The War

And everything that we've been seeing on the news, all that we've heard and gone through as a as a as a nation and as a world, we are seeing so many things that the Bible has already said that will come to pass.

And so I'm preaching out of a difficult book this morning, the book of Revelation.

And so there are a lot of things that are difficult to explain in Revelation, but I think today what we will open up together, I think it's going to be it's going to be easy to grasp what God said to us in this chapter.

We'll be in chapter number 12, Revelation chapter 12.

Revelation 12 · chapter mention

And I'm going to read the first 12 verses, and then we'll we'll get into our message this morning.

When you have it, say amen, so I'll know that you're there.

Revelation 12, the last book of the Bible.

It is a revelation of John, but it's also a revelation of Jesus Christ, who we serve.

First number one of chapter 12, and it says, And there appeared a great wonder in heaven, a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars.

And she, being with child, cried, travailing in birth and pain to be delivered.

And there appeared another wonder in heaven, and behold, a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns upon his head.

And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and he cast them to the earth.

And the dragon stood before the woman which was ready to be delivered, for to devour her child as soon as it was born.

And she brought forth a man child who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron.

And her child was caught up unto God and to his throne.

And the woman fled into the wilderness where she had the place prepared of God that they should feed her there a thousand two hundred and threscore days.

Verse 7, and there was war in heaven.

Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon fought against his angels, and prevailed not, neither was their place found any more in heaven.

And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent called the devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world.

He was cast out unto the earth, into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.

And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ, for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night.

Verse 11 And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they loved not their lives unto the death.

Therefore, rejoice ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them, and woe to the inhabitants of the earth and of the seed, for the devil has come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time.

Let's pray, Father.

God, we thank you for your word.

We thank you, God, that your word is anointed.

And God, it will perform what you sent it to do.

So today we ask you, Lord, let it give us understanding and revelation as your children.

And God, I pray today, when we leave this place where we would leave with assurance that we are yours.

And God, that you are over all things, and God, you are over our lives, and you protect us and keep us until your son comes to bring us back into your kingdom forever and forever.

We pray these things today in Jesus' name.

Amen and amen.

It says in this chapter, this woman, we understand that this woman refers to faithful Israel, through whom the Messiah came.

He came through Abraham's seed.

And we know this because the Bible tells us this woman is giving birth to a child, but not only a child, this child, he says, was called up into heaven to sit on his throne.

So we know that this is none other than Jesus Christ, who this book is revealing to us that he is the child.

But it also says that there was a great red dragon.

Now, I know that China is called the dragon, but this is not the dragon that we're talking about today.

This is specifically it it describes who it is in scriptures.

It says that it is the old serpent or the serpent of old.

It is Satan that he is referring to as this dragon.

And so he is not just a dragon.

He said he's a great red dragon with seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns.

And these crowns may represent his total authority or his great power over the earthly kingdoms or human governments and rulers opposed to God.

And what God is showing us now is that I don't know your belief because there are many Christians that have different beliefs in the tribulation.

Some people believe that we are pre-tribulation, that God will catch us out before the tribulation comes to earth, the great tribulation.

And then others think that they're post or some mid.

And so those differences are just splitting hairs in theology.

It doesn't really matter what you believe because it's all going to pan out.

We just need to make sure that we are in Jesus Christ.

Amen?

Because we are in a warfare.

Would you agree today that there's a warfare going on in the heavens and on the earth?

And so that's what I want to address today is this intense warfare that we are we are experiencing now.

And I believe that it's the birthdays.

You ladies that have children and have birth children, you know when it's getting close to that time that you need to be prepared.

The baby's coming, right?

Jesus says that these things that we're seeing now in the earth, the earthquakes, the all the pestilence, the disease, and the nations rising against nations are simply the birth pains before he comes again.

On the 26th, we saw great disaster.

We saw this little Chinese village in the Himalayans where the ice melted and fell quickly and it dammed up and the water accumulated.

But when the water broke through, I mean it was a dilute, it was a deluge.

It came through and it swept the whole town.

And I heard different numbers.

I don't know the numbers of fatalities, but I heard the number 12,000 last night.

They're missing 12,000 people in a short period of time.

And they said that not only that, there's another place that is holding water like that, and the debts they're expecting would cover the Empire State Building twice.

And if that breaks free, we'll see more loss of life.

And we say, I've never seen disasters on these scales.

What is going on?

Dr.

David Jeremiah wrote a book and said, What on the earth is happening?

And it talks about the last days and the things that we're going to experience.

