Faith Crisis
Revelation 12
Michael H. Koplitz
Seven years ago, I received a calling from my Lord Jesus to leave my vocation and enter pastoral ministry. I was told in my calling to go out and to preach the Word of God. But how could I do this? I was only baptized a couple of years earlier and was not well versed in the Scriptures. I had completed a lot of readings and studies at the church that I was attending, but that certainly couldn’t be enough.
When I spoke with the Rev. Cal Cole, my pastor, he told me that I would need to go to seminary. That meant going back to a University setting. That meant being in classes and writing research papers. I was an engineer, not a social scientist. The thought of seminary was just scary. It had been over 17 years since I took my last Master’s level class and over 12 years since I was an instructor at York College.
Be that as it may, when the Lord calls you into His service, you don’t ask questions you simply go knowing that the Holy Spirit will give you the support needed. I had to take a night class because of my work schedule, so I attended Lancaster Theological Seminary. The only class that I qualified for was titled “The Ministry of the Bereaved.” So not only was I to start on a Master’s level program, but my first class was on a topic that I had some personal issues with.
I remember standing in the hallway on the first day of that class, looking out the window and asking God, what was I doing there? Perhaps this was a test like Abraham’s almost sacrifice of Isaac. Maybe God would stop me from entering this classroom and just drop the knowledge into me as I did with Paul on the Damascus road. Well, that didn’t occur, and I went into the classroom, and my seminary career began.
About three weeks later, I contracted a physical ailment. I saw my doctor who gave me one drug and said, see you in two weeks. That drug didn’t work, so she gave me another drug. You know this story, right? That drug didn’t work either. After two months of pain and suffering, a test was scheduled. The results you may ask, were inconclusive.
This ailment gave me pain from the moment I awoke to the moment I went to sleep. I came to a point where I practically stopped eating, which you can see is not a characteristic of me, and I started to sleep a lot, which Sandy will tell you is very uncharacteristic. I prayed to God, asking why I was being stricken with this illness. Why can’t my doctor discover an answer?
I reached a point where I felt that God had abandoned me. I even questioned God as to how this could happen when I was not only ready but eager to do His will. I knew that I would be leaving my nice income vocation within two years. Sandy and I started to prepare for that time. I was enthusiastic about the work I would be doing for Christ. I wondered how God could allow this bad thing to happen?
John of the Cross described this type of faith crisis about 500 years ago as “The Dark Night of the Soul.” It is a time when we can’t feel God's presence, and it appears that God has completely abandoned us. It is a time that one thinks about one’s faith. I never lost faith, and God pulled me through, but I wondered why did this have to happen?
Here in the twelfth chapter of the Revelation, an answer is offered. Let me review for you the symbolism that we have read about this morning, and then we can examine what might cause a faith crisis.
The chapter starts with a pregnant woman who is about to give birth being chased by a red dragon. The dragon wants to devour the women’s child. If the child lives, the dragon could either die or lose a lot of its power. Here we see a new element in the symbolism of the Revelation. Greek and Roman readers of this text would recognize the story from Greek mythology as the birth of Apollo. Apollo had a mortal mother and a god for a father. When Apollo’s mother was about to give birth, the dragon Python waited to devour the child. The goddess Leto spared the child by taking Apollo’s mother to the island of Delos just before she gave birth. There she gave birth to Apollo. The legend of Apollo says that four days later, the dragon came to Delos and was slain by Apollo.
We can see how John mixed Greek mythology with some Hebrew Scripture text. The woman Hagar fled not once but twice from the tent of Abraham into the desert because of the child that she bore. From the Christian Scriptures, the story of Joseph and Mary fleeing to Egypt to save Jesus from Herod is seen this story.
When we reach verse 7, we read about the heavenly war conducted between Satan and the angels of heaven lead by the Archangel Michael. But wait a minute, I thought that several weeks ago, we discussed Satan in heaven. Didn’t Jesus go to hell for three days between the crucifixion and the resurrection to fight the final battle against Satan? You see, the writer of the Revelation holds onto a different theological view of Satan.
From the view of Revelation, the battle for heaven isn’t over when Jesus descends into Hell. The battle is renewed here in chapter 12. Satan having access to heaven is also a Hebrew Scripture concept. You can find a reference to Satan in Heaven in Job 1:8-11 and in Zechariah 3:1. So Satan begins the heavenly war. What is important to note is that God does not fight in the war. He allows Michael and the angels to defend heaven. With the angel's victory comes the knowledge that God’s host in heaven is far stronger than Satan and his familiars.
What does Satan do? He comes to Earth after being evicted from heaven. He swears to make war against the offspring of the pregnant women and against those who follow God and have faith in the testimony of Jesus Christ.
The question of why do bad things happen to good people is called theodicy. It is a question that you can examine your Bible for an answer to and never get an acceptable answer to. I think that we have a large part of the answer here in chapter 12. At the end of chapter 12, we are told that the dragon, who is Satan, will be making war against the followers of Jesus Christ. It is pretty plain at the end of chapter 12.
