Word of Salvation – Vol. 46 No. 05 – February 2001

 

The Woman and the Dragon

 

Sermon by Rev. L. Douma on Revelation 12

Scripture Reading: Revelation 12

Suggested Singing: BoW 99, 95, 374, 530

 

Beloved in the Lord.

We all know that to truly understand a person, we need to look not only at their outward actions, but try and understand their inner motives.  ‘Same with an organisation or government.  To fully grasp what’s going on, we need to see more than the public appearances – we need to know what’s going on behind the scene.  It is this “behind the scene” insight that John gives us here in chapter 12.

Our text is not just another vision, but it’s the beginning of the second major part of this letter to the churches.  The first half of the letter (chapters 1-11) pictures the outward struggle between the church and the world.  We have seen the devastating effects on life and the environment with the opening of the seals and the blowing of the trumpets.  Now this second part of the book reveals the deeper background.

If we ask, “Why is it that there is this bitter opposition by the world against the church, and what is its origin, its power source?” – then chapter 12 tells us it’s all to do with the spiritual struggle between God and Satan.  So what we have in our text is a going back to the beginning again, covering the same ground as before.  The seals showed the struggle from the church’s point of view, the trumpets the suffering from the world’s side.  Only this time we look at the deep spiritual struggle between the heavenly forces.

Our text starts with one of two signs in heaven (vs.1): “A great and wondrous sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of stars on her head.”

Who is this woman, obviously of high position in life with stars as her crown, the moon for a footstool and so gloriously dressed with the sun?  She is the church, the chosen people of God throughout all history (both Old and New Testament).  She is God’s “treasured possession” (Ex.19), the “radiant bride of Christ, without stain or blemish” (Eph.5).  She looks so glorious, and has such high status because she is seen from the perspective of heaven.

From our perspective the church is full of sinners, the boastful and arrogant, the suffering and struggling, seen as insignificant by the world – even ridiculed and scorned.  But from the aspect of heaven she is all glorious – all that heaven can contribute to her splendour is lavished upon her.

But, of course, her glory is not of herself.  She is of such high position in the creation because from her comes the Christ.  We see that the woman, the church, is pregnant (vs.2).  “She was pregnant and cried out in pain as she was about to give birth.”  And verse 5 tells us that, “She gave birth to a male child, who will rule all the nations with an iron sceptre…!” This is a quote from Psalm 2, a messianic psalm.  Jesus, in 2:27, quotes from this psalm when speaking to the church at Thyatira and says it refers to Him.

Now there is also a second sign in heaven (vss.3,4).  “Then another sign appeared in heaven: an enormous red dragon with seven heads and fen horns and seven crowns on his heads.  His tail swept a third of the stars out of the sky and flung them to the earth.  The dragon stood in front of the woman who was about to give birth, so that he might devour her child the moment it was born.”

What a contrast to the glorious woman, who is so helpless now as she is in labour.  What, who is this monster, this huge, grotesque dragon?  Well verse 9 gives us the clue: “The great dragon was hurled down, that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray.”

As with previous visions, what John sees is symbolic.  It’s not so much a case of trying to visualise this seven-headed monster or trying to work out where the ten horns go.  We need to understand the symbolism.

Its main feature is that of a serpent – the snake.  But it’s not a snake as God created, but a grossly deformed monster – a seven-headed dragon.  It is red in colour.  Red, we saw with the second seal, stands for war and destruction.  It’s the red of blood and death.  The number seven is symbolic of completeness-seven crowned heads imply the dragon has authority and royal power.  It implies Satan is the “prince of this world” (as Paul calls him).  The horn is an Old Testament symbol of might and strength.  He has ten, so his power is complete.  But it also indicates that his power is limited – he has as much as God allows him, no more and no less.

So the symbolism of Satan indicates he has tremendous evil and destructive power.  But the symbolism also shows the devil to be a monster – grossly distorted.  He is not as God made him.  God made the snake, but never with seven heads and ten horns.  This grossly deformed seven-headed monster is the way he is by his own evil doing.  God originally made the devil a glorious and powerful creature, the highest of the angels.  But the devil rebelled.  He was not content with his position and power in creation.  He wanted the ultimate – to be God.  The devil is self-made.  He deformed himself in his attempt to exalt himself.  (Just like power corrupts and creates megalomaniacs and political monsters.)

Now, as we noted, the dragon has seven heads with seven crowns.  That implies royal authority.  But don’t let that fool you.  The devil is the deceiver (father of lies as Jesus said).  God did not put the crowns on his head.  Satan put them there himself.  But they are counterfeit.  Verse 9, “…he leads the whole world astray.”  He cons the world into thinking that he’s lord of the world.  But he’s just a pretender, an intruder, an imposter, having existence and effect only as long as God allows.

