The Relentless Red Dragon

Listen, if we can draw any analogy from the chosen nation of Israel to the chosen bride of Christ, it would be this. Just as God has kept every promise and will keep every promise to Israel, he will keep every promise to you. You may not feel like it, you may not want more, but the deposit of grace for today is sufficient, 2 Corinthians 12.9. And he gave that ultimate wonderful promise to those who believe in him.

He said, I will come again and I will receive you unto myself that where I am, there you may be also. There's a coming period of time known as the Great Tribulation. It's a time when God is going to discipline his chosen people, Israel. However, as Stephen noted a moment ago, it's not an indication that God has abandoned them.

God still responds in grace and mercy, even in his discipline. Welcome to Wisdom for the Heart. Today, Stephen Davey begins a series entitled Antichrist and the Many Faces of Evil. As we work through this passage of Scripture, we'll find practical insight regarding how we should live today.

Let's get started with this lesson called The Relentless Red Dragon. We're about to be introduced to the Antichrist and his false prophet. In fact, if you have your Bibles open to Revelation chapter 12, Revelation chapters 12 and 13 are primarily devoted to introducing to us the key players. And I'm just going to call the series the Many Faces of Evil as we continue toward the final days of the Tribulation and the Battle of Armageddon. You got this new global killer, which is about to make his appearance in the text of Scripture.

Before we're introduced to him, however, John has several introductions to make. So let's begin with Revelation chapter 12 and verse one. A great sign appeared in heaven. You ought to circle the word sign.

It'll appear again that word. A great sign appeared in heaven. A woman clothed with the sun and the moon under her feet and on her head, a crown of 12 stars.

And she was with child and she cried out being in labor and in pain to give birth. Now, the wonderful thing about approaching prophecy literally is that you're able to literally interpret every metaphor, every symbol as symbols and metaphors. And this text indicates this is a clear symbol. It's a sign. The Greek language calls it a semi on mega, a major, a big sign, a great sign, which immediately tells us then that this woman is not an actual woman, but that she symbolically represents something else.

So keep that in mind. John writes, a great sign appeared in heaven. And in this symbolic vision, John sees her clothed with the sun, the moon at her feet, wearing a crown of stars. And she's not the first symbolic woman to appear in Revelation. In chapter two, we've already met a woman symbolically named Jezebel because she was leading the church into immorality and sin. In chapter 17, we're going to be introduced to a harlot who will represent the false religion of the antichrist. In chapter 19, we're going to see another woman who symbolizes the bride of Christ. She simply referred to as the bride of the lamb that you and me. Here in chapter 12, we see another symbolic woman, this one in the pain of childbirth.

And she's dressed very differently than your wife was when she went into the delivery room to deliver your baby, right? No crown stars and moon in there. They are here. So then the question is, what does this or who does this woman represent? Now, in my research, I found at least five different opinions. I'll give you the four wrong views and then the correct view. You don't have to believe me, you can choose to be wrong.

Then you're going to get a bad grade on the final exam, okay? The first is Mary Baker Eddy. Mary Baker Eddy believed with all humility that she was this woman and that she bore the Christian science movement into being in 1879.

Of course, tragically she knows now she wasn't the woman. The Roman Catholic Church believes the woman is Mary and they often referred to as the queen of heaven. Certainly Mary was the mother of Christ. They would view her here in this text as ascended without having died, making her virtually deified and equal with Christ.

More specifically, as it relates to this text, you have then a problem, a major problem. Mary is already ascended, so to speak. She is crowned in heaven, but she's still carrying Jesus.

So that, among others, presents difficulty. A third view holds that the woman represents God himself. This leaves unexplained then why God would have to run from the dragon, as we'll see later in this text.

I don't believe it's God. A fourth view is that the woman is the church. Though the church is certainly represented as a woman, the bride of Christ, keep in mind that she is the bride of Christ, not the woman giving birth to Christ. The church did not give birth to Jesus Christ.

Jesus Christ gave birth to the church. The view that fits the context, in my opinion, of this chapter as well as the rest of scripture is that this woman represents Israel. This woman symbolizes Israel well on all points, certainly because Christ was born of the seed of Israel. The God-man was of Jewish kin.

In fact, the prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah refer to Israel as a woman in labor, so it's not an unusual symbol for Israel. And Israel was certainly suffering under the heel of Rome when Christ was born. In fact, the story of the incarnation is the story of difficult times, intrigue, poverty. You have the birth of the Messiah in a stable laid in a trough surrounded by smelly animals, manure. You have, in addition to that, Satan who's there ready trying to wipe out the Messiah, just as we'll see him picture ready to devour the child if he could.

