Gooding, David: 9 - Revelation and the Tabernacle

And we come now to study in earnest section four of the Book of the Revelation, to which we introduced ourselves briefly yesterday. Section four of the Book of the Revelation becomes, by dint of its much repetition, the story of a great war. It is a war that has been going on all down the centuries, sometimes rumbling on beneath the surface of events, sometimes breaking out into ferocious hostility. But our passage before us this morning is here to tell us that at the end of this age, this age-long war will erupt into the most extreme and ferocious intensity that the world has ever yet seen. The contestants in this war are, on the one side, God Almighty, and on the other side, His Satanic Majesty, the devil himself. And the issue at stake in this ferocious war is the ultimate allegiance and devotion of the human heart. And that is why, in this chapter particularly, though the phenomenon is to be seen elsewhere all through the revelation, the word worship occurs with great repetition. Worship, not just in the sense, of course, of singing hymns and praising the Lord, but worship in its basic sense, at least the basic sense of this particular word for worship, which means to bow down before someone and to admit that someone is the ultimate authority and power. The one to whom you do or you must yield the ultimate allegiance of your heart. And in this battle, there are only two choices, and that comes from the nature of things. For there is, in fact, only one who has the right to the ultimate devotion of the human heart. This, I repeat, comes from the sheer reality of the situation. There is only one God, because there is only one Creator. And in section two of this book, as we noticed yesterday, the section that is particularly the counterpart of section four, in section two, the worthiness of God to receive the ultimate loyalty and allegiance of everything he has created is spelled out clearly and in no uncertain terms. This is the reality behind the universe. This is the truth of everything that exists. It was made by God, and it was made for God. And God as creator claims the logical, rational, and truthful devotion of everything he has made. That is the truth. But in this war, God stands on the one side with his truth, but on the other side stands his satanic majesty with his marvelous and sophisticated and persuasive lie. And the war is to be raged between God on the one hand and Satan on the other, between the truth and between the lie. And it says an enormous amount about the character of God, that he didn't squash this lie when first it arose. We are not told, of course, of the origin of evil in higher spheres than our own world, though maybe there are hints given here and there in the Holy Scripture of that dread rebellion that seems to have taken place in heavenly places long before our planet existed. But we know of the lie spread in the early dawn of human history by the serpent in the garden. And it says an enormous amount, does it not, about the heart and character of God, that he didn't forthwith squash the lie by annihilating the serpent and the woman when she believed it. He could, of course, have used his almighty power to squash all slanders of his character, such as Satan had spread. But to squash those slanders by si- the simple use of direct almighty power would have been, as we saw the other day, to play into the hand of his enemy. God has let the lie. God has chosen to answer the lie in a way that will show what the truth really is and what the nature of the truth is. For of all the things that Almighty God can do, there is one thing that Almighty God cannot do, and that is to compel by force the love of the truth. Dictators at large can compel you to bow down before them, and if you refuse, to make you pay the ultimate penalty, the surrender of your physical life. That no dictator the whole universe through can compel you to love him. And truth, ladies and gentlemen, is not some philosophical abstraction. I know those with philosophical and scientific bent find endless fascination in pursuing the truth in their particular spheres of inquiry. But ultimately, truth is not a philosophical nor a scientific e- e- ex- e- e- extraction, abstraction. Truth is a person. And that is why, when the New Testament sums up the final judgment of mankind, it says these words, that God will send people a strong delusion that they believe the lie, who had pleasure in unrighteousness. Why will he do it? Because they received not, and he doesn't merely say the truth, but the love of the truth. Mere intellectual consent to the truth, even if that were the truth about the creator of the universe, would save nobody. Nothing is won in this war unless the victor can get for himself the love of the human heart, the love of the truth. There is, of course, as I say, there are only two choices. We receive the love of the truth, that is God and his truth, or we shall bow down to the lie, Satan's lie. The man who says to himself, I don't grant you that there is that stark alternative. I don't need to bow down to Satan's lie, but then I don't need to bow down to God and his religion either. I can set myself, uh, my freedom and own allegiance to nothing except to myself, except to reason, or whatever he chooses to set up his is as his own ultimate goal. But the man who argues that has already been deceived by the lie. It's not that he will be, he is. That was the lie, of