THE TRIBULATIONRevelation 12:1-17

Turn to Revelation chapter 12. I’ll be looking at understanding the tribulation from this section of Scripture.

Now many times people come to Revelation and they really don’t understand what is said in it because it takes so much study to dig it out. The book of Revelation, like the book of Daniel that I was looking at last time in the Old Testament, is apocalyptic literature. “Apocalyptic” means “to unveil”; it means “to uncover”, “to reveal something that has been beforehand veiled, covered or hidden, but now it has been uncovered”.

So that is what this book is about, and I believe interpreting Revelation is about God’s final unveiling of the last days. It is talking about things that will come to past here and after, not necessarily things here or things during the long period of history, but in its culminating period in the last days.

Revelation is divided up into major divisions based on four visions. Each one of those visions feeds into an understanding of the last days.

This morning I want to deal with the period in between the taking up of the church and the literal kingdom of God coming, a period of time called the tribulation period. What is that all about? Why do we even have this period?

The Bible says the period is broken up into seven years and then the Great Tribulation is the last three and a half years. Just to give you a sense that the Bible does designate that time frame, look at Revelation 12:6:

Then the woman fled into the wilderness where she had a place prepared by God, so that there she would be nourished for one thousand two hundred and sixty days.

That would come out to three and a half years. Then look at Revelation 12:14:

But the two wings of the great eagle were given to the woman, so that she could fly into the wilderness to her place, where she was nourished for a time and times and half a time, from the presence of the serpent.

Again, we see the designation of a three and a half year period. Notice again in Revelation 13:5:

The beast was given a mouth to utter proud words and blasphemies and to exercise its authority for forty-two months.

Forty two months is three and a half years. So the time is given in days, in symbolic prophetic language, and it is also given in months. So that there is no mistake that there is something going on here, he picks up all these terms and expressions in this period of time and connects them back to a period of time that was spoken of by Daniel the prophet. This is how the tribulation fits with the rest of theology.

In this chapter, I want to examine what the tribulation is all about. We’ll look at three battles in chapters 12 and 13 of Revelation.

The first battle is found in Revelation 12:1-6. This is the battle between the old dragon, who is Satan, and the woman. Of course, we are going to ask the question of who is the woman, but I first want you to look at verse 1-2 in Revelation 12:

A great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars; and she was with child; and she cried out, being in labor and in pain to give birth.

Now who is this woman? Well, the woman is Israel the nation. In other words, Israel is the one who produced the male child. The nation of Israel will bring forth whom? The Messiah. That is what it is talking about here.

From Abraham to the days of Mary, the nation of Israel was preparing to bring forth a male child, a man child that would bless the entire world. We know that man child is Jesus Christ Himself.

Look at verse number 5 of Revelation 12,

And she gave birth to a son, a male child, who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron; and her child was caught up to God and to His throne.

Notice also in verses 3 and 4,

Then another sign appeared in heaven: and behold, a great red dragon having seven heads and ten horns, and on his heads were seven diadems. And his tail swept away a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth. And the

dragon stood before the woman who was about to give birth, so that when she gave birth he might devour her child.

Now here, another personage is introduced in this narrative: the red dragon. The red dragon is none other than Satan.

This passage says the dragon will have seven heads. Correlating this with Daniel, the heads equal seven empires (Daniel 7). The ten horns equal the final form of the Roman Empire, that is, the ten kings that will dominate during the tribulation period. On his head are seven diadems or crowns. That’s Satan’s power and authority over the major empires of the world during this seven year period. So from this passage of Scripture, we see that Satan will have involvement in the nations and the governments. He will use governments, governments of men, to do his evil. Then there will be a ten-nation confederacy headed by the Antichrist himself.

Look at verse 4 of chapter 12, because it informs us of the Dragon’s fall and his diabolic plan. It says,

And his tail swept away a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman who was about to give birth, so that when she gave birth he might devour her child.

Sometime before the time of the temptation of Adam and Eve, Satan was an angel, and he was thrown out of heaven and thrown to the earth. When he was thrown out of heaven to the earth, he took one third of the angels with him.

The angels with Satan on earth have tried everything possible to stop the Messiah from being born; Revelation tells us that Satan has always been against Christ coming into the world. He has always been against the nation of Israel producing the child.

