Revelation
12
The
Four Beasts of Revelation
#1. The
Great Red Dragon
Begin Text:
Thus far, we have covered
the first 11 chapters of Revelation, verse by
verse.
We have carefully studied
the seven churches,
The seven seals,
The seven trumpets,
The 144,000 and The Two
Witnesses
If you have studied all of
these segments, you know that the book of
Revelation is not simple or shallow, but you
should also know that it can be understood. The
ways of God are profound and there is nothing
more wonderful and intricate than studying His
Word.
We have to give God’s
Word “due diligence” if we are going to
understand anything about Him. Today, we are
beginning a new segment on Revelation. I call
this segment “The four beasts of Revelation.”
As this section unfolds,
you will behold a compelling story, you will
learn about a great contest between Jesus and
Lucifer that has been ongoing for a very long
time. You will also see this ancient conflict
transformed into an end-time story that involves
you and me!
Apocalyptic prophecy is a
process that has been unfolding for thousands of
years. We are living at a time when Jesus will
declare there is no more delay, the 144,000 will
be selected and sealed, the fourth seal will be
broken, The Two Witnesses empowered, the censer
thrown down and the first trumpet will sound. I
hope you have already noticed the marvelous
harmony that comes from the sum of all of these
prophetic parts.
The books of Daniel and
Revelation, when properly understood, produce one
huge harmonious story. This story is so wonderful
and comprehensive; it is very difficult to tell.
If you do not believe me, just try telling it!
Our study on the four beasts
begins with Revelation 12. This chapter contains
a short prophecy of six verses and verse 7 marks
the beginning of a long prophecy that ends with
Revelation 14:5.
When these two prophecies
are put together, they allow us to see and
understand things about the devil that would
otherwise be impossible to know.
As you know, I rarely say
anything profound, but I have something profound
to say today. The origin, nature and work of the
devil is a complicated topic and it is not often
discussed by Christians because it is just too
complicated!
Here are three obstacles
that make any investigation of the devil
difficult:
1. We can’t
physically see the devil and his demons at work,
so it is very difficult to determine what they
are doing and how much they actually contribute
to the rebellion and suffering that we see
everywhere.
2. When studying
the behavior of human beings, it is difficult to
determine the devil’s participation. We know
that human beings have the power of choice and we
know that everyone is born with a carnal heart.
So, people can choose and do choose to do wicked
things on their own without any help from
the devil.
For example, when it comes
to murder, we can ask: “What role did the
devil play – if any?” Did the devil
manipulate the murderer’s emotions to a
point where the man committed the murder or did
the man commit murder without any influence from
the devil? We can also ask, “Was the
murderer under demonic control or influence when
he committed the murder? You can see from these
questions that it is almost impossible to sort
out valid answers.
3. Human being
are no match for the devil and his demons –
either in strength or intelligence. Since the
devil and his angels are hidden from eyesight,
human beings would be the easy targets except for
one thing. God has a host of angels on Earth
constantly battling with the devil and his angels
to ensure that human beings are free to
exercise their power of choice.
Make no mistake about
this, the devil and his demons do not sleep or
rest. They work around the clock – 24/7’s.
When one time zone goes to sleep, the devil and
his angels move on to the next. The devil and his
demons don’t sleep. They are in motion,
constantly moving around and round the world
– stirring up trouble, hatred and evil
passions.
I might add there are some
cities that never sleep – cities like
Chicago, New York, Miami, Las Vegas, San
Francisco and Houston. In these cases the devil
keeps “a den of demons” in such cities
at all times.
Many people do not believe
in a devil. Many people do not believe in demonic
possession. Many people who believe in a devil
have no idea that Lucifer and his angels were
once in Heaven. Even worse, many people do not
believe the coming Antichrist will be Lucifer.
Nevertheless, the Bible tells us the devil will
play a very visible role during the Great
Tribulation.
Down through the centuries,
artists have rendered the devil as an evil
manlike creature. He is red and has horns, a tail
and a pitchfork. This imagery, no doubt, rises
from Revelation 12 where the devil is portrayed
as a great red dragon having heads, horns and a
tail. However, the devil was once a most
beautiful and glorious being.
And it delights the devil
when people think that he is ugly and scary
looking, because he usually presents himself to
us robed (or disrobed as the case may be) in
beauty and innocence. He is the master of
illusion and deception and he and his demons are
the most underrated force on Earth today.
