DA Carson Teaching on Revelation 12-14 - Cross to Crown Ministries

well we come to an immensely serious passage in Scripture revelation 12 13 and 14 and I would like to begin today by reading chapter 12 if you're reading ahead we'll be looking at chapter 12 in this session the first part of 13 in the next the last half of 13 in the third and all of 14 in the fourth revelation 12 this is what holy scripture says a great and wondrous sign appeared in heaven a woman clothed with the Sun with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head she was pregnant and cried out in pain as she was about to give birth then another sign appeared in heaven an enormous red dragon with seven heads and ten horns and seven Crown's on his heads his tail swept a third of the stars out of the sky and flung them to the earth the dragons stood in front of the woman who was about to give birth so that he might devour her child the moment it was born she gave birth to a son a male child who will rule all the nations with an iron scepter and her child was snatched up to God and to his throne the woman fled into the desert to a place prepared for her by God where she might be taken care of for 1260 days and there was war in heaven Michael and his angels fought against the Dragon and the dragon and his angels fought back but he was not strong enough and they lost their place in heaven the great dragon was hurled down that ancient serpent called the devil or Satan who leads the whole world astray he was hurled to the earth and his angels with him then I heard a loud voice in the heavens say now have come the salvation and the power in the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ for the accuser of our brothers who accuses them before our God day and night has been hurled down they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death therefore rejoice you heavens and you who dwell in them but woe to the earth and the sea because the devil has gone down to you he is filled with fury because he knows that his time is short when the dragon saw that he had been hurled to the earth he pursued the woman who had given birth to the male child the woman was given the two wings of a great eagle so that she might fly to the place prepared for her in the desert where she would be taken care of for a time times and half a time out of the Serpent's reach then from his mouth the serpent spewed water like a river to overtake the woman and sweep her away with a torrent but the earth helped the woman by opening its mouth and swallowing the river that the dragon had spewed out of his mouth then the dragon was enraged at the woman and went off to make war against the rest of her offspring those who obey God's commandments and holds to the testimony of Jesus and the dragons stood on the shore of the sea this is the word of the Lord let us pray open our minds and hearts we pray that we may not only understand this word that is grasped what it says but see truly how it applies to us and our ministry our living and dying in our day in our place for the glory of Christ for the strength of his church for the overthrow of Satan for Jesus sake amen my boy now is a strapping nineteen six-foot two or three all muscle but when he was about three a little blond-haired lad already built like a tank he had these whopping big blue eyes clear clear blue eyes and one day I asked him Nicholas where did you get your big blue eyes and he replied with all the confidence of a three-year-old from God and of course he was right but had he been he aged he is now he might have replied well I have them because both you and mum though neither of you has blue eyes must carry the necessary recessive gene which happily combined in the formation of my DNA which answer would have been truer they're both equally true which is more fundamental another question what caused the destruction of the southern kingdom in 587 BC well you could mention the rise of the Babylonian superpower the decline in decay of the Davidic dynasty the tragic pride of Hezekiah three or four royal generations earlier the criminal stupidity of Zedekiah despite Jeremiah's warnings the sins of the people attracting the judgment of God or one could simply say God did it he said he would and he did which analysis is true they're both equally true which is more fundamental third question what made job suffer well the sabaeans and their bands of marauding riffs the incursions of the Chaldeans the natural elements so-called the wind storm that brought down the house that took out his ten kids and one shot beer even ultimately the loss of his health and finally the loss of support of his wife or one could say that Satan did it or one could say that God did it which analysis is true they're all equally true which is more fundamental final question what has caused the church four greatest difficulties and sufferings during the last few decades I suppose at one level it would be appropriate to say that different things might surface in your analysis for different parts of the world in China ongoing persecution the unavailability of literature in the volume and quality that is needed repression totalitarian Marxism with a Chinese face not fewer than 3,000 Christian leaders are currently in prison or were camp if you come to many parts of Central Africa I suppose you could mention tribalism the AIDS pandemic lack of trained leadership all over Central Africa when here's the slogan the pew is higher than the pulpit that is to say most pastors were trained in the book in the bush with minimal education but in the last four decades there has been a revolution in education in Africa meaning that the educational