Revelation 12:3-12 (The Dragon And The War For The World)

Thank you for subscribing to the Shepherds Church podcast. This is our Lord's Day Sermon We pray that as we declare the

Word of God that you would be encouraged Strengthened in your faith and that you would catch a greater vision of who

Christ is May you be blessed in the hearing of God's Word and may the Lord be with you

While many churches this Christmas will be preaching all kinds of different Christmas series you know thinking about like Joseph giving the dreams in his visions or Zechariah with his divine encounter when he's in the holy place or King Herod having his meltdown or the barren woman who's gonna have a baby or The babe in the manger or the angels in the sky or the shepherds in the fields or the wise men on camels

Our series is in Revelation And we are looking at the sign that played out in the heavens we're looking at We're looking above the fray of the field

We're looking above the palaces above Bethlehem and above the highest point in Judea to see this great sign that God has given us in the heavens of an apocalyptic

Christmas and To do that We need to understand what signs are and that was what our first week in this series was all about is

Understanding what a sign is a sign is given to a particular people at a particular place at a particular time

Concerning things that have to do with them We don't look at road signs and think that that's how

I'm fast. I'm supposed to drive in Zimbabwe We look at them as oh These are laws for Chelmsford because the sign applies to the place and the time in the second week after Realizing that we saw that there was a great sign in the heavens a sign of a woman

Who we talked about who she was she is dressed like Israel in this passage

She is crowned like Judah in this passage and she is persecuted like the

New Testament Church and in that She is the people of God eschatologically, so universal the past present and future people of God bought and paid for by Christ Old Testament and New that's who she is

Week three we began our look at the dragon and what his war is and we saw that he

First began his war in heaven and we saw that in the Old Testament that the dragon is a symbol of chaos and wickedness and rebellion we saw also that a dragon was a symbol of a

Seraphim how the word actually seraph comes from fire -breathing dragon

And we alluded to the fact that this is the perfect title for Satan Because he was an angel in the presence of God singing along with the heavenly choirs

And so he was cast down and isn't it interesting that Satan the fire -breathing dragon was stripped of his wings

And he was made to slither like a beast on the ground during his fall.

So that was last week This week we continue and maybe go a little weirder

I've actually I've said once before that I was preaching a sermon that you might call deep weird

This one will also be in that same vein, but we're in Revelation so it's acceptable

Today, we're gonna look at four things. We're gonna look at first. Where did the war on earth begin last week?

We talked about the war in heaven this week. We're gonna talk about the war on earth Where did it begin it began in Eden and we're gonna see evidence of how that war progressed throughout the history of Judah throughout the

New Testament and ultimately leading to Satan's destruction event at the cross and in AD 70 and then after we look at that we're gonna see how

Satan enlisted the Roman Empire to help do his bidding and Then when we end we're going to tie everything together with an application on What does this mean for Christmas?

So with that will you turn with me to Revelation 12? We're gonna read 3 through 12 today and we're gonna be bouncing around a little bit between these passages

But Revelation 12 3 through 12 if you'll join me there And as I said, go ahead and buckle up your seat belt because it might be a little bit of a wild ride

Revelation 12 Then another sign appeared in heaven and behold a great red dragon having seven heads and ten horns and on his heads were seven diadems and his tail swept away a third of the stars of heaven and Threw them to the earth and the dragon stood before the woman who was about to give birth so that when she gave birth

He might devour her child and she gave birth to a son a male child who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron and 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 and that there she would be nourished for 1 ,260 days and there was war in heaven

Michael and his angels rate Waging war with the dragon the dragon and his angels waged war and they were not strong enough

And there was no longer a place found for them in heaven And the great dragon was thrown down the serpent of old who is called the devil and Satan who deceives the whole world

And he was thrown down to the earth and his angels were thrown down with him and then I heard a loud voice in heaven saying

Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of God and the authority of his

Christ have come For the accuser of our brethren has been thrown down he who accuses them before our

God day and night and they overcame him by the blood of the lamb and because of the word of their testimony and They did not love their life even when faced with death for this reason rejoice

Oh heavens and you who dwell in them, but woe to the earth And the sea because the devil has come down to you having great wrath knowing that he has only a short time

Let us pray Lord, we thank you so much for this book.

This is your God -breathed word that we have before us today and would help us to to interact with it with Wisdom and with care and with deliberates

Lord help us because this book exposes our weaknesses Lord this book is a book that many have disagreed with and it's a book that many have been confused over and Lord, I pray that Even as we discuss a particular interpretation today

That Lord you would use What you want to use in this and that Lord everything else that is said would fall away

Lord help us as we approach your word, especially in a book like Revelation to be humble to be faithful But also bold it's in Jesus name we pray.