So Satan wanted to devour and destroy this child. In fact, if we go back a little bit and we survey the things that happened in Satan’s career, we remember that Satan tempted Eve in the Garden of Eden, and the whole human race plunged into sin away from God. But then, God guarantees deliverance through the Seed of the woman. It says in Genesis 3:15,

“And I will put enmityBetween you and the woman, And between your seed and her seed;

He shall bruise you on the head, And you shall bruise him on the heel.”

Right in Genesis, we have God’s plan already formulating. As it goes along in Revelation, it becomes more detailed. Satan tries to stop the Seed when we have the murder of Abel by Cain, to stop the human race from propagating. Satan then tried to destroy the Davidic line, because he knew that Jesus would come in and be born from that line, following that specific genealogy. These genealogies are found in Matthew and other passages, where Christ is shown to be connected to the kingship of David.

There is one passage I would like to show you in 2 Kings 11. And in this point in history, there is only one little boy left in that kingly line. Satan was so close to accomplishing his mission of wiping out that line! We get the sense in 2 Kings 11:1-3 that Satan tried to destroy all the royal offspring it by using a woman, Athaliah:

When Athaliah the mother of Ahaziah saw that her son was dead, she rose and destroyed all the royal offspring. But Jehosheba, the daughter of King Joram, sister of Ahaziah, took Joash the son of Ahaziah and stole him from among the king’s sons who were being put to death, and placed him and his nurse in the bedroom. So they hid him from Athaliah, and he was not put to death. So he was hidden with her in the house of the LORD six years, while Athaliah was reigning over the land.

Of course, when she died, he was brought out. But Joash was the last of the line of David.

So Satan effectively was trying to dismantle and destroy that line so that the Messiah could not be produced! Satan tried to cut off the Hebrew nation in Egypt, but God raised up Joseph to save the people. When the people multiplied in Egypt, God raised up Moses to deliver the people. When Moses died, God raised up Joshua to bring the people into the land. So, all along the way, Satan has tried to make sure that the Messiah did not come into the world as the God-man, as the baby. But he did not succeed. Jesus is the victor.

We want to go back to Revelation 12. The dragon and his hatred for Christ is clearly seen, but look at verse 5:

And she gave birth to a son, a male child, who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron; and her child was caught up to God and to His throne.

So you see here in this passage of Scripture that Jesus was born wasn’t He? He did come into the world.

But then Satan did try to destroy Jesus during His earthly ministry. That is what you see in the Gospels. Satan tried to get Herod to make a decree to kill all the male babies. We see that Satan tried to tempt Jesus to avoid the cross by tempting Him in the wilderness, offering to give Him all the kingdoms of the world. He really had no authority to do that, but that’s what he tried to do.

We see in the Gospels that Satan tries to throw Jesus off a cliff. We see that he incites the Sadducees and the religious leaders to stone Him to death. And then, of course, Satan even infiltrates Jesus’ own group of twelve disciples. What happens? Jesus is betrayed by Judas. It is recorded just like this in Luke 22:3:

And Satan entered into Judas who was called Iscariot, belonging to the number of the twelve.

So, he was even using Jesus’ closest companions to get to Him to prevent Him from doing what? Going to the cross. He tries to prevent him from being born; that didn’t work. So he tries to prevent Him from going to the cross.

What was the outcome of the battle between Satan and Israel, the woman, over the male child, the God man? Did Satan get Him? No. Satan might have thought that he won, but Jesus was caught up, it says in Revelation 12:5, to heaven. Didn’t that happen when Jesus ascended into heaven? He went and sat at the right hand of the Father.

He was born, He died, and He rose again. He accomplished the mission of redemption. Satan did not win!

Now if Satan could not get Christ, he would dog someone else. In Revelation 12:6, it says

Then the woman fled into the wilderness where she had a place prepared by God, so that there she would be nourished for one thousand two hundred and sixty days.

Now this is the last three and a half years of the tribulation, the Great Tribulation. The woman, Israel, flees into the wilderness. In Matthew 24:15, this is when the abomination of desolation takes place, spoken of by Daniel, when the Antichrist stands up in the temple in Jerusalem and pronounces himself God. That becomes the abomination of desolation right at the midpoint of the tribulation.

When that happens, of course, Israel flees and God prepares a place for His people for three and a half years, forty–two months, 1,260 days.

