Revelations 12 - by DA CARSON

REVELATIONS 12 - (Monday 20/9/04)
This passage is about the woman and the red dragon.
The woman refers to the church and God’s chose people.
The red dragon is Satan.
Carson explained too that the ‘1260’ days = ‘a time, times and half a times’ = ‘3 and a half years’ and is a period of great suffering.

Summary: Satan is a defeated foe. He’s really angry and is coming after the church and wants to drag people down to the abyss with him.

How can we overcome Satan:
1. The blood of the lamb: We must remember that Satan cannot be fought by our own strength. ONLY by the blood of the lamb we are justified and there is victory.
2. Testimonies of the saints: We must always testify about His love then many will come to know of God and His goodness.
3. We must be willing to die: We must be willing to give up our very lives for Him. Each year, 160,000 Christians are martyred for Christ for the past year. Of course, not ALL are called to die for the cause. But ALL are called to die to self – our desires and areas where we are higher than Christ.

Cool analogies:
1. Revelations is a book of imagery because we have never experienced the Great Throne Room of God. It’s like us trying to explain electricity to some remote jungle trible in Papua New Guinea and it goes like this “Electricity is like a supernatural spirit that goes through the vines. You attach those vines in your house and hang it from your roof. You will be able to get a small sun shining at night”. Just as the ppl of Papua New Guinea are limited in their knowledge in electricity, we too are limited of our knowledge of the throne room of God because we have never seen it.
2. When Carson’s son was 3, Carson asked him, “where did you get your beautiful blue eyes from?”. The son answered promptly “From God”. As the son is now older, the son would probably answer “Genetics in the family.” Both statements are truth. But which is the fundamental truth? We can always say that things happens because of this and that – and they are true. But we forget the fundamental truth – God is behind it all and that He’s always there.