We know that Jesus tells us in the Gospels that it will be tough to follow Him. Jesus tells us that people will ridicule and persecute us because we are followers of Christ. The closer you come in your walk to Christ, the more Satan will pull on you. Satan wants you in his corner, not God’s. Since Satan lost the battle described to us in Chapter 12 of the Revelation and was cast down to Earth, Satan vowed to wage war against all who belong to Christ Jesus.
Here is an answer to the question, “why do bad things happened to good people?” Not only to good people but to Godly people? I am sure that you can think of persons who should have received blessings and healings and didn’t, and at the same time, you probably could think of people who should be hit with God’s wrath right now!
When bad things happen to good people, we have a faith crisis. The person suffering may have a crisis, but the family can become involved in the faith crisis. A faith crisis is any situation or event in your life that makes you question your faith in God and/or God’s promises to you. It is not God who is attacking you. It is Satan who attacks you. Satan is here with us and wants to keep fighting against us. The more Godly we become as individuals or Christ’s church, the more Satan is waiting to wage war against us.
What can Satan do to us that might cause a faith crisis? The Sermon Roundtable came up with the following list. You may have more, and I would love to hear your additions to this after worship today.
1. Doing the best you can and still failing at the assignment that you were given.
2. Health problem – especially those who are fortunate enough to be healthy all their lives, and then they suffer with what appears to be an incurable disease. This faith crisis can also affect family members.
3. One of our Roundtable participants was building his first home when the union went out on strike.
4. Losing your job and not being able to find another one – you wonder why God took the job away and why he won’t give one back.
5. The unexpected death of a loved one, especially if the loved one is young due to illness or an accident.
6. Losing your home because of a natural disaster like fire, floods, and storms.
7. When family problems seem incurable.
8. When parents and grandparents learn that there children are on drugs.
9. All forms of divorce which affect the couple and especially the children of all ages.
10. When our mentors are caught doing un-biblical things. An example is the fall of many of the TV evangelists
These are forms that Satan can take in order to try to break us away from God. Our society today seems to be run by Satan at times. Here are some examples of events that can occur in a society that test our faith:
1. An offer that you can’t refuse; i.e. tax cheating, test cheating, under aged drinking at parties.
2. When a promotion is given to an unworthy coworker because of some under the table politics or relationships.
3. When a job or promotion is lost because of your faith in God and desire to be at church on Sunday instead of being at work.
4. When you are ridiculed for your faith at the workplace.
Even in church, Satan attempts to infiltrate, trying to bring the church as a whole away from Christ:
1. The fear of biblical tithing because you fear won’t have enough money to pay your bills.
2. When people nitpick at just about anything to make a noise that is not pleasing to God.
3. Having “vacation Sundays.”
4. When people in the church who call themselves Christians don’t act like Christians.
When we are exposed to these kinds of events, and there are more, our faith can be strained. On a global scale, things like:
1. Genocide during wartime, for example, the Holocaust, the ethnic cleansing we saw in Bosnia in the 1990’s and in some African states.
2. Losing loved ones during wartime, like what’s happening today in Iraq and Afghanistan.
3. Terrorist attacks on American soil and the fear that the news media is putting into our hearts about the upcoming political conventions and presidential elections.
These and more are ways that Satan wants to cause us to have a faith crisis. When a faith crisis occurs, we fall into the “dark night of the soul.” We can’t feel God’s presence, and we look at the events happening around us and genuinely start wondering if God has abandoned us. Where is God becomes the chant!
God is here my friends. God is always with us. Christians died in the destruction of the World Trade Towers. Christians who were firefighters, police officers, and just unlucky enough to have offices at the top of the towers died on 9/11/2001. Why do bad things happen to good people?
For those wondering why we are studying the Revelation, it is because a lot of the answers you seek can be found in this book. What is the answer to the theodicy question? Well, one answer is found in the last verse of chapter 12. The war between the people of God and Satan has been going on from the day when Adam and Eve ate from the forbidden tree and sin entered God’s world.
We are all hopeful that the war on terror will someday end. Nevertheless, the war against Satan keeps on going. Satan was thrown out of heaven and has declared that he will continue to wage war against all who believe in God and proclaim the testimony of Jesus the Christ. Satan doesn’t understand that true faith and discipleship in Jesus is far stronger than anything that Satan can throw against us.
To all who believe in God and stand firm, the blessings of heaven and eternal life are waiting for us. Don’t fall into a faith crisis. The “dark night of the soul” is a very lonely and dismal place to be. Whether or not you can feel God’s presence through His Spirit, rest assured that through your faith and service to His Son Jesus Christ, the Spirit is always with you, especially when you can’t feel His presence. Thank God for the gift of faith, service, and the Holy Spirit.
