SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 6/3/2015
7:16 AM
My Worship Time Focus: The Dragon PT-2
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Revelation 12:3-4
Message of the
verses: “3 Then another sign appeared in heaven: and
behold, a great red dragon having seven heads and ten horns, and on his heads
were seven diadems. 4 And his tail swept away a third of the stars of heaven
and threw them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman who was
about to give birth, so that when she gave birth he might devour her child.”
We continue to look at some of the activity of Satan as
seen in these two verses in today’s SD.
We want to look at the influence that Satan had on the other angels that
God had created as the verse says “And his tail swept away a third of the stars
of heaven and threw them to the earth.”
As we continue to look at chapter twelve of Revelation we see that its span
goes from before the earth was created up all the way to the Tribulation
Period, for what Satan did when he swept away a third of these angels happened
before the earth was created. A couple
of years ago when I was leading a Bible Study on the early parts of Genesis
John MacArthur said on one of the CD’s we were listening to that one of the
people he was reading about how long it took Satan to fall after God created
him as being Lucifer was probably about twenty minutes. I suppose that this was just a guess on that
person’s part, but it seems that when you read from both Isaiah and Ezekiel’s
accounts that it did not take too long and it must have been shortly after that
that the other one third of the angels fell with him. When we look at this verse the angels are
called “stars of heaven.” MacArthur
writes “The genitive case offers further support for that interpretation: these are ‘stars’ belonging to ‘heaven’; that
is their proper abode. Angels are
depicted symbolically as ‘stars’ elsewhere in Scripture (9:1; Job 38:7).”
We see that when these angels fell that they were cast
down to earth, but that does not mean that they do not still have access to
heaven. We can see the truth of this
from the book of Job as God asks Satan where had he been and was told that he
was on the earth. Now there will be a
time when Satan and all of the angels will again be thrown out of heaven and
this time they will not be allowed to come back into heaven. We will look at that a bit later on.
We don’t know how many angels joined Satan, but as we
look at the book of Revelation we have
seen some very large numbers when it comes to demons, so the number must be
very large indeed. Revelation 5:11 says “Then
I looked, and I heard the voice of many angels around the throne and the living
creatures and the elders; and the number of them was myriads of myriads, and
thousands of thousands,” as this verse speaks of the “good” angels which have
two times as many as those who followed Satan.
Let’s look again at Revelation 9:16 “The number of the armies of the
horsemen was two hundred million; I heard the number of them.” These are all demons. Needless to say Satan has a very large
army. Two more verses to look at are
Ephesians 6:12 and also Colossians 2:15 “For our struggle is not against flesh
and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces
of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly
places.” “When He had disarmed the
rulers and authorities, He made a public display of them, having triumphed over
them through Him.” This speaks of those
demons who are currently free to roam the earth and the heavenly realm.
MacArthur writes “They, along with evil men under his control, assist Satan in
his unholy war against God. Adding to
the (unrevealed) number of these unbound demons to the calculations given above
increase the numbers of both the holy and the demons.”
We have one more thing to look at and it could take a
long time to completely study this event and that is that Satan desires to
destroy the nation of Israel, and has desired this since God called Abram out
of idolatry to worship the One True Living God which is first seen in the 12th
chapter of Genesis. The portion from
Revelation I am speaking of is “the dragon stood before the woman who was about
to give birth, so that when she gave birth he might devour her child.” Now not only has Satan been bent on killing
off the children of Israel, but he began right off with the children of Adam
and Eve, for it was he who was behind the killing of Able, as he always goes
after the righteous people of God. Job
is another example of who Satan went after too.
However we not want to briefly look at a portion of Scripture that John
MacArthur has in his commentary to help make this point of how Satan goes after
the Jewish people and it comes from the book of Exodus. MacArthur writes “Because they were the
chosen people through whom the Messiah was to come, and by whom the good news
of forgiveness was to be proclaimed, Satan reserved his special hatred for
Israel. After Joseph’s death, the
Israelites became slaves in Egypt. In
that place, the fates both of the nation and of its human deliverer hung by a
slender thread. ‘8 Now a new king arose
over Egypt, who did not know Joseph. 9 He said to his people, "Behold, the
people of the sons of Israel are more and mightier than we.’
