The Christmas Dragon Slayer

ReCAST Church of Mattawan

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we are growing in faith, community, and service. This is a three -part series for the

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Christmas season called Christmas According To by Pastor Don Filsack, where he takes some of the lesser -known

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Christmas passages and talks about the greatest gift of all, the incarnate Jesus Christ.

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If you'd like more information about Recast, visit us on the web at recastchurch .com.

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As a church, we're seeking to grow in faith, grow in community, grow in service. That's on our sign out there.

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We're faith, community, and service meet. And we believe that we need to hear from God through his word in order to grow in faith.

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And that's the reason why we open the word of God every Sunday, is that we believe that the Bible is the place that we turn to in order to grow in faith, that it's as we take in the word of God, believe it as truth, and then go out and live it, that that's the process of growing in faith.

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And so it's really all hinged on the word of God. We also believe that anybody who wants to grow closer to God needs to be involved in community with other believers, and that that's something that God has designed in us, that we actually need each other, he has created us relationally.

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And so we have a small group ministry here at Recast for that purpose, where we connect people in home groups that meet throughout the week for the intention of developing those deeper relationships, to pray for one another, to really do real life together.

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And then I'm also convinced that God has given each one of us gifts and talents and abilities for that process of growing in service, that we need each other, for sure in community, we need each other in the good times, we need each other in the difficult times, we need to celebrate with one another, we need to mourn with one another.

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But then there's also an aspect in which you have some gifts, and you have some talents, and you have some abilities that the church is lacking that they need from you, that ultimately, we need one another in the gifts and abilities that he has brought together in this body.

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And so that's that growing in service component. So that's kind of in a nutshell where Recast Church is going and continues to go is in that process of growing in faith, growing in community, growing in service, and this morning,

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I'm exercising faith by pressing ahead with the book of Revelation at Christmastime.

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Anybody, when they saw that I was preaching on Revelation was kind of like, this is, where is he going with this? So we're gonna go ahead and we're gonna do this.

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This is Christmas According to Revelation. And my sermon title is The Christmas Dragon Slayer.

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Little bit nonconformist, but halfway through the week, I was second -guessing myself for choosing to do this, which by the way, second -guessing myself is not the same as second -guessing the text of scripture.

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What we are gonna be looking at is the revealed word of God given to us by God in the way that he wanted it revealed.

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And so when we come to the book of Revelation, it can be kind of confusing. It can be kind of tricky and difficult to get through to what is literal, what is figurative, what is all of the poetry and the different things in there.

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And yet simultaneously, this is the word of God. And I wanna make sure that you understand that I wanna hold this up as valuable and powerful to transform our lives.

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It is a method for us to grow in faith that has been given to us for that purpose. And for whatever reason,

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I believe that God wants to remind us here at Recast this morning that the birth of the Messiah ensured the defeat of the evil one.

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And I think that's a message that even at Christmas time, we often need to hear, but we lack in a sense as we go through the silent night and all of the

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Christmas songs and the joy to the world. Part of an element of that is the defeat of the evil one that we are promised through the birth of the

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Messiah. That great ancient evil who first tempted humanity in the garden will be crushed once and for all by the

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King of Kings. So I want you to open your Bibles to Revelation 12, verses one through six.

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If you take the Bible in the seat back in front of you, out that paperback Bible, turn to page 889, way in the back of the

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Bible, 889, page, I mean, Revelation 12, one through six.

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And again, if you don't own a copy of the Bible, I'd encourage you to please take that one with you.

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We do desire for everybody to have a copy of the word of God at home that you can just pick up and read, sit on your nightstand and grab it from time to time.

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But this is the word of God for us this morning, Recast. Follow along. And a great sign appeared in heaven.

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A woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head, a crown of 12 stars.

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She was pregnant and was crying out in birth pains and the agony of giving birth. And another sign appeared in heaven.

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Behold, a great red dragon with seven heads and 10 horns and on his heads, seven diadems.

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His tail swept down a third of the stars of heaven and cast them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman who was about to give birth so that when she bore her child, he might devour it.

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She gave birth to a male child, one who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron.

