Word of Salvation – Vol. 31 No. 46 – Dec 1986
Christmas From God’s Point Of View
Sermon by W. F. Van Brussel on Revelation 12:1-6
Reading: Luke 2:1-7
Singing: BoW. 201, Ps. H. 337, BoW. 102:1,2; 102:3,4,5; 204:1,2; 205; Ps.H. 341.
Everybody seems to agree that there is something outstandingly special about Christmas. Something we should be grateful for. But when you would ask what it is that makes it so special you would be surprised about the variety of answers you would receive; some of them pleasing perhaps, but many of them disturbing.
You and I know all about the special Christmas-atmosphere at this particular time of the year. It’s all around us, in shopping centres, restaurants, theatres, the press, radio and television…!
Yet, what exactly is it that is so exciting about Christmas? And how can WE become excited about it in a responsible fashion?
Such questions would explain why Revelation 12 was selected for our text today. Of course, we are much used to turning to passages such as Luke 2 or Matthew 1; or even to John 1 at times, but Revelation 12:1-6 offers us a presentation of the Christmas event in a most striking way. What it really does is that it shows us the Divine Perspective of Christmas.
Let us look at that today and indeed become excited all over again. This is the message of God for us on this Christmas day: CHRISTMAS IN ITS TRUE, that is: TRIUMPHANT PERSPECTIVE FROM GOD’S POINT OF VIEW!
We are going to look at…
1 the WOMAN,
2 the DRAGON,
3. the CHILD,
4 God
1. Our usual picture of the Christmas-scene is shaped by the record of Luke 2. We see the Mother and Child and Joseph, Mary’s husband, standing nearby. Since all inns were overcrowded they had only found a place to stay, and for their Baby to be born in, somewhere at the back, in a stable. The picture is familiar. We have seen it often in the numerous nativity-scenes on display at this season – all nice, tender, lovely, sweet. It contributes in a way to the mood of goodwill which is so familiar at this particular time of the year. It’s the mood that tends to be catchy, although it is quickly gone and forgotten again. Sadly, that is how Christmas comes and goes for a frightfully large number of people all over the globe.
You and I know, of course, that Christmas is part of a glorious package: Christmas, Passion, Crucifixion, Resurrection, Ascension. That makes Christmas so meaningful to us who believe. Yet, WE are not always so clear about it, either, are we? Even believing Christians do not always know too well how to go about celebrating Christmas.
That is where Revelation 12 comes in as an ideal passage. Why? Because it reveals not only how GOD sees the event, but in particular how He looks at this woman, the dragon and the Child.
Well, how does God see the WOMAN?
Let’s first see what she stands for. In the nativity-scenes this is clear enough, it’s Mary, Joseph’s young wife. But here the woman represents much more than just this one woman. It shows us how God sees the CHURCH.
Remember how the Bible, both in the Old and the New Testaments, talks about the people of God as God’s wife? That explains why she is pictured so impressively in that great, wondrous sign in heaven. Look how she is clothed with the sun, has the moon under her feet and wears a crown of twelve stars on her head. We further take note of her pregnancy and her crying in pain.
What does all this suggest? Do you see the Church that way??
Please, allow yourself to be encouraged when you hear how God looks at the Church!
God sees the Church, both in the Old and the New Testament eras as precious, important and as playing a dominant role in the life of this world.
When WE look at the picture of the Old Testament Israel our impression is entirely different, even in the eyes of children. One of the small children in our local church remarked the other day after one of the Old Testament stories had been read out to him again: “Did those people never learn?” You can imagine how his Dad and Mum looked at each other asking each other without words: “Did you get the message?”
O yes, those people of God, then and now, often give little evidence that they are aware of their privileged condition as people of God in this world. So frequently we are totally blind to what God shows us here in Rev.12. What about YOU and ME? Would OUR children not be wondering time and again about US, their Christian parents, every so often?
Old Testament Israel was pregnant with the great promise of God, that from their ranks the Messiah was to be born one day. It took them a lot of pain before the actual birth took place. There are endless miserable stories about Israel and its performance as people of God. Just think of Egypt, the time of the Judges, the exile, to mention only a few. Agony and tears, terrible birth-pains. Yet, God saw them through, the remnant of His people at least; He made sure that the Messiah was born as the great Son of David.
We find the woman pictured again in the latter part of our passage. Here she represents the New Testament Church. The Child had been born and had been taken to be with God in heaven, but the WOMAN fled into a desert, a place prepared for her by God…!
Again that is how God looks at the New Testament Church in one glance. It’s not a glamorous picture of the woman but important enough to God for Him to take precious care of her as long as this present world will last.
2. Now that DRAGON: what about him? How does God see him? What does the dragon represent?
Seeing that his aim was to grab the Child of the woman as soon as it was born helps us to recognise the “old serpent” straight away, the arch-enemy, of the Garden of Eden.
Was it not to him that God spoke the familiar words of Gen.3:15 “And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; He will crush your head and you will strike His heel”?
