Hey, podcast listeners! Thanks for streaming today's podcast, From Pathway to Victory. Pathway to Victory is a nonprofit ministry featuring the Bible teaching of Dr. Robert Jeffress. Our mission is to pierce the darkness with the light of God's word through the most effective media available, like this podcast. To support Pathway to Victory, go to ptv.org slash donate or follow the link in our show notes. Now, here's today's podcast, From Pathway to Victory. God's Word with you every day on this Bible teaching program.
On today's edition of Pathway to Victory. And behold, a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and on his heads were seven diadems. The word dragon is used 12 times in the Bible, and it's all in the book of Revelation. The dragon is Satan himself, as we'll see in a few moments. Welcome to Pathway to Victory with author and pastor, Dr. Robert Jeffress. You know, the struggle between good and evil began when an esteemed angel in heaven rebelled against God.
And ever since then, God and Satan have been engaged in a cosmic battle of epic proportions. Today on Pathway to Victory, Dr. Robert Jeffress takes us to a passage in Revelation that describes the final conflict between God and Satan. Now, here's our Bible teacher to introduce today's message.
Dr. Jeffress. Thanks, David, and welcome again to Pathway to Victory. Some have come to believe that the last book in the Bible is nothing more than a collection of fairy tales concocted by a delusional writer. But once you see the thread of history woven through every chapter, once you recognize the finishing touch God places on the entire Bible, it's impossible to dismiss John's Revelation as anything other than God-breathed. And today, as we continue our study in the book of Revelation called Final Conquest, I'm inviting you to request your copy of my bestselling book by the same title. If you're curious to learn more about Bible prophecy, this comprehensive book belongs in your collection. It represents decades of my own personal study and preaching on this topic.
So, when you give a generous gift to support the ministry of Pathway to Victory, be sure to specifically mention that you'd like to receive a copy of Final Conquest. In addition, and when you respond today, I'll also include the exclusive booklet I've prepared for you titled Bible Prophecy Made Simple. Written in a style that's clear and practical, my booklet describes events like the Tribulation, the Millennium, and the Great White Throne Judgment, and I'll explain how these realities can change your life today.
David and I will explain more about these resources later in the program, but right now, let's open our Bibles to the last book of the Bible. I titled today's message, Slaying the Great Red Dragon. God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. Satan hates you and has a terrible plan to destroy your life.
I hope you'll remember both of those statements, but especially the last one. Satan absolutely hates you and has a terrible plan to destroy your life. Jesus referred to him as a thief in John 10, who comes to kill, steal, and destroy. If Satan cannot rob you of eternal life by keeping you from trusting in Christ as Savior, he'll try to destroy your dreams, he'll try to destroy your relationships, he'll try to destroy your influence for God on this earth, he'll try to destroy your joy.
He wants to destroy everything important to you, and he has a plan to carry out that destruction. Now, Satan is a powerful adversary. We read about that in 1 Peter 5, and yet as powerful as he is, his power is restrained right now by God.
He can't do whatever he wants to. He's limited in his power. Somebody said Satan is like a junkyard dog on a very long chain.
His power to destroy is considerable, but it's also limited. But one day, during the last three and a half years of earth's history, that chain is going to be taken off Satan. He is going to be free to do whatever he wants to do on this earth, and the earth is going to experience evil like it has never experienced before.
He will accomplish that evil through a puppet, a human puppet, he has, we call the antichrist. In fact, that future time of unrestrained is something Paul prophesied about in 2 Thessalonians 2, verses 6 to 8. And you know what restrains him now, so that in time he will be revealed, talking about the antichrist, empowered by Satan. For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work.
We see it at work right now. Only he who now restrains, that is the Holy Spirit, will do so until he, the Holy Spirit, is taken out of the way. That's at the rapture of the church when believers possessing the Holy Spirit are taken out of the way. Then, verse 8 says, that lawless one, the antichrist, will be revealed, whom the Lord will slay with the breath of his mouth and bring to an end by the appearance of his coming. And that is what we're going to look at today, those final three and a half years of time when Satan is completely unrestrained.
Now, a little bit of context to help you understand where we are. Remember, Revelation 6 through 19, all of those chapters deal with the seven year period of time we call the tribulation. It begins when the antichrist signs the peace treaty with Israel, but halfway through that tribulation he breaks that peace treaty and literally all hell breaks loose on the earth. And that last three and a half years we call the great tribulation.
It is a period of intense suffering that will culminate in the return of Christ. And these seven years of tribulation are marked by three judgments from God, the seal judgments, the trumpet judgments, the bowl judgments. And we've already looked at the seal judgments and the trumpet judgments.