It's one of the underlying dramas of what we call the Christmas story. The anguish of Israel will be heard as Herod has all the Jewish boys under the age of two slaughtered in his attempt to put away, to kill this one born king of the Jews, Matthew 2 16. He was born when Israel was and still is in great travail. You'll notice again in verse one that her symbolic appearance can be tied to Israel as well. In fact, there is only one other place in Scripture where these symbols are clustered together in one place, sun, moon, and stars, and that's in Joseph's dream in Genesis chapter 37, where he describes to his father, his mother, and his brothers that they're all going to bow down to him. There you have the sun, the moon, and the 12 stars representing the nation Israel. If you parallel the symbols in the first book of the Bible, Genesis, in that dream and the last book of the Bible, Revelation and John's vision, you have Israel then clothed with the sun, an illusion in Genesis 37, and Jacob who is the inheritor of the Abrahamic covenant promises.

You have the moon representing his wife Rachel, Jacob's wife and mother of Joseph, and then you have the 12 stars representing the 12 tribes who discarded Joseph, thrown in a pit, who ascended, so to speak, and they all bowed to him, a wonderful illustration of our own Lord. Now you get into the introduction following this of what we'll simply call the first face of evil. Notice who's lurking about in verse 3 of Revelation chapter 12. Then another sign, you could underline or circle that word and connect it with the other, another sign appeared in heaven, and behold a great red dragon having seven heads and 10 horns, and on his head were seven diadems or crowns, 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 the child.

And this is where you're thinking, okay, this sounds more like a monster movie than anything else. This is where you stop and you go back to Philippians or Psalms and you pick up there where you left off. This is why we stay away from Revelation. We've got horns and multi-headed dragons waiting to eat babies. Well, before anybody thinks this is pure fiction, or worse yet, you take from this text what our world has taken, and that is the devil wears a red suit, has a long tail, and horns.

Understand this is a semion. This is another sign. This is a symbolic scene that represents an invisible drama. In fact, this sign by John does not tell us what Satan looks like. It's telling us what Satan acts like. He acts like a destructive, terrible dragon who wants to eat, consume, kill the Messiah and the seed of this one, as we'll learn later in the chapter, the Jewish people. So let me give you four descriptions that come out of this particular sign given to us by John about Satan himself. First, Satan is seen as a destroyer. He's referred to here as a red dragon, a red beast that kills and maims his victims. Only in the book of Revelation is Satan referred to as a dragon. Well, how do we know for sure that this dragon is Satan? Well, if you look over at verse 9 of the same chapter, you discover very clearly John telling us there that the great dragon was thrown down, the serpent of old who is called the devil and Satan.

So there's no question about it. In fact, he goes on in that verse to say he deceives the whole world and he was thrown down to the earth and his angels were thrown down with him. Now he's described back in verse 3 with the color red, the red dragon. There's nothing wrong with the color red, all those wearing red.

You don't have to slide into your seat. It's a reference to war in Revelation. In fact, we've encountered the only other use of Puras or red that showed up back in chapter six, where a horseman comes riding out on a red horse and brings war to the planet. So this is a reference to the destructive beast who will destroy all who attempt to oppose him. Secondly, Satan is seen in this text as a dictator. Now look again at verse three.

Behold, here's this sign. A great red dragon having seven heads and ten horns and on his heads were seven diadems. Now let's just break this down one at a time and it'll make sense to you. The seven heads of Satan simply refer to the seven consecutive world empires that we've observed in history. We've seen six of them, not the seventh. It all begins with Egypt and then Assyria and then Babylon and then Babylon's conquered by the Medo Persians and then Greece conquers and rules the known world and then Rome conquers Greece and rules the Western world. The final seventh kingdom, Revelation will inform us, will be the kingdom ruled by the antichrist or literally this dragon. And that kingdom will be made up with ten horns.

Now Daniel helps us immensely here because he tells us that a horn is a king. These are ten kings. So what you have here from Daniel chapter seven coordinated with Revelation chapter twelve is you have a ten king or ten nation confederacy under the sway of the dragon in this final or seventh world empire. So Satan is pictured here as a destroyer of all who oppose him, as a dictator of a new confederation of ten nations.

