When I was a drama major, I had to read a play entitled Six Characters in Search of an Author. It was an absurdist work written in 1921 by the Italian playwright, Luigi Pirandello. Since 1921, there have been many variations on this catchy title. P. G. Wodehouse made up a play, referenced in one of his books. The title was Six Corpses in Search of an Undertaker. Then there was a Twilight Zone episode entitled Five Characters in Search of an Exit. The list goes on.
It occurred to me in reading Revelation 12 that a good title for this sermon would be Five Characters in Search of a Plot. See what you think of my title as we read Revelation 12 together. Listen for God’s word to you…
A great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head. She 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 and ten horns and seven crowns on its heads. Its tail swept a third of the stars out of the sky and flung them to the earth. The dragon stood in front of the woman who was about to give birth, so that it might devour her child the moment he was born. She gave birth to a son, a male child, who “will rule all the nations with an iron scepter.” And her child was snatched up to God and to his throne. The woman fled into the wilderness to a place prepared for her by God, where she might be taken care of for 1,260 days.
Then war broke out in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back. But he was not strong enough, and 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 Messiah.
For the accuser of our brothers and sisters,
who accuses them before our God day and night,
has been hurled down.
They triumphed over him
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!
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 that she might fly to the place prepared for her in the wilderness, where she would be taken care of for a time, times and half a time, out of the serpent’s reach. Then 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 wage war against the rest of her offspring—those who keep God’s commands and hold fast their testimony about Jesus.
The Characters
I would like to divide our examination of Revelation 12 into two parts, the characters and the plot. First, we look at the characters.
When I was growing up, my father used to be a speaker for Pro Athletes Outreach. His talks were usually delivered either in a hotel dining room or in the locker room of the visiting team at Jack Murphy Stadium in San Diego. I got to meet many of the great sports figures of the day. However, there was something strange about the experience. So many of their names were famous, but I was used to seeing them in uniform on television, filmed usually from a distance. I had no idea what these men looked like up close and personal in real life.
For example, I had heard the name “Yogi Berra,” but I had no clue what the man looked like until I met him in the locker room as he was standing there in his underwear.
The characters in this chapter of Revelation are kind of like that. We know they are important, but we are not certain exactly who they are until John lets a clue slip here or there.
John’s clues then act as a sort of list of “Dramatis Personae”. I always loved having such lists when I was a drama major reading Shakespeare, or even as a teenager when I was reading an Agatha Christie mystery. I always loved it when she put a list of characters at the beginning with a description of each. Then when I came to each character in the story, I could go back and read the list and remember who was who.
That’s what I want to do in the first part of this sermon. I want to give you a list of the “Dramatis Personae” so that you can identify who each of these major characters are.
The Child
The first big clue John gives us, identifying these characters, comes in verse five where he tells us that the woman in his vision “gave birth to a son, a male child, who ‘will rule all the nations with an iron scepter.’ And her child was snatched up to God and to his throne.”
The part in quotation marks comes from Psalm 2:9. The early church saw Psalm 2 as a prophecy about Jesus.
The Woman
If the child in this vision is Jesus, then it would make sense to view the woman as Mary. But things are never quite that simple in John’s visions. We are specifically told that this woman is a sign. In other words, she is a symbol. But of what is she symbolic?
We are told that she is “clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head.” Where else do we see these symbols in Scripture?
In Genesis 37, another visionary named Joseph has a dream. Remember Joseph and his Technicolor Dreamcoat? Well, that Joseph has a dream in which he sees the sun, and moon and eleven stars bowing down to him. The sun is symbolic of his father, the moon of his mother and the stars are symbolic of his 11 brothers. And who was Joseph’s father? His name was Jacob, but the name God gave him was Israel. So, when John uses this imagery of the sun, moon, and stars it becomes obvious that the woman in his vision is Israel. It is Israel as a nation that gives birth to Jesus.
But there is more to the image than that. The woman in John’s vision is not simply Mary, or even simply Israel. We are given another clue as to who this woman is when John tells us about the rest of her offspring.