course, spread in the garden to Eve, as you know so well. Take of this fruit, contrary to God's word and God's truth. And Satan didn't say to the man and the woman, and if you do that, you will have to fall down and worship me. He was too cunning a strategist, of course. What he represented to them was a third possibility, that if you take of the fruit of this tree in independence of God and his truth, you shall be as God. A third alternative. The very third alternative was a lie. And at the end of this age, it will be demonstrated in all its clarity to have been a dastardly and devilish lie. Uh, for it is not merely the fact that God is the true, God is the only one as creator worthy to be and able to be the true goal of human allegiance. But it is when the gloves come off and the battle is on, Satan won't regard the, I say it with reverence, the holy compunctions of God. Satan will proceed to use his satanic and superhuman power to compel allegiance. He will not bother whether you love him or not. He will be content if he can use his superhuman power and his devilish terrorism to force men to bow down. Mankind needs to be warned. Because this kind of thing has happened, has it not, all down the centuries, in greater and lesser degree, at certain periods in history, when Satan has managed, staged, managed the rise of certain dictators. But men and women who thought they would never bow down to such things have bowed down. It was so under the Roman emperors, wasn't it? When the ugly emperors such as Tiberius and Nero, in their half insanity and their fears, instituted their reigns of terror along later with Domitian and others. It wasn't just ignorant people in the streets that bowed down. It wasn't weak men and women and infants that bowed down. It was the cream of the intellectuals that bowed down. In their universities. In the government, in the Senate, and they bowed down when the battle came to its reality. It is a sad and a chilling thing to read in the ancient Roman historians, uh, that the Senate not only bowed down and groveled before the totalitarian terrorist emperors, but the few men that stood up like Thrasyas Peter. They didn't admire him, they hated him for standing up because it exposed their own cowardice. It is an unpleasant thing, though I speak with great sympathy, to hear academics say nowadays, well, we didn't believe it, we knew it was a lie. But you see, if we'd have rejected it and stood for the truth, we would have lost our jobs. So, we taught the lie to our students. What intellectuals did. The pressures that shall be at the end of the age to conform to the lie. Perhaps the world has never yet seen such pressures as then will be. In all this great battle for the heart and love and allegiance of man, of course, God does not stand idly by on the sidelines. If Satan is going to fight, then God will fight. Thank him. And I tell you straight, the scripture tells you God is going to win the battle. The method he fights with, oh my brother, my sister, what a method it will prove to be. Not lambasting and defeating his foe by the stark use of naked almighty power, though when it will be appropriate, God will not hesitate to use it. But if this is a battle for the truth, and what truth is like, I remind you of that scene that we thought about the other day. It came to its most tremendous battlefield when God incarnate came down to fight the devil and all his hosts. Our blessed Lord Jesus stood before Pilate, tupni hatni little governor of Judea, responsible to the Roman Emperor Tiberius, and said to incarnate deity, almighty God incarnate, don't you know, says he, I have the power. And our Lord, with divine love and contempt mixed, said, but Pilate, the kind of king I am, I have come to witness to the truth. And if the battle cannot be won, unless we not only know the truth, but love it, and if the truth is ultimately a person, then my brothers, my sisters, pause a moment even now in your study and see what was actually at issue at Calvary. I have come, says Christ, to bear witness to the truth. And the truth about you and the truth about me is that we were made by a creator who not only commands our obedience, but would give himself, such is his love, rather than that we perish. But now we must, uh, proceed to patient literary study for a moment. We come to section four to see this morning that it is formed of four parts. It is laid out for you on se- on page seven of your notes. Would you notice that the, it is composed of three trilogies, followed by the final victory song of those that obtained victory over the beast. Three trilogies. By that I mean the first three parts are groups of three incidents or topics. In the first one, there is the scene of the woman and the man child, with the dragon standing before the woman. And then there is the war in heaven. And then there is the persecution of the woman. They hang together, of course. They are all about one topic, the woman, the child, and the devil. Then there is, in similar fashion, another trilogy, The Rise of the Beast, as Satan stands upon the seashore and stage manages the rise of the first beast. There comes also the second beast, and he ministers on behalf of the first beast. And there follows, dramatically enough, a third paragraph. Hitherto John has been watching the dragon standing upon the sand of the sea. Incidentally, that is, I judge, the correct reading of the manuscripts. Not that John was standing on the seashore, but that Satan the