Amen Now I could go on this topic for hours and I don't say that metaphorically

There's a lot that needs to be covered for us to understand what's going on here I don't take that for granted, but we don't have the ability to do it in a single

Sunday. So If if you're thoroughly confused by the end of it Christ is

Lord and be happy in that And if you want to talk more about this topic, please hit me up or you know

Subscribe to the podcast nuts not a shameless plug, but do it But we just can't cover everything in this so we're gonna do the best that we can

So let's transition to who is this dragon? That's the first thing we need to figure out and the passage says that this dragon is red, which is interesting

That's not just his favorite color, by the way Now last week we did talk about the fact that the word dragon comes from the

Hebrew word seraphim Which is the angels who are worshiping God and the Holy of Holies singing?

Holy, holy, holy to the Lord God Almighty Also, we saw that there are fiery serpents in the

Old Testament like Leviathan and Rahab which are pictures of chaos and we also

Showed how this dragon is revealed as Satan the devil and the serpent by the

Apostle John Now we're going to consider an additional detail that he's a red dragon and the reason that he is red is very

Important in the same way that the reason a flamingo is pink is also very important If you didn't know this,

I actually won a chipotle burrito off of a debate on this very topic So tuck this one away because it's useful

All right Flamingos are pink because they eat a lot of shrimp That's why

The dragon is red because he spills a lot of blood of the

Saints That's why he's red. He's a murderer. Jesus says from the very beginning so from the beginning

Satan has spilled the blood of God's people and it's that reason why he is typecast as Red a deep kind of red and that war goes all the way back to the

Garden of Eden You remember that he was cast down to the earth and he slithered the first thing that he did is he slithered

Into the garden and he slithered into the garden because he wanted to make war with the

Saints He wanted to make war with Eden. He wanted to make war with Adam and Eve Why did he do that? Because Adam and Eve while I said this last week wrongly while being made a little lower than the angels

Adam and Eve were destined to actually judge the angels.

That's what Paul says. Do you not know that you were meant to judge angels? so Satan Being the highest created being out of the divine counsel

Is now jealous at these humans because of their potential that one day they're going to judge him and how dare they judge him so he rebels in heaven and He's cast down to the earth and the first place that he goes is at the center of Eden to devastate this new family

He makes war with him and he captures earth from the man He swindles the kingdom out of Adam's hand who watched passively as his wife ate the fruit

There's a lot of people who will try to attach blame to Eve in this. I Particularly think that this is an

Adam problem Because Adam was made to care for her Adam was made to protect her

Adam was given the commands of God. He knew them because God told him which means that Adam was supposed to tell

Eve and Adam was not supposed to stand by like a lovesick pup watching her do whatever she wanted to do in calling it cute

Adam was supposed to intervene and he didn't and because of that all of humanity fell and The world was plunged into darkness and Satan took the crown

Adam was supposed to rule the nations Adam was supposed to Be fruitful and multiply and spread the dominion of God to the ends of the earth and because of his fall

Satan grabbed the crown Satan took over the world now.

This is where this is one of those parts where it gets a little deep weird If you don't like this part, that's okay

We'll be done with it in a second. But I think this is true when Satan fell from heaven

He took a third of the angels with him. Where did they go? They were cast down to the earth Maybe this is why every ancient culture has stories of fire -breathing dragons

And it's not because that they're so unsophisticated and we're so enlightened. I Think it's because they were there

Seraphim means fire -breathing dragon. So all of the fallen seraphim are there on the earth Every ancient society has a story of this.

We can't really dismiss it just right offhand also There was another class of angels called cherubim

Cherubim are angels that sometimes show up as as these massive beings with swords flaming swords that are guarding the way to the presence of God and then other times they show up in the in the heavens with Thousands of eyes have you ever seen the

Christmas meme of the angel on top of the tree? And it's this this strange -looking creature. That's a cherubim cherubim in the ancient world were shapeshifters every ancient culture has stories of beast -like creatures of Skin walkers of all kinds of the every ancient culture has demonic activity that they report on that they don't know how to explain perhaps it's because These fallen cherubim came down to the earth to torment man

The other thing that you have from the Garden of Eden to the flood is you have this this phenomenon?

Where fallen angels are also cast down now Angels are seraphim cherubim and messengers.

So what am I talking about? I'm talking about messenger angels that look like humans that have a human body whenever they show up in the

Bible They show up like humans and in Genesis 6. It says that the sons of God the

Elohim had Relationships with the daughters of men. They were not pen pals

I don't need to go into what they were you get what they were But they were not pen pals and it says that the what happened out of this relationship

Was that there was the Nephilim the Nephilim came upon the earth Which is why it says that God flooded the world because Satan had polluted

God's best creation so Destructively that you had these man -eating

Giants told you it's gonna get deep weird roaming the earth It's kind of like in The Lord of the

Rings I find a way to do this every week It's where Melkor if you if you read the

Silmarillion where Melkor takes the elves which is Aru's greatest creation He turns them into orcs and he's punished

Tremendously for that act and this way Satan has taken God's most beautiful creation humans

And he's perverted them into something that is abominable. So God wipes the earth and floods it

That's the first battle in the war is the battle between Eden and the flood now after this

There's a second battle and we see that battle kicking up in The tower called

Babel It's good timing Battle is a

Babel is a kind of proto Canaan battle is where the descendants of Noah Gather at this tower and they say we're gonna build a tower so that we can make a tower for the name for our name

That was not what God told humans to do God told humans to spread out and make God's name

Great not to gather in a tower in the plains of Shinar and make their name great

So what they were doing was inherently satanic and they rebelled against God and God punished them by confusing their languages and dividing the peoples and what you see is

Every nation on earth then at that point was divided into different people groups We don't have people groups until this point, but we do there at Babel.

