Series: The Arrival

David Stockton

We’re all looking for good news these days. And all you have to do is turn on your tv and go to CNN and Fox and find all the good news you want, right? No. Yet we Christians have the best news of all. First, we have the best news because it has been verified by years of prophecies fulfilled, years of lives transformed, years of unmatched historicity and mountains and mountains of proof that Jesus of Nazareth was born of a virgin, crucified for the sins of the world, and rose from the dead in order to set humanity free from the curse of sin and death. That’s just the first reason we have the best news of all. And second, because of the news of the deeply gripping and wonderfully coherent future that Christianity present.

We’re going to dive into that a little bit today. We’re going to dive into it a little in our Christmas Eve service. But there’s something about the promise of what’s to come in Christianity that is very different from all the other promises. It’s deeply, deeply coherent with the reality of humanity’s pain. It doesn’t just wave a magic wand over it. It doesn’t just talk about an escape from it all. And sometimes we can fall into thinking that, but that’s not what the gospel presents. That’s not the good news. It’s way deeper than that, way more wonderful than that.

So we’re going to dive into some of that today as we talk about the first advent, as Jesus came, also knowing that Jesus promised to come again. So since we’ve spent five and a half months looking at the Apostle John’s account looking at Jesus’ life in the flesh, I thought it would be good to look at another of John’s writings where he helps us see Jesus in a whole other light. The book called Revelation.

So let’s read basically another depiction of the Christmas story from John in his apocalyptic book called the Revelation of Jesus Christ.

12:1 A great 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. 2 She was pregnant and cried out in pain as she was about to give birth.

So Christmasy, right? This is awesome.

3 Then another sign appeared in heaven: an enormous red dragon with seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns on its heads. 4 Its 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 it might devour her child the moment he was born.

Merry Christmas! It took a little turn there.

5 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. 6 The woman fled into the wilderness to a place prepared for her by God, where she might be taken care of for 1,260 days.

Okay, so, it’s a little bit more Christmasy. Not much.

7 Then war broke out in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back. 8 But he was not strong enough, and they lost their place in heaven. 9 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.
10 Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say:
“Now have come the salvation and the power
    and the kingdom of our God,
    and the authority of his Messiah.
For the accuser of our brothers and sisters,
    who accuses them before our God day and night,
    has been hurled down.

Again, starting to sound like good news. Starting to sound pretty positive. The Book of Revelation trying to give us this insight. Now, John, as he was writing this was living in a time where the world that he lived in was not very wholesome. It was not right. Roman oppression, Roman domination, Roman leadership had become absolutely horrific in many different ways. The persecution that had come to the Jews and to the Christians was prolific. Many were being killed. It was a really dark time, a really twisted time in a lot of ways. So John is writing to encourage other believers.

He’s writing to encourage Christians, but he’s not using promises like, “Hey, it’s going to be all right.” Because many of them were being killed in horrific ways. He wasn’t writing to them to just say, “You know, keep on singing, keep on praying and the Lord will keep you from all pain and agony.” Because that wasn’t what was taking place at all.

So what he was writing to them was trying to help them see a little bit bigger, broader picture of what God could do, what God was willing to do.

There’s a guy named Michael Kruger. And I like the way he wrote a little bit about eschatology. Eschatology is basically the study of final things. He wrote:

Christian eschatology recognizes that there is currently something very wrong with the world. It is a place that is filled with sadness, cursed by sin, groaning as it awaits its redemption, and in the final consummation, those sad things will be made untrue. The curse will be rolled back. The world will be changed.
Eschatology is not so much about millennial positions or the structure of Revelation, but is primarily about…how one deals with the sad things in the world.
And at the Christian worldview, I believe, has a compelling and coherent eschatology. It can explain why the world is the way it is (the Fall), it can provide a definition of evil (violation of God’s law), and it can provide a real hope for the future (God will destroy evil and set all things right).
For this reason, eschatology is not a topic that should be reserved for theologians or scholars. It is a topic for every Christian, and, for that matter, every person. We all live in a dark world, and there is no message more relevant to those living in a dark world than a message about how that world will one day be changed.
—Michael J. Kruger, N.T. Professor

So when we have this book of Revelation, I know we’re reading this and even me, I mean I spent a lot of time just trying to say, “Okay, Revelation 12, where does this happen in the timeline of eschatology? How does this fit in with everything? Is this really a depiction of what was taking place in Bethlehem that night? Is it much broader than that? Is it actually this kind of second thing that will happen later on? What is going on?”

