Louie Giglio - A Cosmic Collision and a Ready Church
A couple of key things as we start into this next section of the journey today: God’s mercy is still available. We left chapter 11 of Revelation with this verse: «Then God’s temple in heaven was opened, and within His temple was seen the Ark of the Covenant.» The Ark of His Covenant symbolizes His agreement with humanity. There came flashes of lightning, rumblings, peals of thunder, an earthquake, and a great hailstorm.
Now, what does this mean? It means that John has already seen a door open into the throne room of God, but now, in the throne room, he sees the temple of heaven opened, and in it, he sees the Ark of the Covenant—the place where the high priest would sprinkle the blood of an innocent lamb on the Day of Atonement to cover the sins of the people. This picture illustrates the mercy of God. So, in the midst of Revelation’s judgment and the unfolding story where all sin will be judged, there’s mercy. As we move into chapter 12, there’s going to be gospel because mercy is still on the table, and gospel is actually the fulcrum of Revelation. We’re going to delve into some crazy cosmic conflict in the next verses, but in it all is the gospel, and that gospel is available today. I implore every person in this gathering to surrender your life to the mercy and grace of God through Jesus Christ and the finished work of the cross. The mercy seat is still available today.
I also want to remind us today to make no mistake: everything operates on God’s timeline, everything will come to God’s conclusion, and everything will end with God’s consequence because Christ is reigning. What we’re about to see today is that time is running out for everybody else who thinks they are in control. So, let’s jump in together in Revelation 12, and I’ll lead us through a bit instead of reading through and returning to the beginning. The title of this first section is «The Woman and the Dragon.» A great and wondrous sign appeared in heaven. Can you say «sign»? The sign was a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of 12 stars on her head. She was pregnant and cried out in pain as she was about to give birth.
Let’s pause for a moment: who is this woman clothed with the sun? You’re going to encounter a couple of opinions if you study this broadly. The high opinion is that this is Mary, the mother of Jesus, and there’s a whole wing of our Christian faith that very much believes this. You’ll see it in art, where you see the sun’s radiance, the 12 stars, and the moon under Mary’s feet. A lot of other people would say this represents Israel, that the 12 stars symbolize the 12 tribes of Israel, with Israel being the branch that God used to give birth to Jesus. Others would say the broader story of the woman represents the followers of Jesus: the church, all the people who have put faith in Jesus. I think the answer is probably yes. I would affirm that it’s both Israel bringing forth Jesus, Mary who brought forth Jesus, and the church that continues Jesus' mission. This 12 reflects the 24 elders from the 12 tribes and the 12 apostles, bringing together the old messianic line and the new church emerging from the resurrection of Jesus.
This woman, adorned with 12 stars on her head, was pregnant and cried out in pain as she was about to give birth. Then another sign appeared in heaven: an enormous red dragon with seven heads, ten horns, and seven crowns on his heads. Now we know exactly who this is because we’re told a little later in the text: this is Satan, the devil, the enemy. Notice how the enemy is masquerading as he understands Jesus. He’s aware that seven is the number of completion and revelation, and so now he comes with seven heads and seven crowns on his heads. His tail swept a third of the stars out of the sky and flung them to earth. This could mean various things, but Jesus said that He saw Satan fall like a star from heaven, which may reference Satan’s fall and the third of the angels that fell with him. The dragon stood in front of the woman who was about to give birth so that he might devour her child the moment it was born.
There is a reference for every phrase we’re reading today in the Old Testament and New Testament as we see a cross-referenced story. Even at the birth of Jesus, a decree went out that all males born two years and under would be killed because, at the moment of His birth, there was a move by the ruler at that time to wipe Jesus out of the story. The dragon was waiting at birth to devour her child the moment it was born, and we’ll see how these things connect with the beast later. She gave birth to a son, a male child who will rule all the nations with an iron scepter. You might have a cross-reference indication letter in your Bible; this is from Psalm 2, a prophecy about Jesus stating that He will rule all the nations with an iron scepter. We know that Jesus is in focus, and her child was snatched up to God and to His throne. What a narrative! That’s the whole story of Jesus in this particular part of Revelation.
She gave birth to a child who will rule the nations with an iron scepter, and the child was snatched up to God and to His throne. You see this dragon, trying to kill this child, Jesus, while God says, «Too bad, I’m snatching him up to me and to my throne.» The woman fled into the desert to a place prepared for her by God, where she might be taken care of for 1,260 days. We see this theme again—three and a half years. There was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back. An angelic clash is happening now, but the dragon and his angels were not strong enough and lost their place in heaven. Remember Jesus’s words: «I saw Satan fall like a star from heaven,» where his tail swept away a third of the stars in the sky. They lost their place in heaven.