In fact, many scientists
think that Satan and demons are myths, figments
of uneducated imagination, and a superstitious
holdover from the Dark Ages. They reason, if
there is no God, there can be no devil.
Look at the logic: If the
Creator of Heaven and Earth – the Creator of
everything that exists can’t be proven to
exist, then how can a devil – who has
created nothing but trouble – be proven to
exist?
Truth is, the argument that
there is no God is another deception by Lucifer.
Lucifer never stops lying or doing everything
possible to separate mankind from God. The Bible
teaches there is a devil and has a lot to say
about him. Unfortunately, very few sermons are
actually presented on the devil because of
ignorance or fear.
Christians do not like the
idea of being told they are being stalked by
invisible intelligent beings. If we could see as
God sees, the actions of Lucifer and his demons
would make us so furious and angry, that we would
be moved to immediately terminate his existence.
But, God permits the devil
to live and prosper on Earth because God has a
higher purpose. Once this purpose is
accomplished, the devil and his angels will be
destroyed. You might ask, what purpose is so
large and important that God allows the devil to
remain alive?
Actually, two purposes
dovetail together to make one:
1. Before
Lucifer was created, God foreknew Lucifer’s
evil actions, He foreknew the loss of one-third
of His angels, He foreknew the fall of Adam and
Eve, so He predetermined the duration of sin on
Earth before it began. (Revelation 17:8)
Think
about the possibility: Before sin began, God did
some basic math and He calculated it would take 6,000
years to produce enough born-again sinners to
repopulate Heaven. I believe this is why He
created the Earth in six days and rested on the
seventh. Jesus could have created the Earth in
one day, but He chose seven because He wanted to
give us a template. The weekly cycle is a
template of Earth’s duration! Seven days
translates into seven thousand years. (We
discussed this at length in our March, April, May
and June 2004 segments on the Jubilee Calendar.}
2.
God understands from the beginning that sin must
be allowed to mature to the point that created
beings would never want to sin again. God
foreknew that if he had enough time, a watching
universe would be so offended and disgusted with
sinful behavior that sin would not occur again!
Remember from our study on the seven seals, that
preventing a second rise of sin is God’s
greatest problem. So, God is waiting for His
larger purpose to be accomplished before bringing
sin to an end and destroying the devil.
Earlier,
I made this point: When studying the behavior of
people, it is difficult to determine the devil’s
efforts on mankind since we already have a carnal
nature. Does the devil really influence people to
do things they would not otherwise do?
The
Bible says “yes!”
1
Peter 5:8 Be self-controlled and
alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a
roaring lion looking for someone to devour.
1
Peter 5:9 Resist him, standing firm
in the faith, because you know that your brothers
throughout the world are undergoing the same kind
of suffering.
James
4:7 Submit yourselves, then, to God.
Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
James
4:8 Come near to God and he will come
near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and
purify your hearts, you double-minded.”
Think
about this: The Bible teaches that
the devil and his demons can take control of
people. Jesus cast demons out of many people.
Perhaps the best known story is this one:
Luke
8:26 They sailed to the region of the
Gerasenes, which is across the lake from Galilee.
Luke
8:27 When Jesus stepped ashore, he
was met by a demon possessed man from the town.
For a long time this man had not worn clothes or
lived in a house, but had lived in the tombs.
Luke
8:28 When he saw Jesus, he cried out
and fell at his feet, shouting at the top of his
voice, “What do you want with me, Jesus, Son
of the Most High God? I beg you, don’t
torture me!”
Luke
8:29 For Jesus had commanded the evil
spirit to come out of the man. Many times it had
seized him, and though he was chained hand and
foot and kept under guard, he had broken his
chains and had been driven by the demon into
solitary places.
Luke
8:30 Jesus asked him, “What is
your name?” “Legion,” he replied,
because many demons had gone into him.
Luke
8:31 And they begged him repeatedly
not to order them to go into the Abyss.
Luke
8:32 A large herd of pigs was feeding
there on the hillside. The demons begged Jesus to
let them go into them, and he gave them
permission.
Luke
8:33 When the demons came out of the
man, they went into the pigs, and the herd rushed
down the steep bank into the lake and drowned.