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But her child was caught up to God and to his throne. And the woman fled into the wilderness where she had a place prepared by God in which she is to be nourished for 1 ,260 days.

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Let's pray as the band comes to lead us in worship this morning. Father, we come to a text that has a woman giving birth and a dragon in it, and it can be a little bit confusing and kind of, you know, what's going on here.

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And at the same time, as we dig in and we get an opportunity to grow in faith as a result of this text, we see that this is an image of Satan and the birth of your son and the big cosmic scale of what is going on at the birth of Christ and the foretelling of the crushing of the head of the serpent is something that is just awesome and glorious from the book of Genesis and something that is a reality in the book of Revelation.

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And so, Father, as we contemplate and consider this Christmas season, and even in just a couple of days, getting together with family and celebrating, may we also equally in our hearts rejoice over the defeat of the evil one that was marked by the coming of your

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Savior and your son. And Father, I ask that you would help us as we lift up voices before you, that we would raise up joyful voices, that our hearts would be moved inside and that we would see you as you are, as you are high and exalted with your son at your right hand, waiting for the nod to come back and take care of everything.

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Father, I pray that we would rejoice and see you high and exalted and do so with our voices in Jesus' name.

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Well, thanks a lot to the band for leading us. I know we just got done kind of taking a break in there, but at any time during the message, if you wanna get up, get more coffee, donuts, juice, kind of an as supplies last kind of thing going on there.

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But I would encourage you to have your Bible open in front of you. I know maybe you lost your place in the shuffle, but remember it's Revelation 12, verses one through six.

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And if you have that open in front of you, it really makes a pastor's heart happy when he's preaching to see people looking down at the

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Bible. Now, you might be looking at the maps in the back, but ignorance is bliss. So if that's, I mean, if you're looking at your

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Bible, I'm happy with that, but following along would help. Let me start out of the gate here with a question, just to kind of figure out where you guys are at on this.

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How many of you have read the book of Revelation? Raise your hand nice and high if you've read the book of Revelation before. Now, how many of you, even maybe you haven't read through it in its entirety, but you've heard something from it enough to have been confused.

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So raise your hand again if you've been confused by something that is written in the book of Revelation. Okay, awesome. We're all in good company.

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The book is full of imagery, figures of speech, poetry, metaphors, signs.

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We're gonna see two openly declared signs or symbols that represent something else in our text this morning.

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There are, like I said, metaphors, bizarre visions of the future, that kind of stuff. And some in our culture, and some even in evangelical churches have almost kind of given up on interpreting the book of Revelation, and have kind of thrown their hands up and said, well, the book of Revelation says

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Jesus wins, and that's good enough for me, and I'm just gonna leave it at that. So, and that would be getting the heart of the book of Revelation correct, by the way, to actually realize that the point of the book is

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Jesus wins, that is the point. But if you just kind of browse through the book, and you kind of go through all 21 chapters, and kind of look at it, there are more words than two, okay?

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Because if all that God wanted us to know was Jesus wins, then there would be two words in the book of Revelation, Jesus wins.

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But there's more than that. So two cautions that I wanna give you as you kind of think through, and I'm kind of, I'm preaching one -off sermon in the book of Revelation here, but as you get a chance to study it.

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Some of you are probably reading through the book of Revelation right now. If you're going through a Bible reading plan through the Bible in a year, you may be coming up to Revelation right now, we're in the middle of it.

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So how do we understand this? Two cautions. Number one, don't give up seeking understanding. There are things that I understand now that I didn't understand when

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I first read it. There are things that I'm gonna understand when I'm 50, and when I'm 60, and when I'm 70 that I haven't, but I'm gonna keep studying it.

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I'm gonna keep digging in. I'm not gonna give up on it. It's a revealed word from God. It is his revelation to us.

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It is something he desires for us to know. As we mine it, as we dig in, don't give up, don't surrender it.

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But the second caution, equally, is do not get too dogmatic about your interpretations. Don't get to the point that it's like, well,

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I've got the only answer. I disagree with every other commentary out there, but I've got the right answer on the book of Revelation.

