The Dragon

Revelation 12:1-:13:1

Welcome! Today we will continue our series in Revelation, focusing on Chapter 12. Due to the amount of content here and limited time, I want to give only the briefest of overviews in terms of where we are in Revelation. We have had seven letters for seven churches, pointing out their strengths and weaknesses and giving them instructions in how to respond. We have been presented a special scroll that no one is worthy to open, except the Lamb of God, Christ. We have seen seven seals opened, one after another, with increasing signs and tribulations on the people in the vision. We have seen seven trumpets blown by angels, each also accompanied by judgments against the people, who despite all this, continue to remain unrepentant. There are seven thunders, but we don’t get to see these; they remain “sealed up.” Interspersed with these events are other events and images, including several scenes of multitudes worshiping at the throne of God, a scene of the sealing up of the 144,000, protecting them from what is to come, and a scene of two witnesses who will prophecy for 1260 days against the unrepentant people, be killed, and come back to life. At the end of chapter 11, it is announced that it is time, finally, for judgment of the unrepentant, for rewarding those who followed after Christ, and “for destroying those who destroy the earth.” And then God’s temple in heaven was opened and the Ark of the Covenant could be seen.

Just a few quick comments on this before we begin today’s passage. First, have you noticed all the openings in Revelation? A door was opened in chapter 4, the seals on the scroll were opened in chapter 6, the Abyss was opened in chapter 9, and here, God’s temple in heaven is opened. I am reminded of C.S. Lewis’ phrase in the end of the Narnia series, where the people who had put their trust in the great Lion, symbolic of Christ, were told, “Further up and further in!” as they raced deeper and deeper into the new Narnia and the presence of God. I get that same sense here.

Note that to see the Temple opened, even for John, would have been a big deal. The earthly Temple, a mere shadow and hint of things to come, was only in Old Testament times opened once a year, and into the most holy place, where the ark was, only the high priest went in, where he atoned for the sins of his people, pouring the blood of an innocent animal over the ark. All of that was just a hint of what was to come, and I believe what was shown here. The ark of God’s temple in heaven now was opened, not just for the high priest to enter in, not just for one day, but for all, and for good. It’s not closed up again later in Revelation. And no blood of an innocent animal was poured here, because Christ, who was without sin, and was also high priest, poured out His own blood to pay for the sins of His people, all who would accept the priceless gift of His sacrifice on their behalf. And so, at the end of chapter 11, the temple is opened, and there is the ark! It is time at last for the final things!

A great 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. She was pregnant and cried out in pain as she was about to give birth. Then another sign appeared in heaven: an enormous red dragon with seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns on its heads. Its 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 it might devour her child the moment he was born. – Rev. 12:1-4

There are two signs in this passage. What is a sign? Signs point to things; they are not the things themselves. We have a sign in front of our church building that says, “Clemson Community Church.” If you were to look at the sign, climb up it, sit on top, and declare, I am at Clemson Community Church! It’s rather small…” – if you were to do that, you would be rather foolish. The sign is not the thing, but it points to or portends the thing. In Matthew 12, some scribes and Pharisees wanted a sign from Jesus, but he told them that no sign would be given to an evil and adulterous generation (meaning them) but the sign of Jonah. In Matthew 12, some Pharisees and Sadducees came to Jesus again, this time more specifically asking for a sign from heaven. (Note that our two signs in this chapter are in heaven.) And Jesus replied to them again, the same thing, no sign for this wicked and adulterous generation but the sign of Jonah. Now some commentators have debated what the sign of Jonah is, but to me the common sense understanding is that Jonah was believed dead, being swallowed by a great fish, but yet reappeared as alive after 3 days. In a similar way, Jesus not only appeared dead, but was dead, crucified on the cross, and buried, but in 3 days, He quite literally rose from the dead.

