SIGNAL CHURCH CAPE TOWN
Dave Child :- Jesus: Jesus And The Dragon Pt.19
So we are going to Revelation 12. It used to recently just rip to the Book of Revelation. You have your amazing book. Revelation, like, read that book and it looked like, I don't know, it looked like. The book of Revelation is wild, and that's because it was written as an apocalyptic book, and it was written at a time where people had a worldview that understood the supernatural. So we are going to talk about Jesus and the dragon, but I just want to say you might be wondering if you were like, what is the name of it, lies and dark and dragons and devil. And you know, we live in a culture that might object as by us, rationalism. If you do any sailing on Western culture, like, you go back to it, it was called enlightening it, when like, rationality and reason and financing it, and it's like, if we can explain it, if we can define it, if we can measure it, then that is the epitome of what defines the things that we believe and understand. But I don't know if any of you guys have noticed, like, the rational approach to the Western world is not really working, and these are the things in what's called the meaning crisis. Anyone like aware of that, with the young or old. And so people have lived their lives, their whole lives have been like, wow, I can understand the world, I can live in this world that makes rational sense. The world is getting better, like, everything's just going to keep getting better, like, society, democracy, everything, and then, like, code. And like, everything that's happening around the world, it's like, what is going on? But actually, there's a search for meaning that has to reach out beyond the confined lives and their lives. And so people are desperate for something that is other and beyond them, the transcendence. Like, it's not enough to just, like, be able to live your life and know what everything from this device, and, you know, connect the people all around the world. Like, people are searching for something, like, you may have heard of Jordan Peterson, whatever your views on them are. Look, he actually became famous when he did a lecture series on Genesis on YouTube, and each of those lectures have, like, probably about half to six million views. Why are the people watching some psychologist speaking about Genesis? Because people are desperate for something that is beyond it. Have you guys, like, looked at what movies are out taking a look? Like, and serious, after the dragon, yeah, I haven't watched it, but it's coming out. Dead cool, exorcism, the watches, kingdom-independent, eggs, a quiet place, mad night through your view, you know, all series that are either, like, obsessed with the supernatural, obsessed with the failure, obsessed with something that is not of this world, like, it's, like, there's no better, like, there's no story people want to tell about this, what people are desperate to tell the story about, some other world with some hands, it's, like, it's everywhere we go. Okay, well, I'll convince myself. And there's an obsession with, there's an obsession with psychedelics. Why do you think people are obsessed with psychedelics? If they want to experience the consent themselves, it gets an out of their mind to experience something that's beyond it. And I promise you that Jesus is better than in psychedelic good, than we take. We do regulations probably with me, let's just, we're actually in a radius, otherwise we're going to do it, at the time, the woman and the dragon. So, a revelation called one of my minutes in the weeks is a whole passage, I mean, it's like one or two old brush strokes on whatever it means, because we're still in the same thing, we're still in the same thing, we're still in the same thing of Jesus, so it's, not about trying to understand regulations, it's about seeing Jesus as a truly Lord. And a great sign appeared in heaven, a woman clothed with a sun with a moon under her feasts and on her head a crowned 12 stars, she was pregnant, it was crying out in the birth pains and the agony of giving birth. And another sign appeared in heaven, behold, the great, great dragon with seven heads and ten horns and on his head seven diagrams, not like a little bird, like a little chirpina. This tale swept down a third of the stars of him and he cast into the earth and the dragon had stood before the woman who was about to infer, so that when she bore her child, you might devour it, she gave birth to a male child over one who is to rule all the nations as the rod of iron, but her child was caught up to guard into his throne and the woman fled into the wilderness, which she had a place of head by guard in which she had to be known for 1,200 and 60 days, with seven in it, what's that? Now war opened heaven, Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon and the dragon and his angels fought back, I don't feel like I can rule the rest, but he was defeated and there was no longer any place for them in heaven and the great dragon who was thrown down, that ancient serpent who was called the devil and Satan and the deceiver of the whole world, he was thrown down to earth and his angels were thrown down with them, and I heard a loud voice and came in saying, "now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his trust have come." For the accuser of our brothers, the dragon has been thrown down, who accuses him day and night