A Cosmic Collision and a Ready Church

The world is operating on His timeline and will come to His conclusion and consequence. Christ is reigning, and time is running out on everyone else who is not submitted to the authority of Him.

In today’s text, we continue to see the gospel story threaded throughout the book of Revelation.

Through reading Revelation 12:1-6, we're confronted with the story of the Woman and the Dragon. In this, we see the story of the Gospel and how the dragon unintentionally liberated the captive (Jesus), ultimately leading to God's sovereign plan coming to fruition.

Because the Dragon was unable to take out its true target, the Son of God, it shifted its tactic to try to take out the thing that Jesus loved most: the Church.

Following Revelation 12, we read about the beast coming out of the sea in Revelation 13, where we are confronted with the reality of human kingdoms that have ejected God from the center of their lives.

The dragon goes after Jesus's disciples, but not directly. Instead, he targets political powers by giving authority to the beast.

The second beast, through false prophecy, power, and persuasion, is breathing life into the political structure to wage war against the saints, stealing the worship of the Creator, and redirecting the worship to Satan.

1 John 2:18 teaches of the antichrist to come and the many antichrists that are to come.

There is an unholy trinity that exists—the dragon, the state (Roman government), and false prophets/religion, that exists for the purpose of extinguishing the Church.

But the crux is knowing that God is over all things and has been since the beginning of time.

How do we, as the Church, respond to this?

By knowing the Church is central, made up of followers of Christ, and not exclusive to "a" church alone, but the body of Christ as a whole.

Governments will not be the light of the world; governments will be the end of the world.

We are directly encouraged by three things:

1. The blood of the Lamb (Revelation 12:11)

• When bombarded by accusations, we look to Jesus, the only person able to overcome the accuser (diablo).
• You can never move past the cross of Christ.

2. By the word of our testimony.

• We must continually tell the story of the Gospel and how God has been faithful in our own lives.
• We are today, and will be when that day comes, the city on the hill. (Matthew 5:14)

3. By our belief in the power of life over death.

• Death is a doorway for overcomers.
• We can overcome this because we do not love our lives.
• We believe that in the end, Christ has already won.