So here we have two signs in heaven, great signs (from the Greek, “mega”-signs), the sign of the woman and the sign of the dragon. We are not told directly at this point who these signs point to, but there are strong clues. The woman, clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head, who is she? Some might think the church, but the church is consistently described as a different kind of woman, not a pregnant woman, but a what? A bride. Not even so much a bride, as in a newly married person, but as in an about-to-be-married person. And here in Revelation, the wedding feast of the Lamb has not yet taken place. So it is unreasonable to ascribe the sign of the woman as pointing to the church. I have said repeatedly in this series that the visions and prophetic language in Revelation is a continuation of that elsewhere in the Bible, that Revelation is filled with allusions to other passages. So is this sign also an allusion to something somewhere else in the Bible? Let’s look at Genesis 37. Remember Joseph and his dreams:

Then he had another dream, and he told it to his brothers. “Listen,” he said, “I had another dream, and this time the sun and moon and eleven stars were bowing down to me.” – Gen. 37:9

Joseph’s brothers were not impressed. Joseph’s father Jacob immediately understood the implication, that the 11 stars were his brothers, and that the sun and moon were Jacob and Joseph’s mother, Rachel. He gives this interpretation (saying, in effect, Joseph, you actually think this is going to happen?) in the very next verses. So it makes sense that the sign of the woman is the sign of Israel. If so, the child that she is about to give birth to is the Messiah, Jesus, who comes from the line of Israel.

Note that these signs, then, point to the telling of the grand story of the gospel, of the history of man, and the redemption of man through Jesus, who came through the line of Israel. Israel as a mother about to give birth is a repeated theme in the Old Testament. One particular example that seems to have direct bearing on this passage is from Micah 5:

But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times. Therefore Israel will be abandoned until the time when she who is in labor bears a son, and the rest of his brothers return to join the Israelites. – Micah 5:2-3

This verse speaks of Jesus on so many levels that it makes my head spin. Jesus, born in Bethlehem, Jesus born yet origins of from old, from ancient (literally pre-history) times, and then the seeming tie-in to this passage in Revelations, as we will see!

What does the sign of the dragon (or serpent) point to? If you jump ahead, it clearly, as clear as anything ever gets in Revelation, points to Satan.  Here we can also go all the way back to Genesis 3.

So the Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, “Cursed are you above all livestock and all wild animals! You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life. And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.” To the woman He said, “I will make your pains in childbearing very severe…” - Gen. 3:14-16a

Here in Revelation it says that the dragon stood in front of the woman who was about to give birth, so that it might devour her child the moment he was born; here is that enmity displayed. We will talk more in the future about the seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns when more detail is given in a later passage, several weeks from now, so I won’t say anything about it here.

This theme of Satan trying to devour the promised child has happened again and again in Scripture. Think of Moses; Pharaoh made a law that every Hebrew boy was to be cast into the Nile to die. In making this decree, Pharaoh acted as a servant of the dragon. To kill Moses was to kill the line from which Jesus would come and to kill Moses himself, who was a kind of shadow, or hint of things to come, in Jesus. And of course there is Jesus Himself; Herod, like Pharaoh, tried to have Him killed off too; Herod also acted as a servant of the dragon.  But there are other cases where the line leading to Jesus was almost eliminated; read 2 Chronicles 21 and 22 for an amazing example.

Satan tried again and again to kill Jesus; in Luke 4, we read that He filled the people of the synagogue in Nazareth, Jesus’ hometown with so much rage that they cast Jesus out of the city, led Him to the edge of a cliff to throw Him off, but He somehow disappeared. In Matthew 4, Satan tried to get Jesus to kill Himself by suggesting that He throw Himself off the highest point of the Temple to prove who He said He was, because surely if it was true, the angels would save Him, He said. 

