REFORMED CHURCH BELLVILLE: SUNDAY 13 MARCH 2005: MORNING SERVICE

Sing before service:   Psalm 139:4; 11:1; 22:2; 36:2; 63:4; 91:2
 
Let us commence this meeting with God by declaring openly to one another and to God:

Our help is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth. Beloved grace and peace be to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, through the mighty working of god the Holy Spirit. Amen

Psalm of praise: 146:1+3
Confession of faith: Apostolic Creed

I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth.

And in Jesus Christ, His only begotten Son, our Lord who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead and buried. He descended into Hell, the third day He rose again from the dead, He ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty, from there He shall come to judge the living and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Spirit, a holy catholic* Church, the communion of saints; the forgiveness of sins; the resurrection of the body; and the life everlasting.
Amen

After the reading of the Law we confess our sinful guilt before God and pray for forgiveness (new life, reconciliation, the Will of God) with Psalm 91:8)
Law
Hymn: 91:8
Prayer

• Doxology
• Worship
• Confession of sins
• Forgiveness
• Gratitude
• Prayer for the need of the congregation for the church, the authorities and the sinful world and appeal to God's promises.
• General prayer
• Enlightenment from the Holy Spirit for the sake of the ministry of the Word.

Psalm: 91:2
Scripture: Revelation 12
Text:        Revelation 12:13

"When the dragon saw that he had been hurled to the earth, he pursued the woman who had given birth to the male child."

When the dragon suffered his defeat in heaven, he tried to attack the Lord from a different angle. When he was cast down on earth, he attacked the church of the Lord.

1.         The assault on the church.
2.         The church's responsibility.
3.         The grace in Jesus Christ.

1.         The assault on the church

In this chapter the church is depicted as a woman who has brought a son into the world.

• She is attacked.
• This means that in this time in which we live the devil focuses all his attention onto the church because he wants to destroy as much as he is able of the church.
• The reason is that the church lives in vigorous communion with Jesus Christ and the devil hates everything that is part of the Lord.

The devil's assault is forceful.

• In Luke 22:31 the Lord Jesus tells Peter that the devil has desired ardently to sift them as wheat.
• Paul tells that he was tormented by one of Satan's angels. (2 Corinthians 12:7)
• 2 Thessalonians 2:9 and 10 reveals that Satan will assault the people with all kinds of miracles, signs and wonders:
  " 9The coming of the lawless one will be in accordance with the work of Satan displayed in all kinds of counterfeit miracles, signs and wonders, 10and in every sort of evil that deceives those who are perishing …"
• Hebrews 2:15 reveals that the devil has kept certain people enslaved their whole life by their fear of death.
• And 1 Peter 5:8 tells us that the devil prowls around on earth like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.

From these passages and others in the Bible it is clear that the devil ferociously assaults the church and that he stops at nothing in order to kill the true believers and to torture and deceive them.

But all the time there is a stumbling block in Satan's path:

• That is Jesus Christ's kingship over His church.
• Satan may succeed in causing the true believers to suffer but he cannot make them loose their faith.
• In this way Satan remains a loser:
• during his fall from grace in heaven he was a loser.
• he lost in his assault on Jesus Christ on the cross and in the grave at His ascension.
• then he lost against  Michael and the host of angels.
• and now he loses again in his assault on the true believers.

2.         The church's responsibility

In this time that the church is so oppressed the Lord has given the church the means with which she can escape from Satan's power. The Lord gave the church two wings.

• Not ordinary wings - the two wings of a great eagle.
• The great eagle is the Lord. In the Old Testament we find various references to this:
• • Exodus 19:4 - "You yourselves have seen what I did to Egypt and how I carried you on eagles' wings and brought you to myself."
  • The eagles' wings point to the almighty protection of the Lord of those who are His people.
  • Deuteronomy 32:11-12: "Like an eagle that sets up its nest and hovers over its young that spreads its wings to catch them and carries them on its pinions" that is how the Lord led His people.
• The two wings given to the church so that she may fly away from the devil refers back to these passages in the Old Testament where the eternal and almighty protection of the Lord over His people is described.

But the matter is not as simple as that. The church has a duty.

• The church must fly away from Satan with the two wings. She must use them.
• With it the church submits herself continuously in service of God.

What must the church do to escape the devil?