You've got the African folks who are going to Africa those types of areas. You've got the

Asians who are going to Asia You've got the Indians who are going to India You've got all of these different people groups and I don't know exactly what they were back then

I can only use categories that I have for me today But the world was divided into different ethnicities and languages based off of this punishment, but that's not the whole story

Because while the earth was divided based off of people it was also divided based off of powers

What I mean by that is That there were demonic powers that were assigned particular geographies

At the Tower of Babel and you're like, I've never heard that before Trust me. It's in the Bible. Let me show you and I'm gonna be using forgive me the new revised standard

Bible for this one Not just so that I can find a Bible that agrees with me because they actually translate the Hebrew correctly here

The NASB did not so I I'm letting you know that I'm using this one This is what it says in Deuteronomy 32 8 through 9 when the

Most High Apportioned the nations that was at the Tower of Babel when he divided the nations by languages

When he divided humankind he fixed the boundaries of the people according to the number of the gods

That's what the new revised standard version says the net Bible says according to the number of the divine assembly

This word here is Elohim God apportioned the powers he apportioned the

Elohim He apportioned the sons of God not Israel If you read the ESV it will say the sons of Israel Israel doesn't exist yet in this passage

Israel doesn't exist when the Tower of Babel was written or when it occurred. This is not the sons of Israel This is the sons of God the

Elohim Now why is this important Because in a war where Satan is trying to conquer the world

He's enlisting his troops to try to fight against it and God assigns these

Demonic beings to different territories so that you have in a way you have what we would call territorial demons

Territorial powers that are in every single region and we see this in the book of Daniel in Daniel chapter 10

We said this last week Daniel is praying and his prayer is intercepted by one of these territorial demons called the

Prince of Persia The actual Prince of Persia the human being who was reigning over Persia Did not catch

Daniel's prayers and start a war based off Daniel's prayer. It's a territorial demon that is fighting against Daniel in the spiritual realms to stop the plans in the work of God Now every single nation was divided into the powers and There was one nation that God chose as his own

So if you think about all of the ancient territorial maps, however, they were laid out All of them were assigned to demonic powers, but one of them

God said that one is going to be mine I'm going to claim that one. I'm gonna start building there.

I'm gonna cause my people to be there I'm gonna make my presence known there. I'm going to start the war against Satan from there

That's gonna be my headquarters in that land was Canaan Canaan is the place where he drew his people out of the land of Egypt and said

I will be your God you will be My people I will make my presence known here And if you obey the terms of this covenant, then you will be my people and I will be your

God Now all of this I hope is starting to make sense

But what happens next is I think obvious if we think through military tactics all of the nations on earth had demonic powers assigned to it

God chooses Canaan to be his realm and Then what does

Satan do? I'll tell you what Satan doesn't do He doesn't do what my major did when he was in Iraq and sit in the command tent eating beef jerky and cheese

He gets out of the command tent and he says out of all the nations where I'm going to fight

I'm not gonna pick ancient orient. I'm not gonna pick the ancient Americans I'm gonna pick that place that Yahweh said he was gonna go and I'm gonna go and I'm gonna fight there and what you see in the

Old Testament and in the New Testament is that Canaan is the epicenter of Spiritual warfare if you read through some of the ancient works and some of the some of the

Ancient recordings of this Canaan was an awful place it was a place where all kinds of spiritual activity is happening because it is there where God and Satan are at war and there's lots of evidence for this for instance as soon as God Brings the

Israelites to the edge of the boundaries of the land The first thing that they say is we need to send 12 spies into the land and when they do

The spies come back with a bad report. Do you know what the bad report was? Giants We're like grasshoppers to these people and they were not being metaphorical.

They were not like hey We are the size of Muggsy Bogues and there's some people in there the size of LeBron James.

That's not what they were saying They were saying that there are giants in this land and we are terrified

There's a guy in that nation His name is Og of Bashan.

We sing a song about how God defeats Og of Bashan They found a bed or actually,

I don't know if they found it, but in the scriptures It says that his bed was 13 feet tall Now Egos aside

You probably wouldn't have a 13 -foot bed if you're a six -foot man I'm sure that ego can play a factor here, but I'm assuming he was probably 12 feet.