So Satan loses the first battle, but notice the second battle in verses 7-9. The second battle is now with Michael and his angels.

This battle becomes significant because, remember, if you read your Bibles right, Satan did have access to heaven even after his fall. We see him in Job accusing the brethren before God. We see that he did have access to different places of God’s creation from earth to heaven.

But now, something goes on between Michael and Satan’s angels, and this keeps limiting Satan’s authority to just one place. That is going to be right here on earth. If you look at verse 7 it says,

And there was war in heaven, Michael and his angels waging war with the dragon. The dragon and his angels waged war.

Well, what are they fighting about? No longer about the child. That issue has been settled and he lost. Now they are fighting about whether Satan can have access to certain places anymore. Revelation 12:8-9:

And they were not strong enough, and there was no longer a place found for them in heaven. And the great dragon was thrown down, the serpent of old who is called the devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world; he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him.

What are they fighting about? Satan has been accusing the people of God day and night, before the

presence of God. Michael says, “You have had access up here long enough. It is time to do house cleaning. It is time to completely limit you from your access to these places.”

So they fight about it once for all, and we have here Satan being cast down to earth and severely being limited in two ways. He is limited locally, that is, his access to certain places. And he is limited time-wise; he is limited by time. God put, in a sense, geographic restraints on him and time

restraints on him. He is hemming Satan in. He is hemming him in. This is the sense you get from the Word of God.

Look what it says in verse 10-12:

Then I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, “Now the salvation, and the power, and the kingdom of our God and the authority of His Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren has been thrown down, he who accuses them before our God day and night. And they overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb and because of the word of their testimony, and they did not love their life even when faced with death. For this reason, rejoice, O heavens and you who dwell in them. Woe to the earth and the sea, because the devil has come down to you, having great wrath, knowing that he has only a short time.”

So you see that, in essence, one reason for the tribulation is that Satan is angry. He’s angry that he’s limited. And he can’t do anything about it.

So what does he do? He takes it out on Israel. He breaks his covenant with Israel and goes after her. And for every three Jews that come to know the Lord as their Savior, two of them are killed. You have quite a blood bath in Revelation.

Another reason Satan is angry is that God now brings Israel to the place where they now realize whom it is they have pierced and turn to their Messiah. This makes Satan very unhappy. Revelation 12:13:

And when the dragon saw that he was thrown down to the earth, he persecuted the woman who gave birth to the male child.

Since he could not get Jesus, now he goes after Israel. But you have to ask this: why is it that he goes after this nation?

Well, let me just step back for a minute. He has great wrath, it says. That is right from Daniel 11:44:

“But rumors from the East and from the North will disturb him, and he will go forth with great wrath to destroy and annihilate many.”

Remember, there is probably peace up until the middle of the tribulation, but then something makes Satan very angry: Israel begins to turn to the Messiah.

And He goes after her. Why does he go after her? He is angry because he lost the first battle over the male child. He is angry because he was cast out of heaven and limited in sphere and in time. The devil is angry due to the fact that he only has three and a half years.

This tribulation that is spoken of here in Revelation is not a localized tribulation; it is a worldwide tribulation that has never happened before and will never happen again.

The old serpent is also angry because at some time at the conclusion of the Great Tribulation, this woman, Israel, is the one that is able to call back the Messiah. That is why he begins to dog her and persecute her and limit her.

In fact, this is inferred in a passage in Matthew 23. Let’s see what the Lord says at that point and just get a sense of how it is the nation of Israel in the tribulation who can call the Messiah back to the earth:

“You serpents, you brood of vipers, how will you escape the sentence of hell? Therefore, behold, I am sending you prophets and wise men and scribes; some of them you will kill and crucify, and some of them you will scourge in your synagogues, and persecute from city to city.”

Down to verse 37:

“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were unwilling.”

See, God wants to bring Israel together, bring Jerusalem together, and be their king and Messiah. They rejected the bona fide offer of the kingdom when Jesus came the first time. So what will happen to them? Verse 38:

“Behold, your house is being left to you desolate!”

Is it desolate right now? From 70 AD until now, the house of Israel is desolate. There is no Shekinah glory anywhere. The temple that Israel used to meet together to worship God in their midst – that is gone. The glory of God is gone. That is the devastation of Judaism. They are desolate.