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Can we get that way sometimes? Where we're like, I've seen something in here that nobody else has seen, and so many

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Bible teachers have offered up their interpretation as if it's the only possible understanding. But when it comes to studying

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Scripture, the book of Revelation included, let me encourage you that humility -seeking wisdom, humility -seeking wisdom, humility -seeking truth should be our stance towards Scripture.

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So we approach Scripture saying, God, reveal this to me. God, open my eyes, and in humility, we come under the authority of the word of God, allowing it to transform us and change us, and holding loosely and carefully our understandings as we move forward.

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This chapter begins with the apostle John seeing a great sign in the sky. John sees this great sign in the heavens, and some have kind of interpreted that, well, you're gonna see the sun, the moon, and the stars here in a minute.

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Is it something that he's seeing celestially? Is it something in the sky, or is it in heaven? And people kind of debate back and forth.

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But what we know that is given is he sees this image. He looks up and sees this vision of a woman. She is royal in her bearing.

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She has a crown on her head. The crown has 12 jewels, 12 stars, diamonds, emblazoned, embedded in this crown, 12 of them.

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The number 12 all of a sudden kind of evokes some maybe metaphor or image to you. How many tribes of Israel were there?

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12, and so we might be thinking, okay, now wait a minute. Is there some kind of a clue here to who we're talking about? Text goes on to say she's clothed in the brilliance of the sun.

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The moon is her footstool. Sound like she's pretty significant? Sound like she's got a place of authority, some significance to her to be clothed in the sun and have the moon as her footstool?

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She sounds like a pretty big deal. It's her glorious standing. She is pure and she is bright.

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She's in a place of privilege in the heavens. Most scholars believe that this woman is the true people of God.

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She does not merely represent the Jews only, but the faithful remnant of the Jews. Not every

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Jew who was born to Jewish parentage had a love for God.

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You understand that? I mean, even today in our society, does everybody who's born a Jew have a love for God? Does everybody who's born to Christian parents have a loving relationship with God?

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Not necessarily, and so this is the faithful remnant. The brilliance of her clothing, the standing is something that is glorious and she is pure and she is the people of God is who she is representing.

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She is a sign of them and they are the ones who follow and honor God. It's interesting to note that way back in the book of Genesis, a

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Hebrew named Joseph had a dream and in his dream, the sun, the moon, and the stars all bowed down to him.

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And I wonder if there's not some sense in other commentaries and scholars that I read over the week were kind of tying this in with his dream and understanding that Joseph was a deliverer of his people and now we see another deliverer who is on the way and both pertaining to the sun, moon, and stars having some role, some subservient function to that deliverer.

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In verse two, we get a much more clear picture though of what John is seeing. So he sees this woman, but this woman is not just standing there.

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She's not sitting on a throne. This woman is in the throes of childbirth. You know, most women take off their crown before they go into labor.

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This woman has chosen to keep her crown on while she's going through this. And let me say that having gone through, been in the room with my wife during the delivery of all of my three children, having gone through labor and delivery classes,

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I'm gonna call this stage in labor that we see here, I'm gonna call it transition. Those of you who technically know what's going on here, she's crying out in pain.

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She is in agony. If you're here and your mother is here, this would be an appropriate time to thank her.

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If your husband and your wife has given birth to your children, this is a time to not make eye contact with her.

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You can look at the floor. You can do other things, but you do not understand what she went through. So this is not the time to kind of like, well, was it that bad?

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Yes, it was that bad. And just let that ride, okay? You're not really getting it what she went through, but this is agony.

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She's in this stage of labor where she is in pain and agony. And she is the same one who has the crown of 12 stars on her head, and she is clothed in the sun, and the moon is her footstool, and she is going through significant pain and difficulty.

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Because for this woman, her time has come. The time of her pregnancy has reached its fullness.

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And I'm reminded of the text that we looked at last week, where Paul was talking about Christmas. And Paul said that Jesus was born at the fullness of time, a word in Greek that has the connotation of pregnancy and expectancy.

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And at the fullness of time, Jesus was born. And here we see also an imagery of pregnancy as well.

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At the perfect time, God brought forth his son, born of a woman, born under the law that he might redeem those who were under the law.

