We have been talking about captivity to sin and to Satan. We have seen how the Bible has a lot to say about this. We have seen some of the historical illustrations that God gives; for example, the 70-year period of captivity to Babylon. God also uses the picture of Israel in captivity or in bondage to Egypt.
I do not know how much we are going to be able to cover today, but I would like to get into talking about the marriage supper of the lamb and that feast, which is really the fowls of Heaven feeding on the dead bodies of God’s enemies that we read about in Revelation 19, and how this is going on right now.
So I would like for us to talk about this, but we also need to go back and talk about the 200 million who were bound in the great river Euphrates and then loosed. A little later, I need to make a correction about this [note: the correction mentioned is actually included in the next study in this series, which is titled “The End of the Captivity to Sin and Satan, Part 19”].
First, I think it would be good for us to look at the similarities between Babylon and Egypt and the language that the Bible uses, because then we are going to see that when Israel comes out of Egypt this is spiritually parallel to Israel coming out of the captivity in Babylon. They are basically synonymous; they are one and the same.
For instance, the king of Babylon is a picture of Satan, especially King Nebuchadnezzar. This king was the most ruthless king that we find among the kings of Babylon. And then there is Pharaoh of Egypt. The Pharaoh in the days of Joseph who elevated Joseph seemed to be a fairly good king, and God does not really portray this particular Pharaoh in the same way that He portrays the later Pharaohs. But the Pharaoh at the time of the Exodus was very cruel, ruthless, and proud, which is a perfect picture of Satan. And so these two kings, the king of Babylon and the king of Egypt, typify Satan.
There were also some other kings who could also typify Satan, like the king of Assyria, which was King Sennacherib. He could also, at times, picture Satan. But it was, primarily, those two kings who pictured Satan as we read the Old Testament history, as well as their kingdoms.
The kingdom of Babylon was a representation of Satan’s kingdom, and Egypt was a representation of Satan’s kingdom. This can include the church, and it does at this time. Since the beginning of the great tribulation, this has included the church. This is one of the problems that we have when we are reading about Babylon. We need to understand if it is a reference to the church or if it is a reference to the world. But then, this later expands to the whole world.
During this 23-year period that just ended on May 21, 2011, God’s judgment was on the churches; but God also did something in the world at the same time. The world has increased in its wickedness like never before, and this has to do with Satan’s loosing.
So Babylon can be the church, but it expands to the world. This is the same thing with Egypt. For example, we know in Revelation 11 that the two witnesses are lying dead in the street, which is spiritually called Egypt. This is a reference to the church, because the churches today have no truth. They have no Christ and Christ is truth. They have no salvation.
This means that all of those within the churches today – and I am talking about every church in all of the world, every church everywhere and all of those people – have been spiritually returned to Egypt. This is as God said that He would do.
Turn to Deuteronomy 28. God spends about fourteen verses talking about the blessings that are involved with obedience. This would be referring to those who are saved, because they are the only people who can truly obey God from the heart. Then from verse 15 to the end, we read of the curses that come from disobedience.
This gives us a good picture of what mankind is like, because God spends so much more time talking about the curses than He does the blessings. This is because this is our natural state. We are all sinners and we are all going to come under this curse unless God intervenes.
But towards the end of Deuteronomy 28, look at verse 68, which is the last verse of this chapter. We read in Deuteronomy 28:68:
And JEHOVAH shall bring thee into Egypt again with ships…
God is speaking to Israel, which are a disobedient people, but they are His people and they typify the churches. Historically, God brought them out of Egypt. That deliverance from Egypt is one of the great themes of the Bible. And so God is saying here that if His people do not obey Him, He is going to bring them back to Egypt.
This is a problem for those people who say that we cannot look for spiritual meanings in the Bible and that we have to take the Bible literally. The problem that they have with this verse is that this never happened historically. God never rounded up Israel, put them on ships, and then returned them to Egypt.
Let us finish reading this verse:
And JEHOVAH shall bring thee into Egypt again with ships, by the way whereof I spake unto thee, Thou shalt see it no more again: and there ye shall be sold unto your enemies for bondmen and bondwomen, and no man shall buy [ or redeem] you.
This “man” would be the Lord Jesus. And, spiritually, this is a picture of a rebellious house or a rebellious church. They want to be called by God’s Name. They want to be called “Christian”; but this is as it says in Isaiah, “We will eat our own bread, and wear our own apparel: only let us be called by thy name, to take away our reproach.”