Luke
8:34 When those tending the pigs saw
what happened, they ran off and reported this in
the town and countryside,
Luke
8:35 and the people went out to see
what happened. When they came to Jesus, they
found the man from whom the demons had gone out,
sitting at Jesus’ feet, dressed and in his
right mind; and they were afraid.
Once
a person is demon-possessed, they cannot set
themselves free. Demon possessed people do not
have control of themselves – they cannot
exercise their power of choice. They are prisoners
of Lucifer until or unless they are set free by
divine power! No amount of medicine, no amount of
counseling, no amount of therapy can set a
demon-possessed free.
There
is only one way out of demonic possession.
Deliverance comes only through divine power. This
is important to know because a growing number of
people are demon-possessed. Demonic possession is
often diagnosed as different forms of mental
illness or insanity!
Listen
carefully: There is a difference between
insanity and demonic possession and it can be
very difficult to differentiate between them
because demonic possession can mimic insanity!
In
the criminal justice system, insanity is
defined as a degree of mental malfunctioning
sufficient to relieve the accused of legal
responsibility for the act committed.
In
terms of mental health, insanity is a grave,
often prolonged condition that prevents a person
from being held legally responsible for his or
her actions.
1.
Lunacy is generally defined as a mental
derangement relieved intermittently by periods of
clear-mindedness.
2.
Madness is defined as the violent aspect of a
mental illness.
3.
Mania generally refers to the excited phase of a
bipolar disorder.
4.
And dementia is a mental deterioration brought on
by an organic brain disorder such as Alzheimer’s.
Demonic
possession can go undetected and undiagnosed for
a while. Mental health experts do not have a
classification of demonic possession because:
(a)
The spiritual dimension of man is poorly
understood by most medical practitioners. It
appears that theologians and medical doctors
parted company shortly after medical insurance
was created.
(b)
Mental health experts can’t quantify the
symptoms of demonic possession. There are to many
deviations and inconsistencies.
Unlike
mental illness, demonic possession is a
supernatural power controlling a human being. The
symptoms can come and go, as the demon wants. The
manifestations of demonic possession can be
different at different times. There’s no
rhyme or reason with demonic possession and this
makes a clear diagnosis very difficult.
So
how is demon possession detected?
I
apply a simple test. When I hear about a great
tragedy, and the person causing the tragedy
suddenly “snaps” and surprises everyone
by doing something very evil, I suspect demon
possession. For example, do you remember the case
of Charles Roberts? He’s the 32-year-old man
that entered the Amish school in Pennsylvania in
October 2006, and killed five young girls before
killing himself.
I
would agree, based on the evidence of his
premeditated planning (the cruel things that he
planned to do), that he had to be demon
possessed. If my assessment is correct, then the
demons found a way to gain control of Charles
Roberts – perhaps they found entrance
through pornography – but once they gained
control of him, his passion for sex became
insatiable and he carried out their demonic
desire.
Think
about this: If a human being can be filled with
the Holy Spirit and through the power of the
Spirit overcome evil, doesn’t it make sense
that a human being can be filled with a demonic
spirit and be overcome with evil?
The
Bible teaches that the Holy Spirit can transform
the carnal heart into a noble character of love
and service and it is interesting that while
doing this, the Holy Spirit leaves the saint’s
freedom of choice intact! In other words, a saint
can drop out of the sanctification process
anytime if he wants to! (And many do, even while
regularly attending church!)
There
is a serious consequence for doing this: When a
person turns from their sin to follow the Lord
and then backslides, that person is in real
trouble:
Luke
11:24 “When an evil spirit comes
out of a man, it goes through arid places seeking
rest and does not find it. Then it says, “I
will return to the house that I left.’
Luke
11:25 When it arrives, it finds the
house swept clean and put in order.
Luke
11:26 Then it goes and takes seven
other spirits more wicked than itself, and they
go in and live there. And the final condition of
the man is worse than the first.”
The
point here is that a great struggle over each
human being is under way and it is intensifying.
Demons will tempt you to give into the desires of
your carnal heart in hopes that you will exchange
the illusion of pleasure for your power of choice.
During
the Great Tribulation, demons will eventually
control every person that rejects the gospel of
Jesus. Those taking the mark of the beast will
commit the unpardonable sin, and every one of
them will be demon possessed.
Those
choosing to obey God will have their faith tested
before they are sealed. The sealing is the
removal of the sinful nature, but the sealing does
not remove the power of choice.
