reign of Christ, and usher in the new heavens and 2 Pet.3.13. new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness. We shall not be surprised therefore to observe in the section now to be opened a return to a very elementary point in the history of the Church of God. The general subject of the three chapters which form this section is The enemies, the three enemies, of Christ's Church. We shall find that this also is a passage complete in itself, and ending only with the same catastrophe of the powers of evil which we have already observed as the termination of the vision of the seals in the 1st verse of the 8th chapter, and of the vision of the trumpets in the last verse of the 11th. Our subject to-night will be the first six verses of the 12th chapter. Join your prayers with mine, my brethren, that our resumption of the study of this Divine Book may be fruitful, not in curious speculation and not in intellectual gratification, but above and before all else in the quickening of our Christian vigilance, and in the increase of our knowledge of God in His Son our Lord Jesus Christ. And a great sign was seen in the heaven. A Verse 1. wonder might be a mere marvel; a surprise ending with itself: a sign is a signal; it points to something; it denotes something; it has a meaning, and it has an object. In the heaven; that is the stage on which everything passes before the eye of the Apostle. We read at the opening of the 4th chapter, A door was opened in heaven, and the first voice said, Come up hither, and I will show thee things which must be hereafter. The heavenly stage, on which many groups of actors have before presented themselves, is occupied now, to the eye of the seer, with a new portent. A woman clothed with the sun; enveloped in that dazzling light which is the emblem of the divine glory. And the moon is beneath her feet: all borrowed, all reflected light, is too mean to be the characteristic of her upon whom the glory of God Is. 60. I. Himself has been bestowed. Arise, shine: for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee. Rev. 21. 12, 14. And on her head is a crown of twelve stars. The number twelve is throughout this book indicative of the Church. The city had twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels... The wall of the city had twelve foundations, and in them the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb. Even in the four and twenty elders of the 4th chapter we recognize the twice twelve: they are the representatives of the Church under both its dispensations; the twelve Patriarchs of the Jewish, and the twelve Apostles of the Christian. It is thus here. The woman clothed with the sun, and having on her head a crown of twelve stars, is the Church of God; the Church, regarded as one whole from the days of Abraham, perhaps we may say from the day of the Fall itself, under whatever special dispensation placed, the patriarchal, the Israelite, or the Christian. And being with child she crieth, travailing, and Verse 2. tortured to bear. In sorrow, it was written of old, Gen. 3.16. thou shalt bring forth children. Not without anguish, an anguish of preparatory anticipation and an anguish of present endurance, does the Church herself bring forth her children. The greater and the more momentous the birth, the stronger the agony through which it is accomplished. And there was seen another sign in the heaven: Verse 3. and behold, a great red dragon. Red, as the colour 2 Ki. 3. 22. of fire, and as the colour of blood. Red, as the em blem of the waster and destroyer, as the emblem of him who was a murderer from the beginning. The Joh. 8. 44. dragon is that fabulous monster of whom ancient poets told as huge in size, coiled like a snake, bloodred in colour or shot with changing tints, insatiable in voracity and ever athirst for human blood. In the Old Testament the dragon first appears in the 74th Psalm as the representative of all sea animals: Thou didst divide the sea by Thy strength; Thou Ps. 74. 13. brakest the heads of the dragons in the waters. And so in the 91st Psalm, among the various instances of the power and security of the godly, this occurs as the completion and crown of all: Thou shalt tread Ps. 91. 13. upon the lion and adder; the young lion and the dragon shalt thou trample under feet. And thus, when the literal sea is exchanged for the figurative, for that surging multitude of peoples and nations Ps. 93. 3. which lifts up its voice against God even as the Ez. 29. 3. floods lift up their waves; the dragon becomes the fit emblem for the leader and ruler of the world's aggressions upon the Church of God. Thus the Is. 51. 9. dragon represents in various passages of the prophets of the Old Testament that great Egyptian power which had been the first oppressor of the Church of Israel. And thus with equal fitness it becomes in this Book of Revelation the title of that Joh. 14.30. prince of this world whose deep and bitter hostility to God and His Christ prompts all the efforts and frames all the machinations by which the world seeks to undermine the influence of the Saviour and of His people. The dragon is henceforth another name for the devil or Satan. He is further described here as having seven heads, and ten horns, probably upon the seventh head, and upon his heads seven diadems. We shall have more to say of these emblems hereafter. At present it will suffice to notice that, though there is a unity of person in the arch-enemy of God, he is yet in his operations a many-headed power; he exercises his influence through many channels; every phase of the ungodly antichristian world is one of his manifesta tions: and further, the power which is thus various And his tail sweeps the third part of the stars of Verse 4. the heaven, and cast them to the earth. The figure is found in the 8th chapter of the prophet Daniel, where it is said of the power designated as the little horn of the he-goat, that it waxed great, even to the host of Dan. 8. 10. heaven; and it cast down some of the host and of the stars to the ground, and stamped upon them. It is a figure expressive of great arrogance and great success. The dragon exercises so great an empire that it is as though his very tail could sweep down a third part, that is, a large portion, of the stars of heaven, and throw them upon the earth. The prince of this world, who is the devil, lords it for the present over his subjects; and gives some colour to his arrogant boast before the Saviour, All this power will I give Lu. 4.6. Thee, and the glory of them; for that is delivered unto me, and to whomsoever I will I give it. And the dragon stands in presence of the woman who was about to bear, that whenever she has born he |