The Woman, the Child and the Dragon
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INTRODUCTION
INTRODUCTION
Last week we wrapped up the 3rd of 7 cycles in the book of Revelation.
As we arrive at the 4th cycle in chapter 12, we have the opportunity to stop and review.
In Cycle 1, we saw a picture of Christ and then we saw Jesus write to seven churches in Asia Minor and give them a message that was not just for them, but for all churches throughout the church age.
The churches have plenty of challenges and problems. Some have sin to deal with, some have suffering to deal with and some have both.
But all of them are promised victory in Christ, if they faithful to Him.
Their faithfulness will be proof of their eternal salvation and they will receive the victor’s crown when He returns.
In Cycle 2, we got a glimpse into this amazing worship scene in heaven, and then Jesus opens a scroll with all of history written on it. It is completely sealed with seven seals.
Each time He opens a seal, humanity and nature experience judgment
The church is sealed by God.
They serve Him on earth until they worship Him in heaven.
But in the world, there is conquest, war, famine and death.
The world martyrs Christians and the martyrs cry out for justice
Then Christ returns as an answer to their prayer and brings final judgment to the world and ultimate redemption to the church
In Cycle 3, our attention turned to the trumpets.
Similar to the 7 seals, the 7 trumpets show us God’s judgments on humanity and the earth until Christ returns.
In the first four trumpets, we saw how God’s are judgments active in nature until Jesus returns
Then we saw three woes pronounced with each of the final three trumpets.
With the 5th, Satan and his demons are tormenting the unbelieving world
With the 6th, Satan and his demons are causing all sorts of war in the world
But as all of this is going on, we got an explanation of what will happen with the Lord’s church
God will measure her in devotion and worship and send her out as a witness
But the world will seek to kill and leave her bodies in the streets
But in the end, the Lord will return, the dead in Christ will be raised
And then final judgment will come down upon those who dwell on the earth, while the age of glory begins for the people of God
That brings us to chapter 12 and the beginning of Cycle 4.
This Cycle is crucial because in some ways, it is the centerpiece of the book of Revelation.
It is right in the middle.
Cycles 1, 2 and 3 on one side
Cycles 5, 6 and 7 on the other
And it tells the story of history and the story of God’s redemption of His people really clearly using really identifiable images from the Old Testament
All of the cycles are important, but the book is set up to draw attention to this epic battle in the middle between the Dragon, the Beast and the False Prophet and the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
The people who dwell on the earth side with the Dragon.
The people of God side with One Seated on the Throne and the Lamb
See—the church was in a war.
They had members being killed by the government
They had members being persecuted by the synagogues
They had members being seduced by sin
And the 4th Cycle is the Lord pulling back the curtain to show them the bigger war that is at hand
The war behind the war
And that is what makes chapter 12 a bit of a turning point.
In 1-11, John shows us the church suffering in the world—being persecuted for their Gospel witness
In 12-22, we are seeing war in heaven—the spiritual realities behind the physical history
Tonight we look at just the first 6 verses of the chapter and we get introduced to the main characters
There will be other characters who come along like the Beast and the False Prophet, but our main characters are here in 12:1-6.
And a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars. She was pregnant and was crying out in birth pains and the agony of giving birth. And another sign appeared in heaven: behold, a great red dragon, with seven heads and ten horns, and on his heads seven diadems. His tail swept down a third of the stars of heaven and cast them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman who was about to give birth, so that when she bore her child he might devour it. She gave birth to a male child, one who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron, but her child was caught up to God and to his throne, and the woman fled into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God, in which she is to be nourished for 1,260 days.
THE STORY OF YOUR WORLD
THE STORY OF YOUR WORLD
Let me tell you what you have in front of you in Revelation 12:1-6 in a nutshell.
It is the history of creation up until February 22nd, 2023.
This is redemption history up to the present.
And it is being explained to us with new moving pictures.
We are not dealing with seals or trumpets anymore
We will deal with bowls in the next cycle, but it’s not those yet, either
Our new pictures are characters locked in an epic battle for eternal glory
THE WOMAN
THE WOMAN
The first character we meet is a woman who is clothed with the sun and has the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head.
She is pregnant and crying out as if she is labor.
Now, this is not a literal woman. She is symbolic of something.
We know that because she appears as a great sign in heaven. That is a massive clue to the fact that we are not dealing with a literal adult female who is pregnant.
It is also not the Virgin Mary, which is was many Catholics say and what you will see if you look at medieval art
The biggest clue we get as to who we are dealing with comes in the twelve-starred crown.