They are in the land now, but they are in the land as pagans. The temple is desolate, and, as a matter of fact, on the temple mount sits a mosque, not the temple of God. Their land is desolate. Does that anger the orthodox people of Israel? Yes it does in very a great way.

Look at Mathew 23:39:

“For I say to you, from now on you will not see Me until you say, ‘BLESSED IS HE WHO COMES IN THE NAME OF THE LORD!’”

Jesus is speaking of a future time when, even though the house is desolate now, some day it is going to be His people in the tribulation who lift up their voices and say, “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.” Of course, this same wording was used back in Matthew chapter 21, remember? When the crowds were gathering before Jesus was crucified and Jesus sat on a donkey and rode into Jerusalem on a donkey.

What was that a symbol of? A man riding on a donkey was a symbol of a king coming into his kingdom. They are laying down things, they are laying down branches, and they are laying down cloaks on the road as the donkey is riding. What does it say in Matthew 21:9?

The crowds going ahead of Him, and those who followed, were shouting, “Hosanna to the Son of David; BLESSED IS HE WHO COMES IN THE NAME OF THE LORD; Hosanna in the highest!”

The only problem was that this was a precursor, spoken by Zechariah – the prophet of what would come. This would become very clear in the next few days. Jesus was crucified. The kingdom of God did not come in a literal sense. So therefore, the House of David is left desolate in Scripture.

The bottom line is that Satan is going to get the one who brought forth the Messiah and the one who is now capable of calling Him back. That is why he is angry.

So what is the outcome? The outcome is that he loses. Revelation 12:14, if you notice – there it says

But the two wings of the great eagle were given to the woman, so that she could fly into the wilderness to her place, where she was nourished for a time and times and half a time, from the presence of the serpent. And the serpent poured water like a river out of his mouth after the woman, so that he

might cause her to be swept away with the flood. But the earth helped the woman, and the earth opened its mouth and drank up the river which the dragon poured out of his mouth.

In other words, Satan was after the one who is able to call the Messiah back.

There is a third battle. This is in Revelation 12:17 into Revelation 13, and it is Satan fighting against the one who is capable of calling back the Messiah. Who is that? That is the saints. Look what it says in Revelation 12:17:

So the dragon was enraged with the woman, and went off to make war with the rest of her children, who keep the commandments of God and hold to the testimony of Jesus.

At the center of all this tribulation, of course, is the person of Jesus Christ. This dragon, Satan, has an insatiable hatred for Israel, for Christ, for His seed, and for His people. And he constantly comes against them.

We know in the beginning that he loses battle one, he loses battle two, and here it tells us that he loses battle three also. The saints are protected by God, and we already know that Satan loses.

So how will Satan fight against the saints? That becomes an issue for us today. Well, he is going to do it the same way that God does it. In other words, he is going to duplicate what God has done. He is going to mimic Christ. He is going to mimic the Spirit of God and he is going to mimic the Father. He is going to be the impostor that impersonates God to the world. Satan has a particular goal in mind. To reach this goal, he must deceive the whole world. In says in Matthew about these days that they were shortened for the sake of the elect. There will be such deception in the world during this time that, as it says in Thessalonians, people are going to believe the lie.

His goal, I believe, is twofold. First of all, to wear out the saints; that is what you get in the tribulation. Secondly, to get people to worship himself. He wants to get people to worship himself.

So you have this sense of an unholy trinity in Chapter 13. There is the Dragon that represents Satan himself, who is the counterfeit father. Then you have the Antichrist, who is going to be an earthly man who is now energized by Satan. He becomes the Thessalonian man, the man of lawlessness. He becomes the political leader in the world. He becomes the

counterfeit son, who is on the earth – the “beast out of the sea”, as it says in Revelation. And what does he do? He gets the nations together politically and religiously. Then you have the false prophet. He is the counterfeit Holy Spirit, the “beast out of the earth”.

The Dragon gives to the Antichrist power, a throne, and great authority. Look at Revelation 13:2:

And the beast which I saw was like a leopard, and his feet were like those of a bear, and his mouth like the mouth of a lion. And the dragon gave him his power and his throne and great authority.

This is what is going on. He is given this authority to rule politically because he will be the ruler of the final world empire found in Daniel. But how does he get people to follow him? How does he get people to buy into this whole thing?