But don’t underestimate his power to deceive, to seduce.  We see that the “dragon swept a third of the stars out of the sky (with his tail) and hurled them to the earth.”  In the Old Testament angels are at times referred to as stars.  In Job they are called “morning stars”.  When Satan rebelled against God, he seduced a great many other angels with him – a third, says John.  So there are many evil spirits in the world.  But remember they are all creatures of God.  They are limited in time and space and by the will of God.

Now this monstrous dragon is standing “in front of the woman who was about to give birth…” Why?  “…so that he might devour her child the moment it was born.”  What we have here is the spiritual, behind-the- scenes view of the whole Old Testament.  Remember Genesis 3:15?  After the fall into sin God cursed the serpent and said, “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.”

This is what our text is all about.  Revelation 12 is based on Genesis 3:15 – the battle between the seed of the woman and Satan.  The devil well knew that this curse on him, the first proclamation of the gospel, meant that someone was coming who would destroy him.  Unless, so he thinks, he can destroy this male child first.  So we see the dragon hovering over the woman as she is about to give birth.

The dragon is not interested in her.  If it were not for the child to be born, he wouldn’t need to give her another thought.  But she is going to give birth to the Messiah.  From her comes the “offspring” that will “crush his head”.  And what we see right throughout the Old Testament salvation history is this battle between the two lines – the offspring of the woman versus the offspring of Satan.

We see Cain killing Abel.  We see the sons of Seth marrying the daughters of Cain, with the result that God decides to destroy all with the flood.  Has Satan succeeded in destroying the Christ child?  No, there is one who still fears the Lord – Noah.  We see Israel, rebellious, whingeing and complaining in the desert – and God says to Moses “I will destroy all of them… consume all of them in my wrath…”  Has Satan succeeded?  No.  Moses acts as mediator for the people.

We see Saul, “possessed by an evil spirit”, throw his spear at David while he plays the harp.  Does he kill the anointed one?  It’s close, but no.  We see Athalia, mother of Ahaziah arise and “proceeded to destroy the whole royal family” i.e., the line of David.  Did she kill all of them?  2Kings 11:1-3: “Jehosheba, the daughter of King Jehoram and sister of Ahaziah, took Joash son of Ahaziah and stole him away from among the royal princes who were about to be murdered.”  He remained hidden for six years in the temple of the Lord.

And so it goes on through to Herod killing all the male babies in Bethlehem.  All these, and so many more incidents, are not just about Israel going along with other nations, or wars for land, or sex, power and political intrigue.  Our text gives us the ‘behind-the-scenes’ to the Old Testament history.  It’s all a spiritual struggle of Satan wanting to destroy the coming of the Christ child.

It all culminates in Satan’s attempt to destroy Jesus by having the Pharisees crucify Him on the cross.  There we see the irony – and the real power of God.  What Satan thought was his way of getting rid of the Christ, was used by God to bring salvation and the way of destroying the power of Satan.  John, in a very brief sentence, shows this victory of Jesus when he writes, “And her child was snatched up to God and to his throne” (vs.5).

We see in verse 6 that the woman flees to the desert “…to a place prepared for her by God.”  We will come back to her in the third scene.  But Christ’s ascension in the second scene in our text turns the attention to heaven.  In verse 7, John says, “And there was war in heaven.  Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back.”  Now this is a war between angels, spirits.  So there are no guns and planes, no dead bodies.  It’s a spiritual war, with weapons of law and righteousness, subtlety and intellect.  It’s a war that covers the same time-span as the first scene.

So we are looking even further back spiritually “behind the scenes”.  So at the same time the devil fights his war trying to devour the Christ child born to God’s people, he also wages war in heaven against the angels that remained faithful to God.  What’s the objective of this war?  To get the souls of the Old Testament believers.  Verse 9 mentions that the dragon is called “the devil, or Satan.”

The name “Satan” is actually a Hebrew word that means “accuser”.  A “devil” comes from “diabolos” which means slanderer.  So in this spiritual battle in heaven the dragon slanders and accuses the Old Testament believers.

Think of the scene in the book of Job (1:6) where Satan slanders Job before God.  Think of Satan accusing Joshua, the high priest (Zechariah 3:1,2).  Satan accuses the Old Testament believers saying they have no right to be in heaven because they are all sinners, condemned sinners.  Michael comes to their defence and says they are righteous – they are saved because of their faith in the Christ who will come (just as we are saved by faith in the One who came).

The dragon would argue that the Saviour has not come – and there is no guarantee that He will come, especially since he is doing his utmost to stop the Christ child coming, and often comes so close as he leads the people astray (note vs 9, “…Satan who leads the whole world astray.”)  Satan would argue that there is no right to call these sinners righteous when there has as yet been no atonement.  But he makes no reckoning on the counsel of God.  Whatever God has willed, will happen.

