Extracts and comments from Revelation Chps. 12:4(a), 7, 9, 12(a)(c) & 13:17(c)
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).
12:7
And there came to be (a)war in the Heaven: (b)Michael and his angels going forth to war with the (c)dragon; who resisted with his angels.
(a) "War in the Heaven"; this Scripturally clearly is a first occurrence, and the force used is described as "war", to convey to human minds the meaning.
(b) "Michael"; is the special angel (archangel) of the Jews, (Dan. 10:13-21), and as such is championing the Jewish cause on behalf of Jehovah.
(c) "Dragon"; i.e. Satan and his angels.
12:9
And the (a)great dragon was cast down, the ancient serpent, called the Devil (slanderer) and Satan (adversary)the one deceiving the whole world; he was cast out into the Earth, and his angels were cast out with him.
(a) Until this moment described, Satan had place in Heaven, despite his rebellion against God, his evil, and his constant attempts to subvert Heavenly creation to his side. Also, he constantly attempts to accuse, discredit and latterly destroy Israel. In the book of Job, Satan is shown to be free to patrol the Earth, and with the permit of God, do his best to destroy faith in God on Earth. In V.8, he no longer has free access to God, is cast to Earth, and as we see in Revelation, regarding Israel (and many God revering people) is allowed a short time of open direct tyranny, with no attempt at pretence in the 3½ years of Israel's extreme persecution (see V.12).
12:12
Therefore (a)rejoice ye Heavens, and ye that dwell in them. (b)Woe to the ones dwelling on the Earth, and in the sea, because the devil is come down to you having (c)great anger, knowing he has only a little time.
(a) The inhabitants of Heaven, exhorted to rejoice. Clearly Satan had for many Ages caused great trouble, strife, conflict and much turmoil, beyond our ability to understand, whilst allowed to retain a "place", in Heaven. It is also clear that his success persuaded a third of all angels to follow him, which underlines the fact of "free-will" of the angels!
His presence is a constant source of pernicious, on-going divisive action in Heaven. Even though Heaven's creation know who their Creator is, Satan still has much success in converting angelic creation to his side. One of the many major differences between mankind and angels, is humans will deny the existence of God Almighty, and also Satan. It is implicit that one element is common to both Earthly and Heavenly creation, free-will! It is therefore easy to understand that Heavenly creation rejoices at the expulsion of such an adversary, after so long in their midst, and also in the knowledge that Satan's efforts will be short on Earth.
The question often asked by many over the years, is how could Almighty God allow Satan to exist after such rebellion, and even to be in His presence, to have place in Heaven; and patrol Earth (Job 1 and 2). The answer undoubtedly lies in The Perfect Plan of Redemption, that only God could conceive, wherein the Perfect Love of God would allow Satan to perform to his vile worst in Heaven as well as Earth after the overthrow, all of which is observed by Heavenly creation (Eph. 3:10).
Some argue that such a protracted process is wasteful, painful, and suffers great loss of life and environment. That is to miss the main point. It is of course easily possible for Almighty God to eliminate Satan. To do so however prematurely would not allow creation to see the depth of sin that Satan will eventually stoop to.
Conversely, the Almighty will be seen by all creation to take the burden and result on Himself, in the form of Christ Jesus (Col. 1:20). It is thereafter the response to Christ's death and suffering (in the place of all accepting humankind) which is the key to every individual's eternal destiny, on Earth and also in Heaven, in this Age, and eternity!
The main thrust for Satan's pernicious attention had been Heaven's occupants and the tribes of Israel. Abraham was chosen by God. He was called "the friend of God", Ex. 33:11, 2Chr. 20:7, Isa. 41:8 & Jms. 2:23, because his heart was against the idolatry of his father, and the Nation Ur, which derived from Babylon!
After Paul's declaration (Acts 28:25-28), all the world's Nations became the subject of Satan's attention; which showed in the Wisdom of Jehovah Zebaoth, that the failure of Satan at The Cross and the failure of Israel to accept Christ (Acts 28:26-28), increased the eventual harvest for Christ / Jehovah.
Most people on Earth are fixated with their flesh life, which is natural enough. However, because of the events of Eden, see: Eve and Adam they are not content, and can only find rest, peace and understanding in Him, albeit in simple sincere trust, which people find hard to give, unless they encounter Christ, personally!
Because all the efforts of Satan are eventually self-defeating, and will be seen as such by Heavenly and Earthly creation, the Almighty in Christ will vanquish Satan, but not until Heaven and Earth have been reminded that Satan stands for deceit, destruction, suffering and death, (Rev.20:3 & 20:7-10), as opposed to the Love, Peace, Justice and Righteousness of Jehovah/Christ. After that reminder, Satan and his followers will be consigned to doom (Rev. 20:10). All that remains for individuals at the present time (i.e. this Age) is to trust in God's work, in Christ Jesus. The timing of the above is in the hands of the Father only (Matt. 24:36), and His timing is perfect (Matt. 5:48). The perfect timing of God the Father means that Satan is defeated by perfect Love (a concept totally alien to mankind); which means that Satan is defeated by Love, which is God (1 John 4:8-16)!
Had Satan been destroyed at the time of his rebellion, none of the above could have come into play and such action by the Almighty would have been seen by creation as dictatorial, and His plan of Love could not unfold to fruition. As the plan now unfolds, God will indeed be seen as Ultimate Love.
(c) Satan's Heavenly banishment leaves him with less room for manoeuvre, and activity. His success in Heaven has clearly been great, but the worthiness of The Lamb, allowed the releasing of the 7th seal, triggering the banishment in the timing of Jehovah Zebaoth. Satan had recruited / converted Angelic help for many reasons, all of which are to attempt to thwart the plan of Salvation of God Almighty and to magnify himself. The first example produced the Scripture recorded result of Nephilim, (Gen. 6) which had it succeeded would have brought to nothing the promise of God in Eden (Gen. 3:15), however, God intervened at the crucial stage to rid Earth of Nephilim, and save the pure line of Noah, and preserve His prophecies and promises.
The situation on Earth at the time of Satan's Heavenly expulsion is dire for the Jews, as the "man of sin", has broken his Covenant with Israel after 3½ years, and is imposing a brutal regime. This man often called "Anti-Christ", is now newly empowered by Satan, now located in Pergamos (Rev. 2:12-13), which interestingly is the location that the Babylonian priesthood removed to at the fall of Babylon many centuries earlier. Satan must still attempt to achieve the goal of stopping the promises of Jehovah Zebaoth regarding His people Israel from coming to fruition. He now releases his full wrath onto the Ancient people of God, Israel.
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).
See: Satan's Demise!
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