The Red Dragon

Posted on by korgrocker

“Then I witnessed in heaven another significant event. I saw a large red dragon with seven heads and ten horns, with seven crowns on his heads. His tail swept away one-third of the stars in the sky, and he threw them to the earth….”
Revelation 12:3-4a 

No prizes for guessing who this red dragon is. John again knows he is witnessing another “significant event“. Something special is about to happen. The red dragon is large, we are told. And he has seven heads, ten horns, seven crowns and a tail. What is this all about? It is worth reading Daniel 7, which gives us some insight into John’s description of the devil, particularly with reference to the horns.

The dragon has always, Biblically, referred to satan. Theologians propose that the heads, horns and crowns all refer to the Roman Empire. Their theology suggests that the seven heads describe the seven mountains on which Rome was built, the ten horns were ten kingdoms into which the Roman Empire was divided and the seven crowns confirm the seven-fold foundation of Rome. The fact that the dragon was coloured red confirms, they say, that the Roman Empire was involved. But the Roman Empire came and went, and has been replaced by many different governmental and political scenarios over the years, covering Europe and the Middle East. Another possibility is that John had a flashback in his vision, seeing events that had already happened.

Regardless, though, of what John’s vision actually meant, what conclusion can we draw from this verse in his Revelation? The implication is that a world power, under the devil’s jurisdiction, was dominant. John saw the devil’s tail sweep away a third “of the stars in the sky“.  There seems to be hints in the Bible that a third of all the angels rebelled along with satan and were thrown out of Heaven, so perhaps that explains the reference to the stars. Incidentally, we note that the stars were thrown down onto the earth. The angels have fallen from holiness and purity into uncleanliness, and have become the demons that have aggravated and tormented mankind from the beginning. But overall we get a picture of a malevolent being, waiting for a baby to be born. 

The devil, with his angels, has caused unimaginable misery and distress to mankind from the very beginning. He started with Adam and Eve and hasn’t let up one bit ever since. He even tried to tempt Jesus but had to give up in the face of a superior Being. The Apostle Peter wrote about the malevolence of the devil in 1 Peter 5:8, “Stay alert! Watch out for your great enemy, the devil. He prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour”. We have been warned! The devil hates pilgrims like us, people who are blood-bought followers of Jesus, because we have declared our allegiance to God and His Kingdom, instead of the devil and his. Peter continued in the next verse, “Stand firm against him, and be strong in your faith. Remember that your family of believers all over the world is going through the same kind of suffering you are”. We refuse to be distracted by the tempting whispers of our enemy, instead adhering to God and His Word, with a spiritual super glue that withstands all attacks.

Dear God. Where else can we go other than into Your arms, embraced with love and grace? We praise and thank You today for all that You have done. Amen. 

The Two Witnesses (2)

Posted on by korgrocker

“When they complete their testimony, the beast that comes up out of the bottomless pit will declare war against them, and he will conquer them and kill them. And their bodies will lie in the main street of Jerusalem, the city that is figuratively called “Sodom” and “Egypt,” the city where their Lord was crucified. And for three and a half days, all peoples, tribes, languages, and nations will stare at their bodies. No one will be allowed to bury them. All the people who belong to this world will gloat over them and give presents to each other to celebrate the death of the two prophets who had tormented them.”
Revelation 11:7-10 NLT

John’s vision continues. It was much like a video or film, moving from one scene to the next. So the two witnesses brought their prophecies to the people for three and a half years, and no-one could touch them. The vision doesn’t say to what extent their gifts were used and how much grief was caused to the sinful and wicked people of that time but I can just imagine them underpinning their prophetic words by turning the local reservoir into blood. Or bringing on a resurgence of Covid or some other plagues to the population. Stopping the rain would not have been much of a blessing either. And we read in verse ten, that the people had a big party when the devil killed the witnesses. They gloated, gave presents to each other and felt a great sense of relief that their torment had ended – for now. But notice that it wasn’t just the inhabitants of Jerusalem that were happy about the death of the witnesses. This became global news, with parties everywhere. 

Today’s verses start with the message that their testimonies had come to an end. We pilgrims need to make use of the age in which we live, because there will come a time when our testimonies, our messages of hope, will not be required any more. Our messages will be complete. And we read that God then allowed the “beast that comes up out of the bottomless pit” to kill them. It wasn’t a trivial task, it seems, because it involved a war, not just a murder. In the vision, their bodies are just allowed to lie in the street. But who was this “beast”? it can only have been the devil himself. Mankind at that time couldn’t touch the witnesses because they were too powerful and God protected them. And that protection would have continued, even with the devil’s attacks, but their tasks were complete. The bodies were allowed to lie there for three and a half days, which perhaps indicated the lack of respect offered them by the locals. You can just imagine people from all over jetting in to have a look, such was their notoriety with the global population. A damning indictment of mankind at that time.