before our God, that's what the enemy does, and they have conquered him by the blood of the land, or the word of the testimony, for they have not loved their lives, you meant to death, therefore rejoice, thank him, and you dwell in them, but woe to you, open and see, for the devil has come down to you, great rod, because he knows that it's time and short. There's a light on his hand to take up the dragon and his angels, thrown to earth in the last place, verse 13 to 17, and when the dragon saw that he had been thrown down to earth and pursued the woman who'd given birth to the male child, but the woman who's given the two wings is a great New York, so she made a fly from the surface into the wilderness as a place where she used to be nourished for a time and time and half of a time. The serpent pulled water up like a river from his mark after the woman had to sweep her away with the plant that the earth means that the help of the woman and the earth opened his mark and swallowed the river that the dragon had poured from his mark. This is the battle, hasn't it? Then the dragon became furious with the woman and went off to make war on the rest of her on those feet if a man wants to go out and ultimately take some of the genes and he stood in the sand to see the words of the Lord, and to see the words of the Lord. And to see the words of the Lord, I'm going to have a very good picture on that, I'm going to have a very good picture on that, I'm just going to stop this man and get it. So what they hear? When we read the book of Revelation, it's not Revelation, it's no plural, it's the book that actually starts in Revelation 1 where John ran to assist the Revelation of Jesus Christ. So this is a revealing of who Jesus is, it's not written to us, it is before us. That you're written to seven churches who are like really under persecution and the rebel rule, and it's written as Revelation action in the Greek is the word apocalyptos, which we get the word apocalyptos on, so the form of the writing is the apocalyptos and type of writing that we were understood. So when you read it, you actually have to feel aware, firstly, like thousands of years between women to Britain and France, so you don't pick this up and read it like it's a newspaper. You don't do that to Shakespeare, like this is a very specific type of literature. And so it's not really this morning, it's not really about a bit of understanding of Revelation, but getting a lens of Jesus through what happens. This is the Revelation of Jesus Christ, it says, John Zippon in chapter 1, he is the author of the media, it is the beginning and the end. So this is all about Jesus, when you meet Jesus, you meet your beginning, and when you meet Jesus, you meet your end, wherever you are in your last today, Jesus was there before and it's going to be the end. So when you meet him, you meet the beginning and the end of your last. Your story is not over, you can bring something to completion. It's the end of everything that's been worked out, it's been worked out to Jesus in 15 seconds. He said, this is the first one from a man out there. So what happens in this passage, I'll just give you a brief overview. But essentially in the first part, you've got the woman, the dragon, who's the woman? That's Mary. So the woman is actually symbolic, the Catholic Church is also Mary, most scholars all, but the woman in the book of Revelation is the people of Israel. So when it says that she had a crown of 12 stars, it's about the whole tribe of Israel, and Joseph had a dream about his tall brothers, it's very similar to what John talks about here. So what John is doing when he's writing Revelation, he's having this encounter with Jesus, but he's also referencing his sorry literature that the Jews would have read. So if you read Revelation 12 and you read Daniel chapter 9, they're very, very similar. So he's actually using imagery and numbers and descriptions that are due in the first century, but it'd be like ah, that's decorated as before, ah, that's Daniel chapter 9. So it's almost like he's painting the picture, and then we know these images that are pointing the fact that Jesus promises that it happened before. So that's how it was supposed to read. So the woman is the book of Israel, the child, some of the book of people as well, the child is the Messiah Jesus, and we know the dragon from verse 9 says, the great dragon was thrown down and intercepted, it's called the devil, which is the flounder, the Satan, as a time of the accuser, the deceivant of the whole world is the dragon. And so essentially what happened, you've got a little slide, that's what you call it, picture of the selenated dragon with tin saw as it says that he had, on his head he had seven dragons, so the picture is the dragon is the one who's trying to take power. Can you imagine, like, think about Mary, and I think there isn't elements where the woman is married. Think about it. She's the young Jewish woman, she's about to get birth, and you've got this dragon breathing down, as soon as that baby comes out, I'm going to sentence and take it away. This is like the intensive seed with which the devil hates seeds, and the purposes of God. So when we talk about social warfare, it is helpful to have this human Jewish dragon, because it's like he just wants to kill and seal and destroy, with all his minds, and it's intensive, he's a slaughter, he is the deceivant of