Let’s look at Genesis 37:9-10
Then he dreamed another dream and told it to his brothers and said, “Behold, I have dreamed another dream. Behold, the sun, the moon, and eleven stars were bowing down to me.” But when he told it to his father and to his brothers, his father rebuked him and said to him, “What is this dream that you have dreamed? Shall I and your mother and your brothers indeed come to bow ourselves to the ground before you?”
Jacob clearly understood his son’s dream.
He is the sun. His wife is the moon. The stars are his other eleven sons.
And so the stars here a reference to that.
The twelve stars clue us into the fact that this is woman represents the people of God, since the people of God sprang from the 12 sons who serve as the heads of the 12 tribes of Israel.
This is a good time to remind ourselves that in the genre of Jewish apocalyptic literature, which Revelation is, twelve is a number that symbolizes completeness in humanity.
And in Revelation, and in the Bible in general, twelve is number associated with God’s people.
God brings forth a nation from Abraham and how many tribes are there? Twelve.
Fast-forward to the New Testament.
Jesus calls disciples who will be the patriarchs of a New Covenant community. They will build His church.
How many of them does He call? Twelve.
That was not on accident.
Judas turns heel and dies and what do they do?
They replace him.
Why? Because you need 12 to be complete.
At that point, they understood exactly what they were being called to build.
So this woman represents the people of God.
She is clothed with the sun and she has the moon under her feet.
This accomplishes two things.
On one hand, the sun and moon next to the 12 stars helps you connect this to Genesis 39. The Lord doesn’t want us to miss that, so He is leaving the breadcrumbs.
But on the other hand, the sun and moon tell us something about this woman.
She is clothed with the sun.
This depicts beauty of the people of God.
She is arrayed in burning brightness.
She reflects the brilliance of her majestic God.
Bless the Lord, O my soul!
O Lord my God, you are very great!
You are clothed with splendor and majesty,
covering yourself with light as with a garment,
stretching out the heavens like a tent.
She has the moon under her feet like sandals.
This displays the authority of the people of God.
Our Lord has the nations as His footstool.
The Lord says to my Lord:
“Sit at my right hand,
until I make your enemies your footstool.”
That is His inheritance.
Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage,
and the ends of the earth your possession.
You shall break them with a rod of iron
and dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.”
And now, in His authority He is sending His people to the nations:
And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
And one day, as His Bride, His people will reign with Him and share in His inheritance:
It was promised in the Old Testament:
But the meek shall inherit the land
and delight themselves in abundant peace.
And it has come true for the people of God by faith in Christ:
and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.
To be appointed on mission now and to be a fellow heir in the Kingdom—that is some serious authority.
And that is why God’s woman stands on the moon.
It demonstrates the authority He has given to her.
We should not be surprised to see the people of God described as a woman.
In the Old Testament, God refers talks about Israel as His bride regularly. She is the “wife of Jehovah.”
For your Maker is your husband,
the Lord of hosts is his name;
and the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer,
the God of the whole earth he is called.
The problem is that she wasn’t faithful.
In fact, there is an entire prophetic book about this called Hosea.
But the Lord still loved her and there was always at least a remnant in Israel that loved Him too.
Then we come to the New Covenant where God is grafting Gentiles into the tree of promise. And we see the Bridegroom/Bride language all over the pages of the New Testament.
Maybe nowhere more clearly than when we get to Revelation 19...
Then I heard what seemed to be the voice of a great multitude, like the roar of many waters and like the sound of mighty peals of thunder, crying out,
“Hallelujah!
For the Lord our God
the Almighty reigns.
Let us rejoice and exult
and give him the glory,
for the marriage of the Lamb has come,
and his Bride has made herself ready;
it was granted her to clothe herself
with fine linen, bright and pure”—
for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints.
And the angel said to me, “Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.” And he said to me, “These are the true words of God.” Then I fell down at his feet to worship him, but he said to me, “You must not do that! I am a fellow servant with you and your brothers who hold to the testimony of Jesus. Worship God.” For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.
So this is who the woman is—the people of God.
In verse 2, we have her crying out in birth pains and in the agony of giving birth.
So that means she is in labor.
Now when we get now to verse 5, we will see that she gives birth to a Man-Child who rules the nations. I think you might have some guesses as to who that is. And you are right.
So if she is giving birth to Jesus in verse 5, we can be confident this is specifically talking about the Old Covenant people of God in verse 2. The Church under the Law.
Israel was God’s Bride and the Lord brought His Son forth from her.
She was pregnant throughout the Old Testament—growing year by year with each prophecy and each passing day.
Her labor pains reached fever pitch when the prophets when silent.