That becomes the incredible question answered in Scripture. The Antichrist, this man of lawlessness, will truly be an amazing figure, a very dynamic figure, a magnetic figure. He is going to draw upon the people of the world, and they are going to follow him. How is Satan going to do it? He is going to empower this man. This man is going to have the power of the devil behind him. He is going to have people worshiping him; he is going to have control of the whole world. And he is going to war against the saints for three and a half years.

How is he going to wage this third battle against people of the world and against the saints? Several things that come up in Scripture I think are important for us to know.

The first one is this: He is going to amaze people by his signs and wonders. Look at Revelation 13:3:

I saw one of his heads as if it had been slain, and his fatal wound was healed. And the whole earth was amazed and followed after the beast.

An amazing figure! He is going to produce marveling in the world. They are going to follow him because of their amazement. The sense is that this sign, this wonder that he does, moves the whole world to put the limelight on him as an individual, and they begin to admire him. They begin to say, “This is the one! This is what the world needs – this kind of guy!” What better way to do it, what better way to amaze them than staging a mock

resurrection and death? A death and resurrection. Look what it says again in verse three:

I saw one of his heads as if it had been slain.

That means put to death right? And then it says,

His fatal wound was healed.

He was healed from a fatal wound. I think the best way to explain the mock resurrection of this satanically-controlled king is to understand that this man will come into the world as a false Christ. We see a mimicking of the resurrection of the true Christ; we will observe the death of a world leader who comes back to life. The people of the world are amazed by this!

Do you think something like this would turn some heads to get people’s attention? I would think so, and in verses 3-4 it tells us very clearly:

And the whole earth was amazed and followed after the beast; they worshiped the dragon because he gave his authority to the beast; and they worshiped the beast, saying, “Who is like the beast, and who is able to wage war with him?”

See, they are totally amazed by his power, by his purported authority over death. So it looks like the dragon, Satan, resurrects the beast, the Antichrist, from the dead. And that means that the Antichrist is the counterfeit son in every respect.

Get this: a counterfeit death and resurrection leads to a counterfeit ruler coming to rule the world and to possess the nations and the kingdoms of the world. So Satan is playing the part of the counterfeit father! Why is he doing that? Well, the true Father gave authority to the true Son, so the counterfeit father is giving authority to the counterfeit son, the Antichrist.

This marvelous feat, though deception, evolves into accomplishing his intended goal in verse 4. And what is that? Worship. I have already read it; he is going to get people to worship him. That is his goal, and that has always been his goal:

They worshiped the dragon because he gave his authority to the beast.

So the Antichrist gets the world to worship the Dragon, who is the counterfeit Heavenly Father. And the Antichrist receives worship also, just like Jesus receives worship because He is God.

Remember, there is a difference between true, biblical worship and this kind of worship. This kind of worship is just people following blindly. They are just amazed! They are just emotionally moved by what is going on. They are even politically moved by what is going on. Their hopes and dreams for a world of peace, in some respects, will be coming true.

Now look at verse four again:

“Who is able to wage war with him?”

The answer, as far as the world is concerned, is “no one”. It is like saying, “We have found the one! No one can do what he has done! No one in history can do what he has done!”

Remember, real, biblical worship not only has an element of awe to it, a sense of being in the presence of that which is more than human, but there is also an element of reverence. A sense of being in the presence of that which is holy, majestic and divine.

But there is another, even more important element that is absent in this type of worship, and that is the element of truth. There is no way to measure what is true. It is just what Thessalonians tells us: they will believe what is false at that time. They will believe the lie.

What is the lie? The lie is the claim of the Antichrist that he will be a god greater than all gods. They believe the lie as if it were the truth. They believe in him, and, even though he is a false god, they believe him to be a true god. They are not convinced according to the true Word of God, of course, but according to the signs and wonders that point to the reality of his claim. These signs and wonders keep the spellbound person in wondering admiration of this man who claims to be God himself.

One way the worship for the Antichrist clearly contradicts biblical worship is by exhibiting a total disregard of the Ten Commandments, specifically, the second commandment about not making any graven images (Exodus 20:4-6). If you notice Revelation 13:14, it says that idolatry was included in this type of worship:

And he deceives those who dwell on the earth because of the signs which it was given him to perform in the presence of the beast, telling those who dwell on the earth to make an image to the beast who had the wound of the sword and has come to life. And it was given to him to give breath to the image of the beast, so that the image of the beast would even speak and

cause as many as do not worship the image of the beast to be killed.

