To Suffer for Jesus

One thing that is becoming more and more clear is that suffering for our faith is going to become the norm. I found a testimony of someone I want to share with you. George Chen, who went to be with the Lord Jesus in 2021. He spent 17 years shoveling human waste in prison for the Gospel. Instead of becoming bitter, he called those years his “honeymoon with Jesus” as it was the only place in the prison he could go to be alone to pray and worship God.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6dIi6k76MQ

As we live for Jesus in this world there will be false prophets who will lead astray. Will we commit to having a bold witness through suffering as we await the return of Jesus. (False signs to lead astray, bold witness through suffering, battle won but not over)

We go to revelation again to see the promise of eternity while also the promise of physical suffering as we await Jesus. What we are called to remember, the main idea is bold witness of the word of God amidst it all.

Pursuit

12:13-17

Last week we went through what the imagery of the women the child and the dragon meant. Symbolism. There is great debate, as usual about the meaning, but the women represents the remnant of Israel (the church) and the gentiles are included in some fashion we will see later. Woven in that is the promise of the 144K witnesses saved from harm that are culled out of the nation of Israel. We are included in the saved, but we have different roles to play, different promises.

The Dragon is Satan, who not having won his battle to usurp the Lord God, is cast down to earth to steal, kill and destroy the children of God if He can.

The child is the son of God, Jesus, who shed His blood for the sin of the world so that all who believe in Him and give themselves to Him will not perish.

This is where we enter the next text. Follow along in you bibles as some scripture will be up on the screen, but I will not read all of it but paraphrase some.

Revelation 12:13–14 CSB

When the dragon saw that he had been thrown down to the earth, he persecuted the woman who had given birth to the male child. The woman was given two wings of a great eagle, so that she could fly from the serpent’s presence to her place in the wilderness, where she was nourished for a time, times, and half a time.

because of the victory of Jesus on the cross, and banned from heaven the devil is now given authority to pursue the followers of Jesus. The word persecute here is interesting.

The ESV, NLT and NIV all say pursued. The Greek word here means to pursue with the intent to catch and therefore cause to suffer. The idea of endless pursuit. It is the same word used in Matthew 5:10 in the sermon on the mount that Jesus gave when He said “blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake.

Also the same idea as in the flight of Israel into Egypt after God rescued them from the wrath of Pharaoh. In His anger Pharaoh “pursued the Israelite's into the desert with the intent to kill them but God dent them safely into the desert. Ex 14:8

With this in mind, we follow the same general theme as Israel’s flight from Egypt. The promise of safety is given here, flight on the wings of eagles. Another common OT theme.

Revelation 12:15–16 CSB

From his mouth the serpent spewed water like a river flowing after the woman, to sweep her away with a flood. But the earth helped the woman. The earth opened its mouth and swallowed up the river that the dragon had spewed from his mouth.

Revelation 12:17 CSB

So the dragon was furious with the woman and went off to wage war against the rest of her offspring—those who keep the commands of God and hold firmly to the testimony about Jesus.

The imagery of this is borrowed from Exodus, or at least echoed from the book of Exodus. It talks about being safe fro 3.5 years in the desert. This goes back to the image of the women. Who is she?

If we take a literal approach to the interpretation of the prophecies of Rev., or at least where they are meant to be literal. This would be at this point in reference to the 144k select Israelite missionaries that are going to be sent out for a purpose. They are going to be saved from the wrath of Satan during this second period of the tribulation.

part of where we get this from also is in Vs 17 where due to not being allowed to touch these set apart Jewish Missionaries he goes against the rest of the believers.

to suffer makes a bold witness.

The first thing that we need to remember, the main point behind this that is trying to be put across here is that suffering is inevitable, those who commit to suffer for their faith make a bold witness. We will suffer for the sake of the gospel, blessed are those who suffer for the sake of righteousness. for the goal of sharing the gospel. We will be given the strength to endure.

False Messiahs

This next little bit Deals with imagery of two beasts and the dragon. One of the things we need to remember is that prophecy sometimes may be fulfilled partly in one aspect of history, as a type of what is to come but ultimately fulfilled at a different time. Sometimes we can not fit prophecy into our neat little boxes of what we think is going to happen.

The imagery of the beasts we think could be in reference to literal people or entities. That is they are either a human indwelt by Satan and someone given authority by Satan to do His bidding called the false prophet. Or it could be in reference to an empire and a group of people. My point through it all is that we can try and figure it out, but in cases like this some things we are not meant to know till the end when it happens. But I will try and paraphrase what is going on here.

Revelation 13:1–2 CSB

And I saw a beast coming up out of the sea. It had ten horns and seven heads. On its horns were ten crowns, and on its heads were blasphemous names. The beast I saw was like a leopard, its feet were like a bear’s, and its mouth was like a lion’s mouth. The dragon gave the beast his power, his throne, and great authority.

A great ugly beast is pictured here. Similar to what we read in the book of Daniel. The beast is a man who is indwelt by Satan in the second half of the tribulation.

Horns and heads - This will be expanded upon later in chapter 17 when it goes more in depth into this. again people debate the meaning behind this but it would appear that the heads and the horns depict an empire that is behind the Antichrist. The claim to authority rests upon brute force.

Worshiped the Dragon - The beast gets his authority from the dragon, His power.