status of the church is far higher than the ministry which brings the ministry into disrepute Nairobi had no university until 1963 it's now got four that's just typical and then droughts the progress of the Sahel horrible Muslim Christian conflict so-called and in the Sudan and northern Nigeria and elsewhere I suppose in the West one could speak of the dangers of material prosperity coupled with in some areas at least rising poverty rapid pace of life the impact of the mass media above all perhaps rising secularization the challenges of a certain kind of pluralism moral in different ISM prayerlessness loneliness in our big cities crass materialism epistemological post-modernism but if you noticed most of the categories that I've deployed there sociological their historical their occasional their demographic their psychological they are all performance related nothing about the devil and nothing about God now do not misunderstand me I am certainly not saying that there is nothing to be learned from say sociological analysis yes I too read the polls and I devour Peter burgers every new book that comes from the press and all the rest yes I too do that and it is important in certain kinds of areas to understand differences I suppose between boomers and Buster's and so forth yes yes there's something to be said for all of that but if all of our analyses are cast in such horizontal terms not only is there a danger that our analysis will be superficial there's an even bigger danger namely that our answers will also be horizontal if all of our analyses are cast at the sociological level will somehow begin to engender the suspicion that our solutions to these problems even if they are truly described are fundamentally horizontal as well now if I understand the passage before us a right god here gives us a deeper analysis of the difficulties and the sufferings of the church chapter 12 to 14 marks a major division in the apocalypse before the final display of the wrath of God in the seven plagues of chapters 16 John traces in these chapters the fundamental cause for the hostility and suffering that fall upon the church and the fundamental cause is nothing less than the rage of Satan rage rage against the church we may follow the logic of his argument in three points first John outlines the occasion for the Satanic rage verses 1 to 9 he outlines the occasion for the Satanic rage in John's vision the scene opens with a great and wondrous sign appearing in the heavens verse 1 sign here as not infrequently in Revelation is a great spectacle of some sort that points in some way to the consummation the content of this particular spectacle this sign is a woman and what a woman she is a woman clothed with the Sun with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head she was pregnant and cried out in pain as she was about to give birth who is she despite the fact that she gives birth to the one who is transparently Jesus verses five and six she is not Mary that makes no sense of verse 17 where we are told the dragon was enraged at the woman and went off to make war against the rest of her offspring those who obey God's commandments and hold of the testimony of Jesus that is Christians this woman is simply the Messianic community whether under the Old Covenant or the new just as Zion is the mother of the people of God in the Old Testament so the new sign or the new Jerusalem is the mother of the people of God under the New Covenant that is not all that uncommon it's found as early as Galatians 4 the Jerusalem that is above is free and she is our mother so as Jerusalem Zion was mother in the Old Covenant the heavenly Jerusalem his mother in the new and it becomes a kind of symbol for the whole messianic community the Messianic community as a whole she is clothed with the Sun we read that is utterly radiant with her feet on the moon which suggests she has a certain kind of Dominion she has 12 stars on her head linked both to the 12 tribes and to the 12 apostles as Jesus is prepared to link the two in Matthew chapter 19 that's the description but where she is in her own existence is the travail of pregnancy about to give birth the Jews at the time sometimes spoke of the birth pains of the Messiah what they meant by that was the birth pains experienced by the Messianic community just before the Messiah came to deliver them the expression emerged out of Old Testament texts like this Isaiah 26 17 as a woman with child and about to give birth rise and cries out in her pain so were we in your presence O Lord so here we read she was pregnant and cried out in pain as she was about to give birth here the Messianic community is described initially as as enduring the birth pains of the Messiah that's the first spectacle then a second sign appears in John's vision in this pageant we are introduced to an enormous red dragon lest there be any doubt as to the identification John makes the identification for us in verse 9 the great dragon was hurled down that ancient serpent called the devil or Satan who leads the whole earth astray dragon or Leviathan or Bay a moat monster of the deep standard symbols for all that opposed God in the Old Testament associated with Egypt in Psalm 50 74 associated with Assyria and Babylon in Isaiah 27 associated with Pharoah in Ezekiel 29 but the supreme opponent is of course Satan himself however much Satan may manifest himself behind historically contingent realities we know this in any case don't we this is not so difficult do you remember Caesarea Philippi Peter has scored once theologically and he thinks he will score again never Lord this will never happen to you so Jesus wheels on him and says