Sermon Tone Analysis
Overall tone of the sermon
This automated analysis scores the text on the likely presence of emotional, language, and social tones. There are no right or wrong scores; this is just an indication of tones readers or listeners may pick up from the text.
A score of 0.5 or higher indicates the tone is likely present.
Emotion Tone
Anger
0.53LIKELY
Disgust
0.13UNLIKELY
Fear
0.1UNLIKELY
Joy
0.55LIKELY
Sadness
0.19UNLIKELY
Language Tone
Analytical
0.49UNLIKELY
Confident
0UNLIKELY
Tentative
0.52LIKELY
Social Tone
Openness
0.94LIKELY
Conscientiousness
0.68LIKELY
Extraversion
0.1UNLIKELY
Agreeableness
0.19UNLIKELY
Emotional Range
0.79LIKELY
Tone of specific sentences
Tones
Emotion
Language
Social Tendencies
Anger
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9
As the future is revealed to John, he sees what evil looks like and communicates that to his readers, both then in the 1st Century as he’s writing and now to the Church today.
As we turn the page and come to Revelation 12-14, we see evil more clearly.
It’s good to get a proper look of evil; it’s good to see our enemy and understand his tactics.
John pulls back the veil and we see Satan for who he is—the destroyer, the thief, the deceiver, the corrupter of Christ’s Church.
Our text for the day begins with the mostly untold Christmas story:
There was a war that first Christmas Day—long before Christmas, in fact, and continuing today.
Satan Wants to Destroy Christ and Christ’s Church
That’s the picture here in Revelation 12. Satan, that great dragon, the adversary of God, the Enemy of God’s people—wants to destroy Christ and the Church.
John envisions this as a battle between a dragon and the child and a woman.
Who are these characters?
It’s pretty simple, mostly.
The child is obviously Jesus (the reference to Psalm 2 makes clear the child is the Messiah).
In verse 9 of Revelation 12, John tells us who the dragon is: the great dragon—that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray.
I love it when John tells us exactly the meaning of what he sees.
Then, there’s the woman.
As our good buddy Matt Proctor puts it: “She’s too big to be little Mary.”
There are six or seven theories, but instead of getting into each of those, let me tell you what the majority of reputable scholars believe: the woman symbolizes “Israel”, both old and new—the people of God.
Jesus came from “Israel”; He descended from the line of Judah.
In that way, he is the offspring of the people of God.
Satan did his level-best to destroy Christ, and likely thought he had beaten Jesus when Jesus died on the cross.
But then, God raised Jesus from the dead, seated Him on the throne, and gave Him the rule over all nations.
Satan wants to destroy Christ, but can’t.
The Church, the “New Israel” is protected by and taken care of by God.
We are in a spiritual war.
We have an unseen enemy bent on our destruction; war breaks out.
Our enemy prowls about, looking for someone to destroy.
Evil is lurking, but evil is not the most powerful force there is (he [the dragon/Satan] was not strong enough); Satan is hurled down to the earth.
The lesson is this: Satan is not omni-anything.
He is not omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent.
He is not all-anything; not all-powerful, not all-knowing, not all-present.
What we have, then, is a non-omni Satan versus an all-omni God.
He has all authority, all power; He holds salvation in His hand.
He knows his time is short.
Satan’s time is short.
He knows he doesn’t have forever to try to destroy Christ and Christ’s Church.
There is coming a day when Satan’s evil will be contained and constrained to Hell.
He will not torment or tempt Christ’s Church forever.
Just like suffering has a waning lifespan (“a little longer” re: Revelation 6:11), so, too does Satan.
This realization that his time is short angers the dragon (he is filled with fury), so he tries to attack and kill the woman.
A metaphor of the exodus becomes an image of God’s care for His Church, exposed in the wilderness yet guarded and nourished along the way.
This will last only for a time, times, and half a time—a short time.
The saints will not suffer indefinitely; the power of our enemy will be cut short.
Satan longs to destroy Christ and Christ’s Church.
When he can’t accomplish that, he employs another weapon: a beast that emerges from the sea to wage war on the saints in a different and very effective way.
The dragon enlists the help of three allies in his attack on Christ’s Church.
With the help of this first beast, it’s made clear that
Satan Seeks to Steal our Worship
Both the dragon and the first beast have seven heads and ten horns.
The point being, the beast looks suspiciously like the dragon.
I don’t think this points to one person, one Antichrist, but rather to a number of people and systems throughout history.
The dragon, and now the first beast, has power and authority.
And people tend to follow power and authority.
The world will follow and worship the beast and the dragon.
Verse 4: people worshiped the dragon…they also worshiped the beast.
Satan and his minions want our worship for themselves; they hate that Christians worship the Triune God.
They will do all they can to rob our worship away from the only One who deserves it.
In the time John was writing this, the people were worshiping the Roman emperor; giving their worship, pledging their allegiance to godless government.
People would profess, “Caesar is Lord!” or “Hail, Domitian!” or “Nero, Nero, he’s our guy!”
We can think it’s crazy, but we’re not too far from it.
If the person or party in office now isn’t your thing, just wait until the next cycle and see if you find yourself worshipping them, giving your heart and energy to them, finding your thoughts consumed by them.
Whose name can be found on our bumper stickers, shirts, hats, flags?
It doesn’t really matter who it might be; it’s one of Satan’s schemes to steal away your worship from the Only One who deserves it.
If that ancient serpent can get Christ’s Church worshipping Nero or Domitian or Bush or Obama or Trump, he’s done what he has set out to do.
Revelation 13:10 (NIV)
This calls for patient endurance and faithfulness on the part of God’s people.
The answer to evil is patient endurance on our part and continued, grace-empowered faithfulness.
We will not bow the knee to Caesar, to country, to anyone but the Triune God.
We must endure evil in the now.
We must remain faithful to Him in this present evil age.
Satan continues to scheme and employ whatever tactic he can.
Another beast bursts on the scene, trying to imitate the Lamb.
This beast tries to get inhabitants of the world to worship first beast.
Satan Attempts to Deceive the Church
Verse 14 is clear: [the beast] deceived the inhabitants of the earth.
In verse 11, what John says highlights the deception: It had two horns like a lamb.
This beast is trying to imitate the true Lamb.
It deceives.
In Revelation 19, this beast is called “the false prophet”.
Verse 13, the beast performs great signs, like the Lamb in an effort to get followers of the Lamb to follow it.
In Rome, there was an imperial cult and an entire pantheon of gods.
They would strictly deny that there was One God, One Savior.
Satan will use every trick up his sleeve to deceive the Church.
Satan uses false religions to enslave billions of people through deceptive systems like Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Mormonism, animism, the occult, secular humanism.
Any false philosophy will work.
His deception may take the shape of many commonly held beliefs today:
“You can earn your way to heaven.”
“All religions lead to the same place.”
“There is no God.”
“God doesn’t love you and could never forgive you.”
“God just wants you to be happy.”
It’s deception at its finest.
One of Satan’s clever tricks is to use this revelation of John to deceive.
Let me explain what I mean.
Verses 16-18 are one of the main reasons we wanted to go over the book of Revelation.
“The Mark of the Beast” has been co-opted and applied to whatever political or cultural moment people feel is necessary.
Everyone jumps to label something “the mark of the beast” just as soon as they can, especially if they don’t understand it, and especially if it happens to be one of their boogeymen.
When Apple computers came out, there was speculation that its logo was the mark of the best.
It is a partially-eaten apple.
Adam and Eve, anyone?
Most recently, the belief is that the Covid-19 vaccinations are the mark of the beast.
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9