devil was standing on the seashore. John, for a while, was absorbed with the scene of Satan standing on the shore of the sea, manipulated the rise of the first beast and the second beast. And when all seemed to be going Satan's way, and the beasts were victorious and the saints overcome, John turned round and saw the lamb. He wasn't standing on the seashore. He was standing on Mount Zion with a hundred and forty four thousand who had already overcome the beast. The third trilogy is the series of warnings of judgments, and then of judgments themselves. And the final thing is, as I say, the song of the victors over the beast. They are then the contents of section four. Now let us look at the thought flow that runs between the trilogies. First all, in the first trilogy, we find in all three respects, Satan is frustrated and defeated, comes down to earth, turned out of heaven, defeated in his battle, attempts to persecute the woman, but fails even in that. In the first trilogy, then, Satan is defeated and frustrated. And we are told that before in the second trilogy, we have described for us the apparent triumph and victory of Satan. So large his victory that all that dwell on the earth shall worship him, except those whose names are written in the Lamb's book of life. In light of that apparently universal victory, before it is complete, utterly complete, and before the judgments of God descend on it, there comes the third trilogy, the warnings and judgments, God's last appeal to mankind, not to believe the lie, but to believe the truth, not to worship the beast, but to worship the Creator and to save their lives at the very last moment, if it is possible. And then the judgments proceed. And finally, as is very apt, come the songs of those who actually do conquer the beast and win their battle. So much then for the, uh, uh, the thought flow of the four parts of section four. And we come now to the significance of the first part, standing first. That is always a good basic question to ask of any paragraph of scripture. What's it doing standing here? Would it make any difference to the story if it stood somewhere else? Why does the first trilogy stand first? And the wonderful reason, of course, is this. The second trilogy is going to depict the almost universal success and victory of Satan and his crew. But before it happens, God in his wisdom takes us behind the scenes and shows us what the facts are. Satan's empire, though it come to apparently universal success, is doomed from the very start. And why is it doomed? Because it has been founded on unsure foundations. It rests on rotten props. Let me use an analogy. If an invading army comes into a country and wants to possess it and hold it, there will be in that country certain strategic points that are vital for the occupation of the country. However much territory the invading army secures, if it cannot secure these strategic points, it will never be able to hold the country permanently. So it is with Satan's empire. He will, in the end, appear to be universally victorious, but God in his mercy to the people that shall live then, and might be in danger of being impressed by his apparent victory, and think that he is so powerful that it is unworth- not worthwhile trying to resist him. Who is able to make war with the beast, they will say. Such will be his apparent triumph. God in his mercy, before it happens, says, but come look, please look. Look what the situation is behind the scenes. That whole pompous empire is built on false foundations. It has failed to take the strategic points in the battle. And the battle is won, in fact. The war is won before Satan's final battle begins. How is that, you say? Well, look what stands on the surface. The first picture is of this woman pregnant with a child, and Satan stands before her to devour the child. He is, after all, he knows his strategy and he knows his tactics, and he apparently is as aware of anybody else of who this child is going to be. You say, tell me who the child is. Well, fancy you're asking that question. We have to, we have to listen to what the child is and what the child is going to do. He is, it says, going to rule the nations with a rod of iron. And Satan has enough wit left in his head to know that the both of them can't rule. If the child is going to rule the nation with a rod of iron, then Satan can't rule them with his rod of iron. And if Satan is going to be successful to rule the nations with a rod of iron, he must take and destroy this child as soon as it's born, and if he can't, the game is ultimately up. And he stands there, coward that he is, in all his forms of terror, a red dragon, that's just like him, coming to a woman in that state of affairs, do you see? Miserable. Well, I must moderate my language. I was going to say a miserable cad, but I remember Michael, when he was disputing with the devil, dared not bring a ra- railing accusation against him, but there he stands anyway, ready to devour her child as soon as it is born. And just when you see those ugly crocodile jaws opening and you say there's no hope, the child, when he's born, will fall right into his jaws. The child has caught up to God and his throne, and you can almost hear Satan gnash his teeth. He's lost. He can do what he likes now, he's lost. Marvelous, isn't it? Ah, but he has another string to his bow. There are these brethren, brothers. Disinfect the term if you feel you have to, but it's, uh, believers, in other words. And