Know Your Enemy

All right, why don't you grab your message notes that are in your bulletins they look like this and as you're getting those out look at the screen. I want to ask you what do all these things have in common ready? The Lord of the Rings trilogy with the battle against the evil Lord Sauron, the Harry Potter series with Voldemort, or apocalyptic movies like End of Days where our former governor Arnold fought Satan with machine guns and bombs? Okay, or what about sci-fi movies like the Star Wars series with the light and dark sides of the force or books by people like Stephen King with demon-possessed cars and clowns and ventriloquist dummies? They're all different genres, but they all really have one plot line in common that has fascinated human beings for millennia.

How would you put it? Shout it out! That's exactly right: spiritual warfare, fighting evil forces. This rivets us because deep down we suspect there really is a battle beyond what we can see. And of course, the Bible has a lot to say about this, but what does it really say? In my observation, a lot of Christians really get more of their information about what spiritual warfare and battling evil forces is all about from the movies and from books like Stephen King books or the Christian version of Stephen King, Frank Peretti. And they don't really know what the Bible has to say.

If you're one of those people who kind of rolls your eyes at the whole idea of spiritual warfare and goes, "Oh, yeah, demons, right, Satan," and you don't like to talk about it because you think people are out of their mind who talk about it, hang on and listen to what the Bible really teaches. Because I think you could be surprised at how much it aligns with what you suspect is true as well. This morning, we are in one of the classic passages of the Bible about this. Today in our series through Revelation called Rev, we are in the book of Revelation chapter 12. Today's passage is full of images about that battle that have captivated the imaginations of people for centuries: many-headed dragons, Antichrists, and visions of a mysterious lady in the sky. It all seems very obscure and esoteric at first, but actually, I want to show you how it's pretty easy to understand if you remember two keys to understanding this passage.

Right at the top of page one of your notes, first remember—and we've been driving this home in this series—Revelation uses symbolic language a lot like our political cartoons in newspapers in this country. This one is from over a hundred years ago, but you still recognize the elephant stands for Republicans and the donkey stands for Democrats and so on. The whole passage of the Bible that we are into today is full of this: lots of symbols that meant something in its culture. So how are we supposed to understand what those symbols mean? Well, the symbolic language is often explained by the Bible itself, as you will see. If you don't stop at one verse but kind of keep reading, it becomes very clear; it kind of unfolds right in front of you.

Then the second thing to remember is this: one of the most common mistakes that people make when they open up the book of Revelation and try to understand it is this—listen carefully—assuming it is all about the future. Because actually, the book of Revelation is a little bit more like a Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. Remember, Scrooge sees ghosts of Christmas past and Christmas present and Christmas future. You jump in that play from past to present to future back to present again. Well, Revelation jumps around like that too. Revelation has visions of the past and the present and the future, and all three of those timelines are in the passage we're going to look at this morning.

So let's get into it. We're going to start in the past in verse one. We're going to start decoding some symbols that are mysterious to many people, but I'm going to read through this verse by verse, stop and explain it, and you'll see how it really is like a political cartoon of its time and has a lot to say to us. I'm going to go through it verse by verse, then go back and look at three principles for you today—not in your distant future, but today—three things you need to know about fighting the spiritual battle in your life.

Now, I just got to warn you, this is like turbo teaching today, and it's kind of deep. It's kind of intense. I'm going to be feeding you a lot of information. So once in a while, I'm just going to stop and say, "Are you still with me?" And the correct answer would be, "Yes!" Shout that out! And when I say that in the sermon, say "yes," even if you're not still with me, okay? Because as a teacher, that's important for me. All right. Okay. Are you still with me? All right. Let's get into this. Revelation chapter 12, verse 1. Here's how it unfolds: a great sign appeared in heaven, a woman clothed with the sun and with the moon under her feet and a crown of 12 stars on her head.

So who's that lady? Well, way back in the very first book of the Bible, in Genesis 37:9, as Paul mentioned briefly last week, Joseph describes a dream where the sun and the moon and 11 stars—he is the 12th star—all bow down and honor him. In Genesis 37, we discovered that the sun and the moon are his parents; the stars are his brothers. So the sun and the moon and the 12 stars are the very first symbol of the family of Israel. So when you see the woman in this passage, this stands for Israel, the Jewish nation, God's people. Those who are reading this would have seen that right away, just like if you're looking at a political cartoon. You see an elephant, you think Republicans. When you see an elephant in the zoo, you don't think that, but in the context of the genre, political cartoon, you go, "Oh, that stands for a Republican." The donkey, the Democrat; they would have seen this and thought, "Oh, that stands for Israel."