On
the other hand, the devil accepts forced worship
because he wants control at any cost. The last
resort of false religion is always force.
God
knows that we don’t understand the spiritual
dimension very well – the dimension in which
the devil and the Holy Spirit function. This is
one reason why He has given us Two Witnesses, the
Bible and the Holy Spirit. God wants us to
understand spiritual things because there is a
spiritual dimension to life. The spiritual realm
is a reality just like time and space are
realities.
There
are invisible spiritual beings on Earth who are
superior in every way to human beings and we can’t
see them!
1
Corinthians 2:14 “the man
without the Spirit does not accept the things
that come from the Spirit of God, for they are
foolishness to him, and he cannot understand
them, because they are spiritually discerned.”
If
there could be one “telltale” piece of
evidence that distinguishes between mental
illness and demonic possession, I would say it is
“predatory violence.”
Lucifer
and his demons are violent predators and when
they possess an individual, that individual
becomes a violent predator. (I think this is the
number one problem in Iraq today. Demons are at
work. Destroying thousands or innocent people.)
Remember the demon-possessed man in Luke 8:26-39?
“…This man was so violent that no one
could pass that way.”
The
video game industry is a $30 billion a year
industry and many, if not most, video games are
based on violence. Something in our carnal nature
rejoices when an opponent is defeated or
destroyed. This feature is the essence of sports
– although to a lesser degree. Video games
are big sellers because our carnal nature is
excited by the drama of violence.
During
the Great Tribulation, you and I are going to be
shocked to see whom Lucifer is able to control
– including people we know and love! Once
you understand the reality of Lucifer, you will
discover that things aren’t the way they are
because human beings are stupid, ignorant and
arrogant.
No!
It’s much worse. Things are the way they are
because Lucifer has gained control of an
increasing number of human beings! More and more
people are becoming demon possessed and this
epidemic is not yet detected nor understood by
most people. I think demonic possession is a
greater problem than nuclear proliferation.
It goes without saying that when put together;
these two developments are catalysts for an
enormous disaster.
Ok,
now that my introduction on Lucifer and his
demons has been presented, let’s begin
reading Revelation 12 and notice how these
matters apply to Bible prophecy. As we read
verses 1-6, notice two things:
First,
notice there is commentary in verses 1-4.
John “sets the stage” in the first four
verses of Revelation 12 by introducing three characters:
the woman, her male child, the great red dragon.
When
we get to verse 5, the chronological order of the
prophecy begins and it ends in verse 6. The
apocalyptic sequence is simply stated in two
verses. I’m also going to read verse 7 to
show you when chronological order is broken a new
prophecy begins…
Second,
as we read through the two prophecies in
Revelation 12, I want you to observe that we are
studying a dram that specifically concerns
Lucifer’s hatred for Christ and
Christianity. I want you to notice that from it’s
beginning, Christianity has been especially
hated by Lucifer.
[Commentary]
Revelation
12:1 A great and wondrous sign
appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun,
with the moon under her feet and a crown of
twelve stars on her head.
Revelation
12:2 She was pregnant and cried out
in pain as she was about to give birth.
Revelation
12:3 Then another sign appeared in
heaven: an enormous red dragon with seven heads
and ten horns and seven crowns on his heads.
Revelation
12:4 His tail swept a third of the
stars out of the sky and flung them to the earth,
The dragon stood in front of the woman who was
about to give birth, so that he might devour her
child the moment that it was born.
[Chronology
begins – Rule 1]
Revelation
12:5 She gave birth to a son, a male
child, who will rule all the nations with an iron
scepter. And her child was snatched up to God and
to his throne.
Revelation
12:6 The women fled into the desert
to a place prepared for her from God, where she
might be taken care of for 1,260 days.
Chronological
Sequence:
1.
Woman in pain, dragon ready to devour child
2.
Woman gives birth
3.
Dragon tries to kill Jesus
4.
Jesus taken to Heaven
5.
Woman flees to desert for 1,260 days
[According
to Rule 4, the 1,260 days have to be translated
as 1,260 years because they occur while the
Jubilee Calendar is operating. We learned in our
study of Daniel 7 that this 1,260 day time-period
began in A.D. 538 and ended in 1798 and to
eliminate any confusion, this time-period is
mentioned a third time in verse Revelation 12:14
(as a time, times, and half a time). During these
1,260 years, the devil, utilizing the powers of
church and state, attempted to “wear out”
the saints of the Most High.]
