Revelation 12:7-17

The Serpent and the Saviour

A sermon by Pastor Joe Haynes

Preached on March 10, 2019 at Beacon Church

The word "sign" used in verse 1 and 3 means these are symbols, like hieroglyphics, predicting real, literal events. Not spiritual allegories or timeless truths, but events that must either come at some point past, present, or future, or else John is a false prophet. The first "sign", a woman giving birth, is a sign taken from Isaiah 66:7-8. There it meant Mother Zion was giving birth to a new nation of Jews regathered to their homeland. I suggested last week that in this prophecy it means Mother Church giving birth to a new Christian country where Christianity became the official state religion and the King the head of the Church. This happened progressively between 313-380 AD--between when Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity and Christianity became the "state religion of the Roman Empire".[i] In the symbolism of the woman giving birth, the birth of the male-child was fulfilled when the suffering and persecution of the Church brought forth the new Christian Empire where Christians were protected (that was good) but where the Emperor was the head of the Church (that was bad). From the conversion of Constantine up to the beginning of the Middle Ages, those centuries were dominated first by civil war between rival emperors, then by theological wars within the Church. Guess which was more dangerous?

There are 3 parts to this passage. 1. Verses 7-9 tell us three things: A battle (7a); in heaven (7b); the combatants (7c); the outcome (8-9). 2. Verses 10-12 contain a song. 3. Verses 13-17 are a detailed re-telling of what was already predicted in verse 6.

War in Space

7 Now war arose in heaven, Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon. And the dragon and his angels fought back,  8 but he was defeated, and there was no longer any place for them in heaven.  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.  (Rev. 12:7-9 ESV)

This is the third element in chapter 12 described as being in "heaven", i.e., in "the skies" or "outer space." That word for heaven also is used for the sky or even outer space. Don’t spiritualize that word. Take this text literally, which means in verse 1 and 3, that we read these as “signs” meaning they look like one thing but stand for something else that’s real. (To take this literally means we allow the writer to use a literary device like symbol and metaphor to tell us what he wants to tell us.) In Deut 4:19, Moses warned Israel not to worship the sun, moon, and stars, because the ancient pagan religions connected those with gods and goddesses who might protect you if you worshipped them.[ii] In fact, they were demons not gods and they are evil. For example, in 2 Kings 17:16, it is written that Israel, "worshiped all the host of heaven and served Baal. And they burned their sons and their daughters as offerings and used divination and omens and sold themselves to do evil in the sight of the LORD, provoking him to anger."  (2Ki 17:16-17; c.f. 2Ki 23:4-5)

In Isaiah 24:21 God announces He is going to punish the "host of heaven", and then specifically names the sun and the moon. But that same verse explains what is meant by God going to war with the "host of heaven": "kings of the earth, on the earth". As Calvin explains, it is a metaphor in which earthly rulers seem so powerful and so high above the people they rule, that they seem to shine like stars and the moon and the sun. "...Those things which appear to surpass the rank of men; for some things rise so much above others, that they appear as if they did not belong to the ordinary rank."[iii] Also, as I said last week, in Isaiah 34, when God throws down the stars from heaven, and the sky is rolled up, verse 12 interprets that picturesque language to refer to a nation's "nobles--there is no one there to call it a kingdom, and all its princes shall be nothing." So the removal of stars and heavens meant the removal of all government.

