Revelation 12:1-4

“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 pained 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 heads. And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did 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.”

Matthew 1:18-21

“Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise: When as his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Ghost. Then Joseph her husband, being a just man, and not willing to make her a public example, was minded to put her away privily. But while he thought on these things, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife: for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost. And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name Jesus: for he shall save his people from their sins.”

Very soon, we will be celebrating the birth of our Lord and Savior Jesus. Many of us will read from the passage in Matthew 1 and the one in Luke 3 as well. We will see manger scenes all around our churches and some towns; we will see commercials that still allow the manger scene, and it will be peaceful, lowly animals and humble humans watching over the little Baby in a manger. All too often, the scenes still have the Magi, the Wise men there, even though it is clear that they came about 2 years later after his birth.

Many of us will not ever or have not ever read Revelation 12 in relation to the Christmas story. But just about a week ago, one of my preacher brethren highlighted this passage, and as I was reading through the New Testament over the last 4 days, I was reading Revelation. Here we see this account, and because it is a part of the Revelation, we do not tend to place it with the birth of Christ story.

In the passage, we can see that there is a woman; she has a crown of 12 stars. This is a picture of Israel. We see that she is in travail, or as we call it, labor pains, and she is about to have her baby. This is the very night of the birth of our Savior, and as He is being born – as Mary is crying out in pain, as Joseph is doing whatever men did back then – there is a danger lurking in Bethlehem for this baby. Maybe this mother and father have no idea that Satan himself, the Dragon, the one who hates this little child the most, is at hand hoping to kill this helpless, innocent child. Maybe, just maybe, if he can kill the Son, then he can be god as he wants to be. The truth is that Satan knows he can never be god, ever.

I had someone ask a question that I have never considered: if Satan truly believed that eating the fruit in the Garden of Eden would make someone like God, why didn’t he eat it? He wants to be god; he wants to take God’s place; why, then, did he not eat the fruit himself and actually prohibit man from eating so that man could never be God? You see, unlike the people who deny God’s existence, Satan knows that God is real and powerful and that He has the power to destroy Satan. But maybe, just maybe, he, Satan, could kill a little, helpless child. But, that night, he did not. God protected His Son; God preserved His Son, and Jesus fulfilled all that He came to do.

Jesus would die, but not that night. He would not die as a helpless baby; rather, He died as the living God in the flesh who CHOSE to stay on the cross and CHOSE to suffer and CHOSE to lay down His life for us, and then He resurrected.

The same war is being fought today. The same characters are in play: Jesus, the true ruler of the world, and Satan, the fake ruler of the world. These two are headed to a climax in the not-too-distant future. A head-to-head battle, Jesus and Lucifer, one heading the armies of Heaven and the other heading earthly armies, maybe with a few supernatural players involved as well. Read Revelation 19 and see how that goes. The battle is swift and decisive, and it begins the end of Satan. Millions die that day, enough to feed the birds of the air for months and enough to keep the people of Israel busy burying the dead for seven months. See the prophecy in Ezekiel 39:12-17:

“For seven months the Israelites will be burying them in order to cleanse the land. All the people of the land will bury them, and the day I display my glory will be a memorable day for them, declares the Sovereign LORD. People will be continually employed in cleansing the land. They will spread out across the land and, along with others, they will bury any bodies that are lying on the ground. After the seven months they will carry out a more detailed search. As they go through the land, anyone who sees a human bone will leave a marker beside it until the gravediggers bury it in the Valley of Hamon Gog, near a town called Hamonah. And so they will cleanse the land.’

“Son of man, this is what the Sovereign LORD says: Call out to every kind of bird and all the wild animals: ‘Assemble and come together from all around to the sacrifice I am preparing for you, the great sacrifice on the mountains of Israel. There you will eat flesh and drink blood.'”

Jesus was born in a place for sacrificial lambs; He was wrapped in swaddling cloths and fed by his mother’s breast. He was warm and safe inside the place where He was born, but outside, the Dragon wanted to kill him and stop our redemption before it began, BUT GOD…

You and I are born going to Hell, BUT GOD… We have no hope to save ourselves, BUT GOD… We had no hope for eternal life, BUT GOD… We could go on and on, but you get the point. Satan is defeated, the grave is defeated, death is defeated, and salvation is ours in Jesus. You and I, once we are born into the family of God, switch sides in the eternal universal war; we switch to the winning side. Yes, you and I were born losers, BUT GOD…

Merry Christmas.

God bless you,

Dr. Sean Gooding
Pastor of Mississauga Missionary Baptist Church
Pastor of Bethany Baptist Church

How To Connect With Us

In-person: every Sunday (10:30 am) at Bethany Baptist Church 70 Victoria Street, Elora, ON

Online: https://mmbchurch.ca/

Email: seangooding@mmbchurch.ca

Join us on Zoom every Sunday (10:30 am) for Sunday Service AND every Tuesday at 8:00 pm for Bible Study: Meeting ID: 700 794 460 Passcode: 032661; https://us02web.zoom.us/j/700794460?pwd=M3NFRG91ZW5Sa2Z3amVyWkFnYXd6QT09

Isaiah 46:9-10

“Remember what happened long ago, for I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like Me. ¹⁰ I declare the end from the beginning, and ancient times from what is still to come. I say, ‘My purpose will stand, and all My good pleasure I will accomplish.'”