The great dragon was hurled down, that ancient serpent called the devil or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him. Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say, «Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of His Christ, for the accuser—talking about the dragon—of our brothers, who accuses them before our God day and night, has been hurled down.» In some way, this dragon had access to heaven. We know from Job’s story that he accuses Job, saying, «Oh, you think Job is righteous? You think God will honor you?» We don’t know how he received this access as an accuser to God, but he had it. Yet now he is losing it; he has been hurled down.
They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb. Remember how we talked about the gospel being the fulcrum of Revelation’s story? Obviously, Jesus is the centerpiece; the throne of «Holy, Holy, Holy» is the epicenter. The gospel is the fulcrum of what unfolds at the end of time. They overcame him—the dragon, the accuser—by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony. They did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death. Therefore, rejoice, you heavens and you who dwell in them! Why? Because the accuser has been cast down! But woe to the earth and the sea because the devil has gone down to you; he is filled with fury because he knows that his time is short.
When the dragon saw that he had been hurled to the earth, he pursued the woman who had given birth to the male child. The woman was given the two wings of a great eagle so she might fly to the place prepared for her in the desert, where she would be taken care of for a time, times, and half a time. Most people think this refers to 1,260 days or three and a half years, out of the serpent’s reach. From his mouth, the serpent spewed water like a river to overtake the woman and sweep her away with the torrent. But the earth helped the woman by opening its mouth and swallowing the river that the dragon had spewed out of his mouth.
Then the dragon was enraged at the woman and went off to make war against the rest of her offspring. Who are the rest of her offspring? It’s you and me—those who obey God’s commands and hold to the testimony of Jesus. There is indeed a war going on. At first, the dragon wants the Son, but he can’t get the Son, so now the dragon wants what the Son loves most, and that’s His church. We see in chapter 13 how this will intensify and play out. We are going to see an unholy trinity—a deceptive alliance between this dragon and two beasts. The dragon stood on the shore of the sea, and I saw a beast coming out of the sea. This is the first beast we’re going to see.
He had ten horns and seven heads. This beast, trying to get in on the action, mimics everything; seven heads is linked to Jesus. Everything revolves around seven, so they try to portray themselves as something they are not, with ten crowns on its horns. Horns symbolize strength, so this beast is strong, with ten horns and ten crowns on those horns. Each head bore a blasphemous name. The beast I saw resembled—a key word—a leopard but had feet like those of a bear and a mouth like that of a lion. The dragon gave the beast his power, his throne, and great authority.
Whoever this beast is, whatever this beast is, it received its authority from the dragon. The dragon has been hurled down but still holds authority on earth, even now. Satan retains some authority—though not omnipotent or omniscient—on the earth at this moment. He’s giving this authority to this beast coming out of the sea. One of the heads of the beast seemed to have had a fatal wound, but the fatal wound had been healed. The whole world was astonished and followed the beast. What does this say? Some scholars and theologians believe that this beast represents a world power. This beast embodies the state. So we have the dragon, we have Satan, and now we have the state rising to power.
Somehow, one of the heads of this seven-headed beast is fatally wounded, but somehow, that head comes back. We’re uncertain if that ruler was extinguished and then that source of power returned, but it astonished the people, and the whole world got involved and followed the beast. Men worshiped the dragon; can you imagine people worshiping Satan? You can because he had given authority to the beast. They also worshiped the beast and asked, «Who is like the beast? Who can make war against him?» What does that sound like? It mimics all that we see in Scripture: «Who is like our God?»
The beast was given a mouth to utter proud words and blasphemies and to exercise authority for 42 months—three and a half years. He opened his mouth to blaspheme God and to slander His name, His dwelling place, and those who live in heaven. He was given power to make war against the saints and to conquer them; he was given authority over every tribe, people, language, and nation. In other words, his influence and impact will be global and total. All inhabitants of the earth will worship the beast, except for those whose names have not been written in the Book of Life belonging to the Lamb slain from the creation of the world.
So everyone is going to worship him except those whose names are written in the Book of Life belonging to the Lamb; there’s the gospel! Those whose names are in that Book are incredibly fortunate. «He who has an ear, let him hear,» and I would ask: is your name written in the Book of Life? If anyone is to go into captivity, into captivity he will go. This talks about the price that will be paid for people who are faithful in these times. If anyone is to be killed with the sword, with the sword, he will be killed. What does that mean to us, and how should we respond to this message we’re receiving from the Holy Spirit about what’s coming? We should have patient endurance and endeavor to be faithful—all of us who are saints.