now he sees another, another strategic point that he's got to take, because it's no secret, at least it hasn't been recently, that not only is Christ going to reign, but God has determined that the age to come shall not be put into subjection to angels, but is going to be put into subjection to man, and not only to Christ, but to Christ and all who trust him. And Satan is going to be thrown out. And the angelic administration removed and replaced by redeemed human beings, and Satan sees his possibility. And he comes to fight in the courts of God, armed not with Kalashnikov rifles, of course, now, but armed with moral arguments to plead the case before the host of heaven in the courts of God, and lay hold upon the very morality and justice of God to argue, God, you can't do it. It's all right, all right, all right to exalt Jesus Christ, your sinless son, to the throne, but you can't, uh, exalt these miserable human beings just because they call themselves believers. Look at the way they live. They're as much sinners as the rest, aren't they? Haven't they been rebels? You're going to turn me out and my angels, God, you're going to turn me out of the heavens because I've been a rebel, and haven't they been rebels? I've helped them, of course, but that's beside the point. They are rebels. Look at the way they're living now. And God, if you're proposing to take those people and put them alongside your son on the throne of the universe, then your very heaven will grow dark for the sheer injustice and immorality of it. Sensing he has a weak point, if ever there was one, he presses it day and night. He accuses the brethren day and night before God. But he loses the battle, and he gets thrown out. And he's lost. You may know it in advance. And then he goes off to try and destroy the woman who gave birth to the child. But even there he's unsuccessful. And gnashing his teeth, he returns to do what now is all he can do, to persecute the rest of her seed. And how he loses that battle, we shall have to see. But you see the drift of the thought, don't you? That's marvelous. What a God God is. He tells us these things before they come to pass. He tells his people, he's standing by the sidelines. There are certain things I nearly said God can't do. But all he's all round his people, isn't he? Encouraging them on every side, buttressing their faith. Now he tells them before the last great battle comes, oh, please perceive. Don't go over to Satan's side, for the devil's lost already. Ah, but you say, hmm. Who is this woman with the child? You'll not let me get away with not telling me, will you, or she won't pay my fair home, you'll say. There have been, of course, many interpretations of a good soul and of who her child is. And the difficulty in deciding between them is that there's a lot of truth in all the interpretations. Now we have to get used to the idea that some figures in scripture stand for multiple things. That is particularly so with the woman and her seed. For allow me to remind you how this idea of seed is used elsewhere in scripture. Take, for instance, Abraham, and God promised him seed. Who was the promised seed that God promised to Abraham? You say, well, that's obvious, that was Isaac. I see, of course it was Isaac. Marvelous. And will Isaac, uh, complete the explanation? Well, not according to Saint Paul in Galatians, it will say. He tells us that seed was Christ. There was not just one fulfillment of the promised seed. Of course, without Isaac, there would have been no Christ, would there? But Isaac wasn't enough in himself. And ultimately, when God promised seed to Abraham, he had in mind the Christ. You say, that will do then, that's all. No, it isn't. For Paul goes on to argue, doesn't he, that when it comes to inheriting the great inheritance promised to Abraham, he argues first that, that the inheritance was promised to Abraham's seed, that is Christ, he says. But as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. Now there's no distinction, be you Jew or Gentile or anything else. You're all one in Christ when it comes to the grounds of your inheritance. For you who have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ, like a man puts on a garment that completely covers him. If you then are Christ, says Paul, then are you Abram's seed and heirs according to the promise. The fulfillment and the significance of the term seed with Abram is not simple, but multiple. So it was with God's promise to King David. I'll not take my mercy from you, he said, like I took it from Saul. Saul's sons never ascended his throne. Saul's dynasty was never established. I'll not take away my mercy from you as I took it away from your predecessor Saul, says God. But when you are departed, David, I will raise up a son to sit upon your throne. I will be to him a father, and he shall me to be, he shall be to me a son. And who was that son of? You say, Solomon, of course. Of course, yes. But just Solomon? Well, no, not just Solomon. Because when you come to the Epistle to the Hebrews, chapter one, the inspired writer will quote that promise and apply it to the blessed Lord Jesus Christ, and point out to you that, uh, though in some sense God was a father to Solomon, and Solomon was a, uh, was treated by God as a son, the original promise went far beyond Solomon and was meant eventually to be fulfilled at a far higher level. David's son, to whom God is a father and he a son to God, proved at last to be none other than the