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In this vision, John is seeing a baby being born to a woman, and that woman is the people of God. Just as two weeks ago, we looked at Christmas according to Isaiah, and Isaiah said, unto who is a child born?

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Unto us, a child is born. Unto the people of God, a child is born.

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Unto us, a son is given. He was born to us, not just born to Mary in that stable, he was born to us as his people.

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But now something else grabs John's attention enough to pull his eyes away from this glorious image of this woman getting ready to give birth, a second sign.

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By the way, and I've mentioned it a couple times, but just to be clear, a sign is a way of saying something that stands for something else.

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It is a symbol. And that's one of the reasons why I don't interpret this woman who's in childbirth as literally

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Mary. It is the people of God, it is a symbol for something. So that whenever we see the word sign throughout the book of Revelation, it's a dead giveaway that the thing that we're talking about is not the thing that's intended.

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It's a symbol for something else. So we're gonna see two signs, a woman, and we're gonna see a dragon.

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The woman, the people of God, and we'll see pretty clearly who this dragon is. The second sign is this great red dragon.

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This dragon makes Smaug look like a lightweight. Okay, this one would just gobble him up with one of his seven heads and be done with him.

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Some of you have seen, that you even know what I'm talking about when I said Smaug. Okay, did any of you see, I pronounced it wrong.

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Oh, if I say Smaug, does that help? The hobbit, any of you heard of the hobbit? Five of us, okay.

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No more hobbit illustrations, okay. This dragon is immense.

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He's intimidating. He is powerful. All the crowns, the heads, the horns signify power and authority.

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Our adversary is not some emaciated, puny, weak imp. That's one of the points of this text is how powerful and how much authority he possesses.

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He is robust in his strength, ancient in his knowledge, and cunning in his desire and in his evil.

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Even if you were to think about it in these terms, imagine that a human was given the insight that Satan has had.

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If a human being were given the position to observe all that Satan has observed from history beginning till now, would that human be pretty wise?

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Would they be pretty knowledgeable? Would they have some insight into the way that humans work? Some ability and some skill in leading us astray?

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But this is not just a mere human who has spent all of history studying the human race.

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This is the one who was created as the bright and morning star, one of the right hands of God, in a sense, the most powerful of angels.

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He's been around since the beginning of history. He's been a student of history. He is a force to be reckoned with.

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And I wanna suggest this to you, and hear me carefully, because these two words matter. Satan should be considered with respect, but not with reverence.

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Respect, but not reverence. Does he hold a position of significant influence in this world?

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Absolutely. Has he been created as a high and lofty being? Yes. Does he have skill and cunning to seek to cut us down?

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Yes, he does. Respect, but not reverence. Reverence has a sense of bowing the knee to.

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I've been in prayer times with people when they address Satan, and it made me cringe a little bit. Okay, have any of you ever been there?

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I used to work at Western Michigan University on campus, and I was in a couple of prayer groups, prayer meetings there, and things got a little bit weird to me personally in the prayer time where somebody began to actually pray against the demon of fornication.

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There's a lot of fornication that happens at WMU, and I'm not sure that there's a demon behind every incident of fornication, let me say that.

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But they began to pray along that tack, and by the end, they were literally praying, Satan, we bind you,

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Satan, we push you out, Satan, we don't want you here, you have no place here. And by the end of the prayer, when the amen was said,

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I had a little bit of, you know, kind of like the ugh, you know, that chill down your spine and say, who did we just pray to?

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Who were we praying to? Who should we be praying to?

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We should be praying to God. It's thoroughly appropriate for us to say, God, would you bind the evil one from our presence?

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Would you remove his temptation from us? Protect us from him, but for us to address him directly?

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As a matter of fact, there's this semi -obscure passage, we ought to all be aware of it, but in Jude, there's this argument going on between the archangel

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Michael and Satan, Lucifer. And there's an argument going between them, and Michael, the archangel, it says, refused to rebuke

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Satan to his face. He would not look Satan in the eye and say, I rebuke you, but rather he said, may the

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Lord rebuke you. How powerful is our adversary? Not even the archangel

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Michael would revile him in his presence, would speak ill of him, or would say, I rebuke you on my own authority, but may the

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Lord himself rebuke you. In case you're wondering why

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I'm so sure that the dragon is Satan, you can just glance over in your Bibles, by the way, to verse nine. Just check that out while I'm reading it.

