SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR
6/2/2015 8:34 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
The Dragon (Satan)
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Revelation
12:3-4
Message of the
verses: “3 Then another sign appeared in
heaven: and behold, a great red dragon having seven heads and ten horns, and on his heads were seven diadems. 4 And his
tail swept away a third of
the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman
who was about to give birth, so that when she gave birth he might devour her child.”
I wrote the following short section
about these verses on 08/06/2005 “These
verses are surely speaking of Satan, and as far as the seven heads and the ten
horns this will be brought up again and will be dealt with then. It has always been the desire of Satan to
destroy the way for the Messiah to come, but he failed at that and even though
He may have thought he succeeded when he
had Christ killed in reality that is what sealed his eventual fate of spending
eternity in hell. Verse four seems to be speaking about a time in the past when
Satan rebelled against God and took a third of the angels with him. There are
times when it is difficult to understand all of the symbolism that John wrote
about in this book; however the best commentary for the book of Revelations is
the rest of the Scriptures.” I want to
expand on what I wrote then in the rest of today’s SD.
First of all we want to be reminded that John saw
another sign and this sign is the emergence of a new character that is called the
“great red dragon.” John says that this
sign appeared in heaven. Now we realize
that Satan is not a dragon, but as we learned earlier these signs represent
different things and in this case the sign represents Satan as the first sign,
the woman represents the nation of Israel.
John MacArthur writes “The symbolic language used to describe him
pictures the reality of his person and character. Only in Revelation is Satan referred to as a
dragon; before that he is called (among other names) a serpent (Gen.3:1ff; 2
Cor. 11:3). A dragon is a far more
terrifying symbol. In the Old Testament
the same Hebrew word translated dragon (Isa. 27:1; 51:9) is also translated
monster or sea monster (Gen. 1:21; Job 7:12; Pss. 74:13; 148:7; Jer. 51:34;
Ezek. 29:3; 32:2). It pictures a large ferocious
and terrifying animal. Red, the color of
fiery destruction and bloodshed, further stresses Satan’s ferocious, deadly,
destructive nature. In the words of
Jesus, ‘He was a murderer from the beginning (John 8:44). The Hebrew word for ‘serpent’ (nachash) used in Genesis 3:1 is used
interchangeably in some texts with the Hebrew word for dragon (tannin) (cf. Ex. 7:9, 15). So the animal Satan used in the Garden of
Eden was a reptile, but one not yet cast down to its belly (Gen 3:14). Likely, it was more upright—a dragon standing
on two legs, cursed to walk on four legs close to the ground, or slither like a
snake. Red is a fitting color for the
dragon, since he attacks both the woman and her child.” I never thought of the term “cast down” to
the animal that Satan used to speak to the woman, but that does make sense when
you think about it as that animal was cast down to the ground and we will see
later in our text that Satan will be cast down to the earth never to return to
heaven again, for when he will be cast down to earth the next step will be the
lake of fire shortly after that, but we are getting ahead of ourselves as we
will speak of this later.
In the book of Ezekiel and chapter twenty-nine,
verses 1-5 we read of Pharaoh who was the enemy of God, and as we read this
section we will see that it captures the essence of the frightening imagery
which is used to describe Satan:
“1 In the tenth year, in the tenth month, on the
twelfth of the month, the word of the LORD came to me saying, 2 “Son of man, set your face against Pharaoh King
of Egypt and prophesy
against him and against all Egypt. 3 "Speak and say, ’Thus says the
Lord GOD, "Behold, I am against you, Pharaoh king of Egypt, The great monster that lies in
the midst of his rivers, That has said, ’My Nile is mine, and I myself have made it.’ 4 “I
will put hooks in your jaws And make the fish of your rivers cling to your
scales. And I will bring you up out of the midst of your rivers, And all the
fish of your rivers will cling to your scales. 5 “I will abandon you to the
wilderness, you and all the fish of your rivers; You will fall on the open
field; you will not be brought together or gathered. I have given you for food
to the beasts of the earth and to the birds of the sky.”
Let us now speak of the dragon having seven heads
and ten horns and also on those heads were seven diadems. In order to understand this we have to
understand that when Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden of Eden Satan has been
allowed by God to rule the world. Now he
will continue to do so up until the sounding of the seventh trumpet which we
saw in Revelation 11:15. Now remember
that once we began to study chapters 12-14 we have gone back in time looking at
the Tribulation Period through the eyes of antichrist who will be led by Satan. The word diadem speaks of royal crowns which
symbolize power and authority. Satan has
headed up seven consecutive world empires beginning with Egypt, and then
Assyria, Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, Rome, and Antichrist’s future empire
which will take place during the Tribulation Period. This final kingdom headed up
by antichrist will be a ten-nation confederacy and this is seen by the ten
horns. Let us look at Daniel 7:23-25 “23 "Thus he said: ’The fourth beast will be
a fourth kingdom on the earth, which will be different from all the other
kingdoms and will devour
the whole earth and tread it down and crush it. 24 ’As for the ten horns,
out of this kingdom ten kings will arise; and another will arise after them, and he will be
different from the previous ones and will subdue three kings. 25 ’He will speak out against the Most High and wear down the saints of the
Highest One, and he will intend to make alterations in times and in law;
and they will be given into his hand for a time, times, and half a time.” For more on these verses in Daniel you can
look at my Spiritual Diaries dated 09-06-2013 and 09-08-2013.
I mentioned that God has allowed Satan to be the
ruler of the world since the fall of man, and we also must realize that God is
the One who is completely in control, but when we look at the temptations of
Jesus in both Luke and Matthew we see that He did not argue with Satan when
Satan offered Him his kingdom. Satan has
been allowed to get into the governments of the world over time and will surely
get into the government of the rule of Antichrist during the Tribulation
Period. We will look at this more in
detail as we continue our study of this 12th chapter of Revelation.
Spiritual meaning for my
life today: I am thankful that the Lord Jesus provided me
a way to get out of the kingdom of darkness and be brought into the Kingdom of
Light through His life, death, burial, and resurrection from the dead.
My Steps of Faith
for Today: To love the Lord, with all of my heart, soul,
mind, and strength, and to understand more of His love and thus live in the
love of the Lord today.
Answer
to yesterday’s Bible question: “His eyes
were put out” (2 Kings 25:7).
Today’s
Bible question: “What happened to Saul
of Tarsus near Damascus?”
Answer
in our next SD.
6/2/2015
9:34 AM
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