incarnate Lord himself. And thus it is most likely that the interpretation of the woman and child, particularly the child, shall likewise here be multiple. Indeed, the image of a woman giving birth to a child is found in two or three places in Old Testament in prophetic contexts, but allow me to suggest that the, the first reference must be to the Garden of Eden. Consider it in your mind's eye just for a moment. A woman, serpent, and the ser- uh, and the woman's seed. The word dragon, of course, is but a Greek word for serpent. It is generally used for more than ordinarily ferocious serpents, but it does mean serpent. The woman, the serpent, and the woman's seed. This obviously to Genesis. And to that moment in human history, not when Eve came all beautiful from the fashioning hand of God. When Eve stood with her guilty husband Adam, defeated, fallen, deceived. Deceived by the devil's very lie, and God came down to the situation. What would God do? His first remarks were directed to the serpent, of course, responsible for this great catastrophe. The woman had believed the lie, and God could see with his divine foreknowledge how this lie would grow and spread. You shall be as God. God could foresee as, uh, uh, clearly enough that one day the seed sown in that ground would grow to a colossal harvest, so that at the end of the age, vast millions on earth would believe the lie, and Satan would raise up his final expression of that lie in the form of the beast, a man parading himself on earth, helped thereto by demonic and satanic powers, claiming to be God, man as God. What would God do with that? We'll say, Lord, if we might be permitted to advise you. The only safe thing to do here is to crush this lie now, once and forever. Stamp on the serpent, stamp on Eve, and stamp on Adam, and the lie will never be propagated anymore. I think I would have chosen that. Would have been safe, wouldn't it? And God didn't. There stood Satan thinking he'd won and ruined the creation. There stood the fallen woman and the fallen man. And God announced he was going to let them carry on. Carry on? Yes, because got what Satan hadn't quite perceived thus far is the way God had made the human race. He had made it, so even after they fell, God could get inside his own creation and become a man and fight the devil as a man. You know you can't be up to what God will do next, can you? What, what, what a strategy. And what a marvelous contrast it makes, doesn't it, as we read that ancient story now against the background of what shall be at the end of the age. Man's insane, devil-riven urge to try and climb up and be God, and banish God, and God's answer to that? Well, he says, if God man is going to be try and be God, I think what I'll do is I'll become man. And I bid you for a moment to sit back and visualize that scene in your mind's eye, if you can. Oh, my brother, my sister, look at that woman. Call her Eve, call her humanity, call her Israel, call you what you will. See that swollen womb and ask what wonder is it? What child is it that she carries? Verily, God, yet become truly human, lower than angels, to die in our stead. How hast thou, long promised seed of the woman, trod on the serpent and bruised his head. Oh, where should we have been in the battle, but lost and defeated and consigned to God's everlasting hell? Hadn't it been another Cain, that lovely man, that supreme man, the son of man, verily God, yet become truly human. Find me another story in all the universe. Are it's incredible enough to think that Almighty, uh, illimitable God should confine himself to the womb of a woman? But it'd be a little bit more believable, wouldn't it, if the woman were sinless? It's the fallen woman. I remind you with all due respect that Mary too was a sinner, and that Almighty God should be prepared to confine himself to the womb of fallen humanity and become man to fight our battle for us and to win it for us. That is a story that is so wonderful, as scarce to be credible. It was to Eve and Adam, wasn't it, as to the serpent that God announced that the seed of the woman will bruise your head, though you shall bruise his heel. The original promise given to Eve was not fulfilled forthwith and immediately, was it? And over the centuries, we have had exhibitions of Satan's attempt to frustrate and destroy God's announced purpose. There was a time in Egypt, wasn't there? When that sinister Pharaoh reigned, prototype of the man of sin, if there ever was one. And for reasons that went beyond his little head, inspired surely by the devil himself. He decided that Israel as a nation must be destroyed, and there happened that first instance of anti-Semitism and genocide. As the Pharaoh declared that every man child born to an Israelite woman must be taken and slung into the Nile to be devoured by the waiting jaws of the crocodiles. God saw to it that Israel was delivered out of the jaws of those crocodiles. There came a time later in the history of Israel, when a woman with the name of Athaliah was on the throat of Judah. She had, alas, family connections with old apostate Ahab and Jezebel of Israel, but now she sat upon the throne of Israel. And when she saw that all the seed royal of Israel had been destroyed, she rose up, and in her mad frenzy, she murdered all the seed royal in Judah. And the promise of God to bring in his Messiah came within a centimeter of being absolutely destroyed and brought to its end. But a nurse found a little boy, picked him up and