Again, all of that can be a fun study, but, ultimately, what John is trying to do is he’s trying to remind us that God is in control, and that the devil is at work, and yet, God can thwart the plans of the devil.

We’ll get into some more of this. But, actually, in this time, what he’s saying here is, “Now has come the salvation, and the power of the kingdom of God, and the authority of Christ. Because the accuser of the brethren has been hurled down.”

There’s going to be this time where there’s kind of this rising of evil, but it will always be followed with the mercy and victory of Christ. The rising of evil, any time it comes it will always be overcome by the authority and power and glory of Christ. You kind of see this in Revelation, these ebbs and these flows going on.

One thing we need to see here in verse 11 is how they overcame him:

11 They triumphed over 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.

So this is really good news about God dealing with unrighteousness. It’s really good news about the salvation of the Lord coming. But for the people of God, the way that they overcome all of these things is through the blood of the Lamb, which we sing about at this point as a beautiful, wonderful thing; but at first, it was a cross. And it was wounds, and it was pain, and it was agony.

And then they share their testimony. The word of their testimony, which is basically how God has shown up and helped them overcome things in their lives. So even in there you have the pain of the way things were, and the joy of the way things are. And on this side you can have that joy and rejoice, but on that side it just feels a lot like pain and things are wrong.

And they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death. Basically these were people that sought the Lord not for their comfort and ease, but they sought the Lord for his glory and the salvation of the people around them.

I was very nervous as I was studying this week, because I ultimately realized that the message I’m going to share today is probably not going to be well received by people who are seeking the Lord for comfort and ease. And I’m a little nervous sometimes, being an American and knowing my own heart, and living among Americans and knowing their hearts, that sometimes our whole Christianity is just about seeking the Lord for comfort and ease. If that’s what we stick with, Christianity is going to be very disappointing for us. And even more so, Jesus is going to be very disappointing.

But if we’re seeking first his kingdom and his righteousness, if we’re seeking the Lord for his glory and the salvation of the world around us, Christianity will be very fulfilling.

12 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.”
13 When the dragon saw that he had been hurled to the earth, he pursued the woman who had given birth to the male child. 14 The woman was given the two wings of a great eagle, so that she might fly to the place prepared for her in the wilderness, where she would be taken care of for a time, times and half a time, out of the serpent’s reach. 15 Then from his mouth the serpent spewed water like a river, to overtake the woman and sweep her away with the torrent. 16 But the earth helped the woman by opening its mouth and swallowing the river that the dragon had spewed out of his mouth. 17 Then the dragon was enraged at the woman and went off to wage war against the rest of her offspring—those who keep God’s commands and hold fast their testimony about Jesus.

And then it goes on to talk a little bit more about the dragon. And we’ll get to maybe some of that in the weeks to come. But basically what I want to see here is that there’s a lot of good news in this depiction from Revelation 12. The three things I want us to draw out here, we’re going to spend our time on these things:

1. The devil cannot thwart the plans of God concerning you.

The devil is at work. He is an adversary. The word Satan means adversary. The word devil means accuser. All the accusation and all the adverse things you experience in your life, the devil is at work in the world. He was at work in Jesus’ day. Even calling himself the god of this world who could give all the kingdoms of the world to Jesus. He said in this, “to lead the whole world astray.” And you can see the works of the devil everywhere in these days. The deception, the pride, the evil, the injustice. The devil has great influence in the world today. However, no matter how great his influence, God has a way. He always provides a way of escape.

