December 7, 2003
Revelation 12:1-9: 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 crowns on his heads. His tail swept a
third of the stars out of the sky and flung them to the earth. The dragon
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.
Let me quickly summarize some of the ground covered from this verse last
week.
This verse gives us a different picture of Christmas than we often think
of. It paints a picture of Christmas that is more like D-Day. Christmas is
no less than the invasion of a dark world, our world, by the cosmic Christ,
coming to earth as a baby born in Bethlehem.
This verse reminds us that the events we call the Christmas story, are events
that are really part of this war that is going on in heaven. There is a cosmic
war between the forces of evil, embodied in Satan and his emissaries, and
Jesus Christ, Lord of glory, Son of the Father, Light of the World, and all
of his emissaries.
As Christians, we are part of this war, whether we like it or not, whether
we recognize it or not, and whether we fight or not. We are under attack because
we are Christians.
We who have entered the kingdom of God through our confidence in Jesus now
derive our sense of purpose, meaning, and motivation from the fact that we
are in this battle. We are part of the Great Battle described here. We have
a part to play in this fight. We have battles to engage in: battles, the outcomes
of which will make a difference in our lives and the lives of others.
This battle mentality breathes through most of the instruction and revelation
of the New Testament. Sometimes it is very explicit as in I Peter 2:11, where
we read: “Dear friends, I urge you, as aliens and strangers in the world,
to abstain from sinful desires which war against your soul.”
Evil desires war against your soul. Very explicit.
But there are less explicit, more inward statements, that, when all is said
and done, are still about warfare. For instance, Paul says in Romans 7:19:
“For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want
to do – this I keep on doing.”
The link between Christmas and spiritual warfare is not, I think, just a
clever way to use Christmas as an excuse to talk about spiritual warfare.
It’s more organic than that. Christmas really is like D-Day.
In World War II, D-Day was the offensive that really turned the battle.
To be sure much important battle had taken place before this. But this was
when the Allies made a bold, risky, offensive move to take the enemy, by
moving into the enemy’s turf. This is exactly the picture Revelation gives
to us of Christmas. In the battle for human beings, Christmas marked the
bold, risky offensive when God invaded this dark human planet by sending
his Son right into the heart of enemy territory.
Think about the gospel. What you see there is what always happens whenever
there is an invasion into enemy-held territory. There is tremendous resistance.
Everywhere Jesus went, He set people free from the enemy. Demons were cast
out, sickness was healed, sins were forgiven, life and hope and dignity were
restored, and He got reactions.
Respectable religious officials felt threatened and responded by plotting
murders, punishing people who fraternized with the enemy, and casting them
out of the synagogue. Earthly kings responded by lopping off people’s heads,
by killing baby boys in an effort to perhaps destroy that one baby they feared,
and on and on.
Christmas is the D-Day that started the offensive, the push for victory,
that we are carrying out and executing today. So in an organic way, it is
appropriate to think about the warfare aspects of our lives at Christmas,
because this is when the current wave we are in began.
Last week we began talking about Satanic attack and strategy. In this cosmic
struggle we read about in Revelation, Satan is revealed as the evil entity
behind this war we are in. He hates God, and he hates what God loves the
most, which is the church. We are told he is waging war against God’s people.
In Revelation 12:1 we read: “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 hold to the testimony of Jesus Christ.”
That is us. You and I are under Satanic attack. That is the clear teaching
of the New Testament. To not take that seriously is very foolish.
I know that there are Christians who can go to extremes here, but that doesn’t
mean we must fall into the other ditch by not taking this very seriously.
Paul says that he is not unaware of Satan’s strategies. So we must not be
either.
One place in the New Testament tells us that we have specific weapons of
warfare to use both in offensive and defensive ways. I refer to Ephesians
6:10-18. This passage tells us much about the nature of our battle with Satan
and his emissaries. Turn there with me. First let’s read verses 10-13:
Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full
armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes.
For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against rulers, against
the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual
forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore, put on the full armor of
God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground,
and after you have done everything, to stand.
These words have some shock value if we really hear them. They also have
something profound to say about the meaning of our lives.
We are told from many different voices today that in essence our lives have
no ultimate meaning. We came into being by chance. We live by chance. Man
is just another animal that takes his place in the biological sojourn of planet
Earth. He will be here for a time and then he will pass away.