The dragon is now in partnership with some earthly power, some governmental structure—this seven-headed beast that has much power and authority. With this power and authority, interestingly, it targets one segment of faith. We don’t see anything in here about other faith groups; we only see and hear about people who call on Jesus. Here comes the second beast; then I saw another beast coming out of the earth. This beast came out of the sea; this other beast is coming out of the earth, giving the impression that this beast will be a personality, a person.
This first beast probably harkens back in the Jewish mind to Leviathan and Behemoth—these sea creatures representing governmental structures and powers that would come against the people of God in real history and in real time—but now we’re getting a different picture of someone coming out of the earth, out of humanity. He had two horns like a lamb. He wanted to look like a lamb because he knew about the Lamb, but when he spoke, he sounded like a dragon. He exercised all the authority of the first beast on his behalf and made the earth and its inhabitants worship the first beast, whose fatal wound had been healed.
He performed great and miraculous signs. Just a footnote: just because someone can do something miraculous doesn’t automatically mean it’s a move of the Holy Spirit. He even caused fire to come down from heaven to earth in full view of men. Because of the signs he was given power to perform on behalf of the first beast, he deceived the inhabitants of the earth and ordered them to set up an image in honor of the beast who was wounded by the sword and yet lived.
He was given power to give breath to the image of the first beast so that the image could speak and cause all who refused to worship the image to be killed. He also forced everyone, small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on his right hand or on his forehead so that no one could buy or sell unless he had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of his name. This calls for wisdom. We’ve already seen a call for patient endurance; we’ve seen a call for faithfulness. Now we’re seeing a call for wisdom. If anyone has insight, let him calculate the number of the beast, for it is man’s number; his number is 666.
So we have a dragon, Satan, using earthly power structures to carry out his purpose and plan to persecute the church that Jesus loves. Now, we have a personality rising up, who is very charismatic and somehow, through false prophecy, power, and persuasion, this personality is breathing life into the political structure to wage war against the saints, to ultimately steal the worship of the Creator and redirect it to the worship of the dragon. We have a triangle going on—a spiritually unholy triangle, if you will—an unholy trinity leveraged against the saints.
First John spoke about this: «And this is the last hour, and you know that the Antichrist is coming. Even now, many antichrists have come» (1 John 2). So, I don’t want to get too caught up in figuring out if the Antichrist is alive now or if it’s someone we know. If you want to dive into finding the number of a name, you can spend a year doing that. I have spent time in that place, and you can explore who fits the number 666, but I don’t think that’s the most critical thing today.
We are encouraged to use insight to understand, meaning it’s time to wake up, be wise, look around, and not take things at face value. Don’t sleep on this, because even if, in our lifetime, it’s not the Antichrist, there are still antichrists among us. This is what the church must wake up to. Yes, there are many important issues, but the most important issue is that the Antichrist is coming. In that moment, you will have to decide whether you truly will lay down your life for Jesus. I do not wish to minimize any issue we face in our culture, but those are not the issue. The issue is the Antichrist is coming, and if you are for Christ, you are on a collision course with a dragon, who uses global power against the saints, aided by a false prophet, a charismatic figure, who sets up an idol and says, «If you don’t bow down, you’re gone.»
You may say, «That’s good news; thanks for sharing that with us!» I’m thankful my neighbor came with me today; I hope you’re enjoying this! Can you show me how this works? Let’s go back to Calvary. At Calvary, we had the dragon very much in the story. He took Jesus for a temptation ride in the wilderness and at some point tried to push Him off a cliff to kill Him. But Satan wasn’t able to kill Jesus; he couldn’t do it. There was no way he could kill Jesus, but he needed Jesus dead, as he’d been waiting since the moment Jesus was born to kill Him. So, how was he going to do it? He was going to use the state—Rome.
He thought, «I’ll get them to kill Him!» So the dragon manipulated the accuser and the state to falsely accuse the Messiah. Towards the end, the state wavered. Do you remember Pilate? He said, «I have nothing against this man. I don’t believe I have any basis for further action here.» So the dragon needed the prophets in this situation—the religious leaders—to breathe into the state to animate it to do what the state didn’t even fully want to do. So much so that these followers of Yahweh, when asked by Pilate, «Shall I crucify your king?» said in John 19, «We have no king but Caesar!» They claimed the kingship of the state to leverage it into killing the Messiah.
This unholy trinity that worked on that day is still at work today. Fortunately, the good news is that this was all under the sovereign control of God, and the dragon didn’t realize he was liberating all the people trapped in death and sin. He thought he was killing the Messiah, but he was actually birthing a movement. He thought he was killing the Messiah, but he was liberating captives and setting them free. This will be the case in the end times when the dragon animates the state. Even if the state is a bit wishy-washy, a voice will rise up, probably resembling the church—it will sound like church, be positive, enlightening, supernatural, and spectacular. This voice will breathe life into the state to carry out the dragon’s agenda.