And this coalition of nations will be ruled by the satanically empowered antichrist. Then you have next Satan pictured as a deceiver. Notice verse four again and his tail swept away a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth. Now we know that when satan fell after attempting to wrestle away from God his throne, Isaiah and Ezekiel inform us that when he fell angels fell with him, angels having been deceived by satan into believing that he could somehow conquer God and the throne of heaven. John tells us here in this text in chapter twelve that satan was able to deceive one third of the angelic hosts and these angels followed him believing he would succeed.

In fact since that time they and satan have been confirmed in their unholy state and they await their sentence in an eternal hell. Now we're never told how many angels God created. So we don't know how many a third is. We are told however in revelation chapter nine that at least two hundred million demons terrorized the planet for a space of time.

In fact we're given the impression that that's not all there is. So imagine then you have two to three hundred million demons representing perhaps only one third of the angelic host created by God which means we're pressing if you're keeping the math with me we've got about a billion angels created and they were created. Job 38 verse 7 said before the universe was created and they all in unity sang together until a third of them followed this one lucifer who attempted to seize the throne of God and they were all cast down that is they fell and here they remain attempting to thwart the purposes of of Christ. We have no idea frankly how many demons there are but we do know this greater is he that is in us than he that is in the world.

Even if the evil one and his horde of demons are vicious destroyers and and representing him as a world dictator and they are persuasive in their deception. In fact Satan will be further described in John's vision as a devourer of the seed of Israel. I want you to notice again the graphic picture of Satan's all consuming desire. Go back to verse 4 in the drag middle part and the dragon stood before the woman who was about to give birth so that when she gave birth he might devour her child. In other words he is waiting he knows the prophecies will come true that from Israel from the womb of Israel will come a Jewish Messiah and so he's on the lookout he's watching and he's waiting as it were like a dragon crouched with eyes glaring waiting for that boy to be delivered.

So Herod would be nothing more than a than a pond in the talons of this dragon as he sends soldiers racing to Bethlehem to slaughter the Jewish boys two years of age and under. Notice what happens however as the male child is delivered verse 5 the text tells us and she gave birth to a son a male you might think that's redundant but a male son is simply an expression of one who is heir to the throne. He goes on who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron clearly the Messiah and her child was caught up to God and to his throne. Now what you have in John's vision here is something he's done often and will do again. He gives you two events that are separated by distance of time as if they happened together. So he talks about the birth and then he talks about the ascension going back to the father leaves all the middle details out for us but he gives them to us by the way in his gospel called the Gospel of John.

Go there and get those pieces and fill in the details. Now of course the dragon who fails to corrupt this seed this boy who fails to cause him to sin when he tempts him who fails to succeed when he attempts to incite those to kill him for he arises from the dead and ascends to the father. The text of scripture here in this chapter in fact in verse 13 even further will tell us that he then takes the focus of his anger and his hatred and he focuses on the people the seed he wages war against the woman who bore the child. In other words he couldn't kill the Jewish Messiah and so he will vent his hatred and he still does to this day against the Jewish people to try to keep all the other promises about the second coming of Christ from coming true. And so we have world news today informing us of his ongoing hatred and anti-semitism which is growing even now.

So you can hear the president of Iran talking about his desire to exterminate the Jews from the planet and push her into the sea. Countries around our world are registering anti-Jewish sentiment and ridicule. The Muslim world today is probably personifying more than anything else the murderous hatred against her so bent on killing Jews that they will sacrifice their own sons and daughters to kill a handful of them. One commentator quoted from an article first published in Harper's magazine where a Muslim mother was interviewed after she learned of her son's death in a suicide bombing that killed her son and 10 Jews and she said and I quote because I love my son I encouraged him to die a martyr's death for the sake of Allah.

Jihad is a religious obligation encumbered upon us we must carry it out. So I sacrificed my son as a part of my obligation. I asked Allah to give me 10 Israelis for my son and Allah granted my request. Our God honored him even more that there were many Israelis wounded. How tragic is that?

How utterly tragic. Islam is a religion where its sons are called on to die for their God. Listen Christianity is a religion where God sent his son to die for us. Muslim extremists are sacrificing their lives so that others will die.

We as believers living in this world should sacrifice our lives so that others can live. And by the way these are great days to be alive. You know I tire of people talking about the post-Christian world. I don't even like that term. I like to think of it as pre-Christian.

