Rev. #39~12:1-4 Woman & Dragon 1-23-10
Well, we’re here in chapter 12: and we’re reading about an angelic conflict in this chapter between Gods angels and Satan’s angels, the angels that belong to Satan are the 1/3rd that was cast out of heaven with him when he thought he could take over Gods throne, that’s how Lucifer became Satan.
He must certainly be a convincing liar in order to cause 1/3rd of the angels to believe that he could.
God created him an angel, a powerful angel, his beauty was magnificent, he had the most prestigious and powerful position in heaven as he was over all the angels, he was Gods anointed cherub, God made him so.
At one time there were no fallen angels, all of the angels were faithful to God. Lucifer had the honored position of being in charge of all the angels, but because of pride and the desire to have Gods position of being worshipped he became sinful. Remember, he was a created angel, how can something created be more powerful than the Creator?
EZK. 28: 13-17 we read about him:
Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold: the workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes* {music} was prepared in thee in the day that thou wast created.
14Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth; {he watched over the Throne of God} and I have set thee so: thou wast upon the holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire.
15Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee.
16By the multitude of thy merchandise they have filled the midst of thee with violence, and thou hast sinned: {pride} therefore I will cast thee as profane out of the mountain of God:*{Gods kingdom in heaven} and I will destroy thee, O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire.
17Thine heart was lifted up because of thy beauty, thou hast corrupted thy wisdom by reason of thy brightness: {notice; thine, thy, thou, thy, thy } it was all his fault, no one else.** I will cast thee to the ground,-- Notice- he was cast to the ground, not hell, he has never been in hell.
1 Peter 5:8 Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour:--
The Son of God, Who at the set time would come to the earth as The Son of Man, the Lord Jesus, was there when Lucifer who then became Satan was cast out of heaven.
Luke 10: 18 And he said unto them, I beheld **Satan as lightning fall from heaven.
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Isaiah 14: 12 15 we’re told about him again;
How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer,** son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!
13For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars** of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north:
14I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High.
15Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit.
This will take place in Rev.20: 1-3 as the Lord Jesus sets up His 1000-year reign.
1And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. 2And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years, 3And cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up—
He was originally created Lucifer, **son of the morning, but he is now the epitome of evil and the depth of degradation. He is the most dangerous being in all of God’s creation. He is our enemy, he is the root cause of death, sickness, rape, murder, theft, war, any bad thing we might think of originates with Satan, he is constantly thinking of ways to cause havoc in the world, he knows if he can start a conflict between country’s that multitudes of souls will wind up in hell if they die lost, they’ll never have another opportunity to be saved if their killed in a war. Satan has had over 6000 years to study mankind’s weaknesses.
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Ø Listen as I read from Rev.12:
1And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars.
Last time we read scripture and determined that this “woman” is Israel.
Ø Let us never one time doubt that God will keep His promise to His people Israel, Israel will indeed be great in the sight of all nations, as the King of the Jews is ruling the world from Jerusalem.
Psalm 89:34-37 God says this;
34My covenant will I not break, nor alter the thing that is gone out of my lips. 35Once have I sworn by my holiness that I will not lie unto David.
36His seed shall endure for ever, and his throne as the sun before me. 37It shall be established for ever as the moon, and as a faithful witness in heaven. Selah.***
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- 2And she being with child cried, travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered.
In Revelation 12:2, the woman is pregnant and cried out as she was about to give birth. The child (Jesus Christ) was born before the travail. Israel’s travail will occur during the tribulation, after Christ’s birth that occurred at least two millennia before the tribulation period.
Isaiah 66:7-10 7 Before she** travailed,{before the tribulation time} she brought forth; before her pain came, she was delivered of a man child.
8 Who hath heard such a thing? who hath seen such things? Shall the earth be made to bring forth in one day? or shall a nation be born at once? for as soon as Zion travailed, she brought forth her children.
9 Shall I bring to the birth, and not cause to bring forth? saith the LORD: shall I cause to bring forth, and shut the womb? saith thy God.
10 Rejoice ye with Jerusalem, and be glad with her, all ye that love her: rejoice for joy with her, all ye that mourn for her:
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3And there appeared another wonder in heaven; and behold a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads.
The cause of all the anti-Semitism in the world is the presence and hatred of Satan for the Jews.
He is called “great”, this points to the magnitude of Satan’s power and activity in the world.
Ø “Red” emphasizes his murderous and bloodthirsty character and behavior all throughout history.
Ø “Dragon” pictures his ferocious and intensely cruel nature. “Having seven heads and ten horns”
Ø The “7 heads,” in Revelation 17:9 we read;
And here is the mind which hath wisdom. The seven heads are seven mountains, on which the woman sitteth. Rome is built on seven hills.
“ROME” sits on 7 mountains, this “harlot” of chapter 17: -the end time false church is seen sitting, in other words she is supported by Rome. –If your sitting on something it is supporting you.--
Ø We read about the 7 heads again in both 13: and 17:.