the whole world. And so if you think that we live in a world that is just like rational, and we can just talk to readers that you're truly keeping down, and as soon as we realize that the devil himself is real, there's a spiritual world, and we are in it in this battle. And so what John talks about in the first seven verses, you just go to the next, so it's not real, in the first section he has frustrated Satan, in the second section he has defeated him, and in the third section he is a greatest. So when Jesus comes, you first frustrate Satan because he's going to be the birth of a child, and he wants to devour us, and if you remember what happens when Jesus was born, King Herod says, every child on the tomb, it puts his head. And so you actually see in that a really interesting dynamic of what happens between the spiritual forces and what happens when they're born. So there's like a spiritual dynamic to what happens, like that enemy wants to take after Jesus, but there's a king who actually physically gets upset about something that happens and he issues the creed, and so you can see that what happens in the spiritual happens in the spiritual and our world. So often when you see things happening in the world, we don't have to say like, "Oh, it's really vivid." But there's this spiritual, we're going to have to ask these children to party, we're actually trying to think the king and the god, and they will use people, they will use systems, they will use ways in the world to try to accomplish that. So when we look at things like our elections, we look at things happening in our country, that's why we set a party, we try to do things, because fundamentally the root is that as spiritual dynamic, and we are obviously living in the lived after dynamic on the earth. So when the king and god comes, when we start to establish a church, like Signal, in take time, as anyone felt like they had a little of operational opposition or something that they'd been facing in the last humanity, you're welcome to raise your hand high. But a lot of us in the room, why are we the enemy he wants to take out Jesus, not want to take out this church, not want to take your life. And this is not just rich here, or intimidation, but just to say, like, we're living in the battle. And when we're aware of them, that's what we get on our knees. And we say, this battle is not against lifted by a force, and it's against cows, and totalitarian authorities, in the heavenly realm. So when we pray, we actually have, as far as the weapons of the warfare, have the divine power to the soil. Open my bank as well. And the second party of defeat that saves me, and what you know what I find so interesting is that it says, Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon, the dragon and his angels fought back against the kingdom, and there was no other place in him. So we think like God, verse, the devil, no, no, God wasn't himself, this is the devil that's Michael and his angels, and Michael and his armies are the kings of the devil, but God is like, in comparable in his power and his greatness. He isn't match the enemy, if Michael and his angels can take up the devil of his angels, like how God is so great, you can go back to the flag before the kingdom, verse 1, John 3, verse 8 says, forever makes a practice of sinning above the devil, from the devil and sinning from the beginning. The reason the son of God, Jesus, the child, the sorry, appeared, was to destroy the works of the devil. Jesus is trying to destroy the works of the devil. That means that way to destroy it actually means to lose it, to free it, to untie people's peace. The Bible says that the kingdom of God is also, or violence, and false, or violent, and false. But you know what happens, is that Jesus doesn't need to use sports. And violence to take up the enemy. The way they take him as, is way, way, way better than us. And the three verse team again says, I've heard a lot of voices him in saying, salvation power, kingdom of my God, and the authority of Christ has come. For the accused of our brothers have been thrown down, for accused in their life before I go out. They are conquered him by the blood of the land, by the word of it is sinned, for they have not loved their lives as a sinned. Now Jesus defeated the enemy of the blood of the land, going to any movie, any story of a battle, and the victor, if he's coming in blood, he'll be covered in blood, but one that you're just still. But our victor is not covered in the blood of anyone else who's covered in the land. Because you share this life for the omniscience, the way that Jesus undoes the work of enemies to lay its life down. It says, I lay my life down for my enemies. So we overcome the enemy by the blood of the land. When the revelation says you come to our horse looking at blood, it's not the blood of the enemy who says his own blood, any shit. When the enemy comes to you, it says he accuses day and night, night and day before I go out. He is the accuser. He is the accuser. When you ever you see accusation, you see the same language as the enemy. So if you ever want to accuse someone, that's the voice of the enemy, and he comes to you and he just comes and he says, I'm not too like, you can have a text, leave, like, look at his spectra, this is a friend, then ask, you know, remember what happened 10 years ago in your life. And you'll just come and you'll accuse day and