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And the great dragon was thrown down. Okay, so this dragon, that ancient serpent who is called the devil and Satan.

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Doesn't need to get any more explicit than that, who is this dragon we're talking about? The devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world.

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He was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him, pretty clear. The presence of the crown shows that many have given him authority.

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He has been given a level of authority, and sometimes even by us. I found this to be an awesome discovery, though, that there are multiple words in the

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Greek language for crowns. The word Stephanos is the Greek word for a crown of victory.

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The seven crowns that Satan wears is called a diadem, and it signifies that he has some genuine power and authority, he has some genuine control that has been granted to him.

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But Satan never, ever, ever, according to Scripture, gets to wear the victor's crown.

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He is never given a Stephanos, a victor's crown. This huge red dragon with all these heads and horns and crowns is the one who swept a third of the stars out of the sky.

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Now, we're not all of a sudden talking about astronomy. We know that we've been looking at signs and figurative language, and so we're not talking about him taking all those huge gas giants up all throughout the universe and casting a third of them down.

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I think there's some parallels between this section of the Scripture and verse nine, where the dragon is thrown out of heaven and takes the angels with him, a third of them.

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Many see that this is saying that Satan took about a third of the angels, and at the time that he was cast out, he brought them down with him.

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I would agree with that being the case for this interpretation for this passage. But the second half of verse four brings us back to Christmas, brings us back into this vision of this woman in labor together now, in conjunction with this big red dragon.

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They're not separate visions, but all of a sudden, they come together. This woman is in the throes of childbirth.

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But the ancient serpent knows the significance of this child. He is not ignorant of all the prophecies that have been given all throughout the

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Old Testament. And probably with more skill than the wisest of human scholars, he knows who this child is.

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He's been studying. He knows who this is that is about to be born. And he is standing by ready to destroy the promised child, this ancient dragon, ready and hungry to destroy the

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Messiah, the Chosen One, the Son of God. What we see as figurative here, the dragon is ready to devour the child.

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And that's figurative speech in the book of Revelation, but I think it was literally expressed by the rage and wrath of King Herod.

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I believe King Herod in those early days of the birth of Christ and his destruction of the children in Bethlehem is an image of, is the reality and the real physical manifestation of this dragon who is angry and is lashing out, seeking to destroy the male child, the one who has promised to crush the head of the serpent.

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Satan has it out for Jesus, his entire ministry, his entire life. He tries to take him out early through Herod. He tries to tempt him early on in his ministry to get him to go astray.

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He tries to expose him through the demons. You can go through the book of Mark and count the number of times that a demon identifies

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Jesus correctly, who he is. I know who you are. You're the Son of God, Jesus says, shut up, and it does. Okay, but it's before the time of his revelation is supposed to be clear.

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These demons are trying to get the word out. We know who you are. We know who you are. Be quiet, it's not my time yet. Got a couple more things to do before all of that rolls down.

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And then ultimately, he put the thought in Judas and convinces Judas to betray the

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Son of God. Satan certainly wants to destroy all that is good, and he knows that this child is a major part of the restoration of the world that is to be good in the future.

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All the while, so here we are, we're talking about this dragon. All this time, the woman is still in the agony of childbirth, but finally, verse five arrives.

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Look at verse five. She gave birth to a male child, one who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron.

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But her child was caught up to God and to his throne. Centuries upon centuries, humanity had been awaiting the birth of the male offspring of the woman who would crush the head of the serpent.

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And he just arrived in our text. The waiting for a savior could accurately be called the days of agony and crying out in pain, and the people of God have been longing with desperation for the revelation of the one who would save us from our sins.

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And he shows up that Christmas night, 2 ,000 years ago. Do you think, do you think as the serpent watches, as this dragon watches that little town in Bethlehem from his cosmic viewpoint, do you think the words of God Almighty echoed through his mind, remembering that one would be born of the woman who would do what?

