The Dragon Wars Series

The Book of Revelation

“The Dragon Wars”

Revelation 12

We are living in a day when most people want to deny the real cause of the trouble we see in our world. We don’t want to see the results of what’s going on in our world or even in our lives as the works of sin and the devil.

Yet this is exactly what we see happening as the author of sin is on a warpath, and we’re his intended targets.

Dragons are mythical creatures that haunt the culture of every civilization, from the Babylonians to the Chinese to the Europeans. Long ago, when much of the world was still undiscovered, mapmakers would insert the ominous lines—“here be dragons,” and dragons would be drawn by these map makers in the blank spaces.

Today most of us leave dragons for fairy tales, books, or movies. But the dragon we’ll be looking at today is no fairy tale. He is real, and he’s been around a long time, and he’s just as deadly and diabolical as he’s ever been.

He is the monster behind all other monsters, the ultimate horror of the universe. And this monster, this dragon wages war right now against Israel and Jesus Christ, not to mention you and me.

And so in our time together I’d like to look at three wars that Satan gets engaged in and we need to understand so that we can be not only wise, but overcomers.

Read Revelation 12

The First War – Against Israel and the Messiah

This dragon stands in front of the woman, waiting greedily to devour the child as soon as He’s born. Suddenly the pains increase, and the Child enters the world, but before the dragon can destroy the Child, He is snatched up and taken to heaven, to God’s throne, and the woman flees into the desert to a refuge prepared by God for 1260 days.

What does it all mean? To begin, this is a past, present and future war that has been, and continues to be played out in our midst.

In this chapter there are three main characters.

The Woman: Israel

John says in verse one, “Now a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a garland of twelve stars.” (Revelation 12:1 NKJV)

This has interesting parallel to Joseph’s dream back in Genesis. In this dream his father was the sun, his mother the moon, and his brother’s stars. Jacob and his 12 sons represent the nation of Israel. And so the 12 stars on her head symbolize the 12 tribes of Israel.

The Child: Jesus

The male child is Jesus the Messiah. Verse five says, “She bore a male Child who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron. And her Child was caught up to God and His throne.” (Revelation 12:5 NKJV)

The iron scepter comes right out of Psalm 2:9 speaking about the Messiah who shall be King, who is no one less than the Son of God. It says of Him that He “Shall break them with a rod of iron; You shall dash them to pieces like a potter's vessel.” (Psalm 2:9 NKJV) The “them” are the nations that rise up against God and His Messiah.

The kind of rod it’s talking about is a “shepherds rod,” and because it’s made out of iron, it means that this shepherd is very strong. Jesus spoke of Himself as the ‘good shepherd’, but He’s also a very powerful!

Note that it says her child was snatched up to God and to his throne. John is compacting the entire life and ministry of Jesus Christ into three events, His birth, death and resurrection, and His ascension into heaven.

The Dragon: Satan

The dragon is described in verse four. “A great, fiery red dragon having seven heads and ten horns, and seven diadems on his heads.” (Revelation 12:3 NKJV) because of its heads, horns, and crowns, some say it’s the Antichrist. But John tells us exactly who this is in verse nine.

“So the great dragon was cast out, that serpent of old, called the Devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world; he was cast to the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.” (Revelation 12:9 NKJV)

While this has implication as to the coming Antichrist, which we’ll see more about next week, what we do know is that seven is the number of completeness, ten is the number of authority. And so you might say that Satan is really strong and deadly, seeing that he is fiery red, the color of blood. But it also encompasses the Antichrist’s dominion.

And so the war is waged. First it is against the woman, Israel, in the attempt to stop and destroy the male child, Jesus. But before he could succeed Jesus was caught up to heaven, where He is now at the right hand of God, and He is coming again to put all things right, that is, put evil in its place, which is hell and the lake of fire.