night before God will accuse you of what you've done. And I'm here to tell you that we need to take the truth of who Jesus says we are and we need to stand in. We need to put ourselves in community and a man, but another, a few girls says we are because that's spiritual. Is that how many? The blood of the land, the word of the testimony. No, your testimony has power to conquer the enemy. Your testimony is like, if God has done it for me, you can do it for you. You stand in my life and so I give it away for free to you. And it's not just the word of your testimony of what you have said, but every time God does something in your life and you share it, you just take another spark with the enemy. Share what God has done. Tell the stories of the good that's gone in your life. Tell me what God said in your life. I need to inspire my faith. This has forgotten to me. I'm giving it away to you for free. We overcome him. They have overcome him. And not to let make their lives even unto day. Death. If we don't let our lives even unto day, this is written to seven churches who are facing persecution where people would be killed for their faith. And God says, if you would give your life and not hold it and say to the Lord, how wouldn't you know that our lives is if we take the enemy out. And that's what Jesus said. It says, he took, he gave down his life. He went into the depths of Hades. And when the devil thought he won, he said, oh, I got the keys. Death and Hades. Come on, boys. And he swallowed that death in victory. He came to the sword who works as an enemy. And you know what it says? It says, they have the sword. They, not you, but they, look around you. When we learn the spiritual warfare, we place ourselves in the community. Because the devil always wants to come and isolate us like he did with me. So put yourself in, in the community. When Paul talks about the armor of God in Ephesians 6, there's nothing for the back. You can go to that side of the armor of God. It's an issue. Just one more thing about the word of our destiny. You know, the enemy wants to get you to back down. And your destiny is important, because someone who is intimidated or timid was not tick-round. And if you can get us to fear, you can get us to lose faith. And without faith, it's impossible to lose God. So he wants you to stop taking ground. So he wants to intimidate you. So we come against the voice of intimidation and accusation. And the word of the law to you today is "Riza." The enemy lives with limited resources and limited time. God has infinite resources. He lives outside of time. At the end of this book it says, "The serpent..." He became furious. And he knew that his time was short. And if any notice his time was short, he's been thrown down from heaven to earth and when Jesus comes and is fullness, he'll be thrown from earth into the lake of fire. His time is short. He used the time that God is giving you to take ground. You are more than a conqueror. Why? Because a conqueror is someone who is not treated. Being more than a conqueror is someone who takes ground. And the word of the law to the Church is time for us to rise up. It's time for us to stand. It's according to God and to life. There's gifts in our God and in our life. And you need to stand up and say, "I'm called to influence other people. I'm called to be of color. I'm called to let my life speak of the likes of God." And we need to go out into the city and say, "They are dark places and we carry the lives." And we need to start taking ground. I'm picturing myself happy, I think it is. Finally, we strong on the law and in the secularism act, put on the full armor of God so you can stand against the daily sea. Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, against rulers, but against rulers for clarity and powers of the soft law and its spiritual forces of evil in the heavy blue eyes. Therefore, put on the full armor of God so that in the dead, evil comes you may be able to stand. Stand firmly with the vult of truth. Fight all around your ways. The race plays the righteous in this place. The feet sit as with them, reading this encounter in regards to the peace and additions to take up a shield of faith by which you can extinguish all the errors of the evil one. Take the homogeneous salvation away from it. And the sort of the servages will really fall. On the end of this, stand, and go to the next one. In the power of all the sand. Stand. You can say, "Run into battle." You can say, "By six sand." And when you serve sand and having everything to sand, stand. And the time for us to take a sand. With the vult of truth, I've come around the race. Why truth? Because the enemy is always alive. He's the father of lives when he seats his lives. That is his native tongue. So, what does he do? He tries to always come. The first thing you'll come is your life to me. So, put the vult of truth. You can't fight with your pants as well as that. This is the armor of God. This is not the armor. There's no armor. This is his armor. Then in the Lord, in his mighty power, put his truth. Jesus gives the way. The truth. And the life. He is your truth. He surrounds you with truth. He comes to surround you. The vult of truth carries the word of God, which is the sort of the service. So, establish yourself in truth. Put on the breast layer of righteousness by righteousness, because if you can't get to your blood, you'll come and accuse