Robert L. Withers, January 15, 2021
“And they
overcame him because the blood of the Lamb, and because of the word of their
testimony, and they did not love their life even unto death.” Revelation 12:11.
Those who call
Jesus Christ their Lord are called to overcome as a way of life; whether facing
temptation, the power of sin, the forces of the present age, or the
concentrated onslaughts of the dragon, “the serpent of old who is called the
devil and Satan” (Rev. 12:9).
In Revelation
chapters two and three Jesus gives promises to those who overcome. In 21:7, the
One who sits on the throne says, “He who overcomes will inherit all things, and
I will be his God and he will be My son.” In referring to the “spirit of
antichrist,” John writes (1 John 4:4), “You are from God, little children, and
have overcome them; because greater is He who is in you than he who is in the
world.” Then of course we have Paul’s Himalayan, “But in all these things we
are super-overcomers through Him who loved us” (Romans 8:37ff).
Before we
explore the dynamics of overcoming in Revelation 12, let’s remind ourselves of
why Revelation was written:
“…the book of
Revelation is a discipleship manual, not a crystal ball. John is not a kind of
first-century Nostradamus. It is sad to see how this powerfully hope-giving
book is turned into predictor-of-the-next-horrible-thing-that-will-happen-in-the-world.
The British journalist G.K. Chesterton once quipped that “though St. John the Evangelist
saw many strange monsters in his vision, he saw no creature so wild as one of
his own commentators.”” Discipleship on the Edge, Darrell W. Johnson,
Regent College Publishing, 2004, page 380.
Regarding the two-fold
purpose of Revelation Johnson writes, “It seeks to set the present moment in all
its brokenness, violence, uncertainty in light of the unseen realities of
the future…But more importantly it seeks to set the present moment in light
of the unseen realities of the present. The fundamental conviction of
apocalyptic is “things are not as they seem.” There is more to reality that we
can know with our unaided senses and intellect and emotions. The great purpose –
the pastoral purpose – of Revelation is to open up that more and see Jesus in the
midst of it all.” Johnson, page 381.
In considering
the context of Revelation 12:11, let’s note that Satan is characterized as
deceiving the whole world and that he and his angels are “thrown down to earth”
(12:9). Let’s also consider that in 12:12 we see that while those who
tabernacle in the heavens are to rejoice because “there was no longer a place found”
for Satan and his angels in heaven (12:8); that those who inhabit the earth and
the sea are told that a great woe has come upon them, “because the devil has
come down to you, having great wrath.”
This brings us
to the first principle of overcoming in Christ in Revelation 12, let’s express
it with a question, “Where are we living?” May I ask, as you are reading this,
where are you living? What has occupied your mind today? What is your heart
holding deep within it? What are your most ardent desires? What do you want
with all that you are? What is important to you, what is vital to your sense of
well-being?
Revelation 12
presents us with a choice of where we are going to live; the heavens, or the
earth and the sea? Just as Jesus says that we cannot serve two masters, for if
we try we will hate one and love the other, so we cannot live in two different
realms, our residence cannot be in two countries, we cannot be citizens of the
City of God and the city of this world, we cannot serve the kingdoms of this
world and the Kingdom of God – we must choose, by the grace of Christ, where we
will live; where we will focus our minds, our thoughts, what our hearts will
desire and entertain, into what we will invest our souls.
Will we worship the
Father and the Lamb in the heavens, or will we worship the things of this age?
What we desire we worship, and we will be transformed into the image of
that which we worship…make no mistake about this.
Let’s look at
the dangerous reality of living on the earth first, then we’ll focus our
affection and attention on Christ above.
“Woe to the
earth and sea dwellers, because the devil has come down to you, having
great wrath” (12:12). In verse 11 the overcomers are not overcoming a nebulous
evil, they are not confronting a scattered dominion of darkness of various hues
and shades; it is clear that they are overcoming “him,” the dragon, the
serpent, the devil, Satan – they are overcoming the head of the evil system
that arrays itself against the true and living God and enslaves humanity. It is
not the general army of the Philistines that we face, but rather Goliath.
This very
serpent is pictured as being cast down to the earth, and being cast down to the
earth it will feed on the people who live on the earth. The serpent is pictured
in Genesis as eating dust, certainly a facet of this dust is fallen humanity;
in Revelation this is particularly the old humanity in rebellion against God
and the Lamb. The sea speaks to us of roiling humanity, chaotic humanity, in which
the serpent has his way until his defeat is consummated.
The serpent
feeds off the earth-dwellers, and he teaches the earth-dwellers to feed off himself.
Can you see that this question of where we live is critical to us if we desire
to be overcomers? If we live on the earth we will be consumed by the dragon.
When I ponder
what is occurring in our society and especially the professing church, when I
see Christians functionally repudiating the Gospel and Christ by advocating
violence and idolatry; I see people living on the earth, consuming the serpent
and being consumed by him. When I see professing Christians consumed by political
and economic agendas, when I see them glued to media talking heads, seduced by
conspiracy theories, enthralled by preachers who give them what they want; I
see earth-dwellers being consumed by the one who feeds off dust.
Contrast this
way of death with the Way of Life in Jesus Christ. “Therefore, if you have been
raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is,
seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind on the things above, not on
the things that are on earth. For you have died and your life is hidden
with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will
be revealed with Him in glory.” (Colossians 3:1-4).
We are either
fixing our minds on the things above, or on the things that are on earth; we
are either living in the heavens in Christ, or we are living as earth-dwellers.
Paul writes that
when God made us alive in Christ, that He “raised us up with Him [Christ], and
seated us with him in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus.” (Ephesians 2:4 – 6).
Where are we living? Are we abdicating our position in the heavenlies in Christ
Jesus? Are we trading our birthright for dust?
In Romans 12:1 –
2 we are taught that we are to present ourselves as living and holy sacrifices
to God, not as sacrifices to this present age. We are not to be “conformed to
this world,” but rather “transformed by the renewing of our minds.” Are we
feeding off dust and the serpent, or off the One that bids us eat His flesh and
drink His blood (John Chapter 6)?
As we behold Christ
we are transformed into His image from glory to glory (2 Cor. 3:17 - 18), for when our eye is single our body is filled
with light (Matt. 6:22 – 23). However, if our eye is fractured, if it is consuming
the images of the earth, then it will be consumed by the earth’s images, images
propagated by the dragon. We cannot consume the provender of the dragon
with impunity; we will be engulfed with the collective insanity of the present
age – an insanity more hideous within the professing church than without it.
Where are we
living? Where am I living? Where are you living?
If I should
write you a letter or send you a card, will the zip code be the 666 of the
enemy, or that of the Father and the Lamb (Rev. 13:18 – 14:5)?
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