Hey tonight King It says there in Deuteronomy 3 11 that his bed was 13 feet tall

Numbers 13 33. It says that the people were like grasshoppers that the walls were thick and they could not penetrate them

We're talking about a group of people That were horrifying and terrifying to the

Israelites and you can imagine you can sympathize with them Why this was such a problem? It says that these people were called

Anakim and Rephaim which means that and it says that they were the descendants of the Nephilim So if you buy into this what

I'm sharing The Giants that were there before the flood are now a back again in the land of Canaan Which bears the mark of satanic activity

This is evidence that Satan has been waging war. This is not the only evidence Canaan was a place of disgusting sins that weren't really the case in other places not like they were here there was child sacrifice and We mentioned this a lot

But I don't want it to become I Don't want it to become something that we just overlook

They were literally murdering their infant babies and setting them on fire in order to appease what

Paul says is their demonic gods There was ritual prostitution There was necromancy and witchcraft

Deuteronomy 18 10 through 11 Leviticus 19 There was bestiality going on in Canaan Leviticus 18 23

There was rampant forms of demonic idolatry. There was extreme violence and torture among peoples there was blood magic and human sacrifice

Deuteronomy 12 31 Psalm 106 37 through 38 and There was homosexuality in a list like this

We should not wonder how pervasive and how abominable to God Homosexuality is it's on the list of the things that show evidence that demonic activity is in your country

You see later examples as well

Goliath of Gath six cubits in a span. He was around nine feet tall

You see Saul Saul gives an edict to get rid of all the necromancers in Israel, why would he say that unless there were necromancers in the country?

You wouldn't say Get rid of all of the X if there was not X there

He says get rid of all the necromancers symbols of Satan's activity He also is possessed later in his life by a disturbing spirit that David has to even play music from the

Lord in order to get Saul to calm down in between bouts of him throwing spears at him You see

Saul decline and some madness and kill himself You see David who is directly tempted by Satan do to our first Chronicles 21 and one says then

Satan stood up Against Israel and moved David to number them to give a census what

I'm what I'm pointing out here Satan's not omniscient Satan's not omnipresent Satan can't be in multiple places at one time

He was his headquarters was in Canaan. This is the place where he was fighting and waging his war

This is why Solomon the wisest man that ever lived end of his life plunged into idolatry from foreign wives and idolatry

This is why you see the history of Judah and Israel on this roller coaster ride up and down where one

King is Worshipping God and it says that he's a king after or just like his father David and then another

King is putting his baby in the fire Like I can't remember. He was at Asa someone

Manassas Manassas Canaan looks like a cosmic war because it was

Now the same is true in the New Testament, maybe you haven't thought about this before but did you know that the most Concentrated passages in the

Bible that talk about the appearance of Satan is Matthew Mark Luke and John You get to the

New Testament and Satan is everywhere the demons are everywhere It's like they realize like we don't need to think that they're dumb

Hey Jesus showed up. It's time for reinforcements to come so that by the time you get to the

New Testament Satan is everywhere. Okay, Jesus is born Herod's attacking trying to kill him

That's satanic you've got Satan at Jesus's early life attempting to tempt

Jesus to take him off his course You've got unclean spirits who are shrieking at Jesus as he passes by them mark 124

What business do you we have with you Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? Yes, he has

Jesus Jesus cast out demons on almost every page. There's a man called Legion Who's lying among the tombs cutting himself who has an unknown number of demons in him that when he cast when

Jesus cast them out? Into a herd of pigs. This was a big event. This would have made the news You've got a boy who's throwing himself into the fire and the father's confused.

How do we do this? The disciples don't know how to cast out that demon You've got Mary Magdalene who's possessed by seven demons before she is a follower of Christ You've got the

Canaanite woman who says Lord. My daughter has these demons in her.

Will you get rid of them for me? You've got Jesus calling the Jews the children of Satan.

That's not again. That's not hyperbole That's not Jesus trying to one -up them with a stronger tweet

You've got the Jews who are acting like Satan. You've got Peter who Jesus says get behind me Satan You've got

Judas who's possessed literally by Satan Everywhere in the Gospels. You've got this warfare going on because Satan is trying to do one thing.

He's trying to consolidate his empire Every nation on earth belonged to Satan except Canaan because God claimed it as his own

So from the moment God claimed Canaan and made promises to Abraham Satan had been in war there.

We didn't talk about Sodom and Gomorrah We didn't talk about Tyre and Sidon There is a war for this country so that Satan could consolidate his empire and it is a war that will see him lose everything because Christ came to crush

Satan Christ came to defeat Satan why do we think Jesus was born in Canaan?

Literally, let's think about that He could have been born anywhere he could have died anywhere his his atonement would have still been effective

He was born in Canaan Because God made covenant promises to those people and he was born in Canaan to defeat the works of the devil which were centralized there

And at the cross Jesus began the defeat of this being called

Satan crushing his head just as Genesis 3 15 said that he would that he would crush the serpents head and the serpent would bruise his heel that happened

Right then and there now, let's get back to Revelation 12 Because Revelation 12 gives us another layer to this

It says there that and she gave birth to a son a male child who was to rule all the nations with a rod of iron

That's Jesus and her child was caught up to God and to his throne. That's the Ascension and There was war in heaven and Michael and his angels waging war with the dragon and the dragon his angels waged war and they were not strong enough and there was no longer found a place for them and The serpent of old who is called the devil and Satan who deceives the whole world.