get behind me Satan Jesus does not mean by that that Peter is demon-possessed he doesn't mean that these are only the words of Satan and not the words of Peter or that they are not the words of Peter well thought through from Peter's point of view but so blind and stupid so morally broken is Peter still at this juncture that what he is doing is voicing Satan's temptation as Satan stands behind and Egypt he may stand behind an apostle deceiving if it were possible the very elect if it were possible the son of God if it were possible he's a red dragon associated in apocalyptic generally with murderous intent and that after all is entirely in line with another johanan writing isn't it Jesus refers to Satan in John 8:44 as a murderer from the beginning that is Satan is fundamentally interested in bringing as many as possible to death seven heads that is like Leviathan in Psalm 74 14 14 the universality of his power ten horns horns and apocalyptic literature regularly symbolizes king or Kingdom Kingdom in yin and it recalls the fourth beast of Daniel 7 power kingly Authority and like the beast from the sea in chapter 13 that we'll look at tonight Satan's agents in other words are similarly endowed and I will say about a little more about them later crowns not here victory wreaths but crowns of usurped authority against him who is described in this chapter as the one who will rule with a rod of iron as the one who is described later in this book for chapter 19 as the king of kings and Lord of lords the one who will rule the nations with this scepter described in verse 5 now that's the setting the two signs this large setting for a pageant and now the drama unfolds in verses four to six it is meant to be grotesque so grotesque that the only adequate way of ramping up the shock value is to show how much of nature itself is involved that's a standard approach in Hebrew poetry when things are going well that hills are dancing for joy and the trees are clapping their hands and when things are going badly the stars are falling from the heavens here it's one third of the stars falling from the heavens but the drama itself is grotesque you are to picture the woman with their feet in the stirrups pushing in pain to give birth to her child and this red dragon is standing there between her legs drooling blood waiting to chew up and swallow the manchild brought forth that's the picture this is x-rated it is meant to be horrifying the Dragons stood in front of the woman who was about to give birth so that he might devour her child a moment it was born now there are two or three elements in this description that we need to fasten on before we press on first the child in this drama appears and then disappears he gives birth and then he snatched up to the heavens in other words you move from his birth to his ascension in one line this is not because the author is not interested in the ministry life and death of Jesus after all the first large-scale vision in the book revelation 4 & 5 treats Jesus ministry the purpose of his coming in great detail the point is that this chapter is not focusing directly on Christ only indirectly as we'll see in a moment but on the church that is what happens to the people who are left behind that's the that's the question and for that the story must move along until Christ is gone do you see the focus here is on the woman and on her offspring moreover at the historical level we must understand the malice of Satan here to have worked itself out in the concrete accounts of the gospel narratives Herod trying to execute the baby Jesus the devil himself in the temptation narratives wanting him to commit suicide jumping off a aspire the temptation of Peter or Satan and ultimately the cross itself now is the hour of darkness now is the time for the Prince of this world both his triumph and his defeat at the same time one must ask what do we do with the desert into which the woman flees verse six and what do we do with the 1260 days let's begin with the days on an idealized month of thirty 1260 days is the same as forty two months or three and a half years or time one year times two more years and half a time three and a half years the four expressions all mean the same thing time times and half a time and within the space a very little compass all four expressions are found eleven to thirteen five here in Chapter 12 in 1214 the four expressions are all found in these chapters I know that this has generated endless speculation but in my view the answer is pretty straightforward to anybody who understands first century Jewish literature just as there are times in the history of our own country when a certain period of time or a certain historical event gets connected with something in the popular espree such that you make a reference to something and the entire period comes to mind so also here if I say to you four score years and seven what comes to your mind Civil War Gettysburg Address Abraham Lincoln the hope and I'm not even an American I'll have to sue is say is for score years and seven and and and and you've got the whole thing running up scrolling before your eyeballs don't you now in Jewish history it is hard for us to understand just how traumatic the Mac of bein wars were they eventually had another whole feast out of it that's what Hanukkah is about to this day after the remnant began to return while the Babylonian power had fallen and Cyrus the Persian had come to power it wasn't very long nevertheless before the Persians were themselves overthrown supremely by Alexander the Great who pressed all the way to the borders of India when he died however his mighty Greek Empire was divided amongst