ran with him, and the line of Judah survived. There came the time when our blessed Lord himself was born of Mary. But Herod, hearing that there was a king born to the Jews, inquired where he was so that he might come, so he said, and worship him. Not being able to find him, vented his rage on all the children under two years old in the vicinity. And not content with that, came the great battle center of all human history, when Jesus Christ hung upon a cross, and the very hounds of hell beset him round like a besieging army. And says Paul in the epistle to the Colossians, God, or is it Christ, strip the principalities and powers. And when they thought him safely in their grip, he eluded their grasp and ascended and sits on the right hand of the throne of the majesty on high. And there he is. And Satan has been defeated. I can tell you even more. It is reliably reported that th- you at this very moment, though you sit here behind these tables, so I'm told and given to understand, and are fighting your battles and sometimes getting wounded and often tired. You too are already seated with Christ in heavenly places. Oh, shout hallelujah, do. You're in glory with the Savior, and the battle's won. At least the war is won. Though there are many battles still to be fought. Point number one then, Satan has lost the man child and is doomed. Point number two. I needn't elaborate on it further, you'll see the point of it. If it is God's good pleasure to have his redeemed reign with Christ. And here Satan senses the weak point, and he attacks it day and night. You know, we must sometimes revise our notions of Satan. We picture him always as the great red dragon full of terrorism, but Satan uses other methods. Satan concerns himself more often with morality than we think. Let us remember what Jude says. We are not to despise principalities and powers. Says Jude that when Michael disputed with the devil, he dare not bring a railing accusation against him, but said, the Lord rebuke you, Satan. You'll see, we cannot perhaps know for sure, but it would seem that when Michael was sent on the task of burying the body of Moses, Satan disputed it on moral grounds. Moses said he has sinned. The reason you're having to bury him at all is this, because he rebelled against God, did he not? When he smote the rock. And God said, for that sin and rebellion, he should not enter the promised land. And now Michael says his satanic majesty will say it. That's like God has his favorites, doesn't he? He goes and gives him a state funeral, the chief angel come down to attend his funeral. Oh, rebel that Moses was, has God for you. Some sinners he he punishes, and other sinners just because he happens to like them, you see. He favors them. And what did Michael say? Michael didn't say, and who are you to complain? You shut up. You're not really concerned with morality. Now come. I know. If there can be lodged a moral claim against God's purpose in dealing with his people, it doesn't matter who raises it. If it were true that God is acting unjustly, the devil himself has a right to raise it. And the answer is not to say, poo poo, we don't take any notice of you, devil. The thing has got to be answered morally and justly. And the scene is the court of heaven. God is the central judge, and God cannot act partially. The devil presses his claim day and night against the breath. How will they overcome him? They overcame him, says scripture, first by the blood of the lamb. Let's ponder what that means. Some people talk of the blood of the lamb as if it were some kind of magic that when the Satan smells it or hears it or sees it or something, it frightens him and he runs off. That's not what it means. There's no magic in the blood of Christ. The blood of Christ is a token of the death of Christ. It's a legal answer to all the claims that Satan can bring against the people of God. Satan raises their sins, their iniquities, their injustices, and God's answer is the blood of Christ. For God has forgiven his people not unjustly. God has found a way of forgiving his people's sins that is absolutely and one hundred percent just and righteous. And happy are those people that have learned to plead the blood of Christ in the heavenly court before God against the accusations of the accuser. They overcame him through the blood of the Lamb, but not merely through the blood of the Lamb, but through the word of their testimony, and they loved not their lives unto the death. Now we have to pause, or we must take it seriously. These believers are s- uh, these people are saying that they have a right to stand because of the blood of Christ. They have repented, they have trusted the Savior, they believe the Savior, and his blood covers their sins. Satan isn't going to give up that easy. And he says, yes, but you see, the blood of Christ avails for all believers, that I can't dispute. But are you a believer? How would you know whether a person is a believer or not? Two things are required, aren't they? They overcame him by the word of their testimony. That's number one. And we are reminded forcibly, forcefully of the words of our Lord Jesus, the solemn words of the Lord Jesus. He who confesses me before men, I will confess him before my Father and the holy angels. He who denies me before men, him will I deny. It has been so easy for me in life, I feel ashamed to stand before you and speak when I remember what some of you have had to endure in your day, in your testimony for the