Jesus in the Land of Dragons | Revelation 12

A lot of listeners have been asking how to study Revelation on their own, so on this episode of the Sermon Notes Podcast, host Jay Strother and Brian Ball start there before turning to Revelation 12 and Jesus in the Land of Dragons. Jay compares Bible study to a day at the ocean. Some people sit on the beach and admire the water, some wade in, and some put on scuba gear and dive down to the coral reefs. Scripture is beautiful at every depth. Start with the Word itself, let it speak, ask questions of the text, and then dig in with good tools. Their list runs from study Bibles like the ESV Study Bible and the CSB Study Bible, to pastoral commentaries like Warren Wiersbe’s Bible Exposition Commentary and Danny Akin’s Exalting Jesus in Revelation, to deeper works from Tom Schreiner, G.K. Beale, Jim Hamilton, and Robert Mounce. Just remember, as Jay says, “The words of the Bible are inspired. Study notes are not.” They’re helpful tools, and as Brian puts it, a text “never means what it never meant.” Several of these commentaries are available to check out from our church’s resource center.

Jay and Brian also walk through the four main ways faithful Christians read Revelation: futurist, preterist, historical, and symbolic (or idealist). Brian calls for “hermeneutical humility.” Scripture is inerrant, but we’re fallible. Jay warns against two ditches, unhealthy speculation on one side and cynicism on the other, and points to Alistair Begg’s reminder that the main things are the plain things. When the visions get confusing, go back to Revelation 4 and 5, where God is on His throne and the Lamb who was slain is in control. Brian, a mathematician by trade, adds that we never have complete information, but what God has revealed is sufficient.

Then comes Revelation 12. A woman about to give birth, a great red dragon waiting to devour her child, and a Son who is caught up to God’s throne. The scene reaches all the way back to the serpent in Eden and God’s promise that a descendant of Eve would crush its head. Jay jokes that if you want to make your nativity more exciting this year, you can set a seven-headed dragon right next to the shepherds. Jesus was born in a tiny village while Herod’s massive fortress, the Herodium, stood just outside town, and no one covered the birth announcement. “We get impressed with the Herodium,” Brian says, “and we forget that the power is in the baby.” Jay sums it up with a line from Tom Schreiner: “The dragon didn’t end the child’s life. Instead, the child ended the dragon’s reign.”

Because the dragon can’t stop God’s plan, he goes after God’s children. Brian notes that for many mature believers, accusations haunt us even more than temptations, because there’s truth in them. We aren’t worthy on our own. Jay points out that the enemy saves his most vicious attacks for the home and the church, the two conduits of the gospel, trying to keep us from sharing our faith and from investing in our marriages and our parenting. But the accuser “has been thrown down” (Revelation 12:10), a legal term that means thrown out of court. God’s people “conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; for they did not love their lives to the point of death” (Revelation 12:11). We point our accuser to Jesus, and our testimony is about Him. He’s the hero of the story.

The devil “has come down to you with great fury, because he knows his time is short” (Revelation 12:12), so we stay watchful. We’re not called to attack, but to stand in the armor of God (Ephesians 6), to preach the gospel to ourselves every morning, and to strengthen one another instead of turning our fire on each other. And notice where the dragon ends up: standing on the sand. We stand on the Rock, and we know how this story ends. Listen to the full conversation, and pick one resource that will help you dig a little deeper into Revelation this week.