What Is Yours?

The title of my sermon today is, What is Yours? What is Yours?

You better have one, and it's very necessary, and it's dangerous if you don't have one.

And none of ours is alike, if that gives you any clue. So, being this is towards the fall holy days, and I have been working on the end time prophecy and various things from Daniel and Revelation, I'd like you to turn with me to Revelation chapter 12.

Revelation chapter 12. If you have your Bibles, be reading from the New King James Version.

Chapter 12 verses 1 through 10 actually gives us a history, a history from God's point of view, because it's His story, it's Christ's story, and it's not Satan's story. We know we can study and read about Lucifer, the fallen angel, archangel, Isaiah 14, Ezekiel 28, and we're able to put together some pieces of what all happened, why he is the way he is. But I want to look at maybe a little bit of Satan's story here from God's point of view, and also talk about maybe looking forward by looking back, because that's kind of what this chapter does.

Revelation 12. So if you will join me because I have something here that I hope is very important. Perhaps it's been overlooked for years, maybe in your study, or perhaps even previous pastures it's been here. So let's go to Revelation 12 verse 1. It said, Now a great sign appeared in heaven, a woman clothed with the sun and the moon under her feet, and on her head a garland of twelve stars, a woman representing nations, religions, sometimes a little of both. I think most of us realize that the twelve stars pictures the work being done that God is going to do, and he did it through Jacob.

And as you remember, Joseph even touched on the moon and the stars and various things as he feels some of these in, that God's going to do a work. And it kind of gives this story of this work in this chapter of what we're going to be looking at, because he jumps ahead two thousand years in one verse, in the next verse roughly two thousand years.

And he says then, being with child though she cried out in labor and in pain to give birth, literally talking about Mary, talking about Christ. And then it says, and another sign appeared in heaven, behold a great fiery red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns and seven diadems on his head. And you can go through Daniel or Ezekiel or these various things, and you can understand that this is Satan's work now, and that he's going to work with kings, he's going to work with kingdoms, he's going to have his own view here, and has his own agenda and work which is the opposite of God's.

God has his plan, Satan has his, and God's wanting us to understand this, because this is basically an inset chapter in the book of Revelation, because he already went through the two witnesses, is what we had in chapter 11 that I covered last year. The two witnesses and about the kingdom coming, and it's just like, okay, when you get to the end of chapter 11, okay, the temple is God and now everything's set. But then chapter 12 jumps in and gives a history. Why?

I don't know. You have to ask God that. No, why he does it. Not everything's laid out for us to perfectly understand, I think. We know that because part of it is a puzzle, and just like Jesus Christ gave his teachings so many imperibles for one reason. It wasn't to make them crystal clear, but to obscure some of the meaning for those who really, they don't really want to understand. They want to use his words against them. As Lucifer has tried to use God's very words against him, this isn't for everybody. Most people look at the book of Revelation and go, nobody understands that crazy old man on the island, but we do, and we can't understand.

And it's bits and pieces here and there, and it fits this puzzle that God has given for us. That will become crystal clear to everybody by the time Jesus Christ returns, but for now it's for those who it has been hidden for. So you can begin to understand. You have to understand the whole Bible. You can't just jump in and go, oh well, yeah, I know the New Testament, because the New Testament is just a continuation of the Old Testament. But yet many people go, oh no, that's just that's the Old Covenant. We don't have to deal with that. So let's go down and see Satan's story here, because it says that he has his own agenda, and he appeared, and he's got these heads and horns and diadems and all this agenda that he's putting forth for the end time.

But it says in verse 4, "...his tail drew a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman who was ready to give birth." See, he's jumping ahead.

How many thousands or even millions of years went from what? When Satan was cast out and he drew a third of the angels that we know with him.

How long between that and when Christ? We don't know. We don't know. But there's a lot of time here, and so that would throw a lot of people. Should it throw us? No. Just take it for what it says. I'm trying to read anything into it. I don't have an agenda.

"...and the dragon stood before the woman who was ready to give birth to devour her," what does it say? Child. And child is capitalized. Why? Even the translators realized that's the Messiah. That's Jesus Christ. As soon as it was born, and we know the story, right? We've read the stories.

That's why they had to leave and go to Egypt for a while until the king died. And there's nothing complicated about that.

Verse 5, "...and she bore a male child who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron." When Jesus Christ came the first time, He came as a Lamb of God.

His second time, He's not coming as a Lamb of God. He's coming as more of a lion. And He's got a rod of iron because in His great desire, in His death and great desire for people to change over the 2,000 years since He died, the heaven has become worse, worse. "...and her child was caught up to God and to His throne." Then the church, or the woman, as we realize here, the woman fled into the place, into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God that they should feed her there 1,260 days.