your character. And I'm translating down righteousness. Put on the righteousness of Jesus and say no. I've been watched. In the blood and the clean. I've been prepared by Jesus. This is spiritual. This is how we stand. This is how we take ground in the kingdom. Not by the time. But I feel like the Lord says like he's calling us to stand. He's calling us to stand and take our ground. He's calling us not to be caught up in a world where is this world. But we have overcome by the blood of the living. By the word of our testimony. And I'm flipping out the virus. I'm trying to get me to come out. It's just a series of environments. I know it's been available in the world. But I feel like God is doing something. I know if you need to go to your church to do that, if you can stay another ten minutes, I'll really hope you can do that. I feel like God is doing something that I'm not just going to go on anything. This is not only about individual lives, but this is about our community. This is about our cities. This is about God's building with head time. This is about the light coming against the darkness. So if you guys could just close your eyes for a moment. Thank you for coming with me. And I want to read to you. I want to read this over us. This is what John saw when you started writing a book in Revelation. Instead, I turned it to see the voice that was speaking to you. And I'm turning up for a second golden letter sentence. And then this is then one like the son of man. Closed with a long robe. And with a golden satchel on his chest. The hairs of his name were whites, like white or like snow. His eyes were like a flame on fire. His feet were like burnished bronze. Refined in a fist and his voice was like a roar of many orders. In his right hand he held seven stars from his mark in the shop to every sword. And his face was like a sun shining in full string. When I saw him I fell in his feet as though dead that he raised his right hand on his face. Fear not, I am the first and the last. I am the living world. I die and behold, I live forevermore and I have the keys of death and Hades. You know the enemy comes to kill, to steal and destroy. But Jesus said he can, that he might give back. So anyway, that the enemy is trying to kill. He will resurrect his relative. But to death. Anyway, anywhere where the enemy is trying to steal, he will resort to you with the enemy's hurt. And anywhere that the enemy has come to destroy, he will redeem the mess. And the redeeming means not only that he puts his back in place, but the very thing that the enemy used to destroy, it comes to your invitation to take action on the energy secret. So that is the response this morning, I just thought. If you thought when I was saying stand, stand, stand. If you felt like that is the core of God in your life, nothing else you might have been through your head. It just happens to be you might be in the great place. If you just said I want to say Lord, I'm going to stand firm in you and in your mighty power. And I'm going to be one who stands. And I want you to stand right now. I want you to stand where you are. I want you to stand. I want you to stand because this is the side of me. I'm going to be intimidated. We are not going to be intimidated. The enemy might feel like he's an 18 foot triple. Hit it right your way. But when you sit by as one, a horse around son of a king, you like your traffic officer and you put your hand up and then that trunk might be stronger than you, but you have the authority to turn the sun. You have the authority to stand and it's mighty power. So put your hands up. And he says, I am restoring grace this morning to stand. And he says, burn in the Lord. So we stand firm in you Lord. In your goodness, your greatness. The fact that you are the first and the last through the beginning and the end, your worth is final. You are faithful. You are kind. You are loving. You come to give us life and life in all its fullness. We stand in you. When we have nothing left in our own strength, we stand. And then Paul says, you stand in his mighty power. A power that comes to bring a kingdom. An everlasting kingdom that will never spoil, perish and fail. You receive. You receive not a power. The infinite, the overwhelming of the Holy Spirit as he comes to strengthen you. Some of you need strength within your legs. You're strength within your bones. He's reminding you of words. He's reminding you of promises. He's calling. He says, I feel like God says, he's just reminding you of promises. You guys are called to take ground in the kingdom. The promises of God are yes and amen. So we say yes and amen. And in all of your promises of God. Paul says to Timothy, take a hold of the prophetic words. We've been spoken about you. Fights. The good. Fights. A good fight is not a fight that you do. The good fight is one that you would. So take hold of the words. The promises of division is three years of spoken about you. Take them and say, this is what Paul said. This is what Paul said. I'm going to do. Now there are fights. I'm going to send. And I felt like God said, he's coming. So some of us are just like we need to surrender something to him. There are two things. One of the strongholds is what is so tall. A foothold is when you can just get a ground. Like if you do rock climbing. A foothold. And for some of us, there's just little foothold in our hands. Maybe he could just get a