But in all of that, God’s sovereign plan will be working, and you and I can take hope. So how do we respond? A few ways: I don’t think this talk comes down to an ABCDE ending, but what I see in this text is that the church is central—not a church, not necessarily Passion City Church, but the Church, the true church. All true followers of Jesus, with genuine faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and a true desire to be born again and animated by the Holy Spirit, serve the Almighty God. That church is central. Everything about the end times is aimed at extinguishing that church, but that church is the hope of the world.
No government is the hope of the world, and what I see in this text is that governments will lead to the end of the world. That doesn’t mean we aren’t praying for good government; amen? It doesn’t mean we’re not running for office or valuing a God-fearing government. But Revelation doesn’t predict the emergence of a great government that will save the world; instead, it suggests a seven-headed beast will come on the scene, leading the whole world with it. Things will crash and burn, but this church can overcome it all.
Well, how do we do that? We’ve been told how. I heard a loud voice in heaven say, «Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of His Christ, for the accuser of our brothers, who accuses them before our God day and night has been hurled down.» Interestingly, and not surprisingly, the word devil in Greek means to accuse. That’s the meaning of «Diablos»: to slander, to falsely accuse, or to hurt or malign and condemn, severing relationships. That’s the devil! The devil’s definition is to accuse, malign, and condemn relationships.
So how do we overcome the accuser? We know in our minds that he has been hurled down, but «hurled down» means that all his destruction is not in the heavenly realm; it’s an earthly realm. He is here and active, moving, but he’s hurled down and his accusations are hurled down with him. Therefore, he can no longer accuse brothers and sisters before the throne of God. Who can condemn us? No one, as Paul wrote in Romans 8. We overcome just like these people in this end times moment: they overcame by the blood of the Lamb.
This is how you overcome the accusations, slander, and condemnation that the devil brings into your life today. We are witnessing a cosmic conflict here, an unfolding of the end times, but today, we are sitting right here, and the accuser is operating in this place right now. Even though he has been hurled down and cannot condemn you before God because of your faith in Christ, he can still attempt to condemn you on earth for the rest of your life.
He can tell you that you are not good enough, that you are not worth it, that God doesn’t love you, that you will never overcome your past, and that you will never be sufficient. He can unleash all sorts of accusatory lies upon you. Many of us in this room are being bombarded by the enemy’s accusations. How will you overcome? Are you going to pull yourself together? No! You are going to overcome by the blood of the Lamb! You declare that you understand that Jesus Christ, the perfect Son of God, died in your place, and that death in your place redefines and identifies you. You’re not who you used to be; you are who Jesus made you to be. You are not defined by what others say of you but by what God says of you. You hold a new identity that is secured by the death of Jesus.
He is very specific: the blood of the Lamb—not just the coming of the Lamb, not just the resurrection of the Lamb, not just the words of the Lamb, but the sacrificial, substitutionary death of the Lamb for us. This is how we overcome! This is how we overcome the accuser—by the blood of the Lamb! I tell you, you can never move past the power of the cross.
Secondly, we do this through the word of their testimony. What does that mean? It means we overcome the enemy’s deception, attacks, and accusations by continually telling the story of God’s faithfulness in our lives and by continually proclaiming the gospel. We overcome by the blood of the Lamb and we proclaim that blood. We overcome by the blood of the Lamb and we tell the gospel. We declare the story of God; we share the faithfulness of God and the sacrifice of God on our behalf.
We share how God has come through, how God has shown up, how God has been faithful, and how God has been dependable in our lives. We just keep telling the story of the faithfulness of God. It’s not our testimony of what we did; it is our testimony of what God has done for us, and that’s how you overcome today! You overcome by getting close to the cross, embracing its power, and, thirdly, they overcame because they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death.
They overcame because they knew who they were in Christ; they overcame because they understood what God had done for them; and they overcame because they knew that if it came down to death they would still win! They overcame a dragon, a governmental juggernaut, and the Antichrist whose number is 666 by the blood of the Lamb, the word of their testimony, and by not loving this world so much that they shrank back when pressure came.
Let me say today: all this is important. We must have patient endurance, be faithful, and be wise. Enduring, faithful, wise—we need to wake up to this! But for some of you today, the whole end-times issue of, «Who is the Antichrist?» is not your issue; rather, your issue is that you’ve been silent. You are not talking to yourself; you are not proclaiming the faithfulness of God into your story. You are living with far less than God intended for your life. He is saying to you today, «I need you to open your mouth,» because it is the word of your testimony that will help you overcome the enemy’s plans for you. You need to start declaring, talking to yourself, and sharing with everyone around you about the faithfulness of God. God is greater than it all!