Brother Gary, these troubles that we see are they're just mounting more and more, and we don't want 19 call days, but I believe as it gets closer to the coming of Jesus, we're going to see more disasters, more tragedies, more things that are happening.

And we must prepare ourselves as followers of Jesus Christ before we ever get into those situations.

There's war that was going on in heaven, the Bible says, and there's war that we're experienced on earth.

But I'm reminded that the Apostle Paul writes in 2 Corinthians chapter 10, verses 3 through 5.

2 Corinthians 10:3–5

He says, For though we walk in the flesh, although we're human beings, we do not war after the flesh.

What is he saying to us?

He's saying, Your strength is not in your weapons, your strength is not in your guns or your bullets or your ammunition or your ability to have a bunker and all the food.

Those things are not what we fight with.

He says, For though our weapons are they're not carnal, but they're mighty through God.

To pulling down strongholds, to casting down imaginations or accusations and every high and lofty thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And he says, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.

So he tells us that we're not warring with carnal weapons.

This warfare that we're engaged in is a true warfare, but we have mighty weapons.

Amen.

You are not vulnerable to the enemy's tactics this morning.

I know there are days we feel overwhelmed.

I know there are days we feel weak.

There are days we may even have some confusion as of what moves we need to make, what how we need to pray.

But believe me today, the Bible is absolutely truth, and he says that your weapons are mighty through God.

Hallelujah.

You have power by the Holy Spirit to overcome in the warfare that we wage, or the enemy's waging against us.

Our response to this war is not through our carnal means, but by spiritual weapons that God has given us.

So we need to use the right weapons.

That's my first point today.

Amen.

We need to use the right weapons.

And the and the scripture says that they overcame by the blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony.

So if you're a born-again believer today, you put your faith in Jesus Christ, your testimony is a weapon that you can use against the enemy.

Because he is the accuser of the brethren.

He will come against you.

I heard a lady once said that God that she was living for God, and one day the enemy had just impressed upon her that she was not a Christian.

Have you ever had that experience?

You're not saved.

And she began to argue, I am saved.

And the enemy said, Oh, you're a thief.

Remember, you stole something.

And she said, He brought back to her memory when she was a Girl Scout, and they had sold Girl Scout cookies, that she had kept some money that she didn't turn in.

He had her, didn't he?

You're a thief.

And she said, You know, that is true.

I did keep that money, but I asked God to forgive me, and He forgave me and cleansed me of that sin.

That was her testimony.

Yes, she took something that did belong to her.

Yes, she was a thief.

But the truth of the matter was that Jesus died not for some of our sins, but for all of our sin.

And our testimony, it may not be as simple as a box of cookies that we stole or some money that we stole.

It may be something more dire this morning.

We could have done something that we don't want anyone to know, and we don't want to be reminded about it.

But the truth is, our testimony is the blood of Jesus cleanses us from all our sins.

And we got to, we must use the right weapons in this warfare.

The Bible says that we agree with our adversary on our way that we can work things out, right?

It's good to work peace out.

You can't have peace with the devil.

You've got to use truth against the enemy because he has been watching us and he has been tempting us all through life, and he has kept a record of some of the things that we've done.

Do you believe that this morning?

He has.

And he wants to use those against us, but the truth is, I'm an overcomer.

You are an overcomer by the blood of Jesus Christ and the word of your testimony.

He has purchased us by his blood.

In 1 John, it uses the word propitiation.

It's a theological term, and it means the act of turning away wrath and regaining favor, goodwill, and satisfaction of an offended person or deity.

Jesus is the propitiation.

Jesus, when he died on the cross for us and for our sins, it took the wrath of God off of us and it put upon his own son, Jesus Christ, so that we could receive the mercy of God.

This is a weapon that we use against the enemy, the truth of God's word.

See, the apostle Paul is describing the natures of the battle as spiritual and not physical.

But he says the spiritual weapons that we have, they are able to pull down mental and spiritual strongholds that the enemy has assailed against us.

The battlefield is in the mind most of the time.

Amen.

He does come against our mind the majority of the time.

If he can get a hold of our thought life and enslave us in these bondages of you're not free, you're not able to live a Christian life, you're not good, you're not this or that, then he will keep us in a place of perpetual disillusion to the truth of God.

And God wants you to know today that you're free indeed.

Amen.

There are battles going on, church.

There are individual battles and there are spiritual battles against communities, against churches, against families.

But the truth is we are overcomers today.