four generals one of them the founder of the Ptolemaic dynasty was centered in the south in Egypt another one centered in Syria began the dynasty that was constantly at war with the ptolemies in the south so you have Antiochus the 4th epiphanies from the entire that Syrian dynasty fighting against the Ptolemaic dynasty in the south it went back and forth in Israel was no-man's land for about two centuries eventually then the dynasty in the North won out and intact as the fourth Epiphanes decided he would finish the job and pagan eyes Israel completely you can read it in great detail and Josephus you can read it in especially the first two books of Maccabees the latter two have far more legendary accretions he made owning any copy of Torah a capital offense it became Imperial policy to execute every single Levite he took over the temple and sacrificed pigs and then erected pagan gods he made it a capital offense to observe Sabbath it was brutal and as he sent some of his emissaries into the various villages hunting out old scrolls and hunting out old priests he came to an old priest by the name of mattifies in a small village in the Judean hill country and when the emissary showed up there it wasn't intact as the fourth Epiphanes himself when his emissary showed up mattifies killed him and his son the first of three sons Judas began guerrilla warfare I'm told I don't know if it's true I'm told that to this day at West Point when the current generations of American soldiers are first introduced to gorillas were warfare they army made to read the relevant chapters of Josephus for the simple reason that this is the first historical detailed account of what guerrilla warfare looks like Judas came to be known as Judas the hammer which is what Maccabees means in Aramaic judas maccabees Judas the hammer and he pummeled the Syrians with endless hit-and-run raids attacking attacking attacking until after three and a half years he defeated them in a pitched battle the temple was cleansed and the Makka bein rulers came to power actually by this time Judas was dead it was one of his brothers who took over thus three and a half years came to symbolize in Jewish mentality a period of horrible contest of horrible struggle while God is defeating his foes before the final release of purification that's what it came to symbolize and if I mistake not that is what is going on here that is precisely what is going on here we have a period in which the Messianic community and her children verse 17 are in a period of restricted attack until finally there is victory does not Jesus himself say as much in other terms in the Olivet discourse had it not been for the fact that those days were cut short from the full possible length - only as it were a symbolic three and a half years the very elect themselves would be destroyed so the woman then the Messianic community flies to the desert the wilderness the desert signals not only preparation and entrance into the promised land but simultaneously a time of trial and a time of God's wooing of his people that's the language God uses in the prophecy of Hosea do you recall Hosea 2:14 I will allure her and bring her into the wilderness and speak tenderly to her for all that the wilderness was a difficult time it was also the time when God had as it were familiar intercourse with his people before the end of his intern entered into the promised land so this whole period is is viewed as that way a time of desert on the one hand and on the other hand a time when God is wooing his people one can't help but think of another set of biblical images that are tied to this I have I have betrothed you as a pure virgin to Christ Christ is wooing his people until the consummation but right now it's a desert then in verses 7 to 9 the same thing is looked at from a heavenly perspective that is while there is this conflict on the earth there is a corresponding celestial cosmic conflict there was war in heaven Michael and his angels fought against the dragon the dragon and his angels fought back but he was not strong enough and they lost their place in heaven the great dragon was hurled out that ancient serpent called the devil or Satan who leads the whole world astray he was hurled to the earth and his angels with him what are we to make of this now you must not forget how the entire drama of the book of Revelation has been set out this is not to be read all by itself in isolation before you've got to this chapter you're supposed to have read chapter 1 chapter 2 chapter 3 chapter 4 all the way to chapter 11 in Chapter 1 already Christ is presented as the as the as the one who is who is like Yahweh himself and and it was trying so as to release us from our sins by his own suffering on the tree in the great vision of chapters 4 and 5 God is presented as spectacularly transcendent so transcendent that the most intimate angels of heaven bow their faces before him and dare not gaze on him and and there is an entire fallen order between the throne of God and and the watcher that the seer the Prophet himself and finally there is a great challenge issued by an angel with a loud voice who is able to take the scroll from the right hand of him who sits on the throne and break the seals in the symbolism of that vision breaking the seals meant opening the scroll to bring about all the things that were in the book and all the things that are in that book are all of God's purposes for judgment and blessing for all of humankind who is going to bring God's purposes to pass and no one is found who is going to be able to do it so John weeps and utter despair all of the church experiences is futile now all of Christian