The Rest of Her Offspring
The rest of the woman’s offspring are called “those who keep God’s commands and hold fast their testimony about Jesus.” This is an obvious reference to the followers of Jesus. And who is the mother of the followers of Jesus? She is none other than the Church.
“But,” you may ask, “why does John have a character in his vision who is symbolic of two groups of people, Israel and the Church?”
The reason is because John, like the rest of the New Testament, sees these two groups as one. Paul likens Israel to an olive tree in his letter to the Church at Rome. Gentile believers in Jesus are grafted into the olive tree that is believing Israel. So, the two, Israel and the Church are really one. The Church is the New Israel. We have already seen in Revelation that John has the same perspective as Paul in this regard.
The Dragon
Next in John’s vision we see a dragon. What would a vision or a dream be without a dragon? Boring, that’s what! And John’s visions are anything but boring.
Who is this dragon?
Thankfully, John tells us in verse 9. He says, “The great dragon was hurled down—that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray.”
Michael
The final character presented to us is the Archangel Michael. He is mentioned a few other times in Scripture, in Daniel 10:13, 21, Daniel 12:1 and Jude 1:9.
The Plot
The plot of Revelation 12 makes it clear that the visions in Revelation do not move in chronological order from one to another. This is obvious at this point because Revelation 12 is clearly a vision of something already past. That becomes evident when we look into the first part of the plot.
The Birth of the Child
The birth of the child envisioned here is the birth of Jesus. That happened 2000 years ago. It is in the past as far as we are concerned, but it was also in the past for John—about 90 years or more in the past.
Ruling the Nations
At the same time, we are told that this child will rule the nations … in the future. That hasn’t happened yet, or at least it hasn’t happened fully. Currently we live in the “now but not yet” of the kingdom. As we read in chapter 11, we are still waiting for the time when…
The kingdom of the world has become
the kingdom of our Lord and of his Messiah,
and he will reign for ever and ever.
That clearly has not happened yet. That will be, in a sense, the final piece of the plot.
So, what happens after the birth of the child?
The Fall of Satan
Well, John tells us the next thing he sees is a sign in heaven, “an enormous red dragon with seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns on its heads.” We have already seen that this dragon is Satan. But what are the seven heads, the ten horns and the seven crowns all about?
The seven heads symbolize universal wisdom. The ten heads symbolize great power. And the seven crowns specifically symbolize some sort of royal, political power. In the next chapter we will see the dragon giving to a beast his power, throne, and great authority. So, I will save my comments on this symbolism at least until next week.
For now, the key question is: what does the dragon do? With his tail he sweeps a third of the stars out of the sky and flings them to the earth.
To what is this a reference? It would seem to be a reference to the fall of Satan and a third of the angels with him.
Isaiah 14:12 has been taken as a reference also to the fall of Satan from heaven. He is there called the morning star…
How you have fallen from heaven,
morning star, son of the dawn!
You have been cast down to the earth,
you who once laid low the nations!
Daniel 8:10 builds on this image from Isaiah. There we read of a little horn that throws down to the earth some of the host and some of the stars, and tramples on them.
We have also referenced the Jewish book of Enoch in this series. This was a piece of Jewish literature very important to the author of Revelation. In Enoch 40:7 we read about “the expelling of the impious angels and the prohibiting of them from entering into the presence of the Lord of spirits, to prefer accusations against the inhabitants of the earth.”
When did this fall of Satan and a third of the angels happen? We can only speculate. But it has long been the belief of the Church that the fall of Satan and the other angels took place prior to the human fall. Otherwise, why would the serpent, who was later identified as being a manifestation of Satan, be tempting Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden? It was therefore assumed by the Church that the fall of Satan happened prior to the fall of human beings. This motif of a rebellion by lower powers against the heavenly forces is found in Canaanite and other Near Eastern myths as well.[1]
But then in Luke 10:18 Jesus talks about a fall of Satan from heaven that he associates with his own earthly ministry and that of his disciples. When a group of 72 disciples return from their missionary journey, in Luke 10, Jesus says, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.”