Here you see in here the dragon tries to destroy the baby but fails. He tries to destroy heaven but fails. He tries to destroy the woman but fails. He tries to destroy the woman’s offspring, but if you read ahead beyond this chapter, this doesn’t work either. When we apply this to where this could be speaking of Jesus’ birth there in Bethlehem, we can see the devil tried to get Jesus to be killed by influencing Herod, as he did a massacre of all the two-year-old baby boys and yet failed. And he meets Jesus in that wilderness to try to tempt him after he hasn’t eaten for forty days. He tries to influence him and yet he fails. And then there on that cross he influences the Romans, he influences the Jews, and they turn against the. Savior of the world and they have him crucified, thinking to get rid of him forever. But even that failed.

If Jesus went through that kind of difficulty, if he went through that kind of hatred, if he went through that kind of adversarial reality, we have to know that that’s going to be us, too, who follow after him. But we can take heart. We can rejoice in the good news that, just like all the times in the past, nothing is going to change. No weapon formed against you shall prosper, in the name of Jesus.This is very good news for us, especially as we see evil seem to be on the rise, and the confusion and deceit. And people instead of, in moments like this, turning to the Lord, they turn further into humanistic ideologies. We can rejoice. Like 2 Peter 2:9 says:

…the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials…

The second thing that is really good news in here is

2. Jesus Christ is the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and end.

So here, when it says about this man child that was born. That she gave birth to a male child who will rule all the nations with an iron scepter. This kind of harkens back to this first time when there was a woman in a garden. Then there appeared a serpent in that garden. And there was this interaction, right? Just like there was here. It’s kind of like John is basically, and I heard this from Dan Riccio. He was talking about how in Revelation, John is using the colors of the Old Testament to paint this apocalyptic prophecy. You have this stuff woven in so much. Here you have the same thing. In that moment, once again, there was this curse that was laid upon humanity; but even in that curse, God said to the woman that “Your offspring is going to crush the head of the serpent.”

Here is this promise that the one who was born was going to rule with an iron scepter. The picture of that iron scepter is basically that, “This one will rule forever.” That iron is something that can’t be destroyed. That iron is something that can’t be challenged. Ultimate authority. Everlasting authority. And it’s going to be so refreshing when Jesus finally takes command of everything and crushes the serpent head and becomes that unbreakable, everlasting King. Not a king who will die someday or be defeated; not a king who can be bribed, corrupted or deceived; but an everlasting King.

I love this. In 2 Thessalonians 2:8, it says:

8 And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will overthrow with the breath of his mouth and destroy by the splendor of his coming.

Sometimes we think that there’s this rivalry between God and Satan going on. Like, who’s really going to win, you know? What’s really going to happen? But there is no rivalry between God and Satan. Satan is a created being, and God is eternal, unlimited, sovereign over everything.

So in 2 Thessalonians, we’re told that, when Jesus does appear, when he returns, he’s going to destroy the lawless one. He’s going to destroy all evil with the breath of his mouth and the splendor of his coming. Again, I just think about Kung Fu Panda every time. He just fights so many battles with just his majesty. It’s just like, “Bing” and everybody’s done.

But it’s true. When Jesus shows up, it’s not going to be a battle. It’s just going to be over. So we can rejoice in the good news that Jesus Christ has conquered everything and can never be conquered. It’s just a matter of time.

And then the last thing that we really can see in here, and this is a little deeper. It’s going to take a little brainwork for 8:00 am service.

3. Where sin and evil abound, God’s grace and goodness abound much more.

This is a consistent theme throughout the scriptures, and especially in the book of Revelation. That when you see evil on the rise, you shouldn’t be afraid. In fact, when you see a lot of evil, don’t think evil is winning, just remember the devil is raging because his days are numbered. When you see a lot of evil, don’t think evil is winning, but know God is purging the world of all unrighteousness. He’s waking up the nation Israel. He’s shaking up the heathen so they can know him. He’s making up a kingdom of priests out of those who follow Jesus.