Ø The “10 horns”
This points to the ten-nation confederation of the revived Roman Empire, the system of the beast.
Ø Seven crowns upon his heads in verse 3
“Seven crowns” speaks of his ruling power, and also the power and authority which was given him, he has and will have great power especially in the last days.
Today he often appears as an angel of light; he hides his true identity, but in the Tribulation he will be seen for what he really is.
Let’s remember that Satan is not on any par with God but a rebellious being created a angel by God, but because of his rebellion is now Satan. Satan was defeated and judged at the cross of Jesus as He paid all the sin debt.
But let’s also remember that Satan is still the ruler of the air and the prince of this world until the return of Jesus Christ with all His saints, as we’re told in Ephesians 2:1-2
Satan retains the power given him until the day he is finally thrown into the lake of fire, which occurs in Revelation 20:7-11.
It is important that none of the attributions of God are applied to Satan: Satan is not omniscient as God, he is not omnipotent as God, nor is he omni-present as God.
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4And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth: and the dragon stood before the woman which was ready to be delivered, for to devour her child as soon as it was born.
In this chapter, the dragon is seen standing in front of the woman so that when she delivered the child (Jesus), he would devour Him. This has always been Satan’s tactic.
Throughout Israel’s history Satan has tried to destroy the Messianic line of Christ, from the rebellion of Absalom, to Queen Athaliah who tired to kill the whole royal family of Judah, but only Joash was protected,
2Chronicles 22:10-12
10But when Athaliah the mother of Ahaziah saw that her son was dead, she arose and destroyed all the seed royal of the house of Judah.
11But Jehoshabeath, the daughter of the king, took Joash the son of Ahaziah, and stole him from among the king’s sons that were slain, and put him and his nurse in a bedchamber.
So Jehoshabeath, the daughter of king Jehoram, the wife of Jehoiada the priest, (for she was the sister of Ahaziah,) hid him from Athaliah, so that she slew him not. 12And he was with them hid in the house of God six years: and Athaliah reigned over the land.
Satan did the same through Haman’s attempt to destroy all the Jews in the book of Esther, as well as in the attempt to destroy the child Jesus in sending out his order to kill all children two years old and younger in Bethlehem and its surrounding areas through the order of King Herod.
Since Satan cannot be at all places at once, nor observe everyone or their thoughts, these other fallen angels, {demons} are out in the world which at this present time Satan is ruling to a certain extent.
2 Corinthians 4:4 In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not,-
Ø The devil has assigned certain powerful demons to keep chaos among the nations.
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Angels have a free will; some of them chose to follow Satan in his rebellion against God.
Listen; the angels are in different orders, ranks, and positions and have various powers and abilities.
Listen- Col. 1:16 For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him.
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Ø Like in all great armies there is a rank structure:
We are told here that He created thrones, which would be the archangel Michael, and the messenger angel Gabriel and other special envoys.
There are dominions, which would be the cherubim and seraphim.
There are principalities, which would be in our way of thinking the generals, of the angelic hosts.
And powers would be perhaps the privates such as serve as guardian angels (Heb. 1:4).
Some angels in the rank of principalities, that is, the generals, fell away to join with Satan.
Notice what is said about “principalities”:
Eph. 6:12 For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.
Satan also has his angels organized according to rank. Just as one army is set over against another army, there are generals on both sides. Satan’s “principalities,” or generals, seem to have the oversight of nations.
His “powers” are the privates of his army who are demons that seek to possess human beings.
The “rulers of the darkness of this world” are demons that have charge of Satan’s worldly business.
We can think of what we see right here in our own government, it seems as though our own government is doing as it pleases regardless of what is penned down in the Constitution, regardless what the people of the country want.
We can see the demons are busy in the affairs of the Iranian dictator, and then Chavez of Venezuela.
Then there is “spiritual wickedness” in the heavenlies, which are the demons who have charge of religion.
Satan’s department of religion is the largest department of all. He is in the business of religion. Satan is not against religion. He is promoting religion—not Christ, but religion.
Satan wants you to have religion to keep you content until its too late, he don’t even care if you go to a good Bible believing Church, maybe sing in the choir or even teach a Sunday School class, just don’t get saved, with each passing day there are people that are faithful to going to Church but suddenly they die, and die lost, that is just fine with Satan, he hates the entire human race.
Even these poor souls that worship Satan, he hates them too and soon they’ll be gone.
These two groups move in the arena of this universe in which we live. They are engaged in ceaseless warfare to capture the souls of men.
Ø There are many religions but only one salvation.
John chapter 3, Jesus dogmatically declares, YE MUST BE BORN AGAIN.
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Since Satan cannot be at all places at once, nor observe everyone or their thoughts, these other fallen angels, {demons} are out in the world which at this present time Satan is ruling to a certain extent.
2 Corinthians 4:4 In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not,-