People also see the Roman empire as precursor to the beast of the end times. The Roman empire and Emperor Nero. A foreshadow of something worse to come. But how could it be worse.

The Book of Revelation (E. The Beast from the Earth (13:11–18))

If the first beast was the power of Rome whose insistence on worshiping the emperor was beginning to threaten the early church, the second beast most certainly represents the imperial priesthood that assisted Rome in propagating the imperial cult.

This passage talks of the beast getting mortally wounded but the wound was healed. This would not be out of place for the beast to be able to imitate Christ and what He did. People will worship Him all the more for his supposed rising from the dead.

Nero also received a wound to the head, albeit self inflicted, and people think that this Antichrist will be the resurrected Nero. But if Nero was a foreshadow of what was to come, Most New Testament scholars, liberal and evangelical alike, recognize the image of a new Nero here. Nero was the first emperor to declare an official state persecution against Christians (though probably limited to Rome), and he burned hundreds of Christians alive to light his imperial gardens at night and butchered others in various ways

Essentially what we see are two great forces used by Satan to accomplish His nefarious plan.

chapter 13 1-11 talks about this beast, how it will be given authority by Satan who was given authority by God to wage war against the saints of God. The whole earth will be amazed and follow the beast and the miracles he will be able to do.

It will lead astray all those who are not followers of Jesus, what we are called to is endurance.

Revelation 13:10 CSB

If anyone is to be taken captive, into captivity he goes. If anyone is to be killed with a sword, with a sword he will be killed. This calls for endurance and faithfulness from the saints.

There is a second beast, again I will paraphrase some of it for you.

Revelation 13:12–13 CSB

It exercises all the authority of the first beast on its behalf and compels the earth and those who live on it to worship the first beast, whose fatal wound was healed. It also performs great signs, even causing fire to come down from heaven to earth in front of people.

Many will be deceived, killed by fire called down for not worshiping the image of the anti Christ. To make life even more difficult a system will be put in place to cause the people of God to not be able ot buy or sell.

Revelation 13:16–17 NLT

He required everyone—small and great, rich and poor, free and slave—to be given a mark on the right hand or on the forehead. And no one could buy or sell anything without that mark, which was either the name of the beast or the number representing his name.

The mark of the beast. I will leave out the speculation as that is all it is at that point. The thing about ancient Greek and Hebrew is that you can use numbers like this to add up to names. There is great significance behind numbers.

We do not know who the Antichrist is or His false prophet. But Jesus claimed that there are going to many of them leading up to the last days. There is one interesting theory in to why this is. Jesus said that no one would know the time and the hour that He would come back, only the Father in Heaven. Satan does not know when Jesus will come back, so one commentator said that because of this Satan always has to keep some in the works so as to be ready.

The point is that there are those out there to deceive and lead astray. Even Miracles and signs and wonders are going to be able to be done by the Antichrist and His false prophet. False signs to lead astray, to imitate Christ.

Even now, there are those who claim to be miracle workers but are charlatans. Not that it cant happen but we must be careful that it does not lead us astray. we must be wise so that those false prophets do not lead us astray.

So What?

As we live for Jesus in this world there will be false prophets who will lead astray. Will we commit to having a bold witness through suffering as we await the return of Jesus. (False signs to lead astray, bold witness through suffering, battle won but not over)We go to revelation again to see the promise of eternity while also the promise of physical suffering as we await Jesus. What we are called to remember, the main idea is bold witness of the word of God amidst it all.

People struggle with the idea of having to go through suffering, but to me it is all a matter of perspective. If we as followers of Jesus are here for this then we have a job to do, to make sure people know about Jesus. If we are not here for this then we have a job to do, to make sure people leading up to it know about Jesus.

False signs imitate God to lead us astray

The first thing we need to remember out of this is to be warned, Satan and His false prophets and false messiahs are going to try and lead people astray. Satan has signs to lead people astray Including what is going to be a false resurrection. But we must remember that Satan acts from a worldly power but we act from the power of faith and the power of God. Christs power is greater then anything the world can possibly do to us. Only by eyes of faith or in the retrospect of eternity can we see how the rewards of faithfulness outweigh its cost.

Christians who commit to suffer for their faith make a bold witness

The tension and temptation to compromise because of this is intense. We want to communicate truth in a strategic way but are we more concerned about what people say or think about us then preaching the gospel? Are we more concerned about losing possible supporters of our ministry then following God’s will for us.

I was looking into bursaries and stuff given out to organizations like ours. Lots of money is out there to be given to organizations that do stuff like what we do with the bible camp. But as I was looking into the possibility of getting close to a $10k bursary I read that we would have to promote and teach the woke agenda the world is pushing. It would have to be implemented in our staff training.

To commit to suffer for our faith and witness for the gospel makes for a bold witness. Ask God to use you for the sake of the kingdom in spite of what you go through.

We live in the tension of an already/but not yet battle won but not quite over.

The Book of Revelation (E. The Beast from the Earth (13:11–18))

While the Lamb was victorious on the cross, the full and public acknowledgment of that victory awaits a final moment. Believers live in the already/not yet tension of a battle won but not quite over. While victory has been achieved, the defeated enemy must still be permanently removed from the field of battle. That will take place when the conquering Messiah returns to establish his eternal rule.