Now,
look at verse 7:
Revelation
12:7 And there was war in heaven.
Michael and his angels fought against the dragon,
and the dragon and his angels fought back.
We
will see later on, this war took place on
Resurrection Sunday. Because verse 7 does not
chronologically follow the end of the 1,260 years
in 1798 (verse 6), Rule 1 forces the beginning of
a new prophecy with verse 7.
So
much has been said in just six verses! Revelation
12:1-6 is a short story summarizing Lucifer’s
hatred for Jesus.
Consider
this: After Adam and Eve sinned; Lucifer learned
that God had a plan to save man from the penalty
of sin. 4,000 years later, Lucifer saw the wise
men searching the Scriptures. He saw them leave
home to find the Savior of mankind. Lucifer saw
Jesus born in a stable. Lucifer was determined to
ruin God’s plan to save mankind from the
penalty of sin by killing Jesus at birth.
This
tiny prophecy highlights a serious contest
between God – who is endeavoring to save man
– and Lucifer – who is determined to
destroy God’s plans.
Remember
this:
Revelation
12:1-6 is a Lucifer versus God prophecy and the
next prophecy, Revelation 12:7-14:5, is a Lucifer
versus the church prophecy.
The
story in Revelation 12:1-6 tells us of Lucifer’s
failure to kill Jesus at birth…. What is
more bitter to the carnal heart than failure and
humiliation? All of the demons must have been
surprised to see Lucifer fail at killing baby
Jesus. Then, after torturing a sinless Jesus and
killing Him on the cross, the devil failed again.
A
watching universe rejoiced as the Father raised
Jesus from the dead. That empty tomb became the
devil’s destiny. Lucifer and his demons
experienced another bitter defeat at the tomb.
The resurrection of Jesus sealed their fate. They
are destined to suffer in the flames of hell.
They will writhe in pain as Jesus and the saint’s
watch. The demons know there is no chance of
escaping hell. ZERO!
I
have mentioned these things because I want you to
understand something of Lucifer’s anger and
bitterness. This is why I believe predatory
violence is a “telltale” sign of
demonic possession. Lucifer and his demons are so
full of rage toward God that violent
destruction is their most powerful expression.
I
have spent a lot of time talking about demonic
possession because every Christian needs to
understand the enormous violent energy that will
be released against the saints during the Great
Tribulation. The devil and his demons are “hell-bound”
and they are on a tear to destroy everything that
belongs to God.
Revelation
12:5 says the male child was snatched
up to God’s throne.
After
Jesus ascended to Heaven, Lucifer attempted to
destroy the woman and fled to the desert.
The
desert is a harsh place to live. The devil tried
to starve the women to death, but he failed
again. God had prepared a place of survival
for her. Ultimately, this short story contains a
glorious promise that we need to understand. A
time is coming when Jesus will rule all nations
with a rod of iron – the phrase, a rod of
iron, indicates a sovereign rule that cannot be
broken. The unending victory of Jesus is
paralleled from Plan A in the words of Isaiah:
Isaiah
9:6 For to us a child is born, to us
a son is given, and the government will be on his
shoulders. And he will be called Wonder
Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince
of Peace.
Isaiah
9:7 Of the increase of his government
and peace there will be no end. He will
reign on David’s throne and over his
kingdom, establishing and upholding it with
justice and righteousness from that time on and
forever. The zeal of the Lord Almighty will
accomplish this.
Interpretation:
The
woman in Revelation 12 represents the virgin
bride of Christ. (Revelation 21:9)
The
love relationship between Jesus and His people is
compared to that of a bride and bridegroom in the
book of Revelation. (For purposes of contrast,
the great whore in Revelation 17, the woman
riding on the beast, represents the people who
will embrace Lucifer as Lord and Master.)
Listen
carefully, the bride of Jesus is not a
denomination, it is not ‘a remnant
church,” in fact, the bride is not
predominately made up of Christians for there
were no Christians at the time of Christ’s
birth! The virgin bride of Christ consists of all
people who love God, those who follow and
listen to the voice of the Holy Spirit.
When
Revelation 12 begins, the woman is in pain to be
delivered. Notice the chronology: The woman precedes
the birth of Jesus and the formation of
Christianity. The pregnancy pain indicates the
appointed time for “deliverance” had
come.