So what happens to the lady? Well, then it says she was pregnant and cried out in pain as she was about to give birth. What this first reminds me of is that my daughter-in-law is pregnant, and she's going to have our first grandchild. Have I told you that yet? I'm going to be a grandfather! Yeah! That has nothing at all to do with this passage, but I'm preaching and you're not, so I can say whatever I want to say. Are you still with me? Good, so let's get back to the text. Who is this child? This is the Messiah. This is Jesus Christ that she's about to give birth to. How do we know that? Because the child is identified as the Messiah later in this same passage. Stay tuned.

Next verse, the plot thickens. Then another sign appeared in heaven: an enormous red dragon. Now, who is the dragon? Some people say Satan. How do you know? Because later in the same chapter, verse 9, it identifies the dragon as "that ancient serpent called the devil or Satan who leads the whole world astray." So the red dragon in this chapter in this story represents Satan. The woman represents Israel. But what about all these horns and heads and crowns? Well, back in the Old Testament, the Hebrew Scripture book of Daniel 7, Daniel has a similar vision, and an angel explains to him that the horns and the heads and the crowns popping up out of the beast represent the various human governments that popped up that would be oppressive, that would be satanic as the future unfolded. Right? So this represents oppressive governments—think Nero in ancient Rome, or the Nazis 75 years ago, or ISIS today.

So what happens next? 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. What's this mean? Satan wanted to destroy any potential Messiah. And of course, one of the ways this happened in history was when Herod ordered all the babies in Bethlehem to be put to death. But as you know, Jesus escaped. It says she gave birth to a son, a male child who will rule all the nations with an iron scepter. And that's a quote from Psalm 2:9 where it says about the Messiah, "He will rule with a rod of iron over the earth." So this child is the Messiah, Jesus. Satan, through the guise of human governments, wants to destroy him. But it says, "And her child was snatched up to God and his throne." And when did this happen? Satan tries to kill Jesus not just at his birth but at the curse of crucifixion. But Christ is resurrected and ascends to heaven, and that's what that verse is about. Are you still with me?

Awesome! You won't be for long because watch this. The woman, the Jewish people, fled into the wilderness to a place prepared for her by God where she might be taken care of for 1260 days. This is talking about how the Jewish people were scattered. I believe after this is talking about how they were scattered after the destruction of the temple in 70 AD. This is an interesting way of looking at the Jewish Diaspora, which means the scattering of the Jews, as a way that, watch this, God actually preserved the Jewish people when they were scattered. Because now they weren't all in one place so that one dictator couldn't boom wipe them all out, right?

Now look at verse 7. This is a jump back into the distant past. Then war broke out in heaven. Michael and his archangels 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. This is talking about when Satan was thrown out of heaven in the distant past. Jesus says, "I saw Satan fall down like lightning." In this one chapter in Revelation 12, John describes this six times. He says he was thrown down, he was thrown down, he was thrown down, he was hurled down, he was thrown down—six times. He can't wait to share the good news that is that Satan is a defeated adversary. He's a dangerous adversary, but he's a defeated adversary.

One of the important things that this points out is this: think of the devil as God's opponent, but not God's opposite. And this is a common mistake people make when they're thinking about the devil. They understand that he is God's opponent, but they also often think he's God's opposite. In other words, it's like good and evil equal sides of the dark and the light force, right? And Satan is omniscient, and he's omnipresent, and he can be everywhere, and he knows the future and everything just like God. No, he's a created being like you and me. On a spiritual level, he is not the opposite of God. This is super important. Notice the way John describes it: God didn't even have to lift a finger to overthrow Satan; the angel Michael did that. God's like, "Michael, get rid of the guy, you know, ice him." And I think John includes that little detail to illustrate that Satan is not all-powerful, all-knowing, all-great like God is.

But then the obvious question is raised: then why are still things so bad, right? If supposedly Satan's been defeated and thrown out of heaven, then how come things are so bad on earth? Well, John mentions it at the end of verse 12. It's because Satan knows he only has a short time here, and he is ticked off. Skip to verse 13 from war. The vision, there's a song interlude, a song lyric from heaven we're going to look at at the end of this message. But in verse 13, it says when the dragon saw he had been hurled to the earth, he pursued the woman who had given birth to the male child. Against Satan pursuing the Jewish people, talking about what we would call today anti-Semitism. But 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.