Three and a half years? Well, many, not just our church, but many have calculated and speculated at that date of where the church went into hiding rather than to be completely wiped out from the Council of Niazia in 325 to where they began to appear again in 1585. That's a day for a year that's 1,260 years. Now, do I expect you to base your salvation on that? No.

That's speculation. Is it true? We'll find out someday. I've heard ministers say it was the truth.

I can't prove it any other place. And by the mouth of two or three witnesses, as matter established, I just have that here where somebody speculated on that. It may well be true, I don't know, but I've also heard other people give other dates from 330 to 1,260 years later and so forth. So I I don't get caught up in that. To me, that's a matter to be discussed at a later date, perhaps at the wedding supper. We can talk about those things or as it begins to be revealed to us. But it also pictures perhaps, as they say, a time that I talked about this morning in the church in Fort Lauderdale about the place and a time of three and a half years, 1,260 days, 42 months.

A time of tribulation, as it's called. And I went through that this morning, hopefully showed as I wanted to make that crystal clear to them. And is this the same time that there will be a place of safety? That's what many people have said.

That's the Scripture, if you take it literally, is the church going to be there for three and a half years? Okay, that's a time of the tribulation. I could make a sermon and show it one way.

I could make a sermon and confuse you. I've seen both done. That's not my job. My job is to look at the Scriptures and tell you what it says, what we do know, not what we think it might show.

But that's not my purpose today. To go into that, that's another day. Because I'd like to go down to verse 7 because we haven't reached where I want to talk about what is yours. Because to me, that is the most important thing that we can glean or take from chapter 12, is what is yours, because it is very important. So let's go to verse 7. And war broke out in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and the angels fought or fought back. When did this happen?

Was it when he was kicked out? Or is this a time just before Jesus Christ returns? Is this a time just before the tribulation? Is this a time when he is going to attack the church?

Is this a time that brings into the fifth seal?

Let's look and see. But they did not prevail, nor was a place found for them in heaven any longer. Does that mean they were hanging around, running around, and had a condo up in heaven somewhere? They would go and check it out. Did they go up and visit?

Well, I think this kind of gives us a hint here.

And I like to look at that because it says, verse 9, So the great dragon was cast out. What does he do? Why would he go up there?

Hmm, is it possible? We can look at scripture and see what he did to Job.

And God said, have you considered my servant Job?

Yeah, but look, look, you've got this hedge around him. Take that hedge down. Let me have at him. He'll curse you to your face.

Or maybe Zechariah 3 and verse 1, the example of the accuser going up before God about Joshua when they were trying to build the temple, actually says, he was the accuser of Joshua as he was the high priest trying to build the temple back and get temple worship going. So there's two examples there. But here, this may be even a better one. Look, what description? I mean, it's kind of like, I could say, well, there's Dale. There's Dale Carter. There's Diane's husband.

Okay.

We'd all understand that it's because there could be another Dale.

There could be another Dale Carter.

But I doubt there's a Dale Carter married to Diane.

You're only married to one husband, right? One Dale Carter.

So far, sounds like another sermon is going to be needed.

After the feast.

Wow, that caught me.

But let's look at what this says and why it says what it says should be very important to us.

So the great dragon, one, was cast out that, what? Serpent of old? Called the devil and called Satan, who deceives the whole world, making it crystal clear. There is no, well, this was a demon. No.

Satan is the head of his army, and he's got his own work.

And that's what he's trying to do.

And he's messed with the world as much as he could.

As a matter of fact, it says he what? He deceives the whole world. So, wow, okay, we'll buy into this. We'll buy a different day to worship.

Yeah, you can do anything you want. Law's done away with all this stuff.

He's got it. He's deceived basically the whole world.

He's let them have every religion they want, just not God's.

And his angels were cast out with him.

So they're done.

There's no more going up.

No more going up.

No more talking to God.

Verse 10, Then I heard a loud voice saying, in heaven, Now, after he's been cast out, Now salvation and strength and the kingdom of God and the power of his Christ have come for the accuser of... What's this? This is the fifth one now.

The accuser of the brethren.

Who's the brethren?

Those who worship God.

Those who are of God.

The accuser of the brethren.

Who accused them before...

Notice the tense here. Who accused them, not who is accusing them. Who accused them. So when he's cast down, he's got the whole world. So what's his agenda now?

What's his agenda after he and the angels?

Going after the church.

He's got everybody else. Who does he want?

He wants...

He wants you, and he wants me. And he just wants us to stop worshiping God. He didn't care who you were. He didn't care what you do. Just stop it.

So is he up there now? Has he been cast down?

He's still accusing us?

What's he said about you lately?

That's why I think this message is important.

For the accuser of the brethren, who accused them before our God, day and night, and who accused them before our God, who accused them before our God, day and night, has been cast down. And then we come to verse 11.

The reason. I have this sermon today. And why I think verse 11 may be the most important verse in this whole thing.