The last trumpet has blown and we're awaiting the final series of trumpets, the bowl judgments. And we've looked at some awful things, haven't we, that are going to happen on this earth. Over half of the world's population will be killed through all of these judgments, some of them natural, some of them supernatural that God pours out on the earth. Did you see the news, the threats against planet earth, a giant asteroid headed toward our planet?
Not only that, you had that just unbelievable infestation of locusts. If you saw me Friday night on Lou Dobbs, you heard Lou say, pastor, asteroids, locusts, pandemics, are we living in the end times? I said, we're not yet there, but we're almost there. The things that we're seeing right now are the birth pains, Jesus said, of even greater distress and tribulation that is yet to come. We can't know the time when these final judgments will come. Jesus said, no man knows the hour or the day, but what we can do is make sure we're prepared by knowing Jesus Christ as Lord.
We're seeing these things, the type of them already occurring. We've looked at the trumpet judgments and the seal judgments, we're awaiting the final judgments in the book of Revelation. But as John often does, before that final series of judgments in Revelation 16, he pauses to describe some other things we need to understand. When we come to Revelation chapter 12, we find another one of those pauses in which John is going to explain something we need to know.
Today, we're going to look at the spiritual war behind the scenes that explains what's happening on planet earth during these last three and a half years. We're going to see that illustrated today in Revelation chapter 12. All of the chaos on planet earth during those final three and a half years is ultimately traceable to what's happening in heaven, a giant war that is going on between God and Satan.
As I read Revelation 12 over and over again and tried to come up with a sensible outline, the only way I think to understand this chapter is to see it in three parts. First of all, in verses one to six, part one, John is going to give us a panoramic view of the eternal conflict between God and Satan that began in eternity past and climaxes in the final three and a half years of the tribulation. That's verses one to six, a panoramic view of the cosmic struggle. In verses seven to 12, John is going to zero in on these final three and a half years by looking at heaven first. What's going on in heaven that causes the great conflict on earth? Then in verses 13 to 17, we're going to see the consequences on earth of that cosmic struggle in heaven.
First of all, let's look at the panorama in verses one to six. Look at verses one and two of Revelation 12. A great sign appeared in heaven, John said. I saw a great sign. Revelation is filled with signs. A sign is not something that is real, it's something that points to that which is real. A sign points to reality.
Let me illustrate that for you. Let's say you're driving on I-20 going to east toward Tyler and you get out there and there's not a whole lot around as you're driving to Tyler and you look at your gas gauge and you notice it's on empty. And you think, I need some gas, but there's no gas anywhere around here. And then you're relieved when you see a giant billboard on the side of the road that says, Texaco, six miles ahead. You think, well, gee, that's great news. So what do you do when you see that sign?
Do you pull off the road, pull up to the sign and say, fill her up? No, the sign is not reality. It points to a reality that is yet to come. And that's true of these signs we're going to see all throughout the book of Revelation, but especially in chapter 12. These things, these unbelievable things we're going to see are simply a point to a reality.
They're not the reality itself. And notice the first sign he says, the sign of a woman. The great sign appeared in heaven, a woman clothed with the sun and the moon under her feet and on her head, a crown of 12 stars, and she was with child.
Who is this woman? You can read every commentary under the sun and get a different idea, but it's not hard to understand who the woman is if you know your Bible. Remember in Genesis chapter 37, verses 9 to 11, Joseph had a dream, and in his dream, he saw the sun and the moon representing his parents, Jacob and Rachel.
And the 12 stars he saw were their 12 offspring, the 12 sons of Jacob. This was a representation of Israel. It's very clear this woman represents Israel. And it says in verse 2, she was with child, a woman in labor.
You know, the church is never described as a married woman or a woman in labor. She is the bride of Christ. But here, Israel is a woman who's about to give birth, and she cried out, being in labor and paying to give birth.
As we'll see in a moment, the child is Jesus Christ. This is the sign of the woman. There was a second sign, verses 3 to 6, the sign of the dragon. Look at verse 3. Then another sign appeared in heaven, and behold, a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and on his heads were seven diadems. The word dragon is used 12 times in the Bible, and it's all in the book of Revelation.
Again, this isn't literal. It's a sign pointing to a reality. The dragon is Satan himself, as we'll see in a few moments. And he has seven heads and ten horns.
What in the world does that mean? Again, if you know your Old Testament, Daniel 7, this is consistent with the vision that Daniel saw of the Antichrist. The seven heads represent the seven worldwide empires in history.
The ten horns represent the final form of world government, which will be that ten-nation confederacy over which the Antichrist has power. And notice verse 4. And his, that is the dragon's tail, swept away a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth.