We are told to believe that all the impulses we feel in our souls—our love
for beauty, our love and care for one another, our love of order and planning
and creating, our innate sense of right and wrong, as well as our need to
link our lives to something beyond ourselves—are are just a delightful illusion,
or a very unfortunate delusion, depending on who is doing the talking. All
agree that it is illusory. Some counsel that the best we can do is to just
pretend that our lives really count and have meaning and significance. Some
say to eat, drink and be merry and just live for the moment because virtue
and integrity and all of that are just jokes anyway. Others, who are devastated
by their own beliefs, say to just despair and kill yourself and put yourself
out of your misery.
Paul says something very different here.
He says that our lives are linked to a cosmic battle between good and evil.
We have at our disposal God’s power. And we have an enemy who is scheming
against us to take us out–to render our lives ineffective in this battle.
We are in a great struggle. We are in a great battle, and our part of the
battle has importance for all time. It’s part of the Great Battle that God
is waging against evil and in particular this Evil One Paul calls the devil.
This means, among other things, that every morning when I wake up, I can
say to myself
I am in a battle today. I have a part to play, an important part to play,
in the battle that will ultimately matter in the abolition of evil and in
the full realization of the Kingdom of God in the age that is coming.
I will go about my routine today. But my routine is not unimportant.
For the routine duties and responsibilities are carried out on a battlefield.
My part is to reflect the love and grace of Jesus Christ today. The people
I mingle with today, whether they be my own family, or friends, or whomever,
are in this battle as well, whether they know it or not. They are on a journey
in which their souls will be shaped into something beautiful beyond my current
limitations to imagine, or something that is equally awful. I can pray to
my God today for His will to be done on earth as it is in heaven, and not
only my prayers but what I do will be a part of bringing that outcome about.
These hours that I have today matter. They matter immeasurably. And with God’s
help, I must give my full devotion to carrying my torch in this battle today.
Wow–that’s 180 degrees from our lives’ being just chance, with no real meaning.
Now imagine a soldier in Iraq, who just wanders around over there without
any equipment, all by himself, as if he were strolling through a park here
at home. That would be not only foolish, but his fellow soldiers and commanding
officer might question his sanity.
But as Christians we often wander through life that way. The picture of
our lives’ being linked to this cosmic struggle might demand a little too
much of us. Maybe it’s a little more meaning than we want. It means that
we have to be on our guard, we have to look at the events of our lives more
seriously, and we have to come to grips with the fact that we are in a battle.
Many times as Christians we are simply not willing to do this. But this does
not take us off the battlefield. This does not mean that it all goes away.
It just means that we are deceived, and we fail to do our part, and we miss
much–we miss the power of God that He wants to give to us, we miss the opportunities
to touch and help others.
We are told in these verses that the devil is scheming against us. So if
we are acting as though we are not in a battle, then we will be unaware of
his schemes, and we will be duped as to the true value and state of our lives
and our souls.
This points out one of the main strategies of Satan, especially in Western
culture today. That is the strategy to convince people that he is not really
here. He does this in a number of ways. One is to make it appear ridiculous
to believe in him, by keeping before our eyes a picture of him that is ridiculous,
or even silly.
I think it was revealing that in the days after 9-11, when we were all thinking
about the evil behind such a cowardly attack, the thing that got the most
attention was a photo in which the smoke pouring from one of the towers
took the form of the stereotypical picture of the devil.
Our minds are thus diverted to think of Satan in some ridiculous way, in
this image, instead of an entity who is powerful, clever, beguiling, and scheming.
We think of spooky smoke formations instead of the promulgation of centuries
of religious ideas that have kept people in bondage to a deep hatred, a hatred
that deceives them into thinking that they are carrying out God’s will when
all the time they are bringing forth the evil intentions of an evil entity
who hates human beings with a hatred that we can hardly fathom.
But you see the strategy. If our minds are directed toward smoke formations,
our minds are diverted from the real evil that is all around us and that can
only be explained by a deeply evil and powerful being such as the Bible speaks
of.
For the most part in Western culture, Satan’s strategy both among non-Christians
and Christians is to convince people, “I’m not really here.”
Paul makes a statement about the schemes of Satan in II Corinthians 2:13:
“…in order that Satan might not outwit us. For we are not unaware of his
schemes.”
What is the context of that statement?
Paul had encouraged the Corinthians to actually discipline a brother who
had fallen into gross and undisputed sin. He was evidently having incestual
relationships. They had followed through on this, and the man had evidently
responded with repentance. Paul in his follow up letter says this then: "The
punishment inflicted on him by the majority is sufficient for him. Now instead,
you ought to forgive and comfort him, so that he will not be overwhelmed by
excessive sorrow. I urge you, therefore, to reaffirm your love for him.”