Still, it seems to me that John is thinking of a fall of Satan prior to the birth of Jesus, because the sweeping of the stars from the sky happens before the child is born in Revelation 12.
The Dragon attacks the Child
Then, after the child is born, the dragon immediately seeks to destroy him. The dragon stands in front of the woman who is about to give birth so that he may devour her child the moment he is born. This seems to be an obvious reference to Herod’s attempt to kill the Christ Child. John apparently sees Herod as an agent of Satan.
Snatched Up to God
The next thing we see is that this same child is “snatched up to God and to his throne.” This seems to be an obvious reference to the ascension of Jesus. John is not trying to retell the whole story of Jesus. He is simply giving us clues. He knows we can fill in the rest of the story.
The Woman Flees
Next, the woman flees into the wilderness to a place prepared for her by God, where she is protected for 1,260 days. Last week we talked about the three and a half years, an image taken from the book of Daniel, symbolic of a short but definite time of persecution. John’s point seems to be that whatever persecution God’s people have to endure God knows about it. And God will deliver his people through their time of trial.
The War in Heaven and on Earth
Finally, we see a war in heaven. Michael and his angels fight against the dragon and his angels. This seems to me to be another re-telling of the fall of Satan. He is hurled down to the earth and his angels with him.
But in this telling of the fall of Satan it is tied to the time of the Messiah, because the very next thing we hear is a voice in heaven saying,
Now have come the salvation and the power
and the kingdom of our God,
and the authority of his Messiah.
This war in heaven also involves earth. The dragon and his angels are overcome by Michael and his angels. But they are also overcome by the blood of the Lamb, in other words, the blood of Jesus shed on the cross.
It seems to me that John’s message is that there is spiritual warfare going on both in heaven and on earth. It is a war in which we are invited to participate, and one of our main offensive weapons is the blood of the Lamb.
Corrie ten Boom, that wonderful Dutch Christian who harbored Jews in her home during World War II, once wrote this…
The book that can give us the most practical knowledge of demons is the Bible. At the same time it is the book in which we are taught victory over demons… We very definitely read that there are two strong weapons available—the blood of Jesus Christ and the authority of His name…
The devil is afraid of the blood of Jesus and even of His Word. That is not surprising! In the book of Revelation it says: “They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb” (12:11).
We should never speak to people who are under the direct influence of the devil without first of all asking for the protection and the cover of Jesus’ blood. We overcome by the blood of the Lamb.
Although we may not understand this, we shall experience that God is serious about His promises, if we act in obedience to His Word. The foolishness of God is so much wiser than the wisdom of the wise (see 1 Cor. 1:25). Only knowledge because of faith can comprehend these things.
Ever since I read these words by Corrie ten Boom many years ago, every time I preach or teach anything about Satan, I pray for the covering, the protection, of Jesus’ blood. I pray for his blood to cover me and all my loved ones. I pray for his blood to cover you.
Now someone may say to me, “Do you mean to say you really believe in the devil?”
I like the way C. S. Lewis answers this question in Mere Christianity…
I know someone will ask me, ‘Do you really mean, at this time of day, to re-introduce our old friend the devil—hoofs and horns and all?’ Well, what the time of day has to do with it I do not know. And I am not particular about the hoofs and horns. But in other respects my answer is ‘Yes, I do.’ I do not claim to know anything about his personal appearance. If anybody really wants to know him better I would say to that person, ‘Don’t worry. If you really want to, you will. Whether you’ll like it when you do is another question.’[2]
So yes, I believe in the existence of the devil, or Satan, the one whom John calls a dragon. I do not believe anything in particular about his appearance. But I do believe he exists and that he is a fallen angel, and that there is spiritual warfare going on all around us. I have the highest authority possible for believing this… Jesus believed it. He fought against the devil constantly. And he won the ultimate victory against him on the cross. If we want to have victory in the spiritual battle of life, then we must place ourselves in Jesus’ hands, and we must be covered by his protective blood that forgives us of all our sin.
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