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Crush his head. You think that's in his mind? But I think he takes a little solace in the ending of that promise.

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He will crush your head, but you're gonna do what? You're gonna bruise his heel. And do you think he's looking for a chance to bruise this kid's heel?

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He's eager. He's waiting. He's looking for his opportunity to get his lick in and bruise the male child's heel.

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He's looking for the chance. In the entire life of Jesus, he is looking for the inroad. When do I get to do this thing?

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When do I get to put harm to the Son of God? In this great cosmic drama, the male child is identified as the one who is to rule, future tense, is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron.

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This rod of iron is awesome when you study it. I mean, at the bare minimum, we would probably turn in our minds to like an iron scepter or something like that.

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That's not the word that's being used here. It is a word that denotes a shepherd's club used to defend his sheep.

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Now, it's not a rod that is to be used on his sheep. A rod that is used to defend his sheep.

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A rod that is to be used on the bear. A rod that is to be used on the lion. A rod that is to be used on the dragon that will be the enemy of his sheep.

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We know his rule will be categorized, that the rule of the Messiah will be categorized by peace. We saw in Isaiah, he is called the

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Prince of Peace, the Prince of Shalom. A future day is coming for him to come into his kingdom.

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He is born a king. His kingdom has begun, but a day is coming when it will finally all be rolled up in him, and he will be the rightful ruler, and he will bring peace to all.

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But this child was caught up to God and to his throne. Now, that's a pretty short description of the life of Jesus.

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Would you agree with me on that? She gave birth to a male child, but don't worry, he was caught up to the throne of God.

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Okay, pretty brief. Thank you, John. But he also wrote the Gospel of John for us as well, so he knows that there's a lot more to the story than that.

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But John, for his purposes here, only covers the birth and the ascension. He wants us to realize that Jesus was born, there was opposition, he has been protected by God, and now is present with the

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Father. Satan wanted to devour the child, but Jesus is now safely in the presence of God, and the dragon failed in his hopes to destroy the

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Messiah. The woman who represents the faithful people of God, according to the text, flees from the dragon to a place that God has prepared for her protection, and she is protected for 1 ,260 days.

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Glory. You guys are all like, what in the world does that mean? And I'm gonna just be flat out honest, as I studied it,

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I'm struggling too. Many have sought an interpretation of this number, and I've read many of them, and this is where I land, but again, humility seeking understanding, maybe in a few years

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I'll find something that makes more sense than this, but at this point, this is where I land. After the ascension of Jesus to his

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Father, the church went through a period of persecution, but God has protected his church and brought us to a place of relative protection.

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Whatever the number 1 ,260 represents, I believe that we are in this era of relative peace and protection for his church.

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Now, if you're knowledgeable, you have a question in your mind right now, if you are paying attention to headlines, if you know anything about what's going on around the world, you're going,

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Don Whit, can I bring up Sudan? Can I bring up Iraq? Can I bring up anywhere in the world where there is not a peace for believers?

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And let me just suggest to you, I just listened to, some of you maybe have heard of Al Mohler from Southern Seminary in Louisville, but I listened to a thing that he does every morning.

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He was just talking about how there is a flood of people moving out of Iraq right now, Christians. They are fleeing in mass right now from the persecution.

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But let me just suggest to you that there's something amazing about the world scene where they can flee. What does it mean that they flee?

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That they have a place of some semblance of safety to go to, right? The fact that they're able to flee shows you that there's some relative peace.

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Can you imagine a world that's worse than the one that we live in? It doesn't take me much imagination at all, where there is no

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America to flee to. There is no Western Europe as far gone as Western Europe is as far as Christianity is concerned.

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It's still a safe haven in a lot of ways. Would you agree with me on that? But can you picture a world where it could be worse?

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I think we all can. And so I would suggest to you that there is a relative peace but let me ask you another question. What about you personally?

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I mean, we can tend to, in this moment where I'm telling you we live under relative peace, you can, you know, bat the ball back to me across the globe and say, what about this place?

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What about this place? What about this place? Let me go back to challenging you where you live. Do you experience relative peace where you're at in regard to your faith?

