinterest life, those people are not kept.

The people are kept who embrace the mission of the wilderness.

Yes, the dragon is loud, but God is louder.

Yes, the enemy rushes in like a flood, but I serve a God who makes a way through floodwaters.

 So the church doesn't need to panic.

She just needs to hold fast.

Again, the pattern holds.

The dragon opens his mouth to destroy.

The earth opens its mouth to deliver.

Another divine passive.

The dragon spews.

God shields.

The church is safe.

The dragon does a lot against the church.

But God does even more for the church.

 And that makes the dragon furious.

Concluding verse 17.

Then the dragon was enraged at the woman and went off to wage war against the rest of her offspring.

Those who keep God's commands and hold fast their testimony about Jesus.

Here we see the heightening of the dragon's frantic activity.

 He is enraged.

He wages war.

He carries on his attacks against the rest of the woman's offspring, that is the church, throughout every single generation, Christians in all times and all places until Christ returns.

Sometimes in the waging of that war, he overplays his hand and his activity is obvious.

Many more times he quietly deceives and he goes undetected by those who refuse God's wisdom.

 You live by the way of the world and you keep wondering why you get worldly dragon-like results.

Like my mama always used to say, when you are deceived, you are deceived.

But I just don't see, I know you're deceived.

But I just feel like, I know you're deceived.

 The text says the dragon wages war.

You may feel like that when you get a lie stuck in your head and you can't shake it.

You may feel that war when you feel the temptation to numb yourself, to isolate, to self-preserve, to entertain your sin, to resist God's way of being in the world.

You may feel it in the breaking down of your body,

 Some of you feel the heat of that war right now.

You may feel like if one more thing breaks, you will not make it.

That is the dragon's goal, to weaken you for deception.

God's promise is that you are not alone in the war.

The woman is never without wings.

She's never without a place in the wilderness.

She's never without help.

 And so John sums up the whole passage that he's been showing us.

It's like I said, it's a story told in verbs.

That the dragon pursues, the dragon spews, the dragon rages, and the dragon wars.

He is very busy.

But the woman receives wings,

 a place, care, help.

She is very blessed.

All because of one reason, that God gives, prepares, protects, provides, cares, and helps.

He acts on her behalf.

The dragon is frantic.

God is faithful.

 The church doesn't scheme.

The church doesn't scramble.

She holds fast to Jesus.

She carries on her faithful witness.

Listen to me.

In what way do you need to recover faithful witness to Christ in your life today?

Where have you stopped being a seed?

Where have you started to withhold instead of living openly to the God of the gospel who has lived so openly to you?

Recover that faithful witness today.

Recover the one thing that touches everything.

 By the end of the passage, the picture almost lends itself to the dragon storming off like an angry toddler.

God's people are upheld by his care.

So if you woke up tomorrow and you knew that the dragon was going to throw everything he had at you, what would you do?

What would be your plan?

And what do you think God would require of you?

 Everything?

Or just one thing?

Because here's the big idea of the text.

The devil does everything he can.

God gives everything we need.

And our victory is found in this.

In holding fast to Jesus.

Let's all stand up.

 I have two calls to make.

Just be so still.

Please don't take this moment to use the bathroom.

I know I'm asking a lot of some of you.

Just let's steward the presence of God here in this moment.

I have two things to ask, two things to call.

Number one, it's for every single person in this room who needs to submit their life to the Lordship of Jesus.

 who needs to pray a prayer today that says, Jesus, come and lead my life.

Some of you in this room, you need to do that.

Maybe you've never prayed that prayer.

More often than not in an American culture, at some point in our lives, we probably have prayed that prayer.

Maybe it was prayed on our behalf.

Maybe we were coaxed into it.

 But then we walked our own path instead of walking faithfully with Jesus.

And today, you need to make a decision yourself to give your life to Him, to ask Him to lead you.

I want you to make that decision today.

That's my first call.

The second call, for those of you who, you actually have given your life to the Lord, you are following Him, but you've not yet gone into the waters of baptism.

 And you need to be like the Ethiopian man who said, here is water.

What is to stop me from getting water baptized?

What is to stop you from going all in on Jesus?

What is to stop you from making your public profession your announcement to the community of Christ and to the world around you that Christ is Lord, I am not, and that is better.

Some of you need to do that today.

 Every eye closed all across this room, that first group of people, you need to pray this prayer.

Jesus, would you come and lead my life?

I want you to pray that today.

I'm going to lead us in a prayer in just a moment.

Before I do that, I would like to know every single person that I specifically am praying for.

And so I want you to respond in this moment just by lifting your hand.

You ready?

One, two, three.

Just lift it up.

Thank you.

Wonderful.

Who else is here?

Just lift it up nice and high so I can see.

Thank you.

Really proud of you.

 Amazing.

Anybody else?

You need to pray this prayer.

Jesus, come lead my life.

So proud of you.

Beautiful.

You can put your hands down.

Wonderful.

Let's pray this out loud together as one community of faith.

Every voice united together.

Say, Jesus, here I am.

I'm yours.

I belong to you.

Take the lead.

 following you thank you for going to the cross for dying for my sins for cleansing me and for bringing me to life and into relationship with my father in heaven fill me with your Holy Spirit empower me to bear witness to you

 today and every day in Jesus' mighty name.

Amen.

Come on, let's give God praise and honor and glory.

We love you, Lord.