This means that the church will have their own kinds of gospels. They will do as they please, but they want to be called a Christian church; and, if anybody asks, they want to tell others that they are a Christian. And when a census is taken and people are asked what their religious persuasion is, about one-third of the world responds that they are Christian. This is because they are indicating that they want to be called by His Name.
But, then again, God tells them that if they are Christian, this means that they will love Him. If they love Him, this means that they will keep His commandments, as God says in the book of John, “If ye love me, keep my commandments.”
So the churches receive the commandments of God, but they then decide that they do not like some of them. For instance, they do not like what He says about marriage and divorce. They, therefore, changed this law to, at first, allow divorce only on that one special occasion that related to adultery; but divorce is now allowed for just anything and everything.
This is like the saying “the edge of the wedge.” This is Satan’s strategy. If he can get the littlest and tiniest crack going in someone’s mind or in their doctrine, he then applies “the edge of the wedge”; and then comes the full force of the hammer. Before you know it, it is split.
This is what Satan does with doctrine after doctrine; for example, the issue of women Bible teachers. And I know what day we are living in. I know that a woman could be the president, and I would not have any problem with this. A woman was the Prime Minister of England and did a great job. Women can do many things, but the Bible says that a woman is not “to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man,” when it comes to teaching the Bible.
Yet, in our day, we think that we know so much. We think that we are so wise in our modern society. But what has all of this wisdom gotten us? What has all of this modern wisdom of man achieved?
What we have is the most miserable world that there has ever been on the face of the earth. We have all kinds of gadgets to entertain us in our misery, but it is a miserable situation in this world with the sins that are abounding all over the face of the earth. We now have all sorts of struggles as to what to do in this situation or that situation, when many of these situations would not even arise if we did things God’s way to begin with. We get into these big messes and no one knows which way to go.
Getting back to Egypt, Egypt is a picture of the world, but it can also be a type of the church. And when God says to Israel that there will come a day due to their disobedience that He is going to load them onto ships, what do ships typify in the Bible? They typify the churches; for example, the “ships of Tarshish.” There is also a ship that we read about in Acts 27 that was shipwrecked. And 1st Timothy speaks of making faith shipwreck. This ship is a picture of the churches today, because they are shipwrecked.
Now, what the pastors and the priests and the bishops and the popes and everybody will say is, “Come; get on board, because our course is set for Heaven. We are going to take you right to Heaven.” But how do they steer this course?
Remember that the helm of the ship is what guides the ship and that God relates this to the tongue. And so it is steered through the teaching and the preaching of the minister, but they are not teaching and preaching the truth.
We can only get to Heaven through the truth, and so they are not going to Heaven. They are not going to Heaven. Where are they going then? They are going back to Egypt. They are going to Egypt. What is Egypt? Egypt is a place of spiritual bondage.
This is where all of us started. We were in our sins and we were in captivity to sin and to Satan. Satan has taken us captive at his will.
So this means that those in the churches have no freedom. And “no man” in Deuteronomy 28, which is Jesus, will redeem them. He is not going to buy them out of their bondage. He is not going to loose them at all. They are going to remain in Egypt. They are going to remain in their sins.
Sadly, right now, this cannot be changed. There is no possibility of salvation for anyone who was in a church prior to May 21. And what was the condition of the churches prior to May 21? Was God there? Was the Holy Spirit there?
No; He was not. Instead, Satan was loosed. He was the “man of sin” taking his seat in the church. Could anyone be saved who was still in a church prior to May 21? No; and God warned people to get out, to come out of the church; but they did not; they did not listen.
So May 21 was the end of the great tribulation and the end of the judgment on the churches, and it was immediately a transition into judgment on the whole world. And what was true of the church for 23 years, which was no salvation and no saving work, is now true of all of the world.
We can then ask what happened to one-third of mankind, which is about the number of those who profess to be Christian but who are in the churches. What happened to them? They were slain. They were spiritually killed. They have now been returned to Egypt.
But what a wonderful thing this is that God has freed all of His people and that we are finding out that this was a great deliverance, a wonderful day of salvation. It was the glorious day when God set all of His elect captives free. But at the same time, the story on the other side is one of terrible bondage for those who are in the churches, because they are not free. They are not free at all.
So in this comparison between Babylon and Egypt, first of all, they both have evil kings. Secondly, they are both used in the Bible as kingdoms that represent the kingdom of darkness, Satan’s kingdom. A third thing is that Babylon held Israel captive and that Egypt held Israel as slaves, which is very similar.