integrate because we've agreed with last. Or. And this morning I just feel like he's here. Just give me those two holds. I'm separating Martin's arm. Don't download the numbers. And then for some of us, he says I'm coming after the strong holds. The strong holds are like a fortress. We're starting against rebuilds. So we're headed to pass. And that gives the enemy permission to surrender our lives. What he says, he has given us the blind card to the varnish strong holds. To just destroy them. And if you feel like there's a strong honor and there's no shame. And so the nice shame is that we need racism. But if you feel like you just need to pray and agree with us. And by the way, if you feel like you just need to pray and agree with us. Like I just feel like there's an area in my life where there's no being. Or something that happened in my life. And it just feels that there's no hope. Come, come send me to the light. Once it comes, it's right on the side, it comes to the front. It's like, you know, I need someone to just agree with me and say, "This varnish thing." I think there's a few of us who need to respond to that. You can do that as we continue. Someone has just a step saying, "I'm going to release that strong hold." And then I was just... I had a good head in your mind. I'm just still laughing, like, "Where is it?" I don't know, man, I should bring up that last side of the picture to the city. And then you take an answer. You're treating the future to the city. It's a picture of the things that he wants to come and just clean it. They've watched up on the shoulder of our minds. So we pray that this is right here, just come. And one of the things you're going to say is to bring freedom to Jesus. And to Jesus, and to Jesus. You'll get higher release than freedom. On the one whose eyes play with fire right now. To have freedom from illusion. Some of us who are going to be willing to live. You're going to be willing to sit by as you're calling. You're going to be willing to take a round. You're going to be willing to take a round to take a round of storm, plus an evil or a tremendous burst. But God says today, "I am infusing you with courage and faith. I'm infusing you with courage and faith that enemy will not intimidate you until the day to anymore. You will not intimidate you anymore." And I felt like I was raising up warriors of the lives. Warriors of the lives. And so you just feel like I need to make the same and say, "I'm not going to be living in fear. I'm not going to be living in possession." Now I encourage you, you can come out into my life. You don't need to pray for you. But it's just an actually setting up setting up. Actually, even if I've got nothing that I feel like I need to do, then I act that I need to take. Nothing that God's spoken to do that. I just feel like I need to show the enemy that I am not intimidated when you have a, there's many of you. There's many of you. There's many of you. And you know some of us speaking this week about the things that are going on throughout the week, about ancient battles. And like the gentlemen said this, you know, the Spanish they used to do this thing. If there was a problem, every now and then they would just say it. I don't understand the conversation. I had to sort of go to the public place, and come and say it's fresh. And that's it. Burn the ships. Burn the ships. We don't really know how to deal with something out of your room. We don't know how to deal with it. And I thought like I would say burn the ships. No, there'd be. No backing down. No, I put away arms. He said like this is a beauty called, as one of them who's going to burn power to destroy the works of their enemy. And if you want to hear that said, well I'm burning the ships. I'm burning the things that I'm being. My crutches, I've been leaning on, I've been holding on. I've been like, oh maybe I'll just do this. Maybe I'll just be involved in church. Maybe I'll just do that. Go to the city of there. Don't give people up like that. I'm going to have to just burn the ships. I'm all in. It's you or nothing. It's you or nothing. It's you or nothing. It's you or nothing. So it's that bad it's you. We thank you. We thank you that you have already won the war. You've already won the victory. Your kingdom is advancing. On the end of your peace there will be no end. [MUSIC] Let's just continue to be able to guard, ensure that the battle is going to need us and worship. I want to encourage you if you go lower to guard, lower to go, for the next few moments, just to stay here and do business with the Lord. It's not about how intense we are. But you know, in character of God, it's not just about having a good experience. And in character of God, it's about leaving as it's just a person to do work before you encounter. Saul became Paul, Saul became Peter. One moment in his presence can define the risk of your life. And so he says, come, come, step into the world. This is important. I feel like these people can live to us. You really feel like you want to pray for them. You don't need to be ready for them if they're doing their own business with the Lord. If you want prayer specifically, please come up to my wrath. We're just going to allow the Lord to continue doing what he was doing. (light music) [MUSIC PLAYING]
Jesus And The Dragon
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1kjge_b8uxczZuknFG0eIpe7V4EhV0X8a/view?usp=drive_link