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. The woman fled into the wilderness to a place prepared for her by God, where she might be taken care of for 1,260 days. – Rev. 12:5-6

So we now have a third character – clearly, Jesus. The quote is from Psalm 2. The entire Psalm points to Christ (yet written centuries before the New Testament). Here is the Psalm in its entirety:

Why do the nations conspire and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth rise up and the rulers band together against the Lord and against His anointed, saying, “Let us break their chains and throw off their shackles.” The One enthroned in heaven laughs; the Lord scoffs at them. He rebukes them in His anger and terrifies them in His wrath, saying,“I have installed My king on Zion, My holy mountain.” – Psalm 2:1-6

I will proclaim the Lord’s decree: He said to me, “You are My Son; today I have become your Father. Ask Me, and I will make the nations your inheritance, the ends of the earth your possession. You will break them with a rod of iron; you will dash them to pieces like pottery.” Therefore, you kings, be wise; be warned, you rulers of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear and celebrate His rule with trembling. Kiss His Son, or He will be angry and your way will lead to your destruction, for his wrath can flare up in a moment. Blessed are all who take refuge in Him. – Psalm 2:7-12

Now it says that the woman (remember, that seems to point to Israel) will be protected. So the dragon not only goes after the Son, but after the Woman (Israel) as well. We have seen that throughout the last two thousand years. The Jews have been severely persecuted again and again, and are persecuted today, and yet, they are protected.  

Then war broke out in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back. But he was not strong enough, and they lost their place in heaven. 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. – Rev. 12:7-9

At every step, the dragon tries to thwart the will and plan of God. He tries to snuff out the line of Jesus. He tries to kill Jesus Himself. And here he tries to wage war against the angels in heaven. But he is unsuccessful; note that the dragon is clearly identified as Satan here. By the way, it is fascinating to look at all the times Michael is mentioned in the Bible. In Daniel 10, Michael assists the angel that comes to Daniel after being held back by demonic battles for 21 days. In Daniel 12, Daniel is told that Michael will arise after standing guard over the sons of Daniel’s people, referring to a future time of tribulation. Another instance is in Jude 9, where it says that Michael and the devil were fighting about the body of Moses. What did the devil want with the body of Moses? Perhaps he wanted to prevent the transfiguration. Or perhaps he wanted to thwart the two witnesses in Revelation 11, one of whom John suggested might well be Moses.

I do want to point out that the result of the battle is that Satan and his angels lose decisively, and lose their place in heaven; literally, no longer was any place found for them in heaven. You may ask what were they doing up there? Serving as accuser. Recall that Satan had this roll even in the book of Job, and Accuser is one of his names. But after this battle, no longer.

Note that another of Satan’s names is Deceiver, one who leads the whole world astray. That is literally true in that he deceived Adam and Eve in the beginning, leading to the Fall. But he continues to lead the world astray even now. One of the reasons our world is such a mess is because he leads people away from God. He makes them doubt, just as he did to Adam. And he entices them with false promises and twisted versions of the truth, just as he tried to do (but failed) with Jesus. The guilt of Satan and his angels does not absolve us of ours, though; we must always freely choose to listen to his lies and doubt God, and so we are just as guilty of our sin as he is. The same was true in Eden; he was punished, but so were Adam and Eve.

Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say: “Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Messiah. For the accuser of our brothers and sisters, who accuses them before our God day and night, has been hurled down. They triumphed over him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death. – Rev. 12:10-11

Who is the “they” referring to here? I don’t believe it refers to the angels, but to people, the “our brothers and sisters.” I believe this is a phrase never used for angels, by the way. Being created male and female is something true of mankind but not, I think, of angels. So what I think this passage is doing is giving a parenthetical remark about how we, as people, triumph over the accuser. 

Three things are mentioned. First, it is by the blood of the Lamb – that is, when accused by Satan about sin (and we do sin), the overcomers did not rely on their own righteousness to cover or forgive them, but on Christ’s. It is false to believe that one, or two, or even a thousand good acts cancel one bad one. It’s not how it works. God is perfectly holy. To be in His presence we need to be perfectly holy. We can’t do that if we have even one sin. But when we accept Christ’s payment for our sins, His blood makes us righteous in Him. When God looks at a believer trusting in Christ, He doesn’t see our sins but Christ’s righteousness.

Second is the word of their testimony. I believe that this means that they didn’t give up faith; they continued to trust in Him and to tell others of Him, of what He had done for them. And third, they were willing to lose their lives rather than deny Him. They were ready to become martyrs for Him rather than renounce Him, if that is what their lives led to. Their agape love for Christ was greater than their agape love for their own lives. These three things are how you overcome Satan.