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Are you able to share the gospel with others around you? Raise your hand if you're able to share the gospel with others around you.

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You live in a time and an era where that is free and certainly somebody's told me that I would be remiss if I didn't mention

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Phil Robertson this morning. So let me just say that is just, in all honesty, that we can have the discussion on Facebook.

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I can picture a world where we can't have the discussion. The state tells us what it is and you just run with it and A &E is controlled by the government.

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And they didn't make their decisions because of what the government says. They made the decision based on their own contract, right?

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What they wanted to do. And we live in a free society where they're allowed to make that choice and he's allowed to make his choice.

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What he wants to say in an interview. And I could really, if I get any further into this, I'm feeling we could get a little ruffled in here.

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So I'd love to talk with you personally about that, but I don't wanna use my time here to get too deep into that.

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But my suggestion to you in the end is that if we are experiencing a period of relative peace, what are we doing with it?

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What are we doing with it? We can fight for freedom of speech all we want. We can get out there on Facebook and yell and shout about it and get crazy about it.

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What are you doing with it? Freedom of speech for what? For what end?

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So that you can express some trashy way of talking about homosexuality? Is that what we want freedom of speech for?

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Or do we want freedom of speech so that we can share gospel with our next door neighbor and the people around us? But are we sharing the gospel with our next door neighbor and the people around us?

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What do we need freedom of speech for? Many of us operate like we don't even have it to begin with.

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We live in an era of peace right now, at least where we live. Let's take advantage of it.

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I felt a lot like picking up a two by four. Sorry, I got kind of close to swinging it there. But I want us to think in terms of the freedom that we've been granted.

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I'd encourage you to go on and read sometime this week the ongoing battle in the rest of Revelation 12.

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It doesn't seem like a Christmas passage. Christ is born right there in the middle of it. See this global cosmic thing that God is doing.

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The birth of the Messiah is not just something that happened locally in Bethlehem. It's something that happened in the heavens.

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It's this glorious cosmic awesome thing that happened. God in flesh come down and Satan was not happy.

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Let me conclude this text by suggesting four points of application. You may think of something else.

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God may hit something else in your heart or drive one of these down deeper than I'm going to, but just listen to the

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Holy Spirit as I kind of walk through these applications and think through where you're at. First, persecution in spiritual war is a reality.

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It's a real thing that's going on. Now we sing songs and we talk about the silent night, holy night, all is calm, all is bright, and the heavens are lit up with the rage of the seven -headed beast.

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He's flailing about in his wrath and anger. And if we're honest, sometimes our Christmas celebrations are much less idyllic than we would like them to be.

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The enemy gets his paws on our hearts. He seeks to cause division, to bring us sorrow, to bring us sin, to bring us self -centeredness at this time of the year.

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There is a real, honest spiritual battle that is going on around us, and it doesn't take a break for Christmas.

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It's like, oh, this is the month or so that we have off from spiritual warfare.

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As a matter of fact, some of us would probably testify that this is one of the hardest times of attack for us.

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And not only that, but just where do we go with all the commercialism and the self -centeredness of this culture, this cultural expression of this holiday?

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Persecution and spiritual warfare is indeed a reality, but that leads to my second application, and that is that God has provided for us a mighty dragon slayer.

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He is the Lord and he is the king. He will one day crush the head of the serpent once and for all.

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Satan sought to devour this child at birth, but God is powerful to protect. And even after his death, he carried his son to his throne.

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Satan is real, Satan is indeed powerful, but Jesus is real, and Jesus is much more.

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Third thing, the earthly protection of God is not guaranteed for us, but his salvation is guaranteed for those who have faith in this king that has been provided for us, the one that was given to us.

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The number 1260, whatever is meant by it, we know it is a limited number. God has given us a period of relative peace in which to be his witnesses.

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So let's not be a people who take this era for granted, but let's take every advantage of this time of peace to proclaim the kingdom of God through Jesus Christ.

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Let's think in terms of our workplace. Let's think in terms of our neighborhood. Let's think in terms of Matawan, or whichever community from around here that you live in, or wherever you've come to visit us from.