• We must remain sober in our faith and in our prayer.
• At the same time we must be acutely alert in our faith and our prayers.
• Do we really believe in the Lord? Faith is very important. The Lord tells us in many passages in the Bible that the true believers are able to literally do anything if he truly believes. (Matthew 17:20; Mark 9:23, 1 John 5:4)

In the passage where the apostle Paul writes of the armour that the true believer must put on he writes that one must carry the shield of faith because with it one can extinguish the fiery arrows shot by Satan.

This passage tells us two things:

• The first is that Satan shall assault us ferociously and the second is that we shall be able to beat him in faith provided we employ our faith correctly.
• The second matter of importance is prayer.
• • We must live in prayer, for the Lord gives us an express promise that He shall hear our prayers.
  • With it come the promise that the Lord will forgive us our sins. (James 5:15+16; John 14:13+14; Mark 11:24)

Take note - in these matters a great responsibility rests on the church. The truly faithful must really mirror the image of the Lord. Let us for a moment return to the image of the eagles' wings. See what is written in Isaiah 40:31: "But those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength, they will soar on wings like eagles, they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint."

Does our congregation fly with the wings the Lord has given us?

• Is it not perhaps time that each one of us goes home and thinks deeply about our relationship with the Lord?
• Has it not in these modern times become necessary that we start at the beginning and reflect on faith and the demands the Lord makes of our faith?

Which bring us to consider our life in prayer.

• The Lord does not say in this passage that the church will go somewhere where the devil cannot find it.
• The Lord says that He gives us wings to enable us to fly away from sin.
• The Lord gives us the ability to remain sober in a strict and straight way of life.
• We must in prayer move away from any kind of sin so that we may immaculately belong to the Lord alone. Although we live on earth we may never become part of the world.
• The devil never gives up.
• The Lord hurls him down to earth to be there for 42 months - 1260 days.
• This period is repeatedly mentioned (11:2, 3; 12:6 and 13:5).

All this time the devil is on earth together with the church - when the Lord gave the church the wings of an eagle to fly away from Satan, he devised a new scheme:

• The Bible tells us that the devil spat water like a river after the woman - this water symbolizes all kinds of temptations.
• The desert is a place of no water where one suffers thirst and the devil now provides water.
• He wants to tempt the church into drinking from it.
• When unable to drag the church into the world the devil now tries to bring the world into the church.
• For this reason the water is spewed after the woman.

In our days this is a real problem because the church must guard against becoming wordly.

• Do we still know the difference between the joy in the Lord and other temptations that gladden the heart and spirit but do not serve the glory of God?
• We should reflect on this because the devil uses such temptations to draw us away from the Lord.

3.         The grace in Jesus Christ

The Lord tells us here that the true believers can be steadfast and persevere in their sober life style.

• They did not succumb to the pleasures of the world with which Satan tempted them.
• Satan's own schemes went awry and his own works destroyed each other so that his assault did not reach the believers. It is written here that the desert (the earth) swallowed the water.

Thereafter the devil made a final attempt on the believers

He now assaults them one by one.

• His onslaught remains aimed at their death.
• He assaults people selectively. He searches out those who keep god's commandments and hold onto the testimony of Jesus Christ.
• These are not two different groups of people. They are the same. Only those who live in Christ at the same time obey God's commandments.
• Do we know that the devil looks for us? Do we realize that he wants to draw us away from Christ so that we may perish with him?

We have one great comfort - we live in God's grace.

• That is why God has given us his wings so that we can fly away from Satan.
• This issue is so tremendous that before this time God already gave His Son to become man to submit as man before His wrath.
• Jesus was punished terribly for each sin committed by each believer.
• Thereafter He had to defeat the devil so that He could have the almighty power to give wings to the believers so that they could fly away from the devil.
• And to keep the devil away when he tries to assault the believers.

At the end the day of the Lord's return dawns.

• The Lord Jesus will come on the clouds and finally destroy Satan.
• We will forever lock the devil and all his cohorts in hell.
• That is the vision of our faith and our hope and we must pray that that day will come quickly.

In the meanwhile we must believe and pray.

• Live in such a way that our prayers and our faith shows in our irreproachable life.
• Then the Lord when He returns shall find us where we belong - on His wings and out of the reach of Satan's temptations.
• And should the devil assault us and hurt us deeply - let our Lord then find us on our knees where we confess our sins and obey His commandments.

Amen

Closing Prayer
Psalm: 68:1

The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God the Father and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you.
Amen

Dr MJ du Plessis
Reformed Church Bellville
13 March 2005 (morning)
Scripture NIV