A Study of The Book of Revelation
SATAN
The Red Dragon
The second of the seven personages
SATAN
The Red Dragon
The second of the seven personages
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| E. Gillespie |
Satan is a fallen angel; and
particularly the chief of them. He is the great principle of evil in the world;
and it is his grand object to counteract the good that God desires to do.
He exerts himself, especially with his angels, to draw away the souls of men from
embracing salvation through Jesus Christ.
His name signifies the calumniator, or false accuser; as the Hebrew
Satan means the adversary. The scriptures give him various other
appellations descriptive of his character. He is called, "The
prince of this world," Joh 12:31; "The prince of the power
of the air," Eph 2:2; "The god of this world," 2Co 4:4;
"The dragon, that old serpent, the devil," Re 20:2; "That wicked one,"
1Jo 5:18; "A roaring lion," 1Pe 5:8; "A murderer,"
"a liar," Joh 8:44; "Beelzebub," Mt 12:24;
"Belial," 2Co 6:15; "The accuser of the brethren," Re 12:10.
He is everywhere shown to be full of malignity, cruelty, and deceit, hating God
and man. He is ceaselessly active in his efforts to destroy souls, and uses
innumerable devices and wiles to adapt his temptations to the varying characters and
conditions of men, enticing wicked men, and even good men at times, as
well as his own angels, to aid in his work.
The Devil’s expressed purpose is to destroy
the prophecies of God, it does not matter to him how many souls he tramples
upon to achieve his objective. If he can destroy the prophecies he win. The world is suffering under the curse that
was brought on by the fall of man. The
Devil was successful in his attempt to pervert the plan of God in the garden of
Eden, and he was successful in his campaign to pollute the moral character of God’s chosen
people. Now the church is at the
forefront of his attack. The inhabitants of the world are enduring the pain and
suffering that is a direct result of man’s fall from grace and many are placing the blame
on God. This pretentious nature of the believers of God is
not overlooked by the Devil and his disciples.
The God of our salvation is trivialized in
such a manner that his believability is called into question. God is portrayed as engaging in a day to
day battle with Satan, and he is working behind the
scenes fixing what the Devil messes up. If this were true then it would seem as if the
Devil was no match for God. This is not scriptural,
there is but one battle plan and it is laid out in the book of
Revelation, it will be swift and decisive. Jesus knew of the trials the
church would endure, and his final instructions were, “if you can
endure, I will give you a crown of life.” We need to reorient our thinking
to realize that the gospel of Grace provides for rewards in the Kingdom. All of the promises to the church
is of a spiritual nature, the promises to the Jews is of a natural nature.
From the time he used Eve to
pervert and pollute the word of God the whole world has been
under his sway. But he is a doomed foe. Christ shall bruise the Serpent's
head; shall dispossess him for the world, and confine him forever in the place
prepared for him and his angels, Mt 25:41.
We will begin with a
scary but beautiful allegorical presentation of the of the
Devil . An allegory conveys its hidden message
through symbolic figures, actions, imagery, and/or
events. We will explore every facet of the beast in
an attempt to understand their symbolic meaning. Remember, we will be dealing with
a “wonder” in Heaven.
Verses 3 and 4: “And
there appeared another wonder in heaven; and behold a great
red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and
seven crowns upon his heads. And 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.”
The red dragon is Satan presented here
in his most horrifying character. Read Revelation 20:2, Ezekiel
29:3-4 and Jeremiah 51:34. Being a Red dragon signifies the dragon’s
murderous nature. This dragon is spectacular in that
he has seven heads, ten horns, and seven crowns. What is said
of him here was predicted of the beast we find in
Revelation 13:1. The seven-crowned heads of the dragon refer
to the concentration of earthly power and wisdom in
cruel and tyrannical rule. His ten horns; point to the
future extent and limit of his kingdom. He will be
the unseen force behind ten kings
(rulers) who will rule over the
ten kingdoms of the empire. (Study the rise of the European Union)
The red dragon will be the ruler of the world-wide Gentile monarchy.
He will carry on his government through its personal heads,
the little horn referred to in Daniel 7. There is a conspiracy
today being conducted in the hidden chambers of
world rulership. This conspiracy should serve as a sign of
the impending doom which we shall discuss later.
We note in verse 4
that the dragon’s tail will pull down one-third of the
stars in Heaven. The tail of this dragon is
certainly one of his outstanding features. His
tail swings through Heaven, coils about celestial principalities,
“and draweth along a third part of the stars, and casteth them down to earth.”
These are specific heavenly bodies with which we are now dealing
with, not the little stars that twinkle. Remember, we
are dealing with a “wonder” in Heaven. The stars here
are angels. The being (or angel) who came down to unlock the bottomless pit was referred to as a star (chapter
9). These angels are truly the “stars of heaven.” When God
made the world in the beginning, “the morning stars sang together and
all the sons of God shouted for joy” (Job 38:7). These were
the angelic hosts, they are called stars because
of their beauty and glory. They are the stars of
Heaven because they pertain to Heaven, and are the most sublime ornaments
of the celestial world. Satan - the red
dragon mentioned here - was at one time the leader of
all stars (Isaiah 14:12, Ezekiel 28:12-15). Study these
verses carefully. Jude speaks of the angels “which kept not their
first estate, but left their habitation” (Jude 6). Peter
refers to the angels who sinned, who were cast down
and are now “in chains of darkness” (II Peter 2:4).