I don't feel like an overcomer every day, but the truth is I'm an overcomer by the blood of the Lamb and by my testimony.

I just simply need to declare I am who He says I am.

I'm more than a conqueror through Jesus Christ.

I'm able to do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

The enemy is a liar, but God's word is true.

And if I can believe that, there is no weapon formed against me that can prosper.

My dad says this.

He says, you can't keep a bird from flying over your head, but you can keep it from building a nest in your hair.

You can't keep thoughts from coming.

You can't control every aspect of what comes into your mind, but you can determine it will not stay in my mind if it's not from God.

And so what we do is we take the truth of God's word and we place it in the right place and we dispose of the lies of the enemy.

You see, that's the enemy's bag of tricks, is wiles.

Remember Wiley Coyote?

He had a bag full of tricks.

Some of you, Brother Gary's daughter, doesn't know what I'm talking about, but we used to watch a cartoon called Looney Tunes, and there was a coyote, and his name was Wiley Coyote.

And he was after the roadrunner, and he bought everything Acme had.

And the enemy has a bag of tricks trying to get us every moment that he can.

But just like that, just like that roadrunner, we're not gonna be got if we belong to Jesus.

Amen.

That wasn't in my notes.

That was just something that just uh I just added.

It was a thought.

When we prepare, when we prepare for the battle, we have to use the right weapons, but point number two is when preparing for a battle, dig a foxhole big enough for a friend.

Right?

These two sisters came together.

Amen.

My wife and I, we came together.

Your family came together, you're in church together.

This morning, you need to be reminded that a foxhole is part of the battle.

What is a foxhole?

It's a small, shallow pit quickly dug by soldiers in ground cover or for ground cover and protection against enemy fire.

The enemy's firing at us, and sometimes we need a place to get out of line of fire, right?

And so when you're digging a foxhole, you you need a partner there with you.

And we need shelter from attacks, and we need a place that we can fire back at the enemy, but what God has done is he has put other believers in your life as you fight these battles.

Aren't you so thankful this morning that God didn't leave us to fight alone?

He has given us a partnership with the church, with our families, with other like-minded believers.

God has put people in our life, and we need to be reminded that we're not in the battle alone.

John Maxwell, I like to read John Maxwell's books, and he's a good uh life coach, and he's a Christian man, but he uses something called the partnership principle.

Here's what he says working together increases the odds of winning together.

I'm gonna say that again.

That's important.

Working together increases the odds of winning together.

Well, the scripture for that is found in Ecclesiastes chapter 4, verses 9 through 12, where he simply says, Two are better than one.

Ecclesiastes 4:9–12

If one falls, the other can help him up.

If you're cold, you can warm each other, right?

Unless you're a porcupine.

Two porcupines, brother Dom, were cold, and they said, Let's hug each other and and warm each other with our body heat, but they kept poking one another.

But God's put like-minded people together.

That we're gonna encourage others, we're gonna use spiritual weapons to pray for one another.

And that is that's what God has given us.

Prayer is a spiritual weapon, fasting is a spiritual weapon.

We don't like to fast, but there are times in our life when we have to get down in that foxhole, dig in, and pray and fast for breakthroughs and for God to show us the next thing we need to do.

See, God didn't create us to live without fellowship.

I need you and you need me.

Right?

We need one another.

My I have a friend, he said a pastor called him one day and he said, You are important to God and you're important to others.

I like that.

You're important in my life, especially when I'm in a battle.

I need your prayers.

We don't take prayer requests just simply to know what's going on in the community.

We're holding people up, we're lifting them up to God.

We're being a support through prayer, and our faith is joined with God for that person.

And I'm here to tell you that God has put people in your lives, He's given you a church family, and God will bring others into your life, and that you will be an encouragement to them, and they will be an encouragement to you because we are both fighting in the same war.

Amen.

I wish we weren't.

But one day we will finish the fight.

Until that time, we must fight on.

Amen.

There's no substitute for daily companionship with God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.

I'm not saying that when I say God's given us people, it is the help of the Holy Spirit bringing those people into our lives that two are better than one.

And I'm thankful for that.

Psalm 46.

And God really, this is I'm I'm coming to a close, but Psalm 46 has really been on my heart this week because the Holy Spirit revealed something that I had read this Psalm over and over so many times.

Matter of fact, our ministry, we took our name from Psalm 46, Refuge Ministries.

Angela's kind of a little store.

She's used it, Refuge 46.

So it is a very powerful psalm to us because God is our refuge.

And as I was reading this week, something stood out in verse number nine.