Now, the Jewish people did not get wings so that they could fly to the wilderness. This is a symbol for the fact that they fled from Jerusalem into sort of the far corners of the world where they couldn't be centralized and found, where she would be taken care of for a time, times, and half a time out of the serpent's reach. Again, another angle, another way of looking at the Jewish Diaspora, the scattering of the Jewish people to other nations, which had just started when this book was being written toward the end of the first century. But Satan is not giving up. Then from his mouth, the serpent spewed water like a river to overtake the woman and sweep her away with the torrent.

Okay, now it's slipping into the future for the first-century readers. This is saying that Satan will still try to wipe out the Jews by introducing over centuries a flood of anti-Semitic sentiment and violence. One of the biggest shames in the history of Christianity is the way that at times the church has treated the Jews. The Christian church has often been an agent of this kind of anti-Semitic violence. I don't know if you've noticed this, but most of the times in history when that's happened, it's when the actual Word of God is not in the hands of the common people. But it's when kings or high priests are telling the common people what the Bible says. Because if they just opened it to passages like this, they would see that the Bible teaches that when the church did those things, called Jews Christ killers and oppressed the Jews, the church was actually being satanic.

I mean, you will never find harsher criticism of the church than you'll find in the Bible. And so we just got to be careful about this ourselves. But there's good news. It turns out that the whole earth is not under the dragon's sway. Look at the next verse. But the earth helped the woman, helped the Jewish people by opening its mouth and swallowing the river that the dragon had spewed out of his mouth. Again, remember, this is a political cartoon. This means that other nations on earth have helped the woman, the Jews, at times by stopping attempts at genocide, stopping attempts to completely wipe out the Jewish people. And of course, in some of your lifetimes in this room, you saw that happen when finally the Allies mobilized against the Nazis and prevented the attempted obliteration of the Jews.

You ever look at anti-Semitism and go, "It's insane. It does not make any sense. Why all this rage against the Jews? Why not, you know, like the Dutch or some other people?" It's because it's satanic. It is insane; it has an evil origin. And once in a while, people mobilize against it. The Bible talks about this. We've seen it happen in history. Laurie and I were in the Jewish Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem and saw an amazing display of what happened in Bulgaria during World War II. The Nazis came into Bulgaria, and as they did in many countries, said all Jews have to have the yellow star; they're going to be deported to concentration camps. And a man, the archbishop of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church—they call their archbishops Metropolitans—there's a blurry picture of him because he did not like that pictures taken of himself. He was not about publicity. But Napolitans Stephen was his name, and when he heard that, he thought, "We cannot cooperate with that. That's evil; the Bible says that's evil." And he was able to rally literally the entire nation of Bulgaria, and alone among the nations of Europe, basically not one Jew died or was deported in the nation of Bulgaria. All thousand were saved, and they were led by Christians who knew the Word of God and said, "We are going to be part of the earth that's opening up and swallowing this torrent of rage against the Jews."

Now, how does the dragon feel about that when Christians do that? Well, there's the next verse. Then the dragon was enraged at the woman and went off to wage war against the rest of her offspring. Who are they? Those who keep God's commands and watch this hold fast their testimony about Jesus. That's you and me. John is saying to the Christians in the first century, he's saying, "You know, you guys are kind of used to hearing stories about anti-Semitic violence in Jewish history, and maybe you thought that becoming a Christian is going to prevent you from experiencing that." He's saying, "No, the dragon is going to turn and wage war against you, too." But how? How does the dragon wage war against Christians, and specifically the Christians here in the first century? You know, in movies, he fights with demons with glowing eyes and fangs and vampires and ghosts and demon-possessed ventriloquist dolls and stuff like that. What's bad about those movies? I mean, they do dramatize the spiritual battle. But if you think that that's how evil actually fights you in real life, you're preparing for the wrong kind of battle.

Because in the book of Revelation, that's all symbolic of how he actually fights. And what John is telling the Christians is he's going to fight using prosaic human bureaucracies, government officials that are not going to have glowing eyes and fangs—just through human bureaucracy. You're going to be pressed under the satanic thumb. Some of you have been to the DMV lately; that doesn't come as a surprise. But let me just explain what this means here. Just kidding! If you work for the DMV, don't email me; I'm joking. Okay, DMV is awesome, and I have to go there this year, so they're awesome. Awesome. All right, Revelation 13.

