Sermon Tone Analysis

*“The Lord of the Dragon”*

*Revelation 12*

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So, we are right in the middle of this intense study of Revelation.

Are we all doing alright?

The reason I ask is because we’ve been looking at some heavy duty stuff dealing with the wrath of God on the earth and its inhabitants.

There is death and destruction everywhere.

And I would guess that some may question why we have to study this and hear it on Sunday mornings.

I know you wouldn’t say that because you also know that it’s the Bible - inspired and profitable.

But it’s tough sledding nonetheless.

Let me share a story that may help you out as it did me.

While I was preparing this sermon, I happened to be in a coffee shop and looking at the verses regarding the nature of Satan.

Perhaps God in his grace wanted to help me understand – I don’t know.

I overheard a conversation regarding the devil.

This guy said that he was married to Satan.

Now I’m not exactly sure what that means but it certainly piqued my interest.

The conversation transitioned to his family and the question was asked “how many children do you have?”

The reply was “One that I know of”.

Chuckle chuckle.

He then felt quite free to elaborate on his sexual exploits and using of women even to the point of bragging about “knocking up” a fourteen year old girl.

And this was a guy in his thirties.

And some of you may have fourteen year old daughters.

He then described how he went about aborting the child and I will spare you the details.

He indicated that he was joking about his part in the abortion but had it nonetheless.

I can’t fully express the anger I experienced in that moment and if the desire I had to help God carry out justice was actually from God or not.

Perhaps it was His grace that gave me the ability to walk away from this “man”.

But I’ve got to tell you that if I had any reservations about God’s justice before, they quickly disappeared in that moment.

So as we ponder the holiness, the glory, and the purity of God, can we see the absolute demand for his justice?

There are many that are just so rebellious against Him and love wickedness and despise His grace, they leave God with no choice but to carry out justice.

Remember Revelation 9 verses 20 and 21? “20 The rest of mankind, who were not killed by these plagues, did not repent of the works of their hands nor give up worshiping demons and idols of gold and silver and bronze and stone and wood, which cannot see or hear or walk, 21 nor did they repent of their murders or their sorceries or their sexual immorality or their thefts.”

Allow this study in Revelation to fuel your zeal for evangelism and see lives transformed by the Gospel.

But realize that some will remain alienated from God.    

Studying the Book of Revelation, many people get excited about details, charts, and timelines about end time events!

And rightly so.

You need to be able to get a handle on these events in order to properly understand them.

So there is merit in investigating the details of this book.

But there is danger in focusing solely on the minutia and missing the significance for today.

In other words, we see things about God, man and Satan and the end but we may not translate these to current situations.

We have been covering quite a bit of text over the last several weeks where we could have easily spent months.

The primary goal in this current study is not to create neat timelines and graphs but rather to better understand the nature of God, mankind, and the Adversary (in this text).

For when we do this, not only do we gain a better appreciation of what will happen in the end, but we also understand how these things pertain to us now!

We better understand how God views sin regardless of time and how God views faithfulness in the lives of believers.

So as we view our text in Revelation 12 this morning, we will investigate details of characters and events within their chronological framework because this is necessary to determine the meaning of the text.

But most of all I want you to see God!

I want you to see God in ALL of life.

Let’s look at the text.

*READ Revelation 12. *We left off last week with the sounding of the seventh trumpet.

From here we would expect that the events of the end times would carry on, that the wrath of God would continue to be carried out on the earth and its inhabitants.

But when we come to this chapter and chapters 13-14, we have a pause in the action.

The next few chapters do not advance the events chronologically.

In fact, we get a different perspective on the events of history and the future.

To this point, we have viewed things primarily from God’s perspective.

Now we will see things largely from the perspective of Satan, who is the enemy of God and His purposes.

So we will be investigating events dating back to Creation, events in the first century A.D., and also the future.

There are battles in the Book of Revelation!

But sometimes we don’t realize that there has been an ongoing war since the very beginning of time.

Much of this ongoing historical battle is described in our text this morning.

Let’s first look at the first six verses that introduce the first point which is *The Combatants.*

Verse 1 begins with the indication that there was a great sign that appeared in heaven.

This is the first of seven signs that we will come across in the rest of the Book of Revelation.

When we approach Scripture, it is our aim to interpret events literally.

That means that we take things at face value unless there is an indication to do otherwise.

For instance, if the Bible says that God created the world by speaking it into existence, we believe that’s what happened.

If the Bible says he destroyed the world with a flood, we believe that’s what happened.

But we also understand that authors utilize figures of speech and thus when Jesus says He is a door or bread of life, we understand that he is using figurative language.

So when we come to a great sign, this is an indication that this is a symbol that points to a reality.

So this great sign is here described.

And this sign is a woman who is clothed with the sun, the moon under her feet, and on her head is a crown of twelve stars.

Now there are four women mentioned in the book of Revelation.

We have already seen the woman “Jezebel” in chapter 2.

She was the prophetess in the church at Thyatira who taught and seduced them to practice sexual immorality and to eat food sacrificed to idols.

And we have yet to meet the harlot mentioned in chapter 17 and the bride of the Lamb in chapter 19.

This woman is a picture of Israel.

The Old Testament often portrays the nation of Israel as a woman.

She is depicted as an adulterous woman in Jeremiah 3, Ezekiel 16 and the book of Hosea.

And we know from Daniel 9, Jeremiah 31 and Amos 9 that Israel will be a primary player in the tribulation.

In addition, the context also helps us make this determination in verse 5. We know that Jesus is the Messiah that comes from Israel.

Matthew 1.1 tells us he is both descended from Abraham and from the line of David.

He is from the tribe of Judah in Revelation 5.5, prophesied ruler from Judah in Genesis 49.10 and Micah 5.2.

The sun and the moon references would be quite familiar to the original readers.

You might recall Genesis 37 where Joseph had a couple of dreams.

The second is found in verse 9 and following which says, “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.”

And we know that this regards Jacob and Rachel and his brothers.

In our context, being clothed with the sun would likely allude to the special and prominent role that Israel has in the plan of God.

John MacArthur says that “That the woman was clothed with the sun reflects redeemed Israel’s unique glory, brilliance, and dignity because of her exalted status as God’s chosen nation.”

The crown of twelve stars refers to the twelve tribes of Israel.

The fact that the woman is pregnant and travailing likely refers to the suffering of the nation in anticipation of its promised Messiah.

And we will see that the woman has had an Adversary since the beginning of time.

We see the introduction to this foe in verse 3.

Another sign appeared in heaven – that of a great red dragon that has seven heads and ten horns and seven diadems on his heads.

This one is pretty easy to identify.

Verse 9 tells us that he was the ancient serpent who is called the devil and Satan.

So the text spells it out for us.

We will see it a bit more detailed in chapter 17 that the seven heads likely refer to seven consecutive world empires under Satan’s dominion and the ten horns are kings who rule under the Antichrist.

Remember, the text indicates that this image is a sign.

We know that Satan isn’t an actual dragon but likely describes his character.

He is large, ferocious and terrifying.

The fact that he is red suggests that he is inclined to fiery destruction and bloodshed.

His activity in verse 4 also helps us understand his nature.

The text reads that his tail swept down a third of the stars of heaven and cast them to the earth.