Lord. But I speak simply as the mouthpiece for God's word. And when I think of what period of history this is pointed to, the end of the age, when to confess the Lord Jesus will be to invite physical death. And the demands of the Lord Jesus are seen in their true light, aren't they? You confess me, I will confess you. You deny me, I will deny you. What if it means death? Here Satan have his last go. Ah yes, they don't mind a little loss of money, they perhaps don't mind a little loss of status, but touch their lives, God. Bring them to a position where, if they confess you, they'll die. You'll find out what they'll do. They'll cave in. And these brethren win the case because they love not their lives unto the death. We have to overcome, my brothers. And we have to show that we are genuine believers. Oh, God help me. I've had it so easy. The mystery is why God tests some apparently more than he tests others. The testing at the end of the age will be ferocious beyond anything else. Let us not forget our Lord enunciated it as a general principle. If a man comes after me and doesn't hate himself, father, mother, and all else, and renounce all that he has, and his life too, he cannot be my disciple. The terms of the discipleship come to our hearts, don't they? Oh God, give us help to practice them in the ordinary affairs of daily life, so that should ever a great climax come, we might be ready for the test. Finally, Satan was cast down. They won the battle. You'll see God has to be justified. And that is what second Thessalonians chapter one says in its straightforward language. Talking of the coming of the Lord Jesus, Paul says that when he, uh, comes in power and great glory and puts down those who have persecuted believers and sets believers free from their persecution, it is a manifest token of the righteous judgment of God to the end that you may be counted worthy of the kingdom of God for which you also suffer. If so be, it is a righteous thing with God to recompense affliction to them that afflict you, and to you that are afflicted, rest with us at the revelation of the Lord Jesus from heaven with the angels of his power. You will see that the issue there will be, is God just? For the Lord to come and raise some people to glory, and to consign others to eternal perdition, the world will want to know, is it just? Suppose they look at me, uh, and see me exalted to heaven with Christ. Well, any of my neighbors have ground to say, whew, well, I wouldn't have thought that of him. There have been some Christians I know that have been utterly devoted to Christ, and they deserve it. They were on Christ's side. Anybody can see that, but this fellow? And God's going to exalt him to glory? Some God then. It isn't just. God not only has answer through the blood of Christ for his own standards, he wants an answer to give to the whole world. It is just. I raise this dear lady to glory now with Christ. It is just. Why? Well, world, if you need an evidence of the justice of it, look at her life. He was on Christ's side, wasn't he? He was prepared to sacrifice and serve Christ. It is manifestly just that I raise her to glory. The moral battle before the universe. God grant us so to live, that we may overcome in the great disputed area of morality in which Satan engages with God. And finally, the third part of the trilogy. Satan was cast down, he lost the battle in the courts of heaven, and he was cast down to earth. The question naturally arises, when was he cast down? Well, not at Calvary, my brother, my sister. Unless you think that Satan has given up accusing you in the presence of God, do you suppose that'd be true? He's not given up accusing the brethren, he accuses them still one day he will be cast down, and when he is cast down, he shall have but a very short time left to stage his deceitful empire. When he saw he was cast down, he tried to persecute the woman that had brought forth the man child. Not Eve, of course, and nor yet Mary. Both of them have long since with the Lord. But Israel, of course. Because God has purposes for Israel. Let us Gentile Christians remember it. We are not to be wise in our own conceits and stuck up and proud and say Israel failed and God put us in their place and look what good boys we are and Israel will never be restored. To talk like that is to indulge in arrogance, foolish arrogance, says Paul. Israel have not fallen that they should permanently fall and be kept down. One day a deliverer shall come out of Zion, and he shall turn iniquity from Jacob, and in that day all Israel shall be saved. Hence the fury of Satan's antagonism against Israel, and his attempts down, even down the Christian centuries, to destroy her. But there he has lost up to the moment, hasn't he? In spite of his savage cruelty, he has lost, and God will bring Israel through triumphantly at the end to his glory. That's the background to the battle. This evening we shall have to consider the battle itself, and then move on to section five. The two of them are related, so we shall do that this evening. But before we close, let us recur to thinking of the seriousness of the true demands that are made if we would overcome the devil. They overcame him through the blood of the Lamb, through the word of their testimony. They loved not their lives unto death. And I say to myself, what would happen to you, Gooding, if you were faced with the ultimate decision? For I remember a stronger man than I am, and his name was Peter. Confident