In his vision, John pulled no punches in his naming of Jerusalem. Jesus wept over this city, but here we are seeing it renamed as Sodom and Egypt. What happened in the city of Sodom? It was destroyed because of the extreme immorality that occurred there. And to the Jews, the country of Egypt would represent their time of slavery. So it seems Jerusalem because a city corrupted by, and in league with, the devil. People living there were enslaved in a place of immorality. John made special mention that Jesus was crucified in Jerusalem, an act that the devil thought was a win for him, but soon found it was him who was the loser.

To us pilgrims, we must always be on our guards, because the devil will always seek to corrupt and enslave us. And he gets very upset if we continue to share our testimonies with those around us. We must constantly pray for God’s protection over our lives and families. 

Dear God. We don’t really have any idea what this time will be like. But we’re so grateful that You have everything under control. Amen.

Shoes

Posted on by korgrocker

“For shoes, put on the peace that comes from the Good News so that you will be fully prepared.” Ephesians 6:15 NLT

“and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace.“
Ephesians 6:15 NIVUK

Paul glances at the feet of his fellow occupants in the prison cell. They were wearing shoes, and he proceeded to muse about their potential spiritual equivalent. What do Christians wear on their feet, he wondered? What was it that pilgrims everywhere need to be prepared for in their journeys onward and upward? And then he had a light bulb moment (well, he would have had, had light bulbs been invented in those days!). He had a new revelation of the Gospel. Now, that’s something we can stand firm on. It’s something that will always confuse the devil’s attacks because he knows that the Gospel, the Good News about Jesus and all that He did for us, is truth. The devil may ask us a difficult question about our faith, or tell us a lie as he did with Eve in the garden. He may bring doubts into our minds, but us pilgrims can just respond with the truth we know, that regardless of anything he says, the devil can never deny the truth of the Gospel. He thought that he had defeated the Son of God, by getting Him crucified on a cross, not realising that it was all God’s plan, and that Jesus would rise again on the Sunday morning, the third day after.

So we are ready. Shod with the Good News. And we bring it right up to date with our messages of hope, our testimonies of what God has done for us, all founded on His amazing plan. We have Good News to tell a world absorbed by bad news. We can share our hope for the future with a society that has no hope even for the present. A counter-cultural message that will pierce the enemy’s darkness with a shaft of pure light, penetrating and exposing his lies. I can just imagine Paul getting quite excited in his cell, as he realised that regardless of his situation, or the fragility of the early churches he founded, the power of the Gospel was insurmountable. And, folks, it still is today. 

In another letter, this time to the Roman church, Paul wrote, “For I am not ashamed of this Good News about Christ. It is the power of God at work, saving everyone who believes—the Jew first and also the Gentile. This Good News tells us how God makes us right in his sight. This is accomplished from start to finish by faith. As the Scriptures say, “It is through faith that a righteous person has life”“. The Gospel. The Good News. And it’s not a wishy-washy statement, just a few boring words. Paul said that, “It is the power of God at work, saving everyone who believes”. And he was exactly right. He spoke the truth. And the devil keeps well away when we stand on the truth of the Gospel. He knows he can’t touch us.

Belt and Braces

Posted on by korgrocker

“Stand your ground, putting on the belt of truth and the body armour of God’s righteousness.”
Ephesians‬ ‭6:14‬ ‭NLT

Now we’re getting into the nitty gritty of how Paul advised devil resistance. For the third time in this short section, he exhorted his readers to “stand“. “Stand your ground“, “stand firm“, “standing firm” all appear between verses 11 and 14. In the face of an onslaught, when the fight or flight emotions flood in, just to stand seems a bit counter-intuitive. But Paul, writing under the Holy Spirit’s direction and influence, knew what he was talking about. There he was in his prison cell, probably chained between two Roman soldiers, suddenly struck by how he could use the armour they were wearing as an illustration of the spiritual armour his friends in Ephesus would need. 

The first item that caught his eye was the soldiers’ belts, which he straight away associated with the “belt of truth“. He could see immediately that truth was an important defensive weapon to be used against the devil’s attacks. The devil is very good at telling lies. In fact, Jesus warned us of his propensity for lying, as we read in John 8:44, “For you are the children of your father the devil, and you love to do the evil things he does. He was a murderer from the beginning. He has always hated the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, it is consistent with his character; for he is a liar and the father of lies“. But we have access to the absolute truth, because it is contained within God’s Word. Perhaps the devil is whispering things in your ear this morning, like “you’re rubbish”, or “you really messed up yesterday”, or he prevails on someone else to malign you on social media. All such comments can be distilled as lies, because the absolute truth is that you are a child of God. And so am I. I’m conscious as I write this blog today, that the devil is not happy with the words I’m using. He’s telling me I’m running out of time and need to be doing something else. But I’m determined to write down the truth about God’s love for His children. About how He created us, planned for us before the world was even created, put us together in our mother’s wombs. About how we are so wonderful to Him that we are the apple of His eye (Psalm 17:8) and have our names written on the palm of His hand (Isaiah 49:16). These things are the truth about us. Not the lies the devil is using. So we stand firm in the truth about who God is and His relationship with each one of us. 