I just want to get into this for a couple of verses. John says, "And then I saw a beast rising out of the sea, having ten horns, seven heads. On its horns were ten diadems." What's a diadem? Like a crown, right? And on its heads were blasphemous names. What's this mean? A beast rising out of the sea? Remember we said back in Daniel 7, he has a similar vision. He's told these represent human governments and empires. But remember who this is being written to. This is written to Christians in the seven major cities in the province of Asia. That's not what we would think of as Asia today; it's on the west coast of what we now call Turkey on the Aegean Sea. So to them, from their perspective, a beast from out of the sea would have been the Roman government in ships coming over the Aegean.

Here's what happened: once a year, a representative of Caesar arrived from Rome by ship at the port of Ephesus, and he made a circuit of all those cities to make sure that the people in Asia Minor worshiped the Emperor at the Imperial cult temples. And here's another interesting clue about who the beast was to these people in the first century. What this political cartoon means, the verse talks about diadems, talks about horns, it talks about blasphemous names. Interestingly, if you look at Roman pendants of the time that deify their rulers, the rulers are often shown with horns and diadems. I want you to look closer at this: the subtle diadem and ram's horns on this pendant. What's that all about? Roman gods like Jupiter and Zeus were portrayed with little ram's horns on the side of their heads and diadems on their heads. So when they place those two symbols on a human ruler, that meant he is a god like Zeus or Jupiter. Plus, these Roman emperors were acclaimed with the same names that Christians wanted to give to Jesus. Romans called Caesar Lord, Savior, Creator, Son of God, Morning Star, Master. These were the blasphemous names that this verse refers to that Christians refused to call the emperors.

So to the people first reading the book of Revelation, in this political cartoon, who is the beast? The beast stands for Rome. But not just Rome; the beast also was manifest in ages past in empires like Egypt and Babylon that oppress God's people, and it will be manifest in the future in empire after empire that oppresses God's people. We're going to stop right there in the text for now. I want to remind you that there is a digging deeper class in the book of Revelation that Paul Sperlach teaches every Wednesday night at 6:30, and he'll take all of your questions and all of your complaints about my mockery of the DMV and all of that. Just bring all that part to Paul.

But I want to stop here because I want to look at the big picture point. Here's what John is saying: there is a battle going on, and it's a spiritual battle. And you must expect your life, your life—you mean right now here in this room—to be in a spiritual battle. And when it happens, don't be discouraged by it. John, that this is one of the main things John is trying to do here is to say it's going to happen. You are in the midst of the battle. You can't get out of it; you're there. As a pastor, I'm always amazed at how people are surprised at this sometimes. Right? People come to me, and they say things like, "It's so hard to follow Jesus. It's so hard to resist sin. I keep falling. It's so hard to do ministry. It's so hard to raise strong children." Of course, it's hard! We're in a battle—a battle that involves forces far stronger than you. Why would we think it was going to be easy?

Ben Patterson writes about this. He says we shouldn't take it personally when we're attacked or tired or discouraged. Things like that go with the territory. We're in a spiritual battle. You know, when a soldier is shot at, he's not shocked. You know, his feelings aren't hurt. He doesn't peek over his foxhole at his adversary and say, "Was it something I said? Why are you doing this to me?" No, he expects it. He plans on it, and John is saying here, plan on it. So how do you deal with this? In our culture, religious people usually make two errors about spiritual warfare: one, they want to totally ignore the whole idea of spiritual warfare and Satan and demons and the spiritual world—that's just too freaky, it's too medieval. Or second, they obsess on it and start seeing demons everywhere, you know?

But the question Christians have to ask is what did Jesus teach? And Jesus very simply acknowledged the reality of evil but said the actual strategies of evil forces are far more subtle than they are in horror movies. And so what I want to do in the last few minutes is look at what this passage says about three strategies of evil on page two of your notes. And let me quickly add, this is not an exhaustive look at spiritual warfare or at Revelation 12. What I want us to look at, though, is the big picture in this passage: three kinds of strategies that the evil one uses. And listen, I want you to think really carefully about how they might be playing out in your life right now. Are you still with me? Good.