As from the very start Satan has been out to try and undo all that God wanted to do in gathering a people to Himself from fallen mankind. All people who believe in God have learnt to understand that he is a mighty force.
The picture here shows how God agrees with them. We find Satan pictured as an enormous red dragon with seven heads, ten horns, seven crowns. Without going into too much detail it is clear that a big red dragon is frightening enough as it is. On top of that he had seven heads. Just think how much brain one clever head would contain. This dragon had seven heads. There is hardly a limit to the cleverness of this monster. Also ten horns; a terrifying quantity of power to ruin and destruct. Plus seven crowns, which refer to an extremely wide sphere of dominion.
Remember, that’s how God looks at Satan. Jesus Christ gave him e name: “Prince of this world”, remember?
Sometimes one hears Christians talk about the devil in a joking kind of way; they certainly don’t take to heart what God thinks of Satan, do they? It is utterly frightening what the devil can accomplish. Jesus Christ had urgent reasons to teach you and me to pray every day: “And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one!” Where would we be if God did not deliver us from this awful monster?
His tail swept a third of the stars of the sky and flung them to the earth. Yes one third of the angels he took with himself in his fall; he has a mighty army, a host of demons who are constantly at his wicked disposal.
True, it is good to remember that Satan is only a creature, but he is a most powerful one. He can beat anyone but God. And this monster was standing there waiting for the woman to be delivered of her Baby. There are plenty of Bible stories to tell us how the devil has been trying hard not only to prevent the birth of the Child but to overpower the Child and later on the grown-up Man. The greatest evidence was the story of the Cross. It looked as though Satan had won his age-old battle then and there. Yet that was exactly when the dragon was beaten for good! Beaten by Him Who was and is stronger than Satan, as He was the Christmas-Child, the God-Man Jesus Christ.
The woman’s Child was snatched up to God and His throne!
3. Now the Child. This Child was to rule all nations with an iron sceptre. Yes, that was what was to be, but it did not look like that for a long time, did it? The Christmas Baby grew up to be the Man of Sorrows rather than a mighty Ruler.
More than in any other situation everything appears to be different from what it looks; the impressive woman looks in reality very weak and desperately sinful many a time; the dragon often appears as an angel of light; the Child was not impressive in His manger, and far less than impressive on His cross as well as on many occasions here on earth during the time when “His hour had not yet come”.
Yet HE was the Child the ages had been waiting for. And today, together with the entire Christian Church, we praise and worship Him as Saviour and Lord! We proclaim HIM as the God-given Redeemer of His people and we serve Him in all of life as He is King of kings.
However, that’s not all we can say about the Child today. Although Christmas celebrations of various kinds are welcome all over the world, the Christ Himself is not popular at all. He is being pushed out tragically, not only in the restricted countries where the Christians are being persecuted, but also in many countries of the so-called free world. And so we see that the dragon is not only very active himself, together with his demons, it is people, lots of them, who are out to grab the Child and have Him out of the way, for good.
Many people don’t know how much they need this Christ of God. On the contrary, they don’t want any interference in their lives. They want neither God, nor His Christ!
All that is covered by the section of this passage that refers to the dragon standing in front of the woman waiting to devour her Child. The world does not want a Ruler that comes from God. May the Church watch out for that kind of mentality within its walls! Even in churches the Christ is not always wanted; not the Christ of the Scriptures, that is!
Anyway, the Child was snatched up to God and to His throne.
4. And that brings us right up to our fourth point; GOD!
What we learn about GOD in this passage is that HE was and always remains in full control of all things; in particular of that fierce battle between the Seed of the woman and the seed of Satan. It was God Who made sure that the serpent’s head was fatally crushed, even though His Son’s heel was badly bruised in the process.
Can you see the tremendous comfort of God being in the background of this whole symbolic scene? How beautiful to be faced with the victorious aspect of the Christmas story right at the outset.
Look how Christmas is pictured here as a glorious feast. This is what we must learn to do much more regularly, that we look at this world’s scenes from God’s point of view in the light of His infallible Word. That’s what He gave us the Bible for. The Bible is God’s Book that lays bare His triumph over all sin and rottenness and hopelessness.
God is not this far-away God who sits there doing nothing and looking at the way His creation is being mismanaged by fallen man. O no, God is the One Who as from the beginning has had all thing in His almighty and caring hand. Nothing will prevent Him from completing what He has planned, even though all we can see many a time is nothing but one great, confused mess.
Of course, Satan would do all in his power – and that power is great – to prevent God’s Plan from realisation, but no matter how many creatures Satan can beat, He cannot and will never beat God! On the contrary, God sent His One and Only Son to beat him, once for all. Christmas was the very first step leading up to that.
That’s why we celebrate today the birth of the woman’s Child at Bethlehem!
There is something outstandingly special about Christmas, no doubt. But only those who repent and believe in Jesus Christ as their Saviour and Lord can see why. They celebrate Christmas in the real and lasting sense.
May God grant that you are among them.
AMEN.