He was thrown down to earth and his angels were thrown down with him and then

I heard a loud voice saying now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of the of Our God and the authority of our

Christ have come for the accuser of our brethren has been thrown down and he who accuses them before our

God day and night and they Overcame him because of the blood of the

Lamb and because of the word of their testimony and they did not love their life Even when faced with death for this reason rejoice

Oh heavens and you who dwell in them woe to the earth and to the sea Because the devil has come down to you having great wrath knowing that he only has a short

Time just a bit of a recap before we move on brace yourselves

The devil was defeated at the cross. The devil was crushed at the cross, but he didn't die there

He was wounded, but he didn't die there But how do we know that because he's in heaven the next verse later waging a war against Jesus and The angels and it says that he was not powerful enough to overcome them and he was cast out of heaven and thrown down to the earth

So he's not dead yet Kind of like in Monty Python That was

Satan originally That man only had a little time as well

It all fits together Satan came down to earth and what

I want us to see here is maybe something you've never heard before Satan came down to earth for a near -term showdown

Satan did not come down to earth to stay here for thousands and thousands of years

Because it says he has only a short time left So we need to understand what that means.

We need to understand to understand what that means We need to understand what this seven -headed dragon is. Why does the seven -headed dragon have ten horns?

Why does one of these horns talk and have eyes? And we need to understand what all of this means.

Okay This is what it says When the dragon saw that he was thrown down to earth

He persecuted the woman who gave birth to the male child. Remember who the woman is the woman is the people of God So Satan cast down to the earth kicked out of heaven

No longer able to accuse the Saints is now slithering back into Jerusalem to make war with God's people

That's what's happening. So you think about this? Jesus ascends to heaven. He tells the early church to sit in the upper room and wait for the

Holy Spirit Why does he tell them to wait it could be? That they're waiting on earth while Jesus and the angels are at war in heaven and When Jesus and the angels in war in heaven defeat the dragon then the

Holy Spirit comes it could be I'm not willing to say definitively on that but it could be but what you don't have is you don't have

Hundreds if not thousands of years You've got AD 30 Satan being thrown out of heaven thrown down to the earth and ready to make a final stand

Custard's last stand in Jerusalem sort of moment Where he has a definite period of time.

The text says that his time is short. What does that mean? Short from when it was given

Not short from our perspective. It doesn't mean that his time is short in a general sense

Especially if you're old earth and you believe that the world is billions of years short could be hundreds of thousands

That's not what it means. And if you're older if you should repent to that Go today in Sunday school class.

He talks about it Shameless plug man You may say well in the

Bible though, doesn't it say that a day is like a thousand years and a thousand years It's like a day Yeah, it does say that but it also in the book of Revelation the time frame references are always literal

So out of all of the fantastic scenes in the book of Revelation you think about the dragon you think about the woman you think about All these things the time frame references are always literal in the way that you and I would normally think what do

I mean by that? One Revelation chapter one It says that that Jesus is coming that the time is near that he's coming quickly

And it says that those who pierced Jesus are gonna see him coming in judgment against Jerusalem Well, what does that mean?

You and I didn't pierce Jesus The very ones who pierced him in fulfillment of Zechariah 10 are gonna be the ones who see him coming

That was Jerusalem. It says all the tribes of the land will see Him we live in a commonwealth.

We don't live in a tribe Was Israel that he was talking about at the end of the book?

It says behold I'm coming quickly the time is near the time frame references in Revelation You can trust are the most literal parts of the book so that when it says that Satan has a short time

And he will be defeated that he will be thrown into the lake of fire Then you can believe that the time really was near and maybe you're like well

I still think Satan is prowling around like a roaring lion today. I think Satan is still attacking me today

I think Satan is the reason why I yelled at that man in traffic Well Let me not prove my point from the book of Revelation Let me prove my point from your favorite theologian the

Apostle Paul in the book of Romans This is what Paul says to the

Roman Church the God of peace will soon crush

Satan under your feet and The grace of our

Lord Jesus be with you. Do you know that Paul is writing this book in 58 AD? He's not talking about the

God of peace will soon crush Satan under every people's feet This is not a this is not a passage for all people at all times and at all places that we're all a part of This general crushing of Satan This is a passage to the

Roman Church That the Roman Church is gonna be a part of the crushing of Satan in a near time window.

What is that near time? I'm gonna argue it's within 12 years of when Paul gave it which makes a lot more sense of soon than thousands of years

Again this does not mean millennia The dragon in Revelation 12 is identified as a seven -headed dragon now

We need to move from the time frame reference to his identity so that we can understand what's actually going on here

It says in verse 3 of chapter 12 Then another sign appeared in the heaven and behold a great red dragon having seven heads and ten horns and on his head were seven

Diadems and you think to yourself what in the world is this creature? Kind of a

Hydra looking thing well we know for a fact that this beast is

Satan John tells us that and We also know that this dragon shares his attributes with humans

So that sometimes in the Old Testament humans are called dragons We talked about this last week

Nebuchadnezzar for instance Before he was turned into a beast and repented and turned to the

Living God Jeremiah 51 34 says this about good old Nebby Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon has devoured me.