The interesting thing is that in the book of Daniel we get a glimpse that sometimes the sun and moon and stars, (i.e., governments on earth) were agents of demonic powers. So Daniel 10:13 describes a demon prince using the Persian Empire to kill Jews, and 10:20 describes another demon prince using the Greek Empire to kill Jews. But a powerful spirit named Michael, called "the Prince of Daniel's people" in verse 21 (my translation). "But I will tell you what is inscribed in the book of truth: there is none who contends by my side against these except Michael, your prince. "  (Dan 10:21-11:1) At least we should take from this that in Daniel 10, a spirit named Michael was protecting the Jews from the demon princes of Persia and Greece, so it's not surprising that when John is shown a vision about another future time when the Roman Empire was out to destroy the followers of Jesus that it would borrow that picture from Daniel 10 and make the point that there was a spiritual battle going on, that not just earthly rulers, but also demonic powers were out to kill Christians, but that God was giving His people spiritual protection as He had so many times in ages past.[iv]

So let's put all this together. Here are five suggestions from a literal interpretation of this kind of imagery in the Old Testament:

·         Ancient pagan rulers thought so highly of themselves they compared themselves to the Sun and Moon;

·         It was common for pagan rulers to worship evil spirits associated with sun, moon, and stars;

·         The overthrow of those pagan rulers is described as the throwing down of sun, moon, and stars;

·         Outer space is a frequent symbol for government;

·         Sometimes evil governments are associated with demons.

The Old Testament prophets used these images to preach these truths, so we need to let their preaching guide how we understand these same images here.

Worship in Song

10 And I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, "Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God.  11 And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death.  12 Therefore, rejoice, O heavens and you who dwell in them! But woe to you, O earth and sea, for the devil has come down to you in great wrath, because he knows that his time is short!"  (Rev. 12:10-12 ESV)

What are they singing about? And why is Jesus praised alongside God? The song in verses 10-12 is beautiful and rich, and written in a confusing past tense. Starting in verse 10, let me point out what's present and what's past.

Woe on earth and sea

What does this mean? It means that as these predictions were gradually fulfilled, up to the Two Witnesses prophecy in chapter 11, from the time when that happened, Christians would be able to look back on the way their Accuser had been thrown down, to look back on how many believing witnesses had believed in the blood of Christ and even died rather than deny Jesus, to look back on how the devil’s demotion should make believers rejoice and unbelievers beware. It means that the prophecy of verses 1-6, and the battle in verses 7-9 was now in the past; but the consequences of the devil’s defeat made things much more dangerous now for most people.

Beware the Serpent

13 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.  14 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.  15 The serpent poured water like a river out of his mouth after the woman, to sweep her away with a flood.  16 But the earth came to the help of the woman, and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed the river that the dragon had poured from his mouth.  17 Then the dragon became furious with the woman and went off to make war on the rest of her offspring, on those who keep the commandments of God and hold to the testimony of Jesus. And he stood on the sand of the sea. (Rev. 12:13-17 ESV)

In 313 AD, when untold numbers of Christians were still grieving the recent murder of their loved ones who had been murdered because they believed in Jesus; when the people who had persecuted Christians were still in power even though in two thirds of the Empire the persecution had come to an end; when it still very much felt like a dangerous time to believe in Jesus, something miraculous and unexpected happened. One of the rulers of the empire, Constantine, defeated one of the other rulers and was convinced that Jesus had helped him. So he converted to Christianity and then, with the other remaining ruler, Licinius, made it illegal everywhere to persecute Christians. But that other emperor, Licinius, was still a pagan. With two emperors, and two religions, and people on both sides, one side feeling the pain that was still fresh, the other side afraid the Christians would want revenge, war was inevitable. Civil war. For control of the whole Roman Empire. The Christian emperor, Constantine, versus the pagan emperor, Licinius. That war came to a head at the battle of Adrianople in 324—let me give you a quote from Wikipedia:

"Licinius, aided by Goth mercenaries, represented the past and the ancient pagan faiths. Constantine and his Franks marched under the standard of the labarum, [a symbol of Christianity] and both sides saw the battle in religious terms. Outnumbered, but fired by their zeal, Constantine's army emerged victorious in the Battle of Adrianople."[v]

The Christians were now "in power" as we say--not just protected by law, but their guy was now the one and only Emperor in all the land. They are the "dwellers in heaven" in verse 12. The pagans who didn't convert to Christianity are the ones now tossed out of power. For the first time in history, the Roman Empire had a Christian government; pretty soon Christianity became the State Religion. And even if you didn’t really believe in Jesus, it was safer and better for your career, to go to church anyway.