Strategy number one: deception. Revelation 12:9 says, "The great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world." And this theme appears again in the next chapter. It says of the second beast, "and it deceives the inhabitants of the earth." The evil one is by nature a deceiver. Jesus said of Satan, "He is a liar and the father of lies, and the truth is not in him." And this means his target is your mind. Here's how it unfolds. I want to use an example, and just so you don't think that I'm like meddling, I'm going to quote another pastor talking to his church. This is John Ortberg here. He says, "Let's say you sit down to do your taxes. People are starting to work on those about now. You have no intent to be dishonest. You plan to pay your taxes with joy. You're honored that the government values your contributions. In fact, you're thinking about using the new short form that's just come out. It just has two items: A, calculate how much money you made; B, send it in. And then suddenly a thought forms in your mind. There's some outside income that came your way this year, and if you don't declare it, you won't have to pay taxes on it. Hmm. And soon this thought has little brother and sister thoughts: nobody will ever find out, and you would be a much better steward of this money than the IRS would be. You can invest it in a new car that would enhance the credibility of your witness with your neighbors when they see you driving it, right? The thought will come to you: it's not such a bad thing; other people do worse things than this every day."

Now, where do those thoughts come from? Well, the Bible says they come from the evil one because lies are his stock in trade. He is the deceiver. And this goes on in your mind every day. Again quoting Ortberg, "Every chain of sin begins with a link of deceit. Every one." So to fight this battle, I need this defensive maneuver: always ask, "Is this true?" When a thought enters your mind, "Is this true?" Like, if I engage in sexually immoral behavior, will it really take away my loneliness? Will it really? Is that true? If I go ahead and lash out in anger, like I feel prompted to do right now, will it really make the situation better? Is that true? You know, Jesus said in John 8:32, "The truth will set you free." The first weapon of spiritual warfare Paul talks about in Ephesians 6 is the belt of truth. You need to know the truth about what the Bible actually says, and this is why we work on these daily meditations that are on page 3 of your notes every single week. These are written by us to tie back into the sermon that you hear in the weekend services so you get the truth into you and so you're less apt to believe the deceiver's lies.

But the evil one does not stop with deception. He has a second strategy that's talked about in these two chapters quite a lot: strategy number two is intimidation. That's another strategy of his—to intimidate us. Revelation 13:4 says, "The people worship the dragon, for he had given his authority to the beast, and they worship the beast, saying, 'Who is like the beast, and who can fight against him?'" All through these chapters, he seeks to intimidate: political pressure, social pressure, economic pressure, psychological pressure. What's interesting is the evil one deceives us to get us to do things we shouldn't do, and he intimidates us to keep us from doing things that we should do. You follow me? Like, "Who can fight the system? Who can possibly resist this?" And so the defensive maneuver is this: realize evil is real, but God is infinitely stronger. Evil is real, but God is infinitely stronger.

Look at Revelation 13:10. These are real serious words. This is a message for the believers, and you're going to look at this and go, "Wow, John, thanks for the pep talk." He says, "If anyone is to go into captivity, into captivity he will go. If anyone is to be killed with the sword, with the sword he will be killed." Wow! You know, that's not exactly the prosperity gospel here. He says this is a call for patient endurance and faithfulness of the saints. What's he getting at? He's just giving these guys a weather forecast. Because the truth was at the end of the first century that in any one of those churches he's writing this letter to, some of those people in that church would be killed for their faith. Not everybody, but some. Some of those people in that church would be taken into captivity for their faith. Not everybody, but some. So John's saying it's going to happen to some of you. So all of you should kind of gird up with patient endurance and faithfulness. What does that mean? It means make a pre-decision that you're going to remain faithful. Make a pre-decision you're not going to yield to social pressure and intimidation.

And listen, if you're a young person in college or high school or young adult, or if you have grandchildren or children or nephews or nieces or you work with kids, one of the greatest gifts you can give them is to teach them about the wisdom of making a pre-decision. Because just like these people, they will feel pressure, no doubt about it. They're going to get pressure from the media; they're going to get pressure from the culture; they're going to get pressure from friends; then maybe they're going to get pressure from family. And you need to tell them, like he was doing to the Christians back in that area, expect it and make a pre-decision to patiently endure and stay faithful, not because you're so strong, but because you can do all things through him who strengthens you, because he is infinitely stronger. Are you still with me? Yes!

But there's a third strategy, and this one is brutal: accusation. There's deception, there's intimidation, and there's accusation. Look again at chapter 12, the last part of verse 10. Here's the verses we skip when we were going through it: "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.'" The accuser who accuses them—you may not know this, but in Hebrew, in the Hebrew Scriptures, the original word for Satan means the accuser. And the Greek word diabolus used in the New Testament means the slanderer. So ironic! The evil one deceives us to do wrong: "What will it hurt?" He intimidates us to do wrong: "Might as well give in." Then when we do give in, he takes on the role of accuser: "What have you just done? You call yourself a Christian? You keep on blowing it. You're not a real follower of Jesus at all!" Ever hear that voice? That's the accuser. And he says it to me, and he says it to you. Some of you are living under the accuser right now: "God could never forgive you. If people knew what goes on in your mind, they'd run you out of this church. Besides, you know you're just going to blow it again. You may as well give up; just get out of the Christian game." The only defensive maneuver is to rest at the cross.