The second item Paul noticed that his soldier-jailors were wearing, was their body armour. Their breastplates, protecting their hearts and vital organs from attack. And he associated this with righteousness. You see, it is our hearts that are the place where our relationship with God resides. Not our physical hearts, but that part of our spirit that softens when we think of God and His people, where the love for Him flows, where we feel the whisper of His love-breath, sweet and always there if we listen for it. Unfortunately, the sin and hassles of life will harden the walls of our hearts. But we have the truth before us that He will always forgive, always be loving, always be there for us. Because of the sacrifice of Jesus at Calvary, when He died for us and exchanged His righteousness for our sins, we always can claim, and have access to, God’s righteousness. We confess and repent, He forgives. So the next time the devil accuses us of sin and tries to drive us down the tubes, we can stand because before God we are righteous. And there is nothing the devil can do about that. He was defeated by Jesus at the Cross. Keep Romans 8:1-2 in mind, “So now there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus. And because you belong to him, the power of the life-giving Spirit has freed you from the power of sin that leads to death“. The devil will try to condemn us because of our sins. Jesus says otherwise – I know who I want to listen to!

So we have an effigy of a Roman Soldier. And the belt and breastplate are glowing there like burnished gold, inducing a wobble into the devil’s tactics. Amazingly, there’s more – next thrilling instalment tomorrow.

Armour

Posted on by korgrocker

“Put on all of God’s armour so that you will be able to stand firm against all strategies of the devil. For we are not fighting against flesh-and-blood enemies, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in this dark world, and against evil spirits in the heavenly places.”
Ephesians‬ ‭6:11-12‬ ‭NLT‬‬

Well, Paul was quite explicit when he defined what we, as Christian pilgrims, are up against. As human beings, we automatically think in human terms, so anything defined as an “enemy” is something or someone situated in our physical and natural zone. The war in Ukraine is raging on as I write this blog today, and the combatants are obvious in human terms. But what Paul was saying was that there is a spiritual realm as well as our natural realm, and our real enemies are located there. An unseen world full of evil and powerful forces, which are a far greater threat to us than a military force equipped with tanks and guns.

In a recent Alpha video, there was a point when some young people were asked the question, “Do you believe in the devil?”  And the answers were revealing – one young person’s response was, “Not really”. And that is something Paul was writing about when he warned us about the “strategies of the devil”. Our enemy, the devil, is delighted if people don’t believe he exists, because then he can undertake his attacks unseen and unknown, fulfilling his aims of destroying God’s creation. 

So how does the devil manage to attack us, God’s people? One way is that he finds out our weaknesses and uses them to undermine and destroy our faith. As an example, if a Christian tends to be a worrier, the devil will bring up issues that cause more and more worry and anxiety, disrupting and weakening his or her faith in the process.

So why does the devil want to attack humans? Because he wants to be God and be in control of everything that belongs to God. That’s why he was originally kicked out of Heaven. And the problem that Christians give him is that they don’t want to be controlled by him. They want to follow God, not the devil. So the devil attacks them by distracting them, undermining them, leading them into sin through temptation, picking away at any weaknesses that he can find. And he has an army of demons, the evil spirits that Paul warned his Ephesians friends about, to help him. But the good news is that Jesus defeated the devil at Calvary. And because of that, we have all the resources and power we need to resist the attacks of the enemy. With the resources we have access to we can stand firm, resisting the devil’s attacks. James 4:7 says, “So humble yourselves before God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you“. We can resist him; we don’t have to fold and submit to the devil at the first attack by sinning. But sometimes we can fall into a trap and end up doing things we didn’t want to do. The old Apostle John wrote, “But if we confess our sins to [God], He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness”. (1 John 1:9) So cleansed and forgiven, we pick ourselves up and move on, the wiser from the experience, more able to avoid the trap the next time the devil comes along with another ploy to trip us up.

Paul was desperate to deliver his message in person but there he was, trapped in a prison cell. But if he hadn’t been incarcerated, we would have missed out on the helpful and instructive verses in his Epistle. We thank God for him, and, now forewarned, we pray for protection from our true enemies, the devil and his hordes, safe in the knowledge that the protection we need is there for the asking.