It's easy to see why true Christians living around that time are told in verse 12 to rejoice. But why are unbelievers warned? When verse 12 says "woe" it's a hint that from then on it will be especially dangerous for people who aren't real Christians. Why? The devil no longer had an emperor in his pocket. Satan could no longer use the Roman Empire to destroy Christianity. His new strategy was to pretend to be Christian in order to prevent people from finding out about real Christianity.

What this has to do with you

You need to know what this has to do with you. Like in Genesis 3:

a.       The defeated one is a liar

b.       The overcomers tell the truth

c.       The serpent drowns out the truth

The defeated one is a liar. The devil's plan A was to wipe out the Christian message by wiping out Christians.

First, the song in verse 11 celebrates the past faithfulness of Christ's martyrs. You can see they are Christ's martyrs by the fact that it says what empowered them to conquer was "the blood of the Lamb"--that's the point of saying "by the blood of the lamb." Now maybe you’ve heard of that hymn that says “there’s power in the blood,” but what could this possibly mean? Is the power like some kind of magic that somehow the blood can be used like a secret weapon? Obviously not. The martyrs didn’t overcome by using the blood; they conquered the dragon by believing in the blood. They had faith in the blood.

It's talking about the blood of Jesus that was spilled when Jesus was killed on the cross. And it's saying that the bloody death of Jesus is the source of these dead martyrs' victory over the dragon. How? In short, because they believed in Jesus' bloody death. Not merely that they believed it happened. Historians believe it happened, but that doesn't make all historians ready to die a martyr's death. They believed in the bloody death of Jesus. That His death did benefited them before God. Again, how? Because if you believe Jesus' death benefits you, i.e., you have faith,  Jesus took the punishment for your sin, you are no longer under a death sentence. And because you are no longer a condemned man or woman, you receive the gift of Jesus' righteousness. And because God considers you covered by the righteousness of Jesus, He accepts and loves you completely and forever. And if you are loved and accepted by the God of the Universe, what's the worst the Devil can do to you? Kill your body. But what's the worst God could do to you? Doom your soul. If God loves you the devil is no longer scary because the death of your body is nothing more than turning of a page to the rest of your glorious and happy life. So yeah, these martyrs overcame the dragon by the blood of the Lamb.

Second, they are Christ's martyrs in the sense that they are "witnesses" (the lit. Meaning of "martyrs"). And the sense of this is legal testimony. They told the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, not just in court, but with their lives, even to the executioner's axe, or noose. What truth did they tell? The truth that by the death of Jesus, every sinner who believes in Him is saved from God's wrath and accepted and loved forever. So the dragon who hates Jesus killed them. But the dragon could not kill their testimony. Actually, the more he tried, the more the word spread. Rumours die when heads are chopped-off. But really good news just spreads faster. So the dragon lost that round.

Satan wasn't giving up. He tried another tactic. And it has proven to be a lot more effective than his attempt to use four the mighty Roman Empire to kill Christians and frighten them into silence. The good news was too good. So instead of trying to silence the good news, he drowned it out with religious teaching disguised to look like Christianity. Like Arianism. This was the great lie the Serpent spread in the Fourth Century. The heresy that says Jesus is not God but only a creature of God. And when you don't believe that Jesus is truly God then how can you be sure that His sacrifice is really going to cover

your sin? Arianism spread. Christian councils dealt with it. Eventually the trinitarian doctrine that we hold to was clarified and restored, and Arianism sank. It was absorbed into the Roman Earth like flood waters receding. What does this have to do with you? The devil is trying to say to you, “Did God really say?” He wants to make you doubt God's Word. And Christ is saying to you, “For God so loved the world that whoever believes in [me] will not perish but will have everlasting life,” (John 3:16). He calls you to believe God's Promise.