‘15 Then the king of Egypt spoke to the Hebrew midwives,
one of whom was named Shiphrah and the other was named Puah; 16 and he said,
"When you are helping the Hebrew women to give birth and see them upon the
birthstool, if it is a son, then you shall put him to death; but if it is a
daughter, then she shall live." 17 But the midwives feared God, and did
not do as the king of Egypt had commanded them, but let the boys live. 18 So
the king of Egypt called for the midwives and said to them, "Why have you
done this thing, and let the boys live?" 19 The midwives said to Pharaoh,
"Because the Hebrew women are not as the Egyptian women; for they are
vigorous and give birth before the midwife can get to them." 20 So God was
good to the midwives, and the people multiplied, and became very mighty. 21
Because the midwives feared God, He established households for them. 22 Then
Pharaoh commanded all his people, saying, "Every son who is born you are
to cast into the Nile, and every daughter you are to keep alive."
‘1 Now a man from the house of Levi went
and married a daughter of Levi. 2 The woman conceived and bore a son; and when
she saw that he was beautiful, she hid him for three months. 3 But when she
could hide him no longer, she got him a wicker basket and covered it over with
tar and pitch. Then she put the child into it and set it among the reeds by the
bank of the Nile. 4 His sister stood at a distance to find out what would
happen to him.
‘5 The daughter of Pharaoh came down to
bathe at the Nile, with her maidens walking alongside the Nile; and she saw the
basket among the reeds and sent her maid, and she brought it to her. 6 When she
opened it, she saw the child, and behold, the boy was crying. And she had pity
on him and said, "This is one of the Hebrews’ children." 7 Then his
sister said to Pharaoh’s daughter, "Shall I go and call a nurse for you
from the Hebrew women that she may nurse the child for you?" 8 Pharaoh’s
daughter said to her, "Go ahead." So the girl went and called the
child’s mother. 9 Then Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, "Take this child
away and nurse him for me and I will give you your wages." So the woman
took the child and nursed him. 10 The child grew, and she brought him to
Pharaoh’s daughter and he became her son. And she named him Moses, and said,
"Because I drew him out of the water."’”
Now as we look at this rather long portion of Scripture
we might think that Pharaoh wanted to get rid of the people is Israel because
they were a threat, but Satan was behind this as he was trying to stop the
birth of the Messiah who could only come through the people of Israel. Now even though the Messiah has come Satan
still wants to get rid of the Jewish race completely because this would stop
the plan of God that He has for them, plans in the Tribulation Period, the
Millennial Kingdom, and also the Eternal Kingdom.
Now as we look closely at our verse in Revelation we see
that Satan tried to have the Messiah killed once He was born, and then after
His birth by using Herod who killed all of the babies in Bethlehem two years
old and younger. However we read the
following from Matthew 2:13 and 16 which shows how God protected Jesus “13 Now
when they had gone, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream
and said, "Get up! Take the Child and His mother and flee to Egypt, and
remain there until I tell you; for Herod is going to search for the Child to
destroy Him."” “16 Then when Herod
saw that he had been tricked by the magi, he became very enraged, and sent and
slew all the male children who were in Bethlehem and all its vicinity, from two
years old and under, according to the time which he had determined from the
magi.”
MacArthur concludes this section by writing “At the
outset of our Lord’s earthly ministry, Satan tempted Him to mistrust God (Matt.
4:1-11). But the devil’s efforts to get
Jesus to abandon His mission did not succeed.
Satan tried to use the people of Nazareth to kill Jesus (Luke 4:28-30),
but their enraged attempt to ‘throw Him down the cliff’ (v. 29) ended in
failure when He calmly ‘pass[ed] through their midst, [and] went His way (v.
30.’ Satan’s other attempts to cut short
Jesus’ earth ministry also ended in failure, ‘because His hour hand not yet
come’ (John 7:30; 8:20). Even the devil’s
seeming victory at the Cross was in reality his ultimate defeat (Col. 2:15;
Heb. 2:14; 1 Pet. 3:18-20; 1 John 3:8).”
Satan will once again fail to destroy the nation of
Israel even though that nation is surrounded by enemies at this present time
and many or most of them do not yet believe in their Messiah, God will protect
them as He always has.
Spiritual meaning
for my life today: Since the Lord
saved me in 1974 He has put a love in my heart for the people of Israel, and I
pray for them most every day that God will
continue to protect them and prepare them for what is coming their way.
My Steps of Faith for Today: To love the Lord with all of my heart, and
all of my soul, mind and strength, and to live in the love of Christ. To remember that obedience is better than
sacrifice.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible
question: “Jesus appeared to him in a
great light” (Acts 9:3-9).
Today’s Bible
question: “The Jews asked Jesus if it
was alright to give tribute to whom?”
Answer in our next SD.
6/3/2015 8:17 AM
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