Revelation 6-18
These chapters will take three weeks to get through. They hold the conflict part of the story. The best stories always have some sort of conflict. Those are just shadow of this story though. … C.S. Lewis was an atheist and one of the big factors in his conversion to Christianity was J.R.R. Tolkien explaining to him how all the stories he loved so much were just shadows of this one.
The forces of evil strike back against the Lamb. The key word in Revelation (nike: conquer) is used two times in this section of the forces of evil conquering God’s people. … There are three audiences the same as the previous sermons.
A red dragon seeks to destroy a male child, but Go protect the child. There is war in Heaven. The dragon is thrown down to the earth and wages war on the followers of Jesus (Revelation 12:1-5, 7-9, 13, 16-17). … The dragon is Satan, the devil. It is commonly thought that the stars he swept from the sky represent angels that followed him in his rebellion, but we don’t know that for sure. It may be symbolic that a third of the Trinity died for our salvation. … The dragon is kept from harming the child and is then hurled to the earth where he pursues the mother of the child and all her offspring. The child is Jesus and the mother is Israel. The offspring of Israel is representative of Christians.
A beast come out of the sea. He is given great power. He conquers God’s people (Revelation 13:1, 4, 7-8). … The beast represents a great political power that serves the forces of evil. In the time this book was written, it was the Roman empire. It has also been Hitler and other leaders who do the bidding of the forces of evil. Today it’s Kim Jong Un and others. There will be more, including one that is worse than all the others
A second beast comes out of the earth. He makes the earth worship the first beast. (Revelation 13:11-12, 16-7). … This second beast appears as a lamb but speaks like a dragon. It pretends to be a force of good, but points everyone to the first beast. In first century Rome, it was a priesthood that encouraged people to worship Ceaser. Today it’s churches that teach values that go against the Bible.
God appoints two witnesses to preach. The beast conquers and kills them (Revelation 11: 3, 6-7). … God will raise up two people to preach the truth, but the beast will conquer them and have a sort of Anti-Christmas.
Applications:
Evil is strong: don’t take it lightly. … 1 Corinthians 12:10 also expresses this idea. Don’t underestimate the ability of evil to take hold of you.
We are in a spiritual war. Expect to get shot at. We will lose some battles. … War is ugly and there are casualties on both sides. This won’t be easy.
There are only two sides in the battle. You must choose a side. … It’s easy to straddle the fence while the battle doesn’t appear to be affecting us, but a time is coming when that won’t be an option.
This seems a bit gloomy, but just remember our key verse: Revelation 17:14. God prevails in the end.