Galatians
4:4 But when the time had fully
come, God sent his Son, born of a woman,
under the law,
Galatians
4:5 to redeem those under law, that
we might receive the full rights of sons.”
The
devil is ready for the birth of Jesus. He is
poised to kill the male child as soon as He is
born. Now that we know about Lucifer’s
efforts to kill Jesus at birth, let’s see
how this was accomplished through demonic
possession:
Matthew
2:16 When Herod realized that he had
been outwitted by the magi, he was furious, and
he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem
and its vicinity who were two years old and
under, in accordance with the time he had learned
from the Magi.
Matthew
2:17 Then what was said through the
prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled:
Matthew
2:18 “A voice is heard in Ramah,
weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for
her children and refusing to be comforted,
because they are no more.”
Why
did Herod kill all baby boys, two years old and
under?
I
believe that Herod set these parameters because
the wise men had been traveling for about a year
and if Jesus had been born when they first saw
the star, His age would have been between one
and two years.
The
Bible indicates that Jesus was born in a stable
(Luke 2:7) and I assume that after a day or two
of staying there, Joseph found a house where his
family could stay. After Joseph, Mary and Jesus
moved into this house, the Magi arrived.
Matthew
2:11 “On coming to the house,
they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they
bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened
their treasures and presented him with gifts of
gold and incense and of myrrh.”
The
Magi didn’t show up at the stable, so let’s
get all of these nativity scenes corrected.
Incidentally, for reasons beyond today’s
discussion, I believe that Jesus birthday occurs
on the Day of Atonement. I like to think of the
10th day of the seventh month as the birthday
of our Atonement.
Ironically,
the Day of Atonement in 4 B.C. fell on what we
call October 31, Halloween. I also believe that
demons have transformed the birthday of Jesus
into a day devoted to themselves.
But,
the primary point in Matthew 2 is that Lucifer
influenced Herod to kill every baby boy in an
effort to kill one baby boy. This is predatory
violence!
Here’s
a good question:
How
should the guilt of this genocide be assigned?
Should Herod’s guilt be the same as Lucifer’s?
I think so. Both should be assigned 100% of the
guilt.
Lucifer
wanted Jesus dead at birth and He would have
killed Jesus Himself if that had been possible.
So I give him 100% responsibility for this
horrible crime. I believe that Herod was demon
possessed. He was a totally evil man. He was so
self-centered and insecure that any threat to His
authority had to be promptly destroyed. He wanted
Jesus destroyed so badly that he was willing to
kill all of the baby boys in Bethlehem to
eliminate one child.
So,
Herod is due 100% of the guilt that goes with
this crime. So, the murder of a hundred (?)
innocent baby boys now rests upon Herod and
Lucifer and restitution for the grief and
suffering they caused surely awaits fulfillment.
We
can be sure that God will fully extract the
appropriate suffering from Herod and Lucifer when
hell begins…. “Payday Someday.”
As
I said earlier, the prophecy in Revelation 12 is
a Lucifer versus God prophecy. The male child is
Jesus. The woman represents the bride of Christ,
the people of God. The great red dragon
represents Lucifer, that ancient adversary of God
who caused 1/3 of the angels to be expelled from
Heaven!
Revelation
12:4 “His tail [tale] swept a
third of the stars out of the sky and flung them
to the earth.”
After
failing to destroy Jesus, and after failing to
keep Jesus in the tomb, Lucifer turned his wrath
on the followers of Jesus. The followers of Jesus
split into two groups…. I call these two
groups:
1.
The church visible
2.
The church invisible
The
church visible is an institutional church.
Institutional churches have definition and form.
They have buildings, creeds, members, and
budgets. The church visible gives the appearance
of spiritual life, but inwardly, it is often
dead.
.
Revelation
3:1 “To the angel of the church
in Sardis write: These are the words of him who
holds the seven spirits of God and the seven
stars. I know your deeds; you have a
reputation of being alive, but you are dead.”
On
the other hand, the church invisible is an
unseen body of believers. They have no
buildings, creeds, definition or form. This
church is widely scattered and it has no visible
organization or budget. To the naked eye, it
doesn’t even exist! If it weren’t for
the gift of the Holy Spirit who constantly keeps
the invisible church fed and alive, this church
would have vanished long ago.