Now remember, this is a panoramic view of history. This is a reference to when Lucifer, God's chief angel, waged a rebellion against him. And how did God respond? Through Lucifer and all those angels who lined up with him, threw them to the earth, cast them out of heaven. And those angels became demons and Lucifer became our adversary, Satan.
That's what John saw. He saw the original fall of Satan, founded in Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28. And then he fast forwards and the dragon stood before the woman, Israel, who was about to give birth so that when she gave birth, he might devour the child. From the very beginning, Satan did everything he could to prevent the Christ child from being born. He saw him trying to destroy Israel itself in the Old Testament through Pharaoh and Egypt. And when he couldn't do that, he tried to kill off at least the messianic line through which Jesus would come. And he didn't succeed there. After Jesus was born, he inspired Herod to kill all of the males who were two of age and under.
And he didn't succeed with that. And then finally, the Bible says, Satan inspired Judas to betray the Lord Jesus Christ for 30 pieces of silver. Thinking foolishly, that would end the promise of God. But what Satan meant for evil, God used for good.
It was through the death of Christ and his resurrection that we have eternal life. That's what you find here in verse four. Verse five, and Israel gave birth to a son, a male child who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron. And her child was caught up to God and to his throne. That's a reference to the ascension of Christ. Isn't it interesting? That the whole story of Jesus, his birth, his perfect life, his death, his resurrection, his ascension, are told in one half of one sentence.
Why is more attention not given to those things? Because that's not the focus of this chapter. This is about the struggle between God and Satan. So when the dragon was not successful, notice what happens, verse six. In between the end of verse five and verse six in all that white space there are thousands of years.
Because John fast forwards thousands of years since the ascension of Christ into the future and specifically the final three and a half years of earth's history. Then the woman, who is the woman? Israel. Then Israel fled into the wilderness where she had a place prepared by God so that she would be nourished there for 1,260 days. You know how long 1,260 days is? Forty-two months. You know how long 42 months is? Three and a half years.
Every time in Revelation you find those descriptions for this final period of time. 1,260 years. Forty-two months. Three and a half years. 1,260 days.
And that's what you find here. And verse six is a fast forwarding to the final three and a half years where the dragon is pursuing Israel and she flees into the wilderness for three and a half years. And it's going to be a time of persecution for Israel.
Now, that is a panorama of the whole cosmic struggle. When we come to the next verse in verse seven, John is going to zero in on those final three and a half years by first of all looking at it from a heavenly viewpoint. What's happening in heaven during these final three and a half years? There is a war in heaven.
Look at verse seven. And there was a war in heaven, Michael and his angels waging war with the dragon, that is Satan. The dragon and his angels waged war and they were not strong enough and there was no longer a place found for them, that is Satan and his angels, in heaven. Now, Michael is the chief archangel. He's the only archangel named in the Bible.
He's also known as the patron saint of Israel, the unique protector of Israel. I think very logically as the archangel, he's the one who inherited Lucifer's position as chief of staff after Lucifer was cast out of heaven. But John describes a war that goes on between Michael and Satan.
And the natural question I had when I read this passage, and I bet you have as well, is this. What is Satan doing in heaven? I thought we just saw in that panorama that before eternity, before Genesis 1, he was cast down from heaven. He and a third of the angels. And now, halfway through the great tribulation, we find Satan and his angels up in heaven.
How did he get back up there? You know, many people are mixed up about this. Satan is not in hell right now. In fact, he's never visited hell. The reason is hell, his final place, hasn't even been created yet, the lake of fire.
That is still future. Satan sometimes is on our planet, but not often. He's not omnipresent. He can't be more than one place at the same time. He's got plenty of demons to do his work. Satan's primary residence right now is in heaven. Job 1 paints that scene of Satan in heaven talking to God about God's servant named Job. Well, how is it if you get thrown out of heaven, you end up back in heaven? We see a great illustration of that all the time in the news.
Have you ever noticed this? There'll be somebody who's on staff at the White House, works for the president. He does something that makes the president angry, and so he gets canned. That staff member gets walked out like a criminal sometimes off the White House grounds. He has to pack up his office, turn in his badge, and you think, well, never see that person again. You turn on your television about three or four months later, there he or she is at the White House with the president, but this time not as a member of his staff. There is a lobbyist.
They're working for Congress. When he was on staff, he had an all-access pass. He could go anywhere he wanted to on the White House grounds, including the Oval Office, but now he comes back as a guest with a limited-access pass. That's exactly what's going to happen in the end times. The chief of staff, Lucifer, has been cast out of heaven. He was thrown out of heaven, but he has allowed limited access into heaven right now. You know why he's up in heaven right now? To accuse you and me before God the Father day and night.