experience is a joke it doesn't make sense anymore wrong may well prevail and then an interpreting angel taps his shoulder as it were and says stop don't cry look the Lion of the tribe of Judah he is prevailed to open the scroll so I looked John says and I saw a lamb it's not that you have a lion in a land part side-by-side the lion is the lamb in apocalyptic you mix your metaphors the lion is the lamb you can't draw it and the lamb is simultaneously a conquering lamb with seven horns on his head the perfection of kingly Authority but a slaughtered lamb a sacrificial lamb all put together in one complicated vision so the one who brings all of God's purposes to pass is the land and he emerges not from the outside but from the center of the throne and from then on every time God has mentioned not quite every time just about every time for the rest of the book of Revelation God is mentioned as also the lamb so we offer praise to him who sits on the throne and to the lamb there is no temple in that city for the Lord God Almighty and the lamb are its temple right through the rest of the book so this whole book is about the triumph of the land thus when do you want to have the Satan here thrown out when is the struggle taking place what is the final defeat that clears out heaven as it were what it's it's it's in the triumph of the land and of course this harks back to concrete historical events as the good news is being preached around Palestine in the first century what is it that Jesus says in Luke 10 I saw Satan falling from heaven and the ultimate culmination of that defeat is brought about by the triumph of the land so here is the occasion then for Satan's rage it's this massive conflict that has been generated which brings us to the second thing we must observe John identifies the specific reasons for this satanic rage there are three number one Satan knows his time is short verse 10 after this great ejection from heaven then I heard a loud voice in heaven say now have come the salvation and the power in the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ for the accuser of our brothers who accuses them before our God day and night has been hurled down verse 12 therefore rejoice you heavens because he's been kicked out of heaven rejoice you heavens and you who dwell in them but woe to the earth and the sea because that well the devil has gone down to you he is filled with fury because he knows that his time is short what is the secret of satan's rage against the church today is the secret that he is so powerful that this is a dualistic universe and sometimes God wins and sometimes he doesn't is that that God sometimes gets one slipped by him because he doesn't know the future very well he's doing the best he can poor chap no he is filled with fury we are told because he knows his time is short he is already a defeated foe and he lashes out like an enraged loser and that is psychologically entirely convincing consider World War two when the Red Army was already pressing through the borders of Poland the Allies and the West had cleaned out North African were pressing up the boot of Italy in three days the Allies landed 1.1 million men on the beaches of Normandy anybody with half a brain in his head could see that the war was over in terms of Matt Etienne sheer manpower money commitment resolve there was no doubt who was gonna win at that point none does that mean therefore that Hitler said whoops made a mistake and sued for peace what comes next is the Battle of the Bulge read the most recent book by Trevor Beeson on the fall of Berlin he wrote the one on Stalingrad now he's written Berlin it's just called Berlin and you see the sheer blindness and stupid of a dying regime knowing that it's defeated fighting on and fighting on and lashing out and lashing out with rape and pillage and endless disgusting war why because it's really a chance that they're gonna win still filled with fury because they know their time is short moreover his fear is restricted verse 12 therefore rejoice you heavens and you who dwell in them but woe to the earth and the sea verse 13 when the dragon saw that he'd been hurled to the earth he pursued the woman who had given birth to the male child it's as if he's now got his domain restricted and within that restricted space he's lashing out and guess who lives there look in the mirror folks his sphere is restricted and he will be barbarically cruel full of lies and murder to the very end and then on top of that his success is limited verses 14 to 17 I don't have time to take you right through these verses they're filled with Exodus typology the wings of the Eagle that come along and help to save the woman but that that doesn't mean that he quits no now he's trying to drown her in in in in perhaps a reflection of exodus 1:22 then the earth opens perhaps a reflection of number 16 31 to 33 all the symbolic language of the prophets when you pass through the waters I will be with you when you pass through the rivers they will not they will not overflow you an ongoing struggle the expression the rest of her offspring in verse 17 does not mean Gentiles as opposed to Jews but the rest apart from the child in verse 5 that is all the children of the Messianic community Jews and Gentiles who are in fact Christians are to use the language here those who obey God's commandments and hold to the testimony of Jesus do you sometimes find people asking you what do think is going to happen a 21st century there's this gonna be an easier time world evangelism and all that should you be an optimist or a pessimist now I'm neither a prophet nor the son of a prophet so I refuse to say too much along this line