Therefore rejoice, you heavens and you who dwell in them! But woe to the earth and the sea, because the devil has gone down to you! He is filled with fury, because he knows that his time is short.” When the dragon saw that he had been hurled to the earth, he pursued the woman who had given birth to the male child. The woman was given the two wings of a great eagle, so that she might fly to the place prepared for her in the wilderness, where she would be taken care of for a time, times and half a time, out of the serpent’s reach. – Rev. 12:12-14

Then from his mouth the serpent spewed water like a river, to overtake the woman and sweep her away with the torrent. But the earth helped the woman by opening its mouth and swallowing the river that the dragon had spewed out of his mouth. Then the dragon was enraged at the woman and went off to wage war against the rest of her offspring—those who keep God’s commands and hold fast their testimony about Jesus. The dragon stood on the shore of the sea.  – Rev. 12:15-13:1a

Although I believe this speaks of a future time, the anger of the dragon is real today. He wages war today against the hearts and minds of believers, trying to get them to doubt God’s love or His existence, trying to get them to renounce Him, to forsake Him. And he wages war today against the hearts and minds of unbelievers, trying to get them to do his dirty work, trying to get them to persecute believers and other unbelievers, to commit horrible acts against both believers and other unbelievers, to wage war, to kill, to abuse, and so on. The dragon hates mankind, and is happy to use mankind to destroy itself.

I think this passage is especially appropriate today given that today is the International Day of Prayer for the persecuted church. I want to spend our remaining time talking about the state of persecution of Christians in 2014. I want you to know what is going on so that you can pray effectively, specifically, for our brothers and sisters throughout the world who are experiencing, through other people, the wrath of the dragon.

Where is persecution taking place? The map, from the website worldwatchlist.us, shows which countries were most severely persecuted as of the beginning of the year; I don’t think a lot has changed, except for the fact that things became dramatically worse in Iraq and Syria, but these countries were already in the dark red color, which represents extreme persecution; the light red represents severe persecution and the orange represents moderate persecution. As of the beginning of the year, the worst countries, in order according to the organization that produced the map, were as follows.

Country              Population    Christians    Source of persecution

#1 North Korea   25 million     300,000       Atheistic state 

#2 Somalia         10 million     300              Islamic extremism (I.E.)

#3 Syria              22 million     1,300,000    Islamic extremism 

#4 Iraq                36 million     300,000       Islamic extremism 

#5 Afghanistan   36 million     3000             I.E./tribal antagonism

#6 Saudi Arabia  30 million     1,300,000     Islamic extremism

#7 Maldives        300,000       few              Islamic extremism

#8 Pakistan        186 million   5,300,000     Islamic extremism

#9 Iran                77 million     450,000       Islamic extremism

#10 Yemen         27 million     3000            Islamic extremism

#11 Sudan          45 million     unknown      I.E./dictatorial state

#12 Eritrea          6 million       3,000,000    I.E./dictatorial state

#13 Libya            7 million       30,000         Islamic extremism

#14 Nigeria         75 million     89,000,000    Islamic extremism

Notes: 
#1: 50,000 to 70,000 Christians in prison labor camps

#2: Christians discovered from a Muslim background face immediate execution.

#3: Towns and cities that used to have a large Christian population have become ghost towns.

#4: Like #3; many Christians are fleeing the country with only the clothes they are wearing.

#5: Christians, regardless of background, are considered an enemy of the state.

#6: If you are pregnant, your baby is considered a Muslim. Conversion to another faith is punishable by death.
#7: (Islands south of India.) The religious unity act states that all citizens must be Muslim to live in the Maldives.
#8: More than 700 Christian girls are kidnapped and forced to convert to Islam.
#9: The government monitors churches, arrests converts, and has closed some churches.
#10: Converts face the death penalty.