As she screamed out, they stopped speaking.
And then, just as Micah had predicted in one of the prophetic ultrasounds, the Lord Jesus was born in Bethlehem.
His coming forth was from the ancient of days, but His human lineage was Israel.
The Son of Man had the blood of the wife of Yahweh flowing through His veins.
And then, once we get down to verse 6, we will see the New Covenant people of God—the Church under grace—going from pregnant mother to a exile in the wilderness, being nourished by God.
So in this passage, the woman represents God’s people from the Garden to the redeemed sitting here in this room tonight.
We will deal with the New Testament side of things in a moment, but for now, let’s see the Dragon.
THE DRAGON
THE DRAGON
Next we move on to the Dragon. He is described as “another sign” that appears in heaven.
He is red and he has seven heads and ten horns an on his head are seven diadems.
This is not a literal apocalyptic monster who will come to earth in the future.
Instead, this is the same Serpent from the Garden who slithered in and deceived Adam and Eve.
The is Abbadon the Destroyer. This is the Desolater who makes desolate. The King over the bottomless pit.
We are told explicitly in Revelation 12:9
And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world—he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him.
The Dragon is the most common name for him in Revelation, but he is also called Satan, the devil and the serpent.
He has seven heads that wear seven crowns and ten horns to show his power.
It is reminiscent of the 4th beast in Daniel 7 who has ten horns.
Vern Poythress says, “In Daniel and Revelation, multiple heads often symbolize multiple manifestations of a single kingdom. In the same way, Satan manifests his power through multiple channels and in multiple institutions and events. Seven, the number of completeness, suggests that the Dragon has extensive power and many manifestations.”
And because those who dwell on the earth have bowed down to him, they have surrendered to his power.
They have committed his original sin and they have rejected God and tried to steal His glory.
Therefore, they are followers of the Dragon. They have chosen his side.
And they live in this world under his rule, in his domain of darkness.
This is why the New Testament talks about Satan as the god of this age.
In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.
Or it speaks about the world lying in his power:
We know that we are from God, and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one.
Even Jesus called Satan the ruler of this world:
Now is the judgment of this world; now will the ruler of this world be cast out.
We know that there is only one true Ruler of the world. It is the One seated on the Throne.
But he has given Satan authority for a time, that His Son might be all the more glorified and the redemption of His people would be all the more glorious.
But for now, the world belongs to the Dragon and the evidence of that is all around us.
He is red—the same color as the horse of war and bloodshed Revelation 6...
When we look around and we see how human blood runs because of human sin—we know that this world is in Satan’s power for now
You see an example of his power in verse 4. This breaks from the linear nature of these six verses.
This is a reference to Satan’s fall.
At some point after Creation and before the fall of Adam in the Garden, Satan fell.
He rebelled against God and failed and took a large portion or a third of rebellious angels with him, who are now the demonic forces we met back in chapter 9.
Isaiah and Ezekiel both describe this cosmic treason:
“How you are fallen from heaven,
O Day Star, son of Dawn!
How you are cut down to the ground,
you who laid the nations low!
You said in your heart,
‘I will ascend to heaven;
above the stars of God
I will set my throne on high;
I will sit on the mount of assembly
in the far reaches of the north;
I will ascend above the heights of the clouds;
I will make myself like the Most High.’
But you are brought down to Sheol,
to the far reaches of the pit.
In the abundance of your trade
you were filled with violence in your midst, and you sinned;
so I cast you as a profane thing from the mountain of God,
and I destroyed you, O guardian cherub,
from the midst of the stones of fire.
See, Satan has had one objective from the start. He wants God’s spot.
It is that simple.
He wants to undermine God’s authority and position and glory.
He wants all authority and position and glory for himself.
So back in Genesis 2, we see God giving a law that is couched with immeasurable generosity, don’t we?
The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”
You can have any tree, Adam. Just not one.
Pretty generous Law-Giver.
And just in case we would try to argue the point, right after this, God makes the decision for Adam that in a world where everything is still good, it would not be good for Adam to be alone.
So he gives him a wife in Eve.
Again—He is a good and generous God who is filled with blessing and love, but desires obedience.
Therefore, we have a law couched with all of these gracious promises. This reflects God’s character.
But suddenly, we are introduced to a new character in Genesis 3:1
Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made.
He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?”
God gave just one law.
And here is the Dragon slithering in through the dust to question it.
And to not just question the Law, but to question God’s very character—to challenge His proven goodness.
But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
Come on, Eve. God is just stingy. You don’t die. He is just holding back happiness from you.
Sound familiar? It should—he probably tried to say that to you yesterday. Or last week. Or a minute ago.