Paul then says that to fail to forgive here is to play into the hands of
Satan. His scheme would be to overwhelm this broken and repentant man so that
he can be destroyed in a different way and to thereby keep the true grace
of God from being demonstrated.
Now, this whole situation is laden with human issues. But it’s how we handle
these very human situations that have a part in this battle. To forget about
Satan, to think that everything that happens is just generated from ourselves,
to forget that Satan wants to divide us and conquer us, means we play into
his hands. Where grace is shown and mercy is extended, Satan is thwarted and
Christ’s redemption is shown to the world.
I made reference to a situation in the student ministry of InterVarsity
a few weeks ago, in which several student leaders withdrew earlier in the
semester.
I don’t know any of the details that went on there, but certainly these
young people haven’t thought very seriously about the part Satan might be
playing behind the scenes. We forget to look at the overall outcome, the
disunity that is displayed, the harsh judgments, and so, unlike Paul, we
are unaware or naïve about his schemes.
To be sure, all of these situations are full of human facets. But if Satan
can make us forget about his scheming, we think everything is just coming
from us. We feel hurt, misunderstood, suspicious and resentful of each other.
Satan wins a victory simply because he has made us forget that he is involved.
I am not advocating looking under every rock for a demon. Next week I hope
to show how the fallen or false self is involved in this war, along with what
the Bible calls the world. But at the same time, we too often ignore the
fact that we have an adversary who is scheming against us, attacking us,
accusing us, and trying to destroy us. To pretend this is not the case is
dangerous and foolish.
Let’s go on in our passage in Ephesians and look at the first piece of armor
that Paul enumerates. Verse 14: “Stand then, firm, with the belt of truth
buckled around your waist…”
The belt tightened around the waist indicated that the soldier was prepared
for action. To slacken the belt meant to go off duty. The belt was not an
ornament but served an essential purpose. It helped keep the breastplate in
place, and the scabbard in which the sword was sheathed hung from the belt.
Truth is said to be our belt. It holds everything in place. The very reason
truth is so important is because it is in such short supply.
My good friend, himself with a degree in psychology, says there are at least
250 basic approaches to mental health, many of them contradictory at many
points.
Many of the people who are shown to be in trouble in the scriptures are
in trouble because they did not base their lives on truth.
The farmer Jesus talked about told his soul to take its ease because it
had years and years of supplies laid up. But that was not according to the
truth because the man’s soul was required of him that very night, and he
was not rich toward God.
Jesus said that the man who doesn’t live according to His word is like a
man who built his house on the sand, and the house was destroyed by the rains.
In other words, the life was not a good life, did not have a good outcome,
because it was based on ideas that did not lead it to strength and security.
It wasn’t based on truth.
We have already spoken of how many people think our lives are just chance.
There is no ultimate meaning. Such ideas are in the air we breathe. So if
we don’t take in regular doses of truth, our lives will naturally drift toward
adopting the ideas and values of everyone else.
The reason we make the preaching and teaching of God’s Word so central to
our worship is because we believe that it is necessary to have regular exposure
to truth in order to live according to the truth. So truth is a major part
of our armor.
This passage this morning is a strong reminder that we live on a battlefield.
There is a real devil. And one of the things he wants to do is dim in our
minds the unseen realities among which we live.
Where else are you going to be reminded of these unseen realities except
through this book.
E. Stanley Jones wrote many years ago: The New Testament is the inspired
record of the Revelation – the Revelation is the person of Jesus Christ. He
moves out of the pages of this Book and meets us with the impact of his person
on our persons… It is God interpreting himself to us. His interpretation of
himself is Jesus. When you expose yourself to his thinking, you expose yourself
to God. These words of the New Testament have been in such close contact
with the Word that they are vibrant with Life…
Many years ago, Atwood Kelly, professor of gynecological surgery at Johns
Hopkins, said of the truth in the Bible: “The Bible vindicates itself because
it is such excellent medicine. It has never failed to cure a single patient
if only he took his prescription honestly.”
He said, “...if only he took his prescription honestly.”
This is the other aspect of the truth. We have in the Bible truth about
God. But in that truth, if it is having an impact on us, we see truth about
ourselves also. As David said of God, “You desire truth in the inmost
parts.”
Years ago, I heard a man by the name of Archie Parrish put it this way.
“When we come to God, we must bring the real us before the real God.”