And when you see a lot of evil, don’t think evil is winning, but rejoice because God can turn evil into something really good. If God can undo death, what else is he planning to undo? If God can make something beautiful and triumphant out of a cross, what beauty and triumph will he make out of my pains and agony? This is where our minds are supposed to go as believers, when sin and evil abound. We can know that grace is on the verge of abounding much more.

I think about this with my daughter, Bella. I remember this moment in her life where she was learning how to swim. My daughter, Bella, if you don’t know, she has really no feeling or function from her knees down. She has something called Spina Bifida. She’s in a wheelchair and she can’t walk. She can’t do a lot of things. So when she was first learning to swim, she just thought this was something she couldn’t do. Then little by little, she was learning more and more and more. And then she could swim. It was so funny to see this kind of trigger happen in her mind, where all of a sudden, she was like, “If this thing I couldn’t do is something I can do, then what else out there I can’t I do that I actually can do?”

It was just this moment of confidence. It was this shift that happened in her little heart. And all of a sudden the world wasn’t full of so much doom, dread and disappointment. But now it was full of stuff that, “I just need to overcome.” There was a massive shift in her heart and mind. I’ve seen her overcome so many other things now.

I think that’s what John is trying to get through to us. Because it’s very easy to see the evil. It’s very easy to get overwhelmed and think, how are we going to see any good change out there in our world, and our government, in our society and then, if we’re honest, right here in our own hearts and souls?

But then that’s where we look at Jesus and we look at his life, and we look at what he’s done and what he can do. Then we look at the others around us, or in the scriptures, or even around us today, and we start to see what God can do. And we think, well, if he can do it there, maybe, just maybe, he could do it right here.

That’s the hope that’s supposed to give rise. That’s the good news of the gospel, that where sin and evil abound, God is not turning away. He’s not saying, “Forget it.” He’s actually making a plan to show and reveal that his grace can abound much more.

So there’s this illustration I want to share with you guys that’s been helpful for me in unpacking this concept. I’ve said things like, “Everything sad will come untrue,” which is as quote from Lord of the Rings. It’s a nice thought about everything sad coming untrue. And I do believe that the gospel declares that in a lot of ways. But there’s only one little problem with that. It’s funny, my wife was telling me, “I don’t like when you say that.” I was like, “I say that all the time. Why didn’t you tell me that earlier?”

But the whole idea of coming untrue, and I do think you give us enough time on the other side, that we really won’t even remember the really horrible things that happen to us here. So in that sense, yes, but what the gospel does is, it’s not trying to just make those things untrue. So here’s the illustration:

I heard a pastor talk about this stool that he had. It was kind of like a family heirloom, this wooden stool that they had. It was a special thing and he put it in a special place in his house. He came one day and his son had taken nails and nailed them into the stool, a whole bunch of nails into the stool. And he was upset about it. When the kid saw how upset he was, and realized what he had done, this kid was crying. So he took the kid and he said, “It’s okay. We can pull the nails out.”

He was using this illustration to say you can pull the nails out, but the scars of sin still remain. And though that is absolutely true, what you sew you will reap, I’ve always just kind of played with this analogy in all of my theological thinking and said, “Okay, God what is the good news of the gospel? Is it just that you can remove nails and then we’re left with the consequences the rest of our life, staring us in the face? Or is your gospel, is your forgiveness so deep that it actually pulls out the nails and, in time, removes the scars? Is that what your gospel is trying to say?”