It is his move.
To try and counterfeit God and undermine His authority by offering God’s image-bearers empty promises about how he can provide something better for them.
That is another reason for the seven heads and seven crowns. He knows seven is God’s number. He is trying to copy it and deceive people into thinking that he is god.
You will see him doing this again when he brings forth a beast that is in his image.
Much like God sent forth His Son who is the image of God invisible.
But understand that when Adam and Eve sinned, the world fell into the power of the Evil One.
Satan brought the key of sin in through the back door of the Garden and then used it to unlock the front door so that death could walk right in and make itself at home.
And do you know what? God took that personally. So He personally had a plan to do something about it.
THE MAN CHILD
THE MAN CHILD
That plan is implied in what we see in the end of verse 4 and in verse 5.
The woman is ready to give birth. The Dragon stands in front of her waiting to devour the child.
But he can’t.
This male child, who is destined to rule the nations with a rod of iron, is caught up to God before Satan can do anything about it.
This is a reference about to the birth, life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, as well as His imminent return.
To understand this, we need to go back to the Garden and see the aftermath of sin.
Adam and Eve eat from the tree and they break the one rule God gave them.
They were told they would surely die.
They own up to their sin and point to Satan and essentially say, “He lied to us. That is why we ate the fruit.”
I remember the first time I read this. I was in 7th grade.
If you haven’t been around it your whole life, and you aren’t used to how the story goes, you do not get a relief from the tension right away.
He said they would die. They sin. They are caught.
The tension in the air is, “IS GOD GOING TO KILL THEM!?!”
But He doesn’t even address them first, as He pronounces curses.
He starts with Satan.
The Lord God said to the serpent,
“Because you have done this,
cursed are you above all livestock
and above all beasts of the field;
on your belly you shall go,
and dust you shall eat
all the days of your life.
I will put enmity between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and her offspring;
he shall bruise your head,
and you shall bruise his heel.”
Do you see that?
There will be hatred between Satan and Eve’s lineage.
Satan will bruise the heel (not a fatal blow), but the seed of Eve will ultimately bruise Satan’s head (fatal blow)
What happens in the very next chapter?
Cain rises up and kills Abel in the field. One seed of Eve’s kills another and God tells Cain it happened because sin was crouching at the door waiting to destroy him.
So Satan responds to the curse by going after the seed.
And then that keeps happening:
Ishmael against Isaac.
Esau against Jacob.
Saul against David.
Herod killing every Jewish boy under two in the region, all in hopes of snuffing out the seed.
Who do you think was really behind that? Of course, we know it was the Dragon.
Time and time again, Satan kept trying to kill the seed of Eve.
Until he conspired and dealt treacherously and got Jesus hung up on a Roman cross.
Surely the Dragon thought he had killed the Seed. He did the trick.
No child of Eve would ever bruise his head now!
And that brings us to verse 5. Verse 4 ends with Satan standing there, ready to devour the Male-child and rejoice in finally getting victory over God, but the child is snatched up and taken up to God and to His throne.
This is the ascension.
And when he had said these things, as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. And while they were gazing into heaven as he went, behold, two men stood by them in white robes, and said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.”
And wrapped up in this reference to the ascension is the entire ministry of Christ.
The ascension is the proof that the work has been done and that Christ has overcome Satan and sin and death by dying and then resurrection and then ascending to the right hand of the Father.
Satan thought supreme victory had come.
The Old Covenant Community of God gave birth to the Son as He came from Abraham and David’s heritage, and Satan was ready to eat Him.
To crucify Him and dance on His grave.
But instead, Jesus resurrected and ascended and Satan’s fate was sealed before he even knew what had happened.
The head-bruising has commenced and it will be complete when Christ returns from His exalted position and brings Final Judgment.
Here is Dennis Johnson on the phrase “caught up to God and to his throne:”
This terse statement encapsulates the life, suffering, and exaltation of Jesus: he was born, he was caught up to God, and he shares God’s throne of infinite authority.”
And when Christ returns, He will fulfill the Psalm 2 prophecies regarding the Messiah and He will rule the nations with a rod of iron.
Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage,
and the ends of the earth your possession.
You shall break them with a rod of iron
and dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.”
So Satan will not get God’s position.
He will not steal the inheritance of the Son.
He will not stop the Father-glorifying mission of the Messiah
But what of God’s people? What happens to them after the Messiah ascends?
What do they do until He returns?
THE CHURCH IN EXILE
THE CHURCH IN EXILE
Well, we are in exile.
Not because we are being disciplined by God, but because of the spiritual reality that this is not our home.