In this whole chapter. And when you get over to chapter 12 and come to the end, you'll see it's very important stuff laid out there for us. But what is important for us now?

I want to know the hidden truth. I want to know everything about the end time. Well, sorry, he wouldn't even give Daniel that. Think he's going to give it to us. But he says, in time, a lot of it will be revealed. We'll know. But as I described this morning, we've got years before something's going to happen. I can tell you. Christ tells you when it's going to happen. Christ tells you when to stop looking, to stop worrying about it.

But he does tell us to watch. So let's go to why I titled this, what is yours? Verse 11, and they, who's they? What did you say? Previous. The brethren. That's they. That's us. If you're a brethren, if you follow God, this is it. And they overcame him. Now that is something we're supposed to be doing.

Because if we don't, we're in trouble. And if we're not overcoming him daily or weekly as we show up here every week, then you might as well not come back to the new hall. Because you're in trouble. And that's a fact. I'm not doing it to scare you, but you can't play church. All of us have met people who played church, didn't have one. I have over my 50 years of attending God's church.

I thought they were sincere. I thought they were brethren. But all you had to do is find out some minister got up and said, you don't have to do any of this. Out the door! Wow! Other things have happened. Oh, no. I don't have to do that anymore. So let's look. And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives to the death. So what is it? God is giving us three keys to overcome the dragon. Three keys to overcoming Satan.

Three keys to overcoming the accuser. Three very important keys. And the very first one He gives us is what? The blood of the Lamb. Why is it important? What good is the blood of the Lamb? But to take away our sins. So I sometimes pictured my own mind where the accuser has come before God, say, I got that preacher of yours, Chuck Smith, boy. Did you see what He did? Did you hear what He said? Did you see what He did?

Let me tell you. And Christ said, oh, you talking about that? Yeah, He repented of that this morning. That's taken away. There is no sin there. That's been taken away. What He said has been forgiven. Okay, what else you got? Well, did you see what He did two days? Yeah, He repented for that. That's been taken away as far as East is from the West. And I don't mean from Vero Beach to Tampa.

I mean from one end of the universe to the other. Something around 400 billion light years. Yes, taken away. But what if I didn't repent? What if you don't repent? What if you say, oh, man, I'm busy today. You know, don't really feel that good. Let me just skip today. Who do you think loves that? But the accuser. Do you want that? You want the screen put up? So He can show God everything that you did during the last 24 hours or 12 hours, 10 hours, 2 hours. I don't. Because I like the slate to be clean.

That's why this is so important. This is the first step. The first key to overcoming Satan. So He has nothing against us. Remember, a policeman pulling me over for speeding. And I said, well, I was doing about 55. I thought. He said, yeah, but this is a 45 zone. And I said, well, man, I didn't know that.

Let's. Where did it change? He said, only about 10 feet back there. And I said, but you put your lights on way before that. Well, he said, I knew you couldn't slow down. He wanted to get it. He wanted to give me a ticket. Satan wants to give us a ticket every single day. He wants to bring up exactly what's wrong with brethren. And he wants to do it to God and he's going to do it.

I went to court. I had the ticket dismissed. Because I just happened to say what it was. Bless the guy didn't show up anyway. I was going to be dismissed. But I just felt like that was wrong. Well, I do things wrong. You do things wrong. But we have a way to have those wiped away. That blood does not cover our sins. It takes it away. Removes it. Totally gone. And how beautiful is that? Now, let's go to number two.

The second key, which is the foundation of this message today. The testimony. Words of your testimony, it says. Testimony. And by the word of their brethren, ours, testimony. What is yours? What is your testimony? Testimony in the Greek used here is materia. Materia. And it means evidence given. A matter of record. A legal report by a witness is how the Greek gets laid out. And it's from the root word martus, which means as a witness by martyrdom. Someone who was willing to die for what they believed in, for what they'd seen, how they lived. Testimony. Pretty big thing, isn't it? I think it is. So what is your testimony? What will be your testimony next week?

Will you have one? Now, I know some people will be saying, oh, wait a minute. Oh, we're not a church that gives up and gives testimony. Oh, Jesus did this. I got the right music for that, though, right now. It was interesting. I was in St. Lucia, when you a few years back, and I was taking a bus. Mary wasn't with me that time. I was taking a bus and so I was downtown, and I run into a preacher. He was sitting across from me and get talking, because I'm carrying a Bible, and he's carrying a Bible.

And so we started a conversation. He says, Pastor, I'm this. I said, well, I have a church here, too. And we started talking, and he says, well, tell me about your church. And so I tell him what we do. He said, well, how do you have it organized?

I told him. And then I said, well, what about yours? He goes, well, we have a two and a half, three hour service every week, every Sunday. I said, well, we do ours on Saturday. Bars not that long. He said, well, I'm beginning to wonder about ours, too. He said, we've got a few people falling asleep.

