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"Have you ever been faced with temptation and, with Jesus' help resisted?"
There comes a time when all of us must confront Satan. There are times when all of us are tempted. None of us ever escapes some form of temptation. Of course, some of us are tempted more than others.
Dr. William Willimon recalls leading a Thursday Morning Women's Bible Study in his church. The group was studying Jesus' temptations. To get a conversation going, Dr. Willimon asked, "Have any of you ever been faced with temptation and, with Jesus' help resisted?"
One woman said, yes, just the week before there was some confusion in the supermarket checkout line. Before she knew it, she was standing in the parking lot with a loaf of bread she hadn't paid for. But because of her Christian convictions she went back into the store and paid for the bread.
Dr. Willimon asked if there was anyone else who would like to share. A young woman who was attending her first Bible Study raised her hand. Verleen was different from the rest of the women present; she lived in a rough part of town. "A couple of years ago," she began, "I was into cocaine really big. You know what that's like! You know how that stuff makes you crazy." She told the women that a few years before she and her boyfriend robbed a gas station. "It was as simple as taking candy from a baby," she said. That night her boyfriend also wanted to rob a convenience store, but something inside of Verleen told her it was wrong. Her boyfriend beat her up for refusing to go along with him, but she felt good saying no, "cause that was the only time in my life I ever said no to anything," she told the group.
Through the stunned silence Dr. Willimon muttered, "Well, er, uh, that's resisting temptation. That's sort of what this text is about." He then led the group in the closing prayer.
There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about temptation and the devils, C.S. Lewis points out. In the preface to "The Screwtape Letters," his famous, fictional correspondence between Screwtape, a master tempter, and his nephew, Wormwood, Lewis writes, "One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them. They themselves are pleased by both errors and hail a materialist or a magician with the same delight.
The images presented in Revelation are quite vivid. The image of the celestial woman who gives birth in Rev. 12:1-3 is part of a set of images that serve as a prelude to the end of the age, since the seventh trumpet, has already sounded. Yet what are we to make of this picture? Who is this woman? What is this dragon that is mentioned? How do we interpret such images, which remind us more of Greek mythology than of most Scripture?
The images are meaningful, but they are at the same time fluid. Both the woman and the dragon have a fluidity about them that allows them to be useful.
There are two women in the closing chapters of Revelation. The first woman is God's woman. The second woman is a prostitute (Rev. 17). The two contrasting women reminds us of the two women in Proverbs 1-10, the one who is wise and the other who is loose. Here in Rev. 12 the first woman is clothed with heavenly glory, the sun, with the moon beneath her feet. The second woman is clothed in "purple and scarlet," colors of earthly emperors. The first woman has twelves stars for a crown. The second woman has gold and jewels. The first woman gives birth, but the second woman appears sterile. The two are opposites in every way.
If we recognize the second woman as "Babylon" or Rome, is the first woman Jerusalem? Some scholars point to the twelve stars and argue they parallel the twelve patriarchs. Other scholars see the birth of the child and claim the woman is Mary. Still others point out the sign appears in heaven, so this must be some idealization of the people of God, God's true bride. Why must we choose between interpretations? Jewish thought often fluctuated between the one and the many. In the Servant songs of Isaiah 49 the servant is sometimes Israel (49:3) and sometimes an individual (49:5). So, in Rev. 12 the woman is God's people, the faithful of Israel. The woman is also Mary, who individualized that faithful group in giving birth to the Messiah.
Later in Rev. 12 the image of the woman shifts, for she is persecuted. Is she still the faithful in Israel? Or is she now the wider people of God. Jew as well as Gentile? Certainly, in her flight to the wilderness we are reminded of Jesus words (Mark 13:14), "When you see 'the abomination that causes desolation' standing where it does not belong - let the reader understand-then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains," which the Jewish-Christian church acted upon just before AD 70. Does it mean that God will protect a Jewish-Christian group? Or should we remember his words in Matthew 16:18 that "the gates of Hades" would not overcome his church, therefore interpreting this as a reference to his whole church? Perhaps the correct answer is both. The image is that of the flight of Israel into the wilderness and the flight of the church from Jerusalem in the AD 66-70 war. This shows God will care for and protect his church, specifically during the time when the forces of evil reign apparently triumphant, the 1,260 days.
All the lies and demonic forces that the dragon can spit out cannot destroy this church. But at the same time the dragon makes war with the woman's children, the Christians. So, while the church is protected and cannot be stamped out, Christians will experience the anger of Satan, even martyrdom. Suffering is inseparable from the preaching of the gospel and the end will come only after Jesus' followers have carried out the Great Commission (Matt 24:14). When we see a generation of believers radical enough to endure martyrdom to evangelize the most resistant areas, we will also see intensified tribulation. But while such tribulation may be part of the backdrop of Revelation's portrait of tribulation, its direct point in 12:6 is probably that our experience between Jesus' first and second coming includes the devil's enmity. Yet during such tribulation, we are invited to take good courage for Jesus has overcome the world (John 16:33).
Although Jesus has won the victory, much of the world does not know this and remains in deception. So, what we call spiritual warfare continues today on a cosmic level. There has been a worldview shift in the United States toward new Age and Eastern mystic thought, Atheism, Socialism and Marxism. Roughly half the country believes in extrasensory perception, a quarter in ghosts, a quarter in astrology, and ten percent in channeling.
The Bible provides essential insights for our warfare in this age. The battle is a spiritual one, and God is sovereign, the devil's time is limited and continues only by God's permission.
Many Christians in this country are afraid their witness may offend someone, but this passage emphasizes our witness for Jesus is worth even our lives. In many parts of the world, believers have been laying down their lives, and given the truth of Christ's message, that is a cost well paying.
Experts estimate there are tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, of martyrs for Christ annually around the world. Noble Alexander, an Adventist youth pastor was imprisoned for 22 years by the Cuban government. For refusing to renounce Christ he suffered food poisoning for eating maggot-ridden gruel. He lost consciousness being dunked in an icy lake while bound. He passed out three times from the pain of being whipped with electric cables. He sustained gunshot wounds in his hand, leg and thigh.
He spent 90 days "inside a coffinlike box where he could barely move" for having a Bible. For refusing to work on the Sabbath he was "dunked into a cesspool of rotting debris and putrid excrement for three hours." His hardest suffering was that his Christian wife divorced him while he was in prison; this brought him so much despair that he did not remarry until 28 years later. "No one can be certain of his faith and endurance until he is forced to test them," Noble warns.
One encouragement in any of our testing and temptations is that Satan's time is limited (12:12); we only must endure for a limited time. Suffering belongs to this world, but our Lord Jesus is victorious anyway.
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Rev. Charles Eldredge is pastor of Maitland Church of the Brethren, Lewistown, PA where he is currently serving in his 28th year. He graduated from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in S. Hamilton, MA.