Most of these countries have experienced increased deterioration in the situation for Christians in the past year and in 2014. The most dramatic change has been in Syria and Iraq with the emergence of ISIS/ISIL/IS. I want to say a little about this, from a Christian perspective. My main source is worldwatchmonitor.org.

“Islamic State (IS) is a group of Sunni militants who have set up a self-pronounced Caliphate at the end of June 2014. The group stems from radical groups formerly affiliated with al-Qaeda and aims at setting up a strict form of Sharia law in its state… Islamic State [rejects] participation in the democratic system and [uses] violence to advance [its] goals. All people under this regime are subjected to an absolute application of shari'ah law. This is done by an excessive use of violence, which adherents believe is sanctioned by the Koran… Once IS has established itself, the high level of violence should, in theory, drop because Christians will either have been killed, have fled or have conformed to a hard-core 'dhimmi' contract, by which they pay a 'protection tax' and are treated as second class citizens. 

“The contract is an integral part of traditional Islamic sharia law dating back to medieval times and requiring non-Muslims, in this instance Christians, to pay protection money which only allows them to gather for worship in churches. Under the dhimmi contract, public expressions of Christian faith are not allowed. These prohibitions include: Christian wedding and funeral processions; ringing of church bells; praying in public and scripture being read out loud for Muslims to hear; Christian symbols, like crosses, cannot be displayed openly; churches and monasteries cannot be repaired or restored irrespective if damage was collateral or intentional; and Christians are also not allowed to make offensive remarks about Muslims or Islam. The dhimmi contract also enforces an Islamic dress code, like the veiling for women, and commercial and dietary regulations, including a ban on alcohol. Muslims who convert to Christianity, though, would undoubtedly be killed…

“Currently, Islamic State holds an area as large as the country of Jordan… Where Islamic State has gained power, their reign of terror is driving all Christians and other minorities out. Before Islamic State began its rampage, about 3000 Christians had been living in Mosul, down from 35,000 after the 2003 war. Now, there are virtually no Christians left. The mainly Christian town of Qarakosh has been abandoned as well, along with other villages; the last Christians have left the northern town of Bartella. Tens of thousands of Christians have become internally displaced, fleeing to the Kurdish region, with cities like Erbil and Dohuk taking in thousands of them. A Christian mother voices the feelings many Christians are sharing: ‘If we stay, this will happen over and over again. First we wanted to stay in Iraq, it's our home, we love this land, but it's too much. We can't live like this anymore.’

“But what is perhaps even more worrying is what many of them take with them. While fleeing their homes and leaving behind everything but the clothes on their backs, Christians - adults and children alike - take with them fear. It is a fear that haunts their days and fuels nightmares. Children wake up screaming in the night: 'IS is coming, IS is coming!" It is a fear based on reality. In its efforts to set up and maintain a pure Islamic caliphate, Islamic State is using all means necessary, including the use of extreme violence. Affected and targeted are the majority Muslims, but also non-Sunnis, such as Shia Muslims, Yazidis and Christians. Islamic State itself has made no secret of its intentions, as is shown by a statement of IS after conquering regions where large communities of Christians had been living for hundreds of years: "We offer them three choices: Islam, the dhimmi contract, and if they refuse this they have nothing but the sword."

I share this not because I have any hatred for Muslims; I see Muslims as I see all non-Christians, lost people who are desperately in need of Christ. I share this because I want you to have some idea of what persecution against Christians looks like in these countries so that you have some facts to fuel your prayers for these countries in which persecution is most intense. And it really goes without saying that we should be opposed to all religious persecution, not just persecution against Christians. I think of Corrie ten Boom’s family hiding Jews in World War II, risking (and ultimately, in the case of Corrie’s family, losing) their very lives in the process. To do such things is to truly demonstrate the love of Christ. 

We are commanded to pray:

Continue to remember those in prison as if you were together with them in prison, and those who are mistreated as if you yourselves were suffering. – Heb. 13:3

And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people. – Eph 6:18

You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. – Matt. 5:43-44

And something to pray for our persecuted brothers and sisters:

They triumphed over him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death. – Rev. 12:11