I said, well, I understand you don't have. I doubt you have air conditioning in your church. Do you? He goes, no. I can understand that. But he said, no, I had a problem. He said, because we've always had a tradition in our church to have people come up after the service, after the two and a half, three hour service, and give a testimony. I said, yeah, I've heard churches do that. We don't really do that. But we don't mind people telling each other about, you know, he said, well, I've had to rethink the thing because he said, I had a young lady. She said she was in her 40s to get up and want to give a testimony. She said she got up and he said she started when she was at three.

And he said an hour and 15 minutes later, she was still talking and she was still a teenager.

She was telling her testimony what Jesus did here. And then Jesus brought this man into my... And then Jesus did this and Jesus did that. And I said, what did you do? He said, I finally had to tell her we can't. We don't have all night here.

He said, I hated to hear when she was in her 20s and 30s what it would be.

Is that the kind of testimony we're looking at here?

Not really.

I mean, think about it. What will be your testimony as I did the service for Joe Campbell? And we had many people at the memorial service after come up and they everybody had a little time. They just gave whoever one time to tell how Joe had impacted their life.

And everybody coming. So many people gave a testimony there. How he lived and how he touched people's lives. From the Oakland Raiders to the guys working out at the gym to the people with the neighbors down here. Brethren, that's a testimony.

So Felix and Agrippa asked Paul, come up! Come up! Give a testimony. And you can read in Acts 24 and 25 his testimony. His is a legal record of why he was brought forward, why they said he was guilty of these things and why he did what he did and how he obeyed God.

What would your testimony be?

Because it's not just how we live, but what we do is a testimony.

How we conduct our lives, how people see us, what we say and what we do, and how about the words we use. That's part of this words of your testimony. We have to be real.

When someone says you go to church, yes.

Okay, where do you go to church? Bear Beach. What's the name of your church? Church of God.

Is that what we...? No, it's a living faith that's in us. It's what we do. It's how we live. That is a testimony. Joe Campbell, he lived a wild lifestyle when he played for the Raiders. In case you don't know, football Raiders were some of the notorious. John Matusack was on that team. Guy was on that team. I mean, they had six Hall of Famers on that team and they won, but they were wild.

And this is the Joe they knew, but not the Joe that stayed that way.

And Joe changed after picking up a magazine.

And he quit football, but he still stayed in touch with these guys and gave a testimony that so many of them remember.

Why? How did this guy change? Was God in him? It's his testimony. We live that testimony at your memorial service. What will be done? What will be said about you? What will be said about me? Everybody goes, nah, nah, nice guy.

Remember? Mary went to a memorial service with me. As a girl, I used to date way back and she had died. She was a really nice, cute little girl, but she had gotten Lou Gehrig's disease. And we had some in-app preacher get up and say, oh, does anybody have any dirt on Brenda here? Yeah. You remember that? Oh, I was like, I wanted to go up and slap him myself.

You know, it was a... that's not a testimony. It's just sad, but that's this twisted world in which we live. A testimony is about what God has done for us, what Jesus does for us now.

Was he saved?

By every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.

That's what we live by, and that's what people should know us by.

Finally, number three.

What does it say?

And they did not love their lives to the death.

I like how the new living translation puts it.

It says, and they did not love their lives so much that they were afraid to die.

Because we know this is not all there is.

Right? We view the kingdom of God superior to this life.

That's why we keep the feast stabernacles. There's something better. It's a vision. That's what he said in Hebrews 11.

These great, faithful people saw it from a distance.

And don't we? We see it from a distance.

Brethren, it's about how we finish. We're not afraid to finish.

We can testify to the futility of this life without Christ.

Because many of us live that. Is everything perfect? No.

But what does he say at the end of this chapter? At the end of this chapter, he talks about who, who are God's.

And he says, those who have the testimony of Jesus Christ and keep the commandments, that's us.

Everybody talks about, yes, the commandments, but do.

We have the testimony of Jesus Christ.

Read about it. Revelation 12, 17.

So, brethren, I ask that you keep the vision.

Keep the vision.

Know why you're here, because what is yours?

Yours is the testimony of Jesus Christ, the testimony of what God's done for you.

And you'll be able to share that at the Feast of Tabernacles this year. Because whether it's somebody's first feast or their last, it's relevant.

It won't be your first, but it could be your last.

What will your testimony be?

I've met a few people.

2001, St. Lucia. I was there. A couple weeks after 9-11, we didn't have many people there.

There was a man there that gave his testimony to me.

And I implored him to go back and do some work, because he was so inspiring.

And he went back, fired up to do something.

And about three weeks later, he was dead.

What will your testimony be?

What is yours?

Because the Bible says, where there is no vision, my people perish, and you are his people.

Let's have the vision. It's why we keep the Feast. It's why we keep the Holy Days.

It's why we live the way we live, because there's a better world coming.