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REVELATION - Behold, I am Coming Soon
Studies in the Book of Revelation
BOOK 4 - THY KINGDOM COME (REVELATION 10:1 - 12:17) – The two witnesses of the last days and the expulsion of Satan from heaven
PART 4.5 - DECISIVE DEVELOPMENTS FOLLOWING THE SOUNDING IF THE SEVENTH TRUMPET (REVELATION 12:1-17)

2. The Fiery Red Dragon Appears in Person (Revelation 12:3-4)


REVELATION 12:3-4
3 Another sign was seen in heaven. Behold, a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and on his heads seven crowns. 4 His tail drew one third of the stars of the sky, and threw them to the earth. The dragon stood before the woman who was about to give birth, so that when she gave birth he might devour her child.

With eyes dilated by fright and filled with horror, John suddenly saw in heaven a new picture appear: a mighty, fiery red dragon with seven speaking heads and a powerful tail. The prophet stammered: Look! Look! He's coming in person, the enemy of God, the evil one in prototype!

He himself had to appear, because the only one who could completely defeat him, the Son of God, had to be born out of the congregation of Old Testament saints. The one who was a murderer from the beginning wanted to annihilate and extinguish the God-Man by devouring Him in the very fist seconds of His life on earth.

In the beginning the dragon paid no further heed to the woman giving birth. The mother appeared to him to be harmless, frail to temptation, and guilty. He could overcome her quickly any time. But her Spirit begotten Son signaled the highest level of alarm for the enemy of God. . In the child dwelled the fullness of the entire Godhead bodily. Thus, the fiery red dragon planned the ice-cold, brutal murder of the newborn. He had come in order to devour the child. With his teeth he wanted to first crush and then digest Him. Normally the evil one would have stayed hidden, but in order to destroy his challenger he appeared in person.

The color of the dragon was fiery red. The loving, holy God had appeared to John in the deep red of the jasper, and in the transparent white of the Sardius, encircling the throne like an emerald. As holy love emanating from a comprehensive omnipotence our God appeared. The dragon can only appear in fiery red as a sign of his rage, fury and hatred. The crystal-clear light of holiness is totally lacking in his appearance. The evil one resembled the annihilating fire from which he appeared. We do not wish to probe the depths of Satan, as did the spiritists in Thyatira (Revelation 2:18-29), but need only to recognize that the one who was a murderer from the beginning wanted to destroy the One who was the Prince of life.

In strange fashion, cardinals, bishops and other dignitaries of various churches often wear scarlet robes in their religious duties. The question arises, however: By their attire do they wish to bear witness to the holy love of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, or are they unconsciously putting on the color of Satan? Luther is said to have called the devil an ape of God. The fiery red appearance of the devil, however, had nothing to do with the blood-red glow of the love of God and the crystal white of His holiness. The red of the evil one is much more the diametric opposite of the majestic love of the One who sits on the throne. Man, however, who was created in the image of God, is to reflect His Creator's virtues, not the fiery rage of the dragon.

In China, the dragon is depicted everywhere as a symbol of power, luck, success and peace. The Chinese dragon is highly honored, and on holidays represented in many forms. Many Chinese live consciously “in the dragon”. The dominant color of their culture is no longer yellow, but red. When the traffic light in China is red drivers are to go, when green, they are to stop. Red is considered the color of the future and of progress. Today one-fifth of mankind is Chinese. Thank God, among this number are an estimated 60 million Christians, which makes up five percent of the population. The red dragon persecutes these Christians, wherever he can.

The one who was a murderer from the beginning inspires pregnant women and girls in all nations of the earth to have the undesired embryos in their wombs cut up, poisoned, or somehow destroyed. With the vast dimensions of present-day abortions he has been successful to inspire the greatest mass murder of all time. The children of unbelief breathe in his murderous spirit and do what he tells them. We have become a generation of murderers!

The frightful monster appearing in heaven was seven-headed. The seven mouths of this glutton could devour many souls, and with his fourteen eyes and ears he could see and hear much. He is the ever present prince of this world (John 12:31; 14:30; 16:11), who in his destructive spirit unites the most varied talents. Statesmen, religious leaders, poets, thinkers, economic bosses, employers, sorcerers, liars, strategists, spies, terrorists and peace activists all work for and with him in politics, religion, culture and zeitgeist. The evil one's kingdom encompasses pseudo-democracies, brutal dictatorships, antiquated kingdoms and self-confident tribes. The prince of this world pits everyone against everyone and holds them firm in hand. Seven different heads grow out of his power-hungry body, which point to the complete number of ideas and powers of the evil one. The Lamb of God, on the other hand, has but one head and one mind, filled with love and truth.

As a sign of his power and strength, the dragon possesses ten horns. Whether each head possesses one horn, no horn, or two horns, is not stated. In any case, the ten horns signify the totality of earthly political power (Daniel 7:7, 20-25; Revelation 13:1; 17:3, 7). This power of Satan is realized in cunning and force, just as the Koran itself states: Allah is the most cunning of all! (Suras Al ‘Imran 3:54; al-Nisa’ 4:142; al-Anfal 8:30; al-Hashr 59:23). Most Koran translators and commentators reinterpret this statement so as to mean Allah is the greatest strategist and planer, or the “master of intrigue”. Yet the word in the Arabic Koran is unambiguous and means “cunning”.

Satan unites and rules ten powers, which he fills and controls with his rebellious spirit. The Lamb of God, however, has seven horns as a sign of His authority in heaven and on earth (Revelation 5:6).

The fiery red dragon set seven crowns upon his seven heads, as if he would be the absolute ruler in heaven and on earth. Perhaps, however, the seven diadems point to seven princes, who place their power at his disposal, and are of one mind with him. All earthly dignity, honor, power, might and inherent splendor are unified in Satan. He impudently offered Jesus all the kingdoms of this world, if He would but fall down and worship him (Matthew 4:8-11).