From this passage, it seems that the Antichrist now has authority to give life to inanimate objects. And this would no doubt convince many to worship him.

But remember, in real, biblical worship, we are always challenged in the Word of God to exercise the mind, and divine revelation molds and shapes up the mind. False worship is ignorant worship because there is no reliable source of truth to exercise the mind. Religion may begin with an emotional response, but there must come a time for every believer when the emotionalism has to be examined and what they believe has to be thought through. It has to be balanced and guided and measured by Scripture. That is how I know what I believe is true: because it is measured by the Word of God. If it is not found in the Word of God, then I have to cast it out and not believe it.

This is what Paul says in Romans 12, that it is truth that transforms the mind:

But be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

So this process takes place in our minds and in our thought life and in the things that controls our attitudes, our feelings and actions. In a sense, we are led by truth to do what is right. The renewed mind is always bent on following and finding out God’s will. That’s the point: it is the revealed will of God that the children of God want to know. And that is why they are willing to die for it in Revelation. They are willing to die because of the blood of the Lamb – for their testimony to the truth that this is true.

It is the truth in the Word of God that becomes the criterion and the measuring stick for knowing what is good, what is well-pleasing, what advances spiritual maturity, and what is true and false. Every test made without the Word of God is deceptive and wrong. So the renewed mind does not want to disregard God’s will; it wants to know it and wants to find out what God wants them to do.

Just a little exhortation for you and me not to be ignorant of the very fact that there is real deception going on in the world, and the deception is becoming apparent to us in our day.

So what else? There is something else that Satan does to deceive the world, found in verse 5: he pulls the wool over the eyes of people by convincing words,

There was given to him a mouth speaking arrogant words and blasphemies, and authority to act for forty-two months was given to him. And he opened his mouth in blasphemies against God, to blaspheme His name and His tabernacle, that is, those who dwell in heaven.

So this guy is carrying out a political smear campaign as far as truth is concerned, as far as God is concerned, as far as historical Christianity is concerned. It was Daniel that first said that he would speak monstrous things against the God of Gods. This blasphemy means he has a big mouth. He is able to speak well. He is able to convince people of his position.

But he does something else: he controls people by intimidating them. Now if you had charge over the world, if you had charge of all the political and religious systems of the world, you could do anything you want. That is what he does. Verse 7:

It was also given to him to make war with the saints and to overcome them, and authority over every tribe and people and tongue and nation was given to him.

He has authority in all the world. And if someone refuses to worship him, they will simply be eliminated. If you do not worship the beast, you are dead. If somehow you knew how to get out of that, you would be economically destroyed, you would be starved out. That is the strategy outlined in verse 15-18:

And it was given to him to give breath to the image of the beast, so that the image of the beast would even speak and cause as many as do not worship the image of the beast to be killed. And he causes all, the small and the great, and the rich and the poor, and the free men and the slaves, to be given a mark on their right hand or on their forehead, and he provides that no one will be able to buy or to sell, except the one who has the mark, either the name of the beast or the number of his name. Here is wisdom. Let him who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for the

number is that of a man; and his number is six hundred and sixty-six.

Now what does all that number mean? I don’t know. I have read this and that about it and I am not even going to take a shot. All I know is that it is a seal, and when you have received a mark, you have worshiped the beast. Therefore, you are able to eat, you are able to have work, you are able to do what you want. If you do not receive the mark, then you are going to be dogged politically, you are going to be dogged socially, and you are going to be dogged until you are dead. That is the bottom line. He has authority over the saints, over those who have worshiped God in the tribulation. He has authority over them.

Satan is out to accomplish a twofold purpose in this battle: worship of himself and religious war. And the only hope that believers have in this war is in chapter 13:10:

If anyone is destined for captivity, to captivity he goes; if anyone kills with the sword, with the sword he must be killed. Here is the perseverance and the faith of the saints.