Rest at the cross. When you hear the voice of the accuser, what do I mean by that? Look up here for a second. Think of what happened on the cross. Think of the body that was pierced for you. Think of the blood that was shed for you. Think of the love that made him do that. We're going to have a chance to have this kind of focus in just a minute during communion. But what you do when you think of this is you get your focus off of yourself, because the accuser is going to try to make you focus on yourself. And it's such a wolf in sheep's clothing because accusations at first just sound like kind of healthy conviction of sin, right? It comes in counterfeit as conviction. But then pretty soon, it's like, "You don't deserve to be here. You should just give up; just give in." And when you hear that voice, what you do is you go, "I'm not going to think about that anymore. I'm going to look to the cross, and I'm going to say, 'You know what, accuser? You're right. I am a sinner. I have done terrible things in my life. And but for the grace of God, I would have done worse things. But God, out of his love for me, sent his only begotten Son. And because I simply have faith in him, his blood covers my sins.'"

And here's what Romans 12 says is true of me. I want to put Romans 12:1 on screen, and I want us to read it out loud. Read this with conviction: "Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." There's zero, none! That's why there's this wonderful hymn in Revelation 12:11: the dragon goes after our brothers and sisters, but then it says in verse 11, "But they conquered him not by cleverness, not by violence, not by pristine personal behavior. They conquered him how? By the blood of the Lamb." Say that with me again: "By the blood of the Lamb." That's enough for me, and that's enough for you. Really, that's all you really need to know about spiritual warfare is you just stay focused on Christ. Because through his victory, he has guaranteed your ultimate victory as well.

I want to close with a true story. You know, the book of Revelation was very effective at inspiring these early Christians to stay faithful against these kinds of attacks from the government. Excuse me, an ancient writer named Eusebius, he wrote in the 300s, and he wrote about several persecutions that happened in his lifetime. Christianity became tolerated, but he writes the oral history that Christians had about the three centuries previous to that when they've just been slammed by the Romans. And he tells a true story of a servant girl. She was a teenager; her name was Blandina. And in 177 AD, another great persecution broke out by the Romans against the Christians, and they arrested this little teenage servant girl. They figured she'd be a pushover, and they tortured her trying to get her to deny Christ. And during the torture, she just kept saying, "I'm a Christian. I'll never deny my Lord. I'll never deny my Lord." And Eusebius says her torturers became exhausted, and they had to work in shifts because she gained just this incredible strength.

Then finally, she was taken to a public exhibition. Let me read you his 1700-year-old words: "And she was offered as food to wild beasts that were let loose. But when on that day none of the animals would touch her, she was taken down from the stake and returned to the jail to be reserved for another ordeal. On the last day of the games, Blandina was again brought in, and the blessed Blandina rejoiced at her own departure as if invited to a wedding feast." Now, where did she get the idea that when she died it would be like a wedding feast? Where'd you get that idea? From the book of Revelation, as we're going to see in the next couple of weeks. So she was inspired by this book. He writes, "She was finally put into a net and thrown to a bull. She was tossed by the animal for some time before being sacrificed." And then listen to this final quote: "Small, weak, and despised, she had put on the great invincible champion, Christ."

You know, it was interesting about this. Here's this person that I'm sure the Romans, when they arrested her, thought was insignificant and a pushover, and her testimony ended up galvanizing the Christian community in Asia Minor for a whole generation. In other words, it did exactly the opposite of what the Roman government wanted it to do. Why? Not because people glorified little Blandina, but because they were inspired. Then in all the struggles they faced and all the struggles you face, you too can get strength from the great invincible champion of yours, and that's Jesus Christ. Are you still with me? Yes!

All right, amen. Let's pray together. Would you bow your heads in a word of prayer with me and let's prepare our hearts for communion? Lord, we do encounter the tactics of the evil one. But when we do, God, when we do, help us always to look not to our own strength but to the cross. And we want to do that right now during communion. And God, I believe that maybe some people for the very first time now want to say, "Lord Jesus, I am so tired of trying to fight the battle in my own strength. So I turn my life over to you. Be my great invincible champion. I receive you now into my life." In Jesus' name, amen.