The king of Thailand has seven crowns hanging over his throne, shaped according to size in the form of a pyramid. They are to signify that all of the regional princes have surrendered their crowns to him, and that he now, as a god-king, rules over them.

The seven heads, ten horns and seven crowns substantiate Satan's claim to world domination. Paul calls him “the god of this age, who has blinded the minds of those who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them” (2 Corinthians 4:4).

Whoever contemplates the appearance of Satan in the book of Revelations should not confuse the red dragon with the two beasts of Revelation 13:1-18, which resemble him. The two beasts come from him, but they have different tasks. Satan is not the last challenger of Christ, but the antichrist. Satan fights against God Himself. He calls the righteousness of God into question because He declares sinners justified (Romans 1:17; 3:23-26), casts off the chosen nation of Israel, and yet endows mortal creatures with eternal life. The battle between Satan and God for power and glory is, in essence, a struggle for and against the holiness of God's love. The battle reaches deep into the very essence of heaven, where throughout the course of the ages Satan again and again was at work (Job 1:6-12; 2:2-7; 1 Chronicles 21:1; Zechariah 3:1; Luke 10:18; John 12:31; Revelation 12:7-11).

The Dreadfully Great Apostasy: How intensive the battle between God and Satan is can be seen in the secondary clause: the tail of the dragon threw a third of the God-created stars of heaven to the earth. Should the stars be seen as a reference to angels, then the influence of Satan over eternity would be disastrous. He would be, with his arrogance, blind power, and distrust sown through him, enormously successful. He would have drawn many servants of God over to his side and transformed them into devils-angels.

Should, however, the stars be church leaders, Bible school teachers, or others bearing responsibility in the churches, then we can only pray on our knees: Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one (Matthew 6:13). We should not self-confidently occupy ourselves with Satan just to understand him, but continually place ourselves and our home under the sprinkling of the blood of Christ, that the evil one might have no power over us.

If the text means, however, that a third of all theologians, office bearers and bishops become followers of Satan, then the question need be raised: How is that possible? Whoever studies Satan's methods in the Bible will find clear answers to this question.

The tempter in the garden unsettled Eve's trust in the love of God, and awakened in her the vile arrogance to become great and all-knowing like God. Eve wanted to hang onto both God and Satan, good and evil, at the same time. What was the consequence of her egocentric longing? She no longer recognized that she had been created in the image of God. She no longer realized that God had only forbidden her to eat from the tree of “good and evil” to prevent her from becoming evil like Satan.

The tempter came “in person” to Jesus, and hypocritically confessed to His Sonship, yet with a question mark attached. The questioning of Biblical truths is one of the gateways to demonic doubt, self- redemption efforts, pride, and greed for power. Jesus, however, would not allow Himself to be drawn away from the way of the cross. He did not allow Himself to be deceived by self-pity or pious self- initiative, not even when Peter, acting as spokesman for the disciples, challenged Him to do so (Matthew 16:22). Jesus recognized every time the seductive voice of Satan, and countered every time with the Godly principle: “It is written!”, or with “Get behind Me, Satan!” (Matthew 16:23)

Many servants of Christ today fall into sin, unbelief and dishonor because they open themselves up to unbiblical sex, trust in money, or arrogance. They have not practiced the ABC's of following Christ. Whoever desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. Whoever tries to attempt to sidestep this council of Jesus will hardly comprehend its interpretation: For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will save it! (Mark 8:34-37; Matthew 16:24-26; Luke 9:23-25).

Servants of Christ must humble themselves, and not receive honor from man. Their only honor is the justification which is theirs in the Crucified One. It is our one and only glory (1 Corinthians 1:31; 2 Corinthians 10:17). Whoever goes digging for his own honor loses his faith (John 5:44; 12:42-43; 1 Thessalonians 2:6-7).

But Satan has other “faces” and other “tricks” as well, which he resolutely uses to seduce people to apostasy:

Humanism is a deadly virus which makes many people immune to the spiritual awareness that they need to repent. No one is good, and no one can evolve higher through increased education. Man is wicked from childhood on, and only through the blood and righteousness of Christ does he have the privilege to be renewed in the Holy Spirit.

Rationalism in Europe came to constitute another one of Satan's intelligent intrigues. Because of it, some theologians, thinking they were smart enough to analyze and criticize God's word and replace it with human thinking, stumbled straight into hell. How naïve have theologians become!

Syncretism is a crippling poison that lulls many “broad minded” Christians into a spiritual sleep. Jesus preached that we should love our friends and our enemies. He did not, however, teach a multi-cultural society, but introduced the kingdom of God, which crushed and overcame all other religions and cultures (Daniel 2:44; 7:14, 27; Revelation 11:15).

We need to pray for the gift of spiritual discernment, so that we might be able to separate the shrewd temptations of Satan from the word of God. None of us is capable in himself of resisting the father of lies, unless we remain “in Christ”, our shelter, and He in us. “He leads me in the path of righteousness for His names sake” (Psalm 23:3).

In the vision, the dragon of the devil stood before the woman writhing in pains of childbirth to immediately devour her child. He wanted to destroy the plan of the Father to redeem the world from Satan's power through His Son.

PRAYER: Holy Father, we thank You and worship You because You revealed to us a strange image of Satan as a predatory dragon. You forced him to get out of his hiding place for the birth of Your Son Jesus, who became incarnate to destroy the acts of the devil and to end his false revelations. Mighty Lord, deliver us from the Evil One and firmly fix us in Your triumphant Christ.

QUESTION:

  1. How are we delivered from the Evil One?

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