He has crushed me and he has made me an empty vessel He has swallowed me like a monster dragon and he has filled his stomach with my delicacies.

He has rinsed me out Pharaoh is also called a dragon This is

Ezekiel 29 3 speak and say thus says the Lord God behold I'm against you Pharaoh king of Egypt the great monster

That lies in the midst of his rivers that has said my Nile is mine and I myself had made it

What we see here in these two examples is that when people are under the influence of Satan and they so Completely are given over to his influence that they take on his attributes such that the

Bible even calls them dragons Peter in That moment where Jesus says get behind me

Satan, which had to have been a jarring moment for Peter He was speaking so slanderously in that moment against the plans of God that Jesus felt quite comfortable speaking past Peter and right to the influence that authored those words

Get behind me Satan Now sometimes when a nation becomes so Encumbered by the dragon so influenced by the dragon nations can even be referred to as The dragon which is what we have going on here in Revelation 12 and which is why this dragon has seven heads

This is not just God's favorite number seven for why this shows up. There is a reason why this dragon has specifically seven heads and We need to know our

Old Testament in order to understand this now you ask yourself. Is there another seven -headed dragon in the

Bible? Why yes, there is. Let's go to Daniel chapter 7 and Try to pay close attention to the details of this passage,

I'm gonna read the whole thing because it's important and At the end we're gonna talk a little bit about why this proves the point

Daniel 7 start in verse 2 Daniel said I was looking in my vision by night and behold the four winds of heaven were stirring up the great sea and Four great beasts were coming up from the sea

Different from one another the first was like a lion and it had the wings of an eagle and I kept looking until its wings were plucked and it was lifted up from the ground and made to stand on two feet like a man a

Human mind was also given to it one head Just keep counting And behold another beast the second one resembling a bear and it was raised up on one side with three ribs that were in its

Mouth between its teeth and thus they said to it arise devour much One bear one head.

So now we're at two heads After this, I kept looking behold another one like a leopard which had on its back four wings of a bird and the beast also had four heads and Dominion was given to it now.

We're at six heads After this, I kept looking in the night visions behold a fourth beast dreadful and terrifying and extremely strong and had large iron teeth

And it devoured and crushed and trampled down the remainder with its feet and it was different From all the beasts that were before it and it had ten horns while I was contemplating the horns behold another horn a little horn came up among them and The three of the first horns were pulled out by the roots before it and behold

This horn possessed eyes like the eyes of a man and a mouth uttering great boast Seven heads ten horns

Revelation is using the Old Testament to show you what it means. Let's keep going. I Kept looking until thrones were set up in the ancient of days took his seat.

His vesture was white like snow And the hair of his head was pure wool. His throne was ablaze with flames.

Its wheels were burning fire And a river of fire was flowing and coming out from before him thousands upon thousands were attending him

Myriads and myriads were standing before him and the court sat and the books were opened Then I kept looking because the sound of the boastful words which the horn was making and I kept looking into the beast was slain and its body was destroyed and given to the burning fire and For the rest of the beast their dominion was taken away from them

But an extension of life was granted for them or to them for an appointed period of time And I kept looking in the night visions and behold with the clouds of heaven one like the

Son of Man was coming and He came up to the ancient of days and was presented before him

Just in case you don't know this part Jesus quotes this in Matthew and he said to Caiaphas that this happened when he ascended into heaven

So Daniel's vision is happening in the first century. Just keep that in mind. Let's keep going and To him

Jesus was given dominion glory in a kingdom and all the people's nations and men of every language might serve him

His dominion is an everlasting dominion, which will not pass away and his kingdom is one which will not be destroyed and As for me

Daniel, my spirit was distressed within me and the visions in my mind kept on alarming me and I approached one of those who were standing by and Began asking him the exact meaning of all of this so that he told me and made known to me the interpretation of these things

These great beasts which are four in number are four kings who will arise from the earth

But the saints of the highest one Will receive the kingdom and possess the kingdom forever for all ages to come

Then I desired to know the exact meaning of the fourth beast a seven -headed beast with ten horns which was different from all the others exceedingly dreadful with its eye with his teeth of iron and its claws of bronze which and which devoured crushed and trampled down the remainder with its feet and the meaning of the ten horns that were on its head and the other horn which came up and before which three of them fell away namely that horn which has eyes and a mouth uttering great boast and Which was larger in appearance than its associates.