We're at the edge of some wonderful things. This is pre-Christian. Now that means you got to start at the beginning because now when you talk to people on the street about God they're gonna say which one? So you start out introducing them to the unknown God which Paul did in Athens because they don't know who he is. And you talk about the scriptures and they'll say which ones?

And you introduce them to these. We live in pre-Christian days and a great harvest awaits. Casper Ten Boom the godly father of Corey that many of you have read about and heard about. She survived the concentration camp. Her father didn't but she and her family hid away Jews during the days of the Gestapo and World War II and World War II. They had a chamber built up upstairs with a fake brick wall that looked like it was the exterior wall of their house.

It really wasn't. And through the linen closet Jews could scurry and then back in there they could be kept safely. When the house was inspected I've had the privilege of walking up there and looking at that chamber and that little bedroom when they were finally caught and the entire family sent away before being separated Casper Ten Boom who would not survive said if I die in prison it will be an honor to have sacrificed my life so that God's people could live. Let me add Muslims are not our enemies they're our mission field. In fact so are Jews.

Don't overlook that fact. Jews are a mission field as well. For Jew living in this age of grace they must come to faith in Jesus Christ as well as their personal Messiah if they ever hope to inherit the kingdom of God. Go back to Nicodemus a Jewish leader who came to Jesus secretly so nobody would see him coming and he said to Jesus thinking he was in the kingdom because he belonged to Abraham. He had Jewish blood flowing through his veins and he had questions and Jesus said to him look you need to understand unless one is born again he cannot see or enter the kingdom of heaven. John 3 3 and so Nicodemus said well what do I have to do then. I mean how do you how do you get born again. How can you be born again. And Jesus said well let me break it down very simply.

Here's how it happens. And he said in that same chapter for God so loved the world say with me that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life. There are not two plans of salvation.

There's not one plan for the Gentiles and one for the Jews. All must come to faith in Jesus Christ. And what a wonderful thing it was. Little Jewish lady come up and give me a hug. Come to faith in Christ here at this church and say this meant so much to me.

I'm a Jew who has accepted by faith Christ. Let's go back to verse 6 and wrap it up here. It says the woman fled into the wilderness where she had a place prepared by God. I want you to note that phrase in your mind. Prepared by God so that there she would be nourished for one thousand two hundred and sixty days which just so happens to be three and a half years.

It's one of all the pieces come together if you just take it to face value. They had three and a half years of relative peace. The temple was built. The Antichrist was their friend. At the middle point he desecrated the temple and they went running. In fact Jesus predicted earlier in the Gospel of Matthew.

Woe to you if you're ready to deliver a child when this happens. You're going to need to run. And run they will together. But what I want you to notice in this one to a place prepared by God sound familiar. The only other time in the New Testament that phrase appears that construct is in John 14 where the disciples are troubled. Jesus said to them look I'm going to go away.

I'm going back to my father and they're saying how can we go with you and he says don't worry I'm going to come back and I'm going to get you and take you to where I am to a place prepared for you. John 14 verse 3 place where we will be as well protected and provided for supernaturally in fact where we will spend eternity. Listen if we can draw any analogy from the chosen nation of Israel to the chosen bride of Christ. Today it would be this just as God has kept every promise and will keep every promise to Israel he will keep every promise to you and to me. Jesus Christ promised I will never leave you nor forsake you. Hebrews 13 5 that's for today. He promised my grace is sufficient for you may not feel like it you may not want more but the deposit of grace for today is sufficient. Second Corinthians 12 9. And he gave that ultimate wonderful promise to those who believe in him.

He said I will come again and I will receive you unto myself that where I am there you may be also. John 14 3 these are his promises to you. Count on them. Mark them down. Lean on them wherever you are right now you may need one of those promises lean on them heavily.

Rest in them hang on to them. His promises are true. His unchanging promises to them and to us.

And he will never fail to keep his word. It's encouraging to know that even though Satan is a deceiver and destroyer God is sovereign even over him and God always wins. This is Wisdom for the Heart with Stephen Davey. Today's lesson was part one of a series entitled Antichrist and the Many Faces of Evil. I hope you'll be with us for this entire series in the days ahead. As America moves toward the time of electing our next president we focused the next issue of our magazine on politics and helping Christians think biblically about our relationship with the government. If you don't receive our Heart to Heart magazine call us today at 866 48 Bible so that we can get you signed up for a three month trial period. Please join us next time as Stephen continues through this Bible teaching series right here on Wisdom for the Heart.