We have no final address here. We have no last city here.
The imagery of verse 6 makes us think of Israel trekking through the wilderness on their way to Canaan.
They were delivered from Egypt by Moses and now they are depending on God as they move toward the Promised Land.
We have been delivered by a more perfect Moses from something much worse than slavery in Egypt. We have been freed from slavery to sin.
And now, like Israel, we are depending on the Lord in the wilderness of the world, trekking toward the Promised Land of the new earth.
So while verse 2 shows us the Old Testament church, under the law, looking forward in faith and trusting in God’s plan of salvation---waiting for the birth of a Savior from her line, verse 6 shows us the New Testament church fleeing into the wilds after Christ is ascended.
The idea is that she is on the run because the Dragon is hunting her.
He failed to kill the Bridegroom, so he comes for the Bride.
But God’s bride is never alone. He is always with her.
John says there is a place prepared for her for 1260 days.
If that number rings a bell it should.
It is yet another reference to the last half of Daniel’s symbolic 70th week.
It is a reference to the church age.
42 months.
3 and 1/2 years.
1260 days.
This is the time period in between the two advents of Christ. His first coming and His second.
But until He comes, the church remains in this time of purification, much like Israel in the wilderness.
He is sanctifying His Bride and getting her ready for her wedding day.
And it is coming. But until then, He nourishes her as she does His work in the world.
“The place prepared for her” is His presence.
Wherever she hides from the Dragon, God is there with her.
In chapter 11, he measured His church and protected her.
Here in chapter 12, He nourishes her and protects her.
It is explained with more detail later in the chapter:
And when the dragon saw that he had been thrown down to the earth, he pursued the woman who had given birth to the male child. But the woman was given the two wings of the great eagle so that she might fly from the serpent into the wilderness, to the place where she is to be nourished for a time, and times, and half a time.
A time, and times and half a time.
Another way of explaining the time of the church age.
42 months; 1260 days, 3 and 1/2 years
Michael Kuykendall says, “They all reflect persecution, protection, testing, and witness for the saints.”
And what that does is keep this tension going that runs throughout all of Revelation:
It is the tension of suffering and sustenance.
You see God’s people being slain, but also being resurrected.
You see them being persecuted, but also protected.
They are being tested, but they are not abandoned.
And that is the experience of the church, is it not?
As we serve God together and proclaim the Gospel, Satan will attack us, persecute us and trouble us.
God will allow us to be stretched and shaken as much as He wants us to be stretched and shaken.
But at no point are we left without His nourishment because at no point are we left without Him. He is with us wherever we go until He brings us home to Him.
PRONOUNCING THE DEATH SENTENCE
PRONOUNCING THE DEATH SENTENCE
And that should motivate us to boldly preach the Gospel, knowing that wherever we are in the wilderness, even though we are hunted by the Dragon, we are as safe as we could possibly be.
Because He is with us as we do His will.
It does not get safer than that on this earth--Being with God while you obey Him.
Even if you are doing that in the most dangerous place possible.
And when you go into the world that Satan has temporarily claimed as his own and you say, “Christ was crucified and resurrected and He is coming again,” what you are doing is pronouncing and proclaiming the death sentence of Christ.
The story is written. We know what happens to these characters.
The Dragon will end up in the fiery pit with anyone who followed him.
The Woman will end up in a wedding dress sitting next to Jesus, drinking the finest wine and eating the best fare.
And when you go out into the world telling that story, you are proclaiming Satan’s destruction in his own domain.
So go do that. Early and often in your day.
Go into the world and tell the nations that a Christ has been born and he will stomp on Satan’s head.
Call on them to repent so that they do not go down with him.
Call on them to believe in Christ and to find all of the love and mercy in Him that every person who has ever come to Him has found
Recently I was reiterating my love for my wife to her. That is something you husbands should do regularly, by the way.
I told her that I love being married to her and I plan to be until we both marry Jesus.
But Until that day comes, I want to proclaim Satan’s death sentence in my marriage.
I want to love my wife like Christ loves the church, so that my marriage will demonstrate the Gospel to the world.
I want the to see Satan’s demise in my marriage. I want them to see Christ’s superiority in my marriage.
I want my marriage to make clear that Satan is defeated and Christ is King. That is how I can steward it for the Gospel’s sake.
And you can make that connection with all the important things in your life.
In your parenting...
In your working...
In your church service...
In your coaching...
In your friendships...
In all things, proclaim the crucified and resurrected and ascended Christ as supreme, call people to repent and remind them what will come of the enemy and anyone who side with him.
We will see war in heaven next week.