Extracts and comments from Revelation Chps. 5:11(a), 12:4(a) & 13:17(c)
And I beheld and heard the voice of many Angels round about the throne and the Zoa and the elders; and the number of them was (a)ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands:
(a) This number is literally 100,000,000 but is clearly greater by the comments "thousands of thousands", which probably means thousands of thousands times 100,000,000; a clearly uncountable number of Heaven's beings, and much greater than the Earth (7 billion 2012), could ever contain.
12.4
And his tail dragged the (a)third part of the stars of Heaven, and cast them to the Earth: and the dragon (b)is standing before the woman which is about to bring forth, in order to eat up her (c)child as soon as it was born.
(a) Satan, since his original fall, has persuaded to his cause many Angelic creation which are numbered in Scripture (see V.9) as a third of all the Angels of Heaven, which have done and are doing his bidding. The exact timing of his fall was certainly when Satan as a son (created) of God rebelled against his Creator, and claimed equality, (Ezk. 28:12-19).
Satan is a well-kept secret. Although known of from Scripture he is not taken seriously by people, and is even regarded as a sort of joke, or figure of Halloween imagery. Almost all of the world's misery is attributable to him, even though Almighty God usually gets the blame. Almost everybody at some time has blamed The Almighty for some misfortune, which in fact should be laid at the door of Satan, or human fallen nature, or both. There is no more powerful entity on Earth at the present time than Satan, (except for the Holy Spirit).
Our Lord Himself acknowledged Satan as the prince of this world (John 12:31), (John 14:30) & (John 16:11). The Apostle Paul writing under the influence of the Holy Spirit, called Satan, "the prince of the power of the air", (Eph. 2:2). These and many other Bible references show the power that is at present Satan's, and people will find to their cost that he is real, and behind all of the evil events, trends and control of humans that Paul wrote about so vividly and accurately to Timothy 2000 years ago, (2Tim. 3).
So that no one may (b)buy or sell, except those with the (c)mark, or the (c)name of the beast, or the (c)number representing his name.
(c) “Mark, name, or number"; these terrible symbols, will denote more than just permit, (to trade etc.), but will also denote ownership! Satan will own these individuals in the same way, and to the same degree as the Heavenly beings that are his. Regarding the Angels of Heaven that followed and belong to Satan, according to Rev. 5:11, the original Hebrew words mean "countless numbers", this means that as one third of Heaven's Angels that followed Satan cannot be numbered (by humans), but the number almost certainly will be much larger than the human population that are marked. In the year 1999, the population of Earth reached 6,000,000,000 (6 billion), this number given by the U.N. If current projections are correct, by 2020 approx. 20 billion people may inhabit the planet (projections vary). (In 2014, the number is just under 7.5 billion).
Numbers of people will be large, but compared with Heaven's population the numbers are probably small. It is worth reiterating here the reason Satan will work so hard against Israel; his purpose is to annihilate Israel. If he were to succeed, the promises to Abraham by Jehovah would be null and void, as Jehovah has promised that Israel will never cease to be a Nation (Jer. 31:35-37) and Satan would become ruler of the Earth and will have successfully challenged Almighty God! He will use all natural and supernatural means at his disposal, including the Earth's population, of which he needs as many as he can get, as the human race is the main target after his success in Heaven! Therefore his methods are subtly tailored to try to entrap as many of the unwary as possible, to augment his success in Heaven! As seen above, Satan has under his control countless Angels, and also humans who are marked and who worship him openly, to be able to live and trade during his power period on Earth! Satan's people however have been converting to him since the flood, and prior to that since Eden. His methods are varied, some easy to see such as open pagan worship in its multitude of forms. However, in these times, the methods blend into the credible, so that many so-called "christian" groups say they have the "truth”, but in reality are a perverted form of "christianity". The many variations of these make listing impossible, but what they have in common is dominant leadership, which after a "honeymoon" period, demands that the individual's mind, will, actions, and often substance, come under their control! Their teachings they demand, are the ONLY ones which are true! They will not allow open questioning of their teaching, or their interpretation of the Bible, (sometimes their own version), their activities or their leadership, etc.! They demand mindless obedience. The Jehovah Witnesses are an obvious fit to the above, but also some Charismatics, Pentecostals, Roman Church, The New Age Movement, and some parts of the Ecumenical Movement, etc. In these groups and their ilk, many humans are being trapped, and they will not question their controllers for fear of loss of favour and group! If they do not, they are in danger of not having the Truth, and being deceived.
The most precious organ the Almighty gives us is our brain, it should be abdicated to nobody! Bible revering Christian groups will never demand these things, and the best will post their list of Bible beliefs in a prominent position, so that a person knows what they are subscribing to before they join! They are also Christ centred in Truth, and are not deceived by the many different "christs" that our Lord warned about (Matt. 24:24 and Mark 13:22).
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