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Think in terms of your state. Think in terms of this nation. Think in terms of what is going on around the world and on the global scene, and where can we be witnesses?

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Where can we be sending our resources? What can we be doing to further, not to further the era of peace.

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People in China that are going through persecution would say, don't pray for peace, pray for growth and spiritual depth in the midst of our suffering.

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It's an amazing prayer that I've heard multiple times from the Chinese church. Don't pray that all the persecution goes away.

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Pray that we remain strong and testify of the glory of our Lord and Savior in the midst of this time of suffering.

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So we're not praying for an extension of the time of peace. We're praying to be used in this time of peace.

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And that we might carry the gospel forward and continue to grow in depth and continue to grow in reach.

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And finally, rejoice, recast, the last application, because there is a day coming when

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Jesus will stand over us with a rod of iron, protecting us from every enemy. And he will once and for all land a fatal blow on the head of the dragon, and death and sin will be done away with once and for all.

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That image of my Lord and Savior and King, the great shepherd, standing over me with a rod of iron, saying, don't you dare touch him.

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That's the image of our Lord and Savior. That we'll finally once and for all defeat the enemy of our souls.

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Is that a glorious image? Let me conclude by reading the declaration from heaven pronounced over the dragon in Revelation 12, verses 10 and 12, you're probably already right there.

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John goes on to say, and I heard a loud voice in heaven saying, there's this war that's taken place in heaven now.

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The dragon did not get to consume the child, and then this war happens between the angels and Satan, and I heard a loud voice in heaven saying, now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our

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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

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God, and they have conquered him by the blood of the lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they love not their lives, even unto death.

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Martyrdom. Therefore rejoice, O heavens, and you who dwell in them, but woe to you,

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O earth and sea, for the devil has come down to you in great wrath because he knows that his time is short.

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Satan knows his time is short. His days are numbered. The dragon is on the way out, and the king of glory is on his way in.

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And we remember him at the end of every service by taking communion together. We take the cup of juice to remember that he died on the cross for our sins.

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We take a cracker to remember that his body was broken for us, and we do this because Jesus told us to.

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As a matter of fact, the Lord Jesus, on the night when he was betrayed, took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, this is my body, which is for you.

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Do this in remembrance of me. In the same way, he also took the cup after supper, saying, this cup is the covenant in my blood.

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Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me. For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the

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Lord's death until he comes. Let's rejoice today that our victor came the first time.

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We look forward to the second. Our hero came, he suffered, he died, and he was raised to new life for us.

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And he now sits at the right hand of God, awaiting the nod from his father to get down here and take care of our dragon problem.

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Let's pray. Father, I rejoice this

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Christmas in the giving of a son, but not just a baby in a manger, but one who grew up and one who is your son in the sense of deity that now sits on the right hand, sits right now, even as I'm praying, he is at your right hand, where he sits with power and authority, and he's just awaiting the time when he can come back and set everything right, and finally, once and for all, defeat the dragon.

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But for now, would you allow us to take advantage of the opportunities that we have to proclaim and to witness?

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Father, the days are short, the days are numbered. We don't know how many days we're given as people. We don't know how long it is before the second advent of your son.

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Father, we thank you for tarrying as long as you have that we might see more come into the kingdom.

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Father, I pray that that would be our cause and that would be our purpose, that we would be a people who are bold with our witness, are natural with our witness, because you are flooding our hearts with joy and love, and that we can't help but tell others because it's what we're made of.

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Father, give us opportunities to testify of your glory, and even as we have a chance to reflect that in taking communion together.

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Father, I pray that you would help us to reflect clearly on the sacrifice that Jesus made on our behalf, that his blood was spilled for us, that redemption was not cheap, but it cost the very blood of your son, and his body was broken for us, and the place where my body stood to be beaten and to be scorned and whipped, and he took that from me.

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I praise you for that and ask that as we go into Christmas that we would recognize this baby in this manger who, in the end, grew to be a man who is our king and Lord and savior and the great and awesome dragon slayer.

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We look forward to seeing his ministry in the future as our final and ultimate protector, in Jesus' name.