I find that verse to be really fun. The ten horns are compared to associates. I Kept looking and that horn was waging war with the

Saints and overpowering them until the Ancient of Days came and Judgment was passed in favor of the

Saints of the highest one and the time arrived when the Saints took possession of the kingdom Thus he said the fourth beast will be a fourth kingdom on earth

Which will be different from all other kingdoms and will devour the whole earth and tread it down and crush it and as for the ten horns out of the kingdom ten kings will arise and another will rise after them and he will be different from the previous ones and he will subdue three kings and Will speak out against the most high and wear down the

Saints of the highest one and he will intend to make Alterations and times and in law and they will be given into his hand for a time times and a half a time

The court will sit for judgment and his dominion will be taken away Annihilated and destroyed forever and then the sovereignty the dominion and the greatness of all the kingdoms under the whole heaven will be given to the people of the

Saints of the highest one and His kingdom will be an everlasting kingdom and all the dominions will serve and obey him

And at this point the revelation ended but as for me Daniel my thoughts were greatly alarming me and my face grew pale But I kept the matter to myself

Jesus already told us the time frame of when this is gonna happen He said that when he ascends to the Ancient of Days, this is when

Daniel 7 is going to be unfolding now We have to unravel some of the details.

What is this seven headed dragon? We know it's Satan But we also know that empires tend to take on the characteristics of the dragon so that that the dragon who has seven heads

Represents these four great empires The first Empire is Babylon the one whose wings were ripped off and it was made to stand up erect like a man

Do you know the Nebuchadnezzar? after halfway through his reign was humbled by God put down on his face and made to be like a beast that crawls upon the earth and Then God after he repented lifted him up and put him into a place where he was finally a man again

This is a passage that's talking about Babylon The first great

Empire with one head the second one is Persia who overtakes Babylon It also has one head.

The third is Greece Did you know? Leopards are fast

That's I should be not be shocking Greece Conquered the world very quickly

Before Alexander the Great was in his mid 30s He had subdued the largest plot of land ever been subdued on earth.

And did you know? That after he conquered all of these lands and he died that his empire broke into four sections the leopard with four heads and Then you have the fourth which is

Rome The most pulverizing empire that had risen in the ancient world, how do we know that it's

Rome? Well, Daniel 2 tells us that it's Rome. But how else do we know that it's Rome the ten horns? There's ten horns and there's something and there's very interesting things that are going on with these ten horns

There's ten horns But there's three that fall away really quickly and then the tenth horn is the one that puts those three away and then there's a

Little horn that rises up out of it. There's only one event in human history that matches this this vision and That is

The first ten kings of Rome Let me go quickly and tell you what I mean. That's why I say

I can't spend any time here Just have to keep moving King one Julius Caesar 49 to 44

BC King to Augustus Caesar 27 to 14 AD King three

Tiberius Caesar 80 14 to 80 37 King for Caligula 80 37 to 41

King five Claudius 80 41 to 8 to 80 54 and King six is

Nero Why is that so important? Because the first six kings were pretty stable until you get to Nero Nero kills himself plunging the

Roman Empire into absolute Insanity and instability and then three kings from Rome come very quickly

Just like Daniel said Daniel said that three come quickly and they pass away as soon as Nero kills himself in the

Roman Empire You have Galba. He was there for a year and two months you have After Galba you have

Otho who was there for just a few months Vitellius who was there for just a few months and then Vespasian you had four

Emperors in the course of a 12 month period the three were put away by the one

The tenth horn was Vespasian Why is that important? Did you know Vespasian was the one who declared war and executed the commands of war on Jerusalem?

He's the general that surrounded the city and who was sieging Jerusalem and he was called to Rome to become

Emperor to put away the three kings that had died just like Daniel said and Then you have this matter of a little horn

What is a little horn? Well if I were a horn Then my little horn would be my son

Because I am a man my little man is my son Did you know that Vespasian put his son in charge of the siege of Jerusalem and That Vespasian when he finished that siege

He is the one there sorry Titus his son is the one who came back to Rome and built this elaborate statue of His great victory and his prowess

He's the little horn Who boasted of his great deeds who put down the

Saints of God? Now we're talking about the Old Covenant Jews We're talking about the

Jews who were in this Jewish war who assembled in the city these Old Covenant people who were put away

So in this sense Satan was successful in one sense in a war that he had been fighting

Since the Tower of Babel. He finally defeated this Jewish people and Yet another way

He's absolutely unsuccessful in the biggest way in the ultimate way Because while he solicited the help of Rome which

Daniel proves to put to death the Old Covenant Jews It was

God himself who spared the Saints it was God himself who spared the church Did you know?

That right before the walls came tumbling down right before the temple was set on fire right before The city was filled with bodies like Jesus said and the in the vultures were swarming overhead.

That's Matthew 24 Right before this happened Every Christian that was in the city left and you know why they left

Because Jesus told them to in Luke 21 chapter Luke chapter 21 verse 20

Jesus said when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies flee and they did

And then what happens Daniel 7 says that God gives to the

Saints a kingdom that will never end Daniel 2 says that he gives to the Saints a kingdom that will never end

Revelation 20 says that he gives to them a kingdom That will never end What we're looking at here is

That God Through the book of Revelation is telling us what happened in the first century

That Jesus defeated Satan at the cross Jesus defeated Satan in heaven

Satan was thrown down to the earth for a little time and in that little time he mustered up a battle that waged outside the city gates of Jerusalem and God spared the

Christians and From that moment forward God gave to the Christians an empire that would never end.

