How Does The Church Overcome?

Has more ink been spilt in the history of the church than answering the question, 'how to understand Revelation?' Well maybe, but not by much. Today, and for at least a week now, my answer to that question has been 'chiastically.' I think Revelation is a chiasm centered around 11:15-19, and that the revelation John receives either side of that moment tells the same story. Two mentions of the 144,000, a real prophet and a false prophet, and, in chapter 11 and chapter 12, the story of the battle between good and evil between the people of God, signified by the two prophets in 11 and the woman in 12, and the world, or the devil, or the many headed and horned dragon.

These two chapters tell the story of how God protects and nourishes the church. The two witnesses are untouchable until their time of witnessing is over, the woman is taken off into the wilderness, a place of revelation and intimacy, where she is pursued by, but protected from, the devil. He's thrown down the earth, and rages like the mortally wounded animal he is, but is foiled, and is overcome.

These two chapters reveal to us that, for a short while, it will look like the world has total victory over the church. The bodies of the witnesses lie dead in the streets of 'Sodom, and Egypt, and Jerusalem,' while the world celebrates and exchanges gifts. Nothing looks like a more one sided fight than a seven headed dragon against a woman in labour. But the witnesses and resurrected and raptured, the baby ascends and the woman is safe.

And, in 12:11, the brothers have overcome. How? By the blood of the lamb and the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death.

I love how precious verse 11 is. How does the church overcome the world? By the blood of the lamb and by their testimony. By their message, and by their life. These verses tell us how satan’s accusations are thrown out of the court of heaven. This is what the devil does, he accuses. He accuses us of sin, he tells God about our sin. And he’s not lying either. We know we’re sinners, we know we’ve made a horrible mess of things. We don’t overcome by cleaning up, we overcome by the blood of the lamb. What does that mean? It means that Jesus has won on our behalf. Jesus has defeated this dreadful beast for us. We can not live perfect lives, so the devil accuses us, but when he accuses us, we can point to Jesus, shedding His blood on the cross, and tell the devil that our sins have been punished, and no longer stand in the way of our relationship with God.

Satan is thrown to earth, where his time to create chaos, sin and misery are short. So he is raging with all the passion of a mortally wounded enemy. he comes to us raging, and when satan tells you that you’re a sinner, thank him, and remind him that Christ died for sinners!

If we love our lives not even unto death, we will awake and find ourselves in heaven. How do we love our lives not even unto death? By remembering verse 12. Everything that looks good in this world us under the power of the devil. It’s time is short and it’s end is death. So cling to the Gospel, and don’t buy the lies of satan, the defeated accuser.

All that glitters in the world is not gold. And for a while the glittering world will look pretty good. We'll be tempted to say with Elijah that we're the only ones left, but like Moses lead Israel out of Egypt in an apparently hopeless situation, so Jesus will lead us to overcome.

But only if we cling to the Gospel, only as we overcome by the blood of the lamb, and love not our own lives even unto death.