Now
that you know there are two churches, this
statement should make some sense: When the Bible
says the dragon chased the woman to the desert
for 1,260 years, the Bible us talking about the
devil chasing the invisible church.
History
[and Daniel 7] clearly tells us what happened to
the visible church. By the fourth century A.D.,
Christianity had become rich, powerful, and
arrogant. It had assumed the prerogatives of God.
It thought to ‘change times and laws”
and it ruled over the kings of Europe until the
French Revolution deposed the pope.
The
point here is twofold:
1.
I often hear people saying, “But Larry,
every Christian needs to attend a visible church
or people will lose their faith! They will
soon fall away and forget the Lord. The apostle
Paul says we shouldn’t stop meeting
together.”
My
response is simple: I say, let the dead prop up
the dead. If the essence of Christianity is so
weak that it has to be sustained by “cheer
leaders” and church services, then it stands
to reason that visible Christianity will
disappear when church services are no longer
available!
2.
We need to know that Revelation 12 isn’t
concerned with the visible church. This prophecy
is focused on the church invisible – the
church in the desert is full of lonely
people, people isolated from one another, but not
from God. This is the church that matters to God!
The
devil did everything possible to shut down the
church invisible between 538 and 1798, but he
failed! The flame of God’s truth did not go
out, and in 1798, Protestantism finally burst the
iron chains of Catholicism and the truth about
God and His will became clearer and brighter than
ever before! The church invisible overcame the
church visible! If you remember our earlier
study on the seven seals, you will recall that
1798 is the year when Jesus was found worthy to
receive the Book of Life, and He began opening
the seven seals that year and as each seal is
broken, a brighter revelation of Jesus occurs.
Ok,
let’s take a final read of Revelation 12:1-6
before moving to the next one:
Revelation
12:1 A great and wondrous sign
appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun [the
righteousness of Christ], with the moon under her
feet [God’s covenant promise to save man] and
a crown [stephanos – crown of victory] of
twelve stars on her head [12 tribes].
Revelation
12:2 She was pregnant and cried out
in pain as she was about to give birth. [Its
ironic, the birth of one baby caused the death of
a hundred. The joy of one woman was hushed by the
sobbing of a hundred.]
Revelation
12:3 Then another sign appeared in
heaven: an enormous red dragon with seven heads
and ten horns and seven crowns on his heads. [These
crowns = diadema, these heads = religious
systems, indicating the devil would use religion
and religious leaders to put Jesus to death and
persecute the church invisible]
Revelation
12:4 His tail swept a third of the
stars out of the sky and flung them to the earth.
The dragon stood in front of the woman who was
about to give birth, so that he might devour her
child the moment it was born.
Revelation
12:5 She gave birth to a son, a male
child, who will rule all the nations with an iron
scepter. [4 B.C.] And her child was snatched up
to God and to his throne. [A.D. 30]
Revelation
12:6 The woman fled into the desert
to a place prepared for her by God, where she
might be taken care of for 1,260 days [1,260
years]
So,
the dragon chased the woman [the church
invisible, the people of God] to the desert for
1,260 years, but they survived the hardship! But
wait! The devil isn’t finished with the
woman….
Coming
down to our day…
Revelation
12:17 Then the dragon was [outraged] enraged
at the woman and went off to make war
against the rest [or the last] of her offspring
– those who obey God’s commandments and
hold to the testimony of Jesus.” This will
occur during the Great Tribulation.
Revelation
13:7 He [the composite beast] was
given power to make war against the saints and to
conquer them. And he was given authority
over every tribe, people, language and nation.”
Ok,
we have examined the prophecy of Lucifer versus
God in verses 1-6. Actually, we have read an
overview on demonic possession.
Now,
we have examined the next prophecy: Lucifer
versus the invisible church. This is a lengthy
prophecy (Revelation 12:7-14:5); so try to stay
on track. This prophecy begins with verse 7:
Revelation
12:7 And there was war in heaven.
Michael and his angels fought against the dragon,
and the dragon and his angels fought back.
Revelation
12:8 But he was not strong enough,
and they lost their place in heaven.
Revelation
12:9 The great dragon was hurled down
– that ancient serpent called the devil, or
Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was
hurled to the earth, and his angels with him.”
When
did this war in Heaven occur? We will examine
this question in our next segment.
End Text:
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