And I think in some ways there is some of that. There is healing. There is recovery. But even then, I think that’s still way too cheap of an understanding of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Because, ultimately, what God does is different. And we see this in the life of Christ. Jesus was pierced like that stool was. And Jesus, when he rose from the dead, he was the first fruits of this New Creation. He was now in this glorified state. We talked about it last week, maybe? A couples of weeks ago? Resurrection. We talked about it two weeks ago—resurrection. Jesus rose and he was glorified. His body wasn’t in the tomb. So somehow his glorification incorporated his body, but it was something different, obviously, because they couldn’t quite recognize him. But then they could recognize him. But if you remember, he still had the scars. He still had the scars.

So the glorification, the resurrection life that he entered into, wasn’t something where all the scars were gone. But those scars no longer represented what they used to represent. When he was given those scars, it represented pain and agony and sin, because he died for our sin and evil because he was crucified as an innocent person. That’s what they represented.

But in this glorified situation, now what those things represented was the New Covenant. They represented how much God really loves us. We sing about those scars. We sing about the cross now. Not in the same way that we would have back then. We sing about it as this beautiful thing, as this meaningful thing, as this demonstration of God’s love. Those scars were redeemed.

Not only that, but those scars actually meant something very significant to Thomas, who was locked up in fear and doubt and confusion. And those scars, instead of getting rid of those scars, those scars became a useful thing to help Thomas finally get free and to get forward in his relationship with God.

Then in Revelation, time and time again, when we see Jesus, we see him as the Lamb that was slain. Somehow the most horrific moment in human history, the most evil injustice that was ever done, is the way that we see Jesus in the end.

I think the reason for that is because, when we see Jesus and we see those scars, we’re never going to have to wonder where we stand with him. Those scars are actually going to become the most important sign in all of heaven, that we belong, that we are welcome. It’s like whenever my wife sees my ring or I see the ring on her finger, I know where we stand.

This is applied into my life, a number of times. Whenever someone comes to me and asks me to meet with them because they have suicidal thoughts, or they have a loved one that is. And you would think that’s a little weird, except that for I’m a pastor. But that’s not why they’re asking me, because I’m a pastor, because I seem so wise. They’re asking me because my dad took his life when I was twenty years old.

And in those moments, it’s so interesting to sit before someone and they’re like, “Hey, could you relive all your pain for me?” And I’m like, “Oh, yeah.” They’re not really asking that. They don’t know what they’re asking. They’re just hurting and they’re saying, “Hey, I could use some help.”

And I remember, I always have this conversation with the Lord. “I don’t want to do this. I don’t want to kind of like pull the scab off and start bleeding again.” But Jesus just asked me if I will. And I see the scars on his hands and I say, “I’m happy to, Jesus.”

So Jesus takes those scars, those things that are so horrific, and he actually can turn them into something so meaningful and helpful for the people around us. That is the gospel of Jesus Christ. It’s not some magic wand that just kind of erases. It’s way deeper than that. It’s a deeper magic from the dawn of time, as C.S. Lewis would say.

And if you will give your life—the good, the bad and the ugly—to Jesus; and you will let him work day after day, month after month, year after year, he will remove the things, remove the sin that is causing all of the pain. He will bring healing to what needs healing. But even better than all of that, he will use your scars. He will use your hurts to bring him glory, which is what we were made to do; and to help others know his love, which will change their forever.

That’s the power of the gospel. That’s the good news of Jesus Christ. That’s why Jesus came into this world. Not just to give us a nice Christmas story, but to defeat the dragon. To break the curse and make it possible for us to be glorified forevermore. Let’s pray:

Jesus, we thank you so much that it’s just not surface-y, it’s not some sort of like magical or done-up-with-a-bow type thing that you came to give us; but you gave us something so deep, so profound, so rich, that for many, it’s hard to believe. But for those that you are saving, Lord, it is everlasting life. And so, Lord, I pray that you would help us this morning to believe. You would help us to offer you every part of our lives, to not hide anything from you.
And I pray that, somehow, your good news, your gospel, your love would penetrate deeper into our souls, Lord. And I do pray you would teach us, Lord, teach us how to use the hurts and the scars and the pains to bring you glory. Thank you, Lord. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

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