And as I come to a close, this is what I want to finish with.

As I know that we are in a warfare, and I know God's given us weapons, and he's given us friends and like-minded believers to help.

But he says in this verse nine, he maketh wars to cease.

Now, we see it all the time.

I've seen it through many presidents that they're trying to create peace accords, peace agreements.

They're trying to bring everybody together.

And they can't succeed in that.

And so what we see here is the one who brings peace is God.

He is the one who causes the war to cease.

I thought about this in two aspects.

Number one, he's the one who brings peace on earth.

But he's also the one who brings peace to individuals.

Have you ever had an internal war?

Nobody knew like you knew.

Nobody experienced it like you experienced it, but you found this scripture to be true.

That God is a refuge.

And when you come to God, you find that He is the God, not only the God of peace, but the God of safety, the God who sustains, the God who helps.

And he says here, he says in verse number 10 in this psalm, he says, be still and know that I am God.

Now the Hebrew word you could it could mean to let go.

Be still means to stand still.

But how many know you can stand still and be still, holding on to things, striving, warring.

And God says in this verse, let go, and you'll see, or you'll experience that I'm God.

One word comes to mind when I think on this, and it's trust.

God's saying to us today, in the wars that are going on, in everything that's happened, everything that you experience, the blood of the limb and the word of your testimony, what is your testimony?

That he saved me, that he's keeping me, that he's prepared me, he's given me everything that I need.

And he is able to bring peace when no one else can.

But the final thing or the final thought that I had was I can trust him completely with everything.

I can trust him with my life.

I can trust him with my questions, I can trust him with my present, my past, and my future.

Because he's the God of all truth.

Remember what we read?

The enemy is our accuser.

But our testimony is, Jesus, your blood cleanse me from all my sin.

I put my faith in you.

I've been walking this out.

I've been in a battle.

I've been in a war.

I see that even in the physical things are going on in the spiritual, but Lord, my testimony is I trust you.

That's all God requires that we trust and obey.

Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, trust him and obey him.

That is Christianity in the simplest terms, right?

We are saved, we're redeemed, and we simply trust and obey.

And God keeps us through it all.

Do you believe that this morning?

I know this is different this morning.

To me, I would rather just preach encouraging messages all the time, but I need to remind you that you are in a warfare.

You're not here by accident.

God didn't give me this message by accident today.

We are in war.

And the enemy means to destroy us, but God means for us to be more than conquerors.

Amen.

And I just want to remind you today the joy of the Lord is your strength.

Don't get overwhelmed by everything you see coming.

Because it's coming.

Because Jesus said it was coming.

But in the right time, on the right moment, on the right day, he's going to come back and he's going to take us to be with him.

Do you believe that today?

Have you made preparations for that?

That's all that matters.

If you're in Christ and your faith is in him, and he's the Lord of your life, rejoice.

If the world is falling apart around us, he is our refuge.

I'm going to have everything I need until he takes me home.

You're going to have everything you need until he takes you home.

If he's your Lord and Savior, he's going to provide that for you.

Amen.

I believe that.

Father, I thank you for this church.

I thank you, Lord, for the promise of your word that you would never leave us.

You would never forsake us.

I thank you, Lord, God, that we're not unaware of the enemy's tactics, how he fights, what he's trying to do.

But God, you've given us weapons.

Give us weapons to pull down the strongholds of the enemy.

Lord, we will not allow the enemy to have our families.

We will not allow the enemy to have our minds.

We will not allow the enemy to have our peace.

We will trust you, God.

We will declare, Lord, that if you're for us, who can be against us?

That when you are when you are our help, we are more than conquerors through you.

And in the right time, God, we will be carried up to be with you forever and forever.

And the word says, you'll wipe every tear away from our eyes.

There'll be no more sorrow, no more pain, no more suffering.

And God, we're looking for that day, and we're longing for it.

And we believe it will come soon because you promised you would come.

And Jesus, we thank you for that.

With every head bowed, every heart, every heart open this morning, I want to just make one thing clear.

There's only one way that any of us are saved, and that's through Jesus Christ.

And if you today are being drawn by the Spirit, any one of us, you feel like you need to make anything right with God, today is that day.

And you just simply need to call upon Him.

And you need to ask Him today, Lord, search my heart.

Anything that, Lord, needs to be made right, God, today, I yield to you.

And I ask you, Lord, just to be my Lord and my Savior and give me everything I need, Lord, to win this war through you.

And I thank you for it.

Amen.

Amen.