We'll talk about that in a moment. But the Bible says at some place at the beginning of that final three and a half years, Satan, while he's in heaven, is going to try to rebel against God. In fact, the Greek construction of the text here indicates that it's the dragon Satan who fires the first shot in this battle. What is it that causes him to wage another rebellion against God?
I've heard a lot of speculation. Some people say maybe it was the rapture of the church. Satan saw the rapture take place, saw you and me headed to heaven, and he thought, time is running short. If I'm going to have my worldwide kingdom, this is my last chance to affect it.
Maybe that's what did it. We don't know exactly what happened, but there was a war in heaven, and they lost Satan and his demons. Look at the result, verse 9. And the great dragon was thrown down.
Underline that. He was thrown down. The serpent of old who is called the devil and Satan who deceives the whole world. He was, there you get it again, thrown down. And his angels were thrown down with him. This is what you call a real throw down that takes place here.
This is an ultimate final defeat here. He throws down the great dragon. By the way, isn't it interesting that in this verse, verse 9, you find four of the most common terms for Satan.
I want you to write them down. First of all, Satan literally, which means adversary. We read that in 1 Peter 5a. For your adversary the devil prowls about like a roaring lion. That's what the word Satan means. It means adversary.
He's also called the dragon, which refers to this fierce, cruel, and monstrous nature. There's so much more to discover in this passage. For the first time reader, Revelation chapter 12 can be confusing.
But once we comprehend what these signs and symbols mean, we begin to understand how they impact our lives today. Well, Pathway to Victory has prepared a variety of resources to help you enhance the meaning and impact of this last book of the Bible. The first resource is a commentary I've written for you on the book of Revelation. My book is called Final Conquest. And I want you to add Final Conquest to your personal collection of Bible prophecy books. When you give a generous gift to support Pathway to Victory today, I'll make sure that you receive a copy right away. Second, when you give a gift today, I'll also include the booklet I mentioned earlier called Bible Prophecy Made Simple. This is a quick reference guide on important terms like the church age, the tribulation, and the second coming of Christ.
Now one last thing. Before our time is up, I've asked David to explain how you can receive my entire teaching series on Revelation on both CD and DVD. This collection of messages contains my original presentations without any time cuts or omissions. For example, today's study in Revelation chapter 12 was more than 45 minutes in length. When you request the Final Conquest teaching series on Revelation, you'll hear the entire messages with nothing left out. By the way, this series would be a great study for your Sunday school class or small group Bible study. Here's David with all the details.
Thanks, Dr. Jeffress. Today when you give a generous gift to Pathway to Victory, you're invited to request your copy of Final Conquest, a verse-by-verse commentary on the book of Revelation by Dr. Robert Jeffress. And we'll also send along the booklet called Bible Prophecy Made Simple. To request your copy of these resources, call 866-999-2965 or go online to ptv.org.
Now when your gift is $75 or more, we'll also send you the complete CD and DVD teaching sets for this month's series on the book of Revelation called Final Conquest. If you'd like to request these resources, call 866-999-2965 or go online to ptv.org. You can also send your request to us by mail. Just write to P.O. Box 223-609, Dallas, Texas, 75222. Again, that's P.O. Box 223-609, Dallas, Texas, 75222.
I'm David J. Mullins. Join us next time for part two of the message, Slaying the Great Red Dragon. That's coming up Friday on Pathway to Victory.
Pathway to Victory with Dr. Robert Jeffress comes from the pulpit of the First Baptist Church of Dallas, Texas. Picture yourself relaxing aboard a luxury cruise ship as you sail the Mediterranean Sea on the Pathway to Victory Journeys of Paul Mediterranean Cruise, May 5 through 16, 2025. This 11-day journey will take you to unforgettable destinations in Italy, Turkey, and Greece.
Plus, you'll have the option to extend your trip with additional adventures in Rome. To book your spot on the 2025 Journeys of Paul Mediterranean Cruise, go to ptv.org. You made it to the end of today's podcast from Pathway to Victory, and we're so glad you're here. Pathway to Victory relies on the generosity of loyal listeners like you to make this podcast possible. One of the most impactful ways you can give is by becoming a Pathway partner. Your monthly gift will empower Pathway to Victory to share the gospel of Jesus Christ and help others become rooted more firmly in His Word. To become a Pathway partner, go to ptv.org slash donate or follow the link in our show notes. We hope you've been blessed by today's podcast from Pathway to Victory.