in his love for the Lord Jesus, when the Lord Jesus told him, Peter, this night you shall deny me thrice. He said, now, Lord, you know, you say wonderful things from time to time, or most of the time, indeed, he said, Lord, but sometimes you get things wrong, Lord. If you don't mind my pointing it out, you say, and this is one of them. You've got that wrong, Lord, you see. You, you know, after all this while, you still don't know me, really. It's a pity, you see. It is possible that some of these others would deny you, but I, Lord, I would never deny you. I go to prison and to death for your sake, Lord. And he knew not that in himself he had a weakness. He wasn't aware it was there, a weakness. But when the battle started, would undo him. But he wouldn't listen. If he'd have said, Lord, I didn't know that I was like that, but if you say so, it is so. How can I overcome this weakness? The Lord would have showed him how. But he wouldn't listen. And so the Lord said to Peter, you're going to deny me. And then he added to my everlasting comfort, as well as to Peter's. Peter, I have prayed for you that your faith shall not fail. And when you are turned again, notice he didn't say if ever you come back. When you are turned again, strengthen your brethren, Peter. And so it happened. When the trial came, his courage went. His testimony was blown sky high. His godliness was smashed to smithereens. And all was broken, and all was lost, except for this one thing. His faith remained. The blessed Lord Jesus had not prayed that his testimony shouldn't be shattered, or his courage wouldn't fail. They both would be, and in a sense had to be. What the Lord Jesus had prayed for was that his faith shouldn't fail. Without that faith, Peter would have ceased to be a believer completely, wouldn't he? And thus the Lord Jesus gave himself to intercede. It is an enormous comfort to my heart to remember that Christ has no favorites, and thus does he pray for all his genuine people against the time of their trial. He ever lives to make intercession for them, and because he ever lives, he is able to save to the uttermost them that come unto God by him. And see how it worked out. Before the trial came, Peter, as you see, didn't one hundred percent believe the Lord, did he? Oh, in most things he did, but his faith was, uh, still not perfect, was it? And when the Lord said, you're going to deny me, nonsense, says Peter, nonsense, nonsense. Never mind, Lord, but it's nonsense anyway. Uh, he didn't believe the Lord. When it happened, and he denied the Lord for the third time, and suddenly in the darkness of the night, a cockerel crew. And Peter heard the cockerel. And he looked, and there was the Lord standing, and he was looking at Peter. No words need be said. The cockerel crew. Peter discovered the Lord had been true after all. The Lord had said, you're going to deny me, and Peter hadn't believed it. He believed it now. He now was a stronger believer than ever he was before. He now believed Christ. Marvelous that, isn't it? And in the flood of his tears and the turmoil of his emotion, he went out into the dark. Would he ever come back? Would he ever find the courage to come back? How would he face the other disciples and the shame of it? And how would he face the Lord? Would he ever come back and master his grief? And the cock crew. And he remembered the word of the Lord Jesus, before the cock crow twice, thou shalt deny me thrice. And Peter, I pray for you that your faith shall not fail. And when you're restored, Peter. And right in the darkness and tempest of that storm, there arose in the blackness of his midnight a new light and the possibility of a dawn. Christ had said he would betray him. Christ had said, and when you come back, Peter. And sure as the cock was now crowing, he would come back, and come back he did. My brother and sister, Christ can't believe for us. He'd do it if he could. We've got to believe ourselves. We've got to overcome ourselves, but we don't fight alone in this battle. And since faith is the final citadel that Satan must take if he is to win, we have a great high priest who not only died for us at Calvary, but rose and is at the right hand of God. And he intercedes for us that our faith shall not fail. He will bring all his true believing people home to glory. Let the temptation last as long as the temptation may last. Do you remember what we saw in section three? There is an incense altar standing before the throne of God, but one day the prayers of the saints going up in the name of our blessed Lord Jesus, combined with his divine intercessions and merits, shall secure that the temptation is finished and his people come through triumphantly to glory. Shall we pray? Lord, we thank thee for thy word now, and we come to these very serious as- serious challenges. Blessed Lord Jesus, we would not blunt the edge of thy word, nor lessen the extent of thy demand. But thou knowest our weak hearts. We cannot boast before thee our own faithfulness or our own courage. And we have things that we must deal with in thy presence, with thee and with thee alone. And yet now we praise thee for the example that thou hast given us in thy servant Peter. We bless thee for thine intercessions. O Lord, continue them, we pray thee, as ash- most assuredly thou. Because as thou ever livest to make intercession, thou wilt save us to the uttermost, who come unto God by thee, and therefore we praise thy name for thine own name's sake. Amen.