I happened to be listening to a short video on the importance of prophecy yesterday, and in it, the speakers pointed out why many prominent atheists tend to date books like Daniel and the Gospel of Mark much later than Christian Bible teachers say. For instance, many atheists argue that the Gospel of Mark has a later date for writing, most likely after 70 AD. Most Christian Bible teachers place the writing around about 50 AD. First, the 50 AD means that Mark, the first Gospel, was written about 20 years after the events took place. Mark, as we know, was not an eyewitness of Jesus’ ministry. Rather, he was Peter’s traveling companion and wrote down what he had heard from him. In Mark 13:1-2, we see this prophecy:

“Then as He went out of the temple, one of His disciples said to Him, ‘Teacher, see what manner of stones and what buildings are here!’ And Jesus answered and said to him, ‘Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone shall be left upon another, that shall not be thrown down.'”

This prophecy was so well fulfilled according to history in 70 AD that it is impossible for atheists to reconcile with their view that there is no God. But if the early dating is true, only God, One who is outside time and all-knowing, could have spoken these things; and thus, Jesus is God. I have heard many atheists, and they are online in droves stating that all of the Torah is simply a myth. No Creation, no Moses, no Exodus, no Abraham, etc., these are simply made-up stories. They propose that they are to be trusted more than the three religions of the world that are based on the reality of Abraham’s existence. Christianity, Islam, and Judaism all depend on the truth of the Torah. We may each see it differently, but each religion is based on the truth of the Torah.

The same can be said for books like Daniel. Atheists often date this book much later than when Daniel was in captivity because the prophecies are so accurate that only two conclusions exist: there is an all-knowing God, or the books were written long after the accepted dates, and they are recounting the events as prophecy. Their presupposition is that there is no God, thus a later writing. We believe there to be an all-knowing God who can tell the future, so we can accept the earlier dating. We all live by faith, and only one group of us is right. Daniel 11 is so accurate about the future that it authenticates the entire Bible.

I invite you to read the article “Daniel 11: The Most Detailed Prophecy in the Bible.” [CLICK HERE to visit the article.] David Treybig, who wrote the attached article, had this to say near the end of it: When we consider the many prophetic details of Daniel 11 that were fulfilled as predicted, we can have confidence that the remaining prophecies of this chapter and others in the Bible that are yet to be fulfilled will likewise occur as God has ordained.

We can have confidence that the Bible is trustable and that our faith is sure and secure because of fulfilled prophecy. We can be sure that there is an omnipotent God who knows the end from the beginning as our verses at the top state. Nothing escapes Him, and there is never a surprise with Him. Nothing surprises our God; nothing.

There are many prophecies yet to be fulfilled, and we can be sure that they will come to fruition in the same deliberate manner that all of the others have been. There will be a rapture; there will be a judgment; there will be a worldwide government that tries to suppress and rule the masses; there will be a ruler that tries to control everything and gets a treaty with the Jews and the other Middle East cohorts. He will allow them to rebuild the temple and bring death like never before.

At the same time, God will pour out His wrath on an unrepentant and rebellious people like never before. Jesus will return; He will judge the wicked; He will rule for 1,000 years; He will defeat the devil and his minions, and He will bring in everlasting peace. We can be certain of the future because God has told us the past, and He has never been wrong.

These atheist fellows sound so sincere; they state that they promote ‘fact over faith’ or ‘data over dogma.’ But they live by faith that there is no god as much as we live by faith that there is a God. They love to make fun of our faith, treat us as simpletons, and maybe we are. It takes foolish people in the eyes of the world to believe that God is real and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.

Atheists would have you believe that Christians cannot be learned and be true scientists, but look at men like Dr. John Lennox of Oxford, C.S Lewis from Cambridge Dr. William Craig, Ken Ham from the Creation Museum, and there are many more like Francis Bacon, Isaac Newton, Sir Robert Boyd, Edward Nelson, and there are hundreds more; just Google Christians who are scientists as well. You will see lists of names going back centuries. Christians expected there to be order in the universe because God is a God of order; and thus, they went looking and found the order.

There are stories of people who claimed to once be ‘Christian,’ but now they are atheists. I saw one prominent atheist say that reading the Bible made him an atheist and that it is the Bible that creates a lot of atheists. But there are many more stories of men and women who went looking to deny God and found Him, none more prominent than Lee Strobel. In Psalm 19:1-3, we see these words that will be used to judge the whole world:

“The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament shows His handiwork. Day unto day utters speech, and night unto night reveals knowledge. There is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard.”

Creation is God’s greatest revelation to us, and this is why atheists must decry the Torah and call it into question. They deny the flood and God’s wrath. They cannot reconcile a Holy and a Loving God who exists as one at the same time and who is perfect. God required a human sacrifice to pay for sin, so He sent His Son, Jesus, whose birth we shall soon celebrate, to be the Man who died for all mankind.

For 1,500 years, he allowed us to sacrifice animals as temporary stop-gaps until the time for Jesus to come and be born. At that time, our Holy God lovingly poured out His wrath on His Son so that you and I, our sons and daughters, our wives and husbands, and our friends, can be saved forever and never have to fear death and what is on the other side.

I honestly pray that these men and women who ‘study’ the Bible and yet miss the God of the Bible will have their eyes opened and come to humble repentance before it is too late and their faith is proven wrong for eternity. I am content to trust the God who can tell me the end from the beginning.

Merry Christmas!

God bless you,

Dr. Sean Gooding
Pastor of Mississauga Missionary Baptist Church
Pastor of Bethany Baptist Church

How To Connect With Us

In-person: every Sunday (10:30 am) at Bethany Baptist Church 70 Victoria Street, Elora, ON

Online: https://mmbchurch.ca/

Email: seangooding@mmbchurch.ca

Join us on Zoom every Sunday (10:30 am) for Sunday Service AND every Tuesday at 8:00 pm for Bible Study: Meeting ID: 700 794 460 Passcode: 032661; https://us02web.zoom.us/j/700794460?pwd=M3NFRG91ZW5Sa2Z3amVyWkFnYXd6QT09