Believers do keep their faith in Christ even under these hardest of persecutions! They do hold to what the Lord has said. And we even see the angels urge the saints onto loyalty and devotion to the Lord Jesus Christ in Revelation 14:6-7:

And I saw another angel flying in midheaven, having an eternal gospel to preach to those who live on the earth, and to every nation and tribe and tongue and people; and he said with a loud voice, “Fear God, and give Him glory, because the hour of His judgment has come; worship Him who made the heaven and the earth and sea and springs of waters.”

That is the cry to those who are in the tribulation to remain faithful – worship Him – because that is guided by truth.

Do you remember the question raised by the worshippers of the beast in Revelation 13:4: “Who is like the beast; who is able to wage war with him?” What’s the answer?

The Lamb! He is more than up for the challenge. In fact, his record is 3-0. He is going to win. He wins. Brethren, we are on the winning side in Christ.

He has done it all, and these are the final things in His plan. Revelation 17:14:

“These will wage war against the Lamb, and the Lamb will overcome them, because He is Lord of lords and King of kings, and those who are with Him are the called and chosen and faithful.”

See, are you the called? Are you the chosen? And are you the faithful? I sure want to be on that list. Make sure you are on that list now! Right now. If you don’t know Christ, you have not been worshiping Him.

Worshiping Him does not mean you come to church once in a while. Worshiping Him means that you worship Him every day from your heart. You love Christ. You love His Word. You will deny yourself from things because you follow Him. You know His Word is the truth.

Part of the lot for a believer is persecution, trouble in this world. There will be trouble in this world. The Lord told us that Himself. But I just want to remind you of this: if these things are true, if the Christian gospel is true, then every other thing is a lie. If Christ alone saves, then those who do not believe in Him are doomed. If Christ is the only way, then all other roads lead to destruction. That is where the Bible leads. If these things are true, and they are, then we ought to be the most sober, serious people on earth when it comes to truth and living for God. This is no passing thing; this is really serious living. This is dealing with sin. This is pursuing truth.

We need to pursue truth and lay aside those things which have held us back from fully serving God. We need to lay aside both sin and other things that are not sin but hinder our Christian growth. We need to throw them off for good, to get in the Word of God, to read it, learn it, to hear it preached, and put it into practice. We need to make sure we are not just hearers of the Word, but doers of the Word.

As we do that, Christ promised us that He will fill us with joy. As we do that, let us all pray that we will willfully live carefully and not carelessly in this world and that we will live soberly. We will live with an expectation that Christ is coming.

If He is coming, if there is an immanency in the coming of the Lord, then think about this: what do you want to be doing when He does come? Do you want to be living in sin? Do you want to be living contrary to everything that

He says in the Word of God? Do you want to be living for money or for your work or for yourself? What do you want to be living for?

I think the bottom line is: are you living for the Lord? Ask yourself honestly. Are you living for your passions or your desires? And if you have this secret imagination and fantasy world going on in your mind, it won’t stay secret. The truth is going to wash all that stuff out.

Be under God’s Word so He transforms your mind and so you can think biblically in a way that honors God, so you can put to death your sin. Be under God’s word so that you can live and walk in the Spirit and not fulfill the lust of the flesh, so you can live in a way that brings honor to the name of Christ, so you can speak and witness to those who do not know Christ. That is what these teachings in the Word of God really push us to do while we are on earth. Are we going to live for the Lord? Are we going to be faithful until death? Can we proclaim that cry?

Even though I don’t believe the church is going through the tribulation, some believe we are. That’s not a bad question to ask: what if we did? What if it is us that are going to go through the tribulation? Believe me, when we go through a situation like that, those who are truly in Christ and those who are not becomes really clear, right?

You will not find fence-straddlers in the tribulation, and I think we ought to live that way now. I think that we are too soft in America. Materialism has made us like jelly. There is no backbone anymore. There is no conviction in our hearts about what is true and what is right and how we are to live and how we are to lead our families. If something else comes up, then that is what we do, instead of putting Christ first, putting God first, putting His plan first. We ought to do that. Time is short.

Look at what is going around us, slapping us in our face every day. Things are clicking at a fever pitch. I want to be ready and I want to serve Christ. I pray that is really the motivation of your heart. I pray it is.

That is why we need to pray for each other, we need to meet for prayer, we need to fellowship, we need to be serious about the Lord’s Table when the Lord commands us to do that. We need to be serious about these things and not take them as “well, if I have time, if I feel right, if it is nice weather, if it is this or that”.

Let’s live for Christ, no matter what.