The Bible helps us to do both of those things. It helps us to see us for
who we really are. We are both humbled and encouraged by this. And it also
gives us a picture of Who God is. Not Who we would like Him to be. Not God
made up after our own image, but a true and trustworthy picture of His character,
intentions, and power. It’s like the verse in the opening lines of Hebrews
says, “In these last days he has spoken to us through the Son.”
We are to put on this belt of truth. How do we do that? By exposing ourselves
to the truth in the Bible, both the truth about Who God is and the truth about
who we are.
We do it by deciding to live a lifestyle of honesty and integrity. We do
it by asking God to help us. “Lord, show me the truths I need today. Expose
the lies I believe about myself and about You that I am not even aware of."
Like the prayer of the Psalmist, “Lead me in the truth and teach me.”
Or “May the words of my mouth, and the meditations of my heart, be pleasing
to you.”
Truth is our belt. If we are not saturated in truth, nothing else will be
right for we will be living on a wrong basis.
Returning to verse 14 of Ephesians 6, we read: “Stand firm, then, with
the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness
in place.”
The breastplate covered the body from the neck to the thighs. It was known
as the heart protector. It protected the major soft organs of the body, the
piercing of which could be lethal. It was made of bronze, but the more affluent
officers had ones made of chain mail. The Lord of the Rings comes to
mind. Remember when the Cave Troll thrust a spear that would have killed Frodo
Baggins, but it was turned aside by the strong chain mail made of mithrail./What
is being talked about by this righteousness?
Let me read to you two writings that I think paint powerful pictures of
what Paul speaks of.
First the words of Dietrich Bonhoeffer certainly apply here:
…the Christian is the man who no longer seeks his own salvation, his
deliverance, his justification in himself, but in Jesus Christ alone…The
Christian no longer lives of himself by his own claims and of his own justification,
but by God’s claims and God’s justification. He lives wholly by God’s Word
pronounced upon him whether that Word proclaims him innocent or guilty.
The death and life of the Christian is not determined by his own resources;
rather he finds both only in the Word that comes to him from the outside,
in God’s Word to him. The Reformers expressed it this way: Our righteousness
is an “alien righteousness,” a righteousness that comes from the outside of
us. They were saying that the Christian is dependent on the Word of God spoken
to him. He is pointed outward to the Word that comes to him.
…If someone asks him, “Where is your salvation, your righteousness?”
he can never point to himself. He points to the Word of God in Jesus Christ
which assures him of salvation and righteousness. He is as alert as possible
to this Word. Because he daily hungers and thirsts for righteousness, he daily
desires the redeeming Word.
And it can only come from the outside. In himself he is destitute and
dead. Help must come from the outside, and it has come and comes daily and
anew in the Word of Jesus Christ, bringing redemption, righteousness, innocence,
and blessedness.
This is a reminder that Christ has given us His righteousness. It is a gift.
In other places we are told bluntly that Christ is our righteousness.
This righteousness protects us from the deadly attacks of our accuser, who
would try to kill us with his condemnation.
It’s this protection of the breastplate of righteousness that David was
talking about when he said in Psalm 27: “The Lord is my light, and my
salvation – whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life – of
whom shall I be afraid?”
But surely the best description of what the breastplate of righteousness
is to us comes from Paul in Romans 8:28-39: And we know that in all things
God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according
to his purpose. For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed
to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.
And those he predestined, he also called: those he called, he also justified,
those he justified, he also glorified./What, then, shall we say in response
to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his
own son, but gave him up for us all – how will he not also, along with him
graciously give us all things? It is God who justifies. Who is he that condemns?
Christ Jesus, who died – more than that, who was raised to life – is at the
right hand of God and is also interceding for us. Who shall separate us from
the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or
nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written: “For your sake we face death
all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these
things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced
that neither life nor death, neither angels nor demons, neither the present
nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else
in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is
in Christ Jesus our Lord.
This was an explanation of what Paul meant by his breastplate. Notice that
Paul said he was convinced of these things. He was convinced that nothing
could separate him from God. This was the basis for his confidence. It was
to him like having a sturdy breastplate on in the middle of hand-to-hand combat.
His vitals were protected. Blows could thunder against that breastplate. And
they did. Blows that could maybe even stagger him, shake him up, but not
knock him off his feet. Stand firm then, Paul says, because of this alien
righteousness, this gift of righteousness that God has given to each of us
in Christ Jesus. Are you convinced of these things? To the extent that you
are, you are protected from the lethal blows of the enemy.