There was a day when
Lucifer, “the shining one,” became so jealous of The Lord God that
he decided he could overthrow God.
He brainwashed some of the angels, brought evil among the heavenly creatures
and indoctrinated many of them - soiled their robes,
tarnished their crowns, silenced their songs,
dislodged them from their glorious seats and took from them every noble impulse and
holy affection. They connected with him in an all-out
attempt to overthrow the God who had created them. How this horrible tragedy
came about is mentioned in various places in the Bible. The
Bible does not say how many angels Satan led astray
except here in this Scripture, where the dragon pulls one-third
of the stars down to earth, drawn from their place of shining in
God’s great beauty of Heaven. Jude tells us that they are now reserved in
chains in darkness. Can we find a plan in the scripture to
replace these fallen angels? These fallen angels
are blacked out, they no longer shine. Disobedience to
God brings spiritual blackout and spiritual slavery.
All sinners are slaves, in bondage to the devil.
We should always remember the
devil is a powerful being. Three times. Jesus
Himself declared that the devil is “the prince of
this world” (John 12:31 14:30 16:11) Paul in later years declared the devil to be “the
god of this world” (II Corinthians 4:4). John testifies that
“the whole world lies in wickedness (In the lap of the
wicked one)” (I John 5:19). When we look around us today we certainly agree
with John. The whole world seems to have sold out to Satan.
The red dragon had ten horns. Horns are instruments of
destruction (Zechariah 1:18-21), and ten is the number of
evil, worldly completeness. With ten horns the dragon gores,
wounds, hurt, scatters, destroys and kills.
The dragon has seven heads - but whether he
comes with the head of “an angel of light” or the
head of “a roaring horn,” he has the same heart and is
the father of the same confusion, deception and destruction.
His head may change but his heart never changes.
The dragon is RED - the
color of the horse whose rider took peace from the earth
(Revelation 6:4). Red is also the color of the apparel
of the Almighty King when He comes in HIS strength
to crush all His enemies (Revelation 19:11-16; Isaiah 63:2-4). Red
describes flaming heat,
Intensity of fierceness, bloody administrations - and all
these terms describe the true nature of the dragon. Satan is and will
be a “murderer from the beginning to the end” (John 8:44).
Satan is the red,
bloody dragon, but few of us have ever realized the power
of the devil. Ever since
he became Satan he has been extremely envious and jealous of
God. Here in our Scripture he is making his last
great drive to overthrow the God of all creation.
Under the mysterious economy of God, Satan has only been able to make certain mighty strides toward the realization of his fallen desire
and purpose. “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.” According to the Word of God, principality after principality in the
celestial realms succumbed and fell
to his drawing power. Now there exists a mighty confederation of
demons, fallen angels, men, and disembodied spirits numbering untold
millions, who burden
the atmosphere and overspread this planet with disorder,
anarchy, misrule, darkness, gloom, sorrow, tears,
death, murder - thousands dying indescribably horrible
deaths because of the power of Satan. We dishonor our God
when we blame the works of the Devil on him.
Jesus is more than a match for
Satan, and Jesus is the only one who can handle him, but
even Jesus feared when He saw the
cup of bitterness He must drink in order
to put a stop to Satan’s destruction. (Mark tells us that Jesus
“was sore amazed.”) The devil turned loose all Hell’s
demons, principalities and powers to prevent Jesus from paying the ransom
note and making it possible for the captives to be set free.
But in spite of the devil and all Hell,
Jesus drank the bitter cup to the last dreg, and just
before He died He proclaimed, “It is finished!” (John
19:30). Then in the book of Revelation he sent
a message to his church that said, “If you can endure (the same as I have) I will give you
a crown of life.”
Satan is a
defeated foe. He knows his days are numbered, and therefore he
is working overtime to damn every soul he can and breaks
every heart he can. The latter part of verse
4 enlightens us further about the dragon: He
stands ready to devour the woman’s man child the
moment it is born. The dragon was not trying
to destroy the woman - but the son, Jesus. In Genesis 3:15
God announced to Satan that the Seed of the woman would bruise
(crush) his head. That moment war was declared between the
Seed of the woman and the seed of the devil.
The battle became bloody when Cain killed Abel. (Satan was attempting to destroy the
Seed that would crush his head . He was stabbing
at the Seed of the woman.) The battle raged through the Old
Testament and was renewed in the New
Testament even before Jesus was born. It
continued in all bitterness until at last Jesus proclaimed,
“It is finished!” Then the devil turned his attention to the
church.
From the day in the
Garden of Eden when the Lord served notice on Satan that the Seed of the woman would
bruise his head, until Jesus said, “It is finished,” the devil did everything
in his ungodly power to devour the Man child -
the Lord Jesus. He tried to corrupt the seed in the
Old Testament era, he tried to
kill the Baby when it was born, he caused the parents to forget the Child
when He was twelve years of age, leaving Him in the temple with
the very crowd who later crucified Him. The unholy crowd tried
to push Him over the precipice, they tried to stone Him,
they tried to kill Him at the whipping post; but Jesus
Christ the Son of God had a single mission to fulfill, and He
marched on until He could say, “It is finished!”
The Child
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