but I do remember the words of the master in Matthew 13 29 to 30 so let me tell you what's gonna happen the weeds and the wheat will both grow till the end there will be wars and rumors of war but the end is not yet there will be violent persecution and there will be growth and evangelism I remember reading the book by Fukuyama when it came out about 1993 remember his book it was disarmingly called the end of history Fukuyama's thesis was that with the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 the fall of the Eastern Empire then in fact the great social conflicts were coming to an end Nazism was dead now communism was just about dead which meant that Western liberal democracies were going to win oh yes he envisaged perhaps a few hundred years of regional squabbles as this little bit and that little bit sort of got sorted out and all of that but but basically history as we know it is dead because this whopping confrontation between vast ideologies is now coming to an end and there will only be one vision of where humanity should go that is a kind of liberal democratic Western vision isn't that nice god bless you go in peace and the towers fell suddenly Fukuyama was out and other analyses were in in some respects equally flawed but I recall reading as I scan Fukuyama I recall thinking either Fukuyama is right or jesus' but they're not both right it was such an optimistic naive you again isn't it it doesn't deal with the human heart you just get enough social liberal democracies in place and everything's gonna be hunky-dory what planet does he live in so in the 21st century I predict there will be Wars lots of them I'm right so far there will be evangelism some of it glorious there will be bloodshed there will be martyrdom there will be difficulty there will be challenges you know there been more martyrs in the last hundred fifty years in the previous eighteen hundred years of the church there could well be more yet in the next century and more churches established more people one to Christ to understand it Satan knows his time is short he knows his sphere is restricted and he knows his success is limited finally John specifies how Christians overcome the Satanic rage the crux is verse 11 but the set up in verse 11 in in verse 10 is immaculate the voice in tones with that with the effective throwing out of Satan from heaven now have come the salvation and the power and the Kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ you see it is the triumph of the lamb it is the Ascension and exaltation of Jesus he has returned to heaven we are told and he will rule with a rod of iron he will rule all the nations with his iron scepter now have come the salvation of the power in the kingdom of our God do we not recall that Jesus himself as he leaves in the gospel says all authority is given to me that first Corinthians 15 says that he must reign now even though it is being contested until just trample down the final enemy death itself and even the accuser of our brothers has been fundamentally destroyed how how how do they overcome so great an accuser so threatening a beast first they overcome him by the blood of the land the construction in the original does not treat the blood of the Lamb as the means but as the ground they overcome him on the ground of the blood of the Lamb the way they overcome him is by appealing to the blood of the Lamb as that which destroys the accusers accusations their appeal is to the blood of the land that is their ground the great redemptive act that loosed them from their sins in 1:5 and established their right to reign with the lamb on his throne in 5/9 is now the great redemptive act that enables them to withstand all accusations all blessings come to us because of the cross the gift of the Spirit is the downpayment of the promised inheritance eternal life enjoyed now consummated later the prospect of a new heaven and a new earth the Fellowship of the saints the communion of God's people already gathered around the New Jerusalem read Hebrews 12 it's all ours all secured by the blood of the Lamb picture two Jews with the name of Charlie and Bob those quintessentially Jewish names Charlie and Bob live in ancient Egypt just before that first Passover night and Charlie says to Bob Charlie but Bob have you dobbed your two doorposts and the lintel with the blood of this passover lamb that moses has been telling us about of course I mean Charlie you've got to understand that Moses told us that the Destroyers coming through tonight the Angel of Death himself and if we don't have the blood dogged on our door posts and lintel we could lose our firstborn son and quite frankly my little Byron is precious to me oh I know what Moses said Charlie responds and I've done it to makes a bit of a mess you know I don't know how were ever gonna get it washed off but but I've done it still there have been a lot of strange happenings around here recently I haven't I mean those flies and the frogs and all that I mean some of them were just over there you know with them but some of them have happened to you in the land of goshen it's a bit much and now they're talking about our firstborn son being wiped out and a bit of blood from a goat or I know what the Sheep isn't it oh yeah I know my wife looked after that it's a lamb on the to doorpost Lindsay yeah it's there all right but still I'm worried about my son too that night the Angel of Death passed through the land which one lost the son Charlie or Bob and the answer of course is neither because the promise did not depend on the intensity of the faith the purity of the faith the sincerity of the faith but on the object of the faith it depended