God could forgive the Old Testament believers because He, as the eternal God, was already at the cross – in His will it was already done.  So throughout salvation history there was this spiritual battle on two levels.  But then Christ came.  He suffered and died and paid for the sin of His people.  He defeated sin and death with His resurrection and ascended into heaven.  And with that the battle in heaven was over.  The dragon lost and was “…hurled to the earth, and his angels with him” (vs 9).  There could be no more argument.

It’s no wonder that we hear the victory song sung with a “loud voice in heaven…” (vs.10).  Michael can now point to the facts.  He can now point to the finished work of Christ.  “Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ…” (cf.vss.11,12).  The saints in heaven are untouchable by Satan – they “overcame him by the blood of the Lamb.”  But we need to be careful.  Satan cannot touch the church triumphant in heaven – but he can still rage against the church on earth.  And that’s what we see in the third scene in our text.  That’s why the song says, “Woe to the earth and sea because the devil has gone down to you.”

We see (vs 13) that “when the dragon saw he had been hurled to the earth that he pursued the woman who had given birth to the male child.”  So Satan attacks the New Testament church.  We notice that God protects the church for “a time, times, and half a time” (vs.14), or “1260 days” as in verse 6.  That, you will remember, is the same time the two witnesses in chapter 11 were to witness for God.  We said that the period represented the time between Christ’s first and second comings.  The two witnesses represented the church, whose task it is to preach the gospel, to make Jesus known, to witness for him.

That’s why the devil attacks the church.  Because she is instrumental in bringing the kingdom of God – she is God’s tool to bring the creation to the final judgment when the devil and all his followers will be finally dealt with.  So that’s why he fights her to the last ditch.  In fact, his fight shows just how important the church is.  If we as a congregation are not witnessing for Jesus, striving for His kingdom in all our living, then the devil needs not bother us, for we have lost the plot.  But if we are obedient to Jesus, then be warned – we will be the target of the dragon’s attacks because we are a huge threat to him as we are used by God for His purposes.

Now the church is not left on her own in this struggle.  We see that the woman is “given two wings to fly to the place prepared for her in the desert where she would be taken care of.”  That reminds us of Exodus 19:4, “You yourself have seen what I did to Egypt, how I carried you on eagles wings and brought you to myself.”  God brought them to the desert.  Jesus often went to the desert to be with God.

What’s the significance of the desert as a place of refuge?  It’s the isolation, the separation from everything.  It’s a place where you are still “in the world”, but so isolated you are not surrounded “by the world”.  It’s the sense of being away from everything that tempts us, that distracts us from our relationship with God.  In the desert it’s just God and us and we are totally reliant on Him – for in the desert we have nothing.  It was in the desert that the Israelites received the covenant word from Mount Sinai.  It was in the desert that God took care of them with the daily manna.

John is saying symbolically that the church is protected and kept safe when she maintains her distinction from the world, when we have that time to be alone with God and feed on his Word.  If we simply go along with the ideas and values of the world, we are lost, finished.  We cannot just simply follow our culture.  We have our own king, our own story His word, His law.  We follow Him, no matter what others say is good and right.  If we lose our separation, our distinctiveness, then we are in deep trouble.

And it’s this separation that the devil tries to get us out of.  You notice how the “serpent spewed water like a river from his mouth, to overtake the woman and sweep her away with the torrent.”  He is not trying to drown her, but to sweep her out of the desert, out of her isolation.  He cannot touch her in the desert – isolated with her God and his Word.  But if with a torrent of words (note it’s from his mouth – the river) and lies, slander and deceit he can get the church to come and do as everyone else does, then he can destroy her significance and her task in the coming of the kingdom.  And if he can’t destroy the church as a whole, then he will pick us off as individuals (note vss,16,17).

That’s where the “rubber hits the road” for you and me every day.  Our text shows us what’s “behind the scene” of life.  That there is a spiritual battle going on.  So when you go to work and deal with the daily challenges and problems, when you are at school and are taught in particular ways, when you relax at home and watch television, or go out for the night – in everything – it’s not just people and things, it’s a deep spiritual battle that’s going on.  A battle to take you away from your relationship with Jesus.  A temptation to take you away from your isolation and distinctive Christian ways.  It’s a war to stop you witnessing for Jesus and trying to bring the kingdom – for justice and peace, for salvation.

Be aware especially when Satan the accuser suggests that you should give up being different, because you are no good.  God wouldn’t want you, or God’s Word is all a lie – one idea in a postmodern plethora of many ideas.  It’s a deep spiritual battle, but one we will (and have) won if we keep hanging on to Jesus.

Amen.