Hold Fast to Jesus
Notes
Transcript
If you have your Bibles, we will be in Revelation Chapter 12 today.
A great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head. She was pregnant and cried out in pain as she was about to give birth. Then another sign appeared in heaven: an enormous red dragon with seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns on its heads. Its 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 it might devur her child the moment he was born.
As the 7th trumpet sounds there is another pause in the chorological. In the next few chapters we get to flesh out who is involved in the tribulations and God continues to pull back the curtain as to what is taking in place in the world. While all these events are in the future; God has given us this wisdom so that we may discern what is going on around us. Revelation gives us the ability to have a Biblical worldview because it gives us the ability to understand where things are leading. Now we do not know the time frame of this though , that is where our faith in God comes in but ultimately victory belongs to the Lord. When our complete faith is put into God, you become part of that victory. A victory on a large scale but victory in your own lives as well.
Many people believe the woman in these first few verses to be Mary. The woman is actually Israel out of Israel we get Jesus. Now the other sign is where we meet Satan. We covered quite awhile ago the origins of Satan. But a quick recap Satan was in heaven. Pride caused his downfall but now we get more information about this downfall. The stars of the sky are angels and so Satan in his downfall actually took a third of the angels. Now here is the interesting part, we do now know how many stars are in the sky, and thus it is a third of an unknown number that we must contend with.
As I have stated before this is an area of scripture that the modern church must contend with and cannot shy away from. But it must be done while threading the needle correctly. The church does you a disservice by never teaching this but it also does you a disservice by teaching you that every bad thing that ever happened is caused by Satan. I will go further into the schemes of Satan as we progress
She gave birth to a son, a male child, who “will rule all the nations with an iron scepter.” And her child was snatched up to God and to his throne. The woman fled into the wilderness to a place prepared for her by God, where she might be taken care of for 1,260 days.
The child is Jesus, and of course Satan tried to take out Jesus from the very start. Again here is the power of God, Satan’s plan was to kill Jesus, even as a baby. Satan has done everything in his power to attempt to stop God’s plan to redeem the world.
When Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi.
So God protects Him and Mary and Joseph. However Satan had already lost, he had lost long ago. Because Jesus would die, He dies on the cross and in His death He defeats the dragon. In His death on the cross there is victory. That victory is extended to you.
Then war broke out in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back. But he was not strong enough, and they lost their place in heaven. The great dragon was hurled down—that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him.
A war breaks out in heaven. Michael and his angels go to war against Satan. They are cast out of heaven and sent to this world. This is why I have said some many times that we are in a spiritual war. That ancient serpent that leads the entire world astray. We covered his objectives a few weeks ago. We have to understand that his whole objective is to lead you away from God. And so to understand the schemes of the devil we have to look at where those roads lead you. If the road you are on is not leading to you to Jesus, to love, to forgiveness, to eternity to the father, then we need to question where we have found ourselves. We need to use the Bible to re-orient our lives back to Jesus. If we find ourselves on a road that is leading us to hate, leading us to unforgiveness in our lives, leading us away from the Lord Jesus Christ, that is the precise time we need to repent which means to turn away and we need to head back the other direction.
Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say: “Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Messiah. For the accuser of our brothers and sisters, who accuses them before our God day and night, has been hurled down.
Through the power of Jesus we break these accusations and we break these strong holds. The power of the kingdom of God. Because day and night satan and his demons are whispering in our ear. You aren’t good enough to do this, you aren’t good enough for God, you are not strong enough to get through what you are going through. That is all false, you are worthy because Jesus died on the cross for you. You are strong enough to get through anything because Jesus stands next to you.
They triumphed over him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death. Therefore rejoice, you heavens and you who dwell in them! But woe to the earth and the sea, because the devil has gone down to you! He is filled with fury, because he knows that his time is short.”
The voice in heaven is telling everyone in heaven to rejoice because believers are triumphing over evil by the blood of the lamb. Do not love the lie of this world so much that you are willing to comprise your beliefs. Do not fall for the accusations from the devil that you would comprise me your beliefs. This is the time for us to stand upon our beliefs in Jesus and our faith in Jesus because when we do that the heavens rejoice. Our names may not be known down here, we may not be famous and we may not be popular. But guess what our names are known to the Father and that is the only thing you need in this world.
When the dragon saw that he had been hurled to the earth, he pursued the woman who had given birth to 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. 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 and swallowing the river that the dragon had spewed out of his mouth.
God delivers the woman and protects here. Again in Revelation this must likely refers to the 144,000 that are sealed to God. God’s seal protects them. For us here and now though again we see the objectives of the dragon. But more importantly we see that God protects us. This is what I really want to hammer home is that when we stick close to God, He is leading the way and there is nothing that can stop that. Throughout the entire Gospel accounts Jesus stayed close to the Father and even death was defeated.
I use a lot of teaching and quotes from those that came before us because we have much to learn from them. They stayed faithful and their teachings live on. Death is defeated. Do not believe for one second that no matter what the situation is that God will not deliver you out of it.
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.
Went off to wage war. Satan finds himself in a losing battle and he is going to try to take as many of us down with him as possible. He is waging war against those who hold fast to Jesus. This is where we need to look at ourselves and the communities that we are part of. Because this is the reality that we find ourselves in.
Jesus says
“I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. The hired hand is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep. So when he sees the wolf coming, he abandons the sheep and runs away. Then the wolf attacks the flock and scatters it. The man runs away because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep. “I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me—just as the Father knows me and I know the Father—and I lay down my life for the sheep.
Jesus never abandons us. He laid down His life for us, so that we could have forgiveness. When we look at our own lives, do we have a shepherd that is following Jesus. I fear to many follow the hired hand and when the wolf comes he abandons his flock. He runs when it gets tough. Being a shepherd is a calling in life and not just a mere job one takes. We need more shepherds in this world that when the wolf is coming he stands in the gap to protect them. Jesus stood in the gap and paid a price that no one could pay. He paid a price and took the punishment for us. He won the war, and God fulfilled the scriptures, our savior had to die and then defeated death.
"The one perfectly divine thing, the one glimpse of God's paradise given on earth, is to fight a losing battle—and not lose it,"
G. K. Chesterton
It is difficult for us to understand the entire power of God. God who created, who defeated death , who redeemed us through our Lord Jesus Christ. There are many things stacked against us in this world. To be honest it doesn’t matter at all because we follow the Lion of Judah. Do not waver but hold fast to Him because only in Him can victory be found.
Let us pray