on the blood that is why when we find brothers and sisters in Christ who are teetley teetering with fears and insecurities and and and and they're not convinced they're good enough or they that they've tried hard enough or that they're pure enough or they're not sanctified enough what finally is our answer to them what you've got to have better faith I mean read your Bible the loss and then you'll have stronger faith or do we point them to the blood of the Lamb then we're told they overcame Satan on account of the word of their testimony again it is on account of not means on account of this does not mean that they gave their testimony a lot I mean I'm sure that's a good idea but it's not what it means it means they gave testimony to the word that is they bore witness to the word it is on the ground of this word content of this preaching to which they bear witness this gospel material to which they bear witness that they overcome Satan himself how do we overcome forming a political party do you think that will do it constituting a new moral majority will that do it agitated constantly parading in the streets will that do it do you know brothers and sisters in Christ in my more sober moments with the kind of recovery of Abraham Kuyper I've been doing a lot more work on kuiper and I think he was a terrible danger to the church there was something attractive about him some of those utterances that have come down to us there is not one square foot on this planet where it is not said Jesus is Lord his concern that the gospel reign everywhere over everything politics and everything else there was lots of godliness to this yes yes yes but the fact of the matter his vision was that there be such a transformation of society by having a Christian government and a Christian Church and a Christian educational system Christian structures everywhere that then the children brought up in this system would what would be thought presumptively regenerated it was partly a function of their particular form of covenant theology they they nevertheless thought that with all the structures were there then then God in the mercy of the Covenant would bring along the children and then they would be presumptively saved and they stopped evangelizing and in one long generation Holland lost everything that's the heritage of a ram Kuyper we are never more than one generation away from obliteration that's not gonna happen because Jesus is Lord he's gonna build his church but we're never more than one generation away from it and what stops it as God works out his purposes in history his evangelism now again do not misunderstand me yesterday afternoon in skip back with them with with Fred's Aspel he invited in some folks from the surrounding area and some of his own folks and I was trying to lay out in one small domain some of the social ethical moral structures that we need to be thinking about in the promulgation of the gospel in our generation there isn't a talent in which we are to do good to all first of all though the household of God and when Christians have been operating rightly then they preach the gospel and they do good to all men but first of all in the household of God and they know full well that righteousness exalts a city but sin is a reproach to any people and they want to see Christ's glory promoted amongst the nation's that's all true I am not advocating a retreat to a holy outlaw but while we concern ourselves with bioethics and influencing the corridors of power in DC we'd better evangelize or we've got nothing don't tell me about all your reformed theology in your church if you're not Eve and izing I don't give a rip they overcame him on the ground of the blood of the land and they overcame him on the ground of the word of their testimony and finally by their simple willingness to die they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death and of course at their case at that time it could mean quite literal death but there is a deep principle here in any case isn't there if we're to follow this Christ at all we have to take up our cross daily Jesus has the gall to say and follow him as long as we are more concerned about our reputations than his reputation the church falters there are two applications of overwhelming importance let me simply articulate them and then you can think about them number one we must analyze our situation biblically and theologically not simply sociologically anthropologically psychologically and so on I do not misunderstand me I think all of those other tools are important I read widely in all of those areas myself I do not want you to become so bound up with a theological vocabulary that you can't talk to the person across the fence but we must nevertheless analyze our situation biblically and theologically and not simply sociologically and Luther understood it and though this world with Devils filled should threaten to undo us we will not fear for God hast willed his truth to triumph through us the Prince of Darkness grim we tremble not for him his rage we can endure for lo his doom is sure one little word will fail him and that word is what it is the gospel word second we must recognize and use our weapons the only effective weapons we have all that are based on Christ's atoning death all the authority based in proclaiming the word all the courage and integrity that emerged because death cannot frighten those who follow the Prince of life god help us

Channel: Cross to Crown Ministries

Views: 9,525

Rating: 4.8461537 out of 5

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Id: yyqhgO0LM2c

Length: 55min 37sec (3337 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 04 2015