Here's a fun fact From the moment that the Jews became the

Jews, do you know when that was? You could say Jacob when he wrestled with God That that's

Israel You could say David. That's also Israel. You could say Solomon That's also Israel the moment that the

Jews became a unique nation was in 930 BC when

Rehoboam Did a really dumb thing and lost ten of the twelve tribes and Judah became its own nation.

Did you know that? from the moment that Rehoboam and His people became a nation until the downfall of Jerusalem was exactly 1 ,000 years

So here you have God putting away the kingdom of the Jewish people

So that he could bring a kingdom that will never end and that is how this applies to Christmas because Man, we went on a wild ride didn't we?

Here's how this applies to Christmas because Jesus came to bring the war to the enemy of God the great enemy of God That's Satan and in his birth

You also see the seeds of his death That this man was born to die and in his death

He crushed the head of the serpent and while the head and while the serpent was cast down for a short season to make war

He did not prevail because God gave the kingdom to the Saints and For 2 ,000 years

You and I have been in a kingdom that will never end This is why Daniel says then the sovereignty the dominion and the greatness of all the kingdoms under the whole heaven will be given to the people of the

Saints of the Most High and his kingdom will be an everlasting kingdom say that everlasting kingdom

God gave us an everlasting kingdom when Jesus crushed the head of the serpent and All the

Dominions will serve and obey him this is also why Revelation 1 5 through 6 says to him who loved us and Released us from our sins by his blood and he made us to be a kingdom of priests

To his God and father to him be the glory and dominion for how long? Forever and ever it's why he says in Revelation 5 9 through 10, and they sang a new song

Worthy are you to take the book and break its seals? Do you know what that reference is to my goodness? There's so much

Daniel wrote a book and sealed it now the books being opened What Daniel prophesied is happening in Revelation revelations happening in the first century?

Worthy are you to take the book and break its seals for you were slain and purchased for God with your blood men from every tribe and tongue and people a nation and you have made them to be a kingdom of Priests to our

God and they will reign upon the earth forever That's why Revelation 11 5 says then the angel sounded the trumpet and there were loud voices in heaven saying the kingdom of this world

Has become the kingdom of our Lord and his Christ and he will reign forever and ever if the angels are singing that Jesus made

A kingdom that's gonna last forever and ever. Why do we constantly think in American evangelicalism that the kingdom is going to be crushed?

Why do we think that the secularist and the humanist and everybody else are going to somehow prevail? Over Jesus when the angels are in heaven singing no

That kingdoms forever and ever and ever and it was given to you as the Saints of the Most High God Then I heard a loud voice

Revelation 12 11 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 brethren has been thrown down Revelation 19 15 through 16 from his mouth

Comes a sharp sword so that with it he may strike down the nations and he will rule them with a rod of iron and he treads the winepress of the fierce wrath of God the

Almighty and he is the king of kings and the Lord of lords and this white revelation the final chapter of the book

Says this There will no longer be any curse and the throne of God and the lamb will be in it as bondservants will serve him

They will see his face and his name will be written on their foreheads and they will no longer be any night and they will

Not have any need of the light of the lamp of the light of the Sun because the Lord their God will illumine them and they Will reign forever brothers and sisters

I Know that this is a really complicated passage and I know that we had to go a lot of places to get here

So if you take anything away today Jesus bought and paid for you he bought and paid for you to be in a kingdom and Your enemy has been put down So that you cannot be taken or stolen out of this kingdom that Christ has given you you are safe You are secure and now your job and your only job is to live like a citizen of this kingdom your

American citizenship pales in comparison to the citizenship you have in this kingdom and with that Let's have great joy.

Let's pray Lord we thank you Lord, thank you.

First and foremost most of all that that revelation is not a Book that we have to have a perfect exam score on to get into heaven.

Thank you God And yet also or there's real truths that we can learn here there's real things where you say that Satan's time on earth in the first century was short that you're going to Give a kingdom to your

Saints and what does that mean that you are our King? We're your citizens. We are our lives are supposed to be about doing your bidding

Lord help us as your citizens To serve you well To serve you faithfully

Lord help us in this season of Materialism and gluttony even

Lord help us to remember that our kingdom is not of this world That our kingdom is the kingdom that was given to us by our

Lord Jesus Christ and it's our job to serve you faithfully to worship you joyfully and To expand your dominion to the ends of the earth

Lord help us all to find our place in that whether it be through hospitality Whether it be through encouragement whether it be through preaching whether it be through writing whether it be through singing

Whether it be through whatever gifts that you have given to this church Including and especially the raising up of children to be kingdom citizens

Lord help us To not think about the kingdom is something far away, but to believe you when you said repent for the kingdom is here