Could Daniel and his friends have gotten up and left Babylon? No; they could not. It did not matter that King Nebuchadnezzar was so impressed when he threw the three of them into the fiery furnace and they were not harmed. He was so impressed that their God was able to deliver them in this way that he promoted them. He promoted them and gave them a raise.
These four Hebrew men came into Babylon as children and stayed there for many years, and we do not find anywhere that Daniel or his three friends could ever go. We do not find that they could ever leave Babylon, because they were captives; they were prisoners in Babylon.
It is the same thing with Israel in Egypt, and Pharaoh was very clear about this. When Moses and Aaron came with the Word of the Lord and told him, “Let my people go,” Pharaoh responded, “Who is the LORD, that I should obey his voice to let Israel go? I know not the LORD, neither will I let Israel go.” “Jehovah” is the word for “Lord” here, but Pharaoh would not let them go. And so they were held captive, even though we know that Pharaoh was repeatedly commanded by God to let the people go and that he repeatedly refused.
It is also true what we read of the king of Babylon in Isaiah 14:16, which says:
They that see thee shall narrowly look upon thee, and consider thee, saying, Is this the man that made the earth to tremble, that did shake kingdoms;
Isaiah 14 is a parable, as it says in Isaiah 14:4:
…take up this proverb [or parable] against the king of Babylon…
Then it switches without explanation over into a discussion of Satan. This is whom God is focusing on, Satan or the devil, and He is calling him a man. This is because Satan is typified by the king of Babylon who was a man.
This idea is picked up in 2 Thessalonians 2 were we read that the “man of sin” takes his seat “in the temple.” But this confuses some people. They think that since this is referring to a man, it cannot be Satan; but it is. And so in 2nd Thessalonians 2 as well as in Isaiah 14, he is typified by a man, which was the king of Babylon.
So we read in Isaiah 14:16-17:
…Is this the man that made the earth to tremble, that did shake kingdoms; That made the world as a wilderness, and destroyed the cities thereof; that opened not the house of his prisoners?
The king of Babylon would not let them go, just like the king of Egypt.
Another verse is in Jeremiah 50:33. This says:
Thus saith JEHOVAH of hosts; The children of Israel and the children of Judah were oppressed together: and all that took them captives held them fast; they refused to let them go.
Jeremiah 50 and 51 are speaking of Babylon, and so they refused to let them go.
This is another tie-in. Babylon and Egypt are very, very similar. This is because this theme of spiritual captivity and, of course, of God as the great deliverer runs throughout the Bible. He is the Saviour and His Name is Jehovah.
For another related link, let us look at Jeremiah 29. This is going to tell us about Babylon. We read in Jeremiah 29:10:
For thus saith JEHOVAH, That after seventy years be accomplished at Babylon I will visit you, and perform my good word toward you, in causing you to return to this place.
The Lord is speaking to the believers. At the end of those 70 years, they were going to be set free and brought back to Judah, and they were. It was then that they historically began to rebuild the temple.
Spiritually, God is talking to us. He is saying that at the end of the great tribulation, the 23 years, “I will visit you.” He would set us free and bring us to “this place” of Judah, which typifies Heaven; and yet not immediately.
Just because this did not happen on May 21, this does not mean that this is not going to happen as God had planned all along, which is on October 21. I think that the coming out of Egypt is a good illustration of how God can deliver all of His people on one hand, and yet when they came out of the gates of Egypt, it was not Heaven; it was not paradise. They had to leave the gates of Egypt and then go into the wilderness. Remember, we read, “God led them not through the way of the land of the Philistines, although that was near.” Instead, He took them another way; and God had His purposes for delaying somewhat before bringing them across the Red Sea. In this case, we read of the long historical picture of the whole forty years, and then there is the short picture of coming out of Egypt and crossing the Red Sea, which typifies going into Heaven.
What were His reasons for this? Number one, this was evidently a good trial for the Jews; because, as we know, not all of them were saved. Very few of them were saved. And I think that we have been finding out that not everybody who was proclaiming May 21 as Judgment Day was saved. Not everyone was saved who wore the hats and the shirts and who handed out tracts.
If Christ had come on May 21 as we had expected, a lot of people would have been left behind. Since this did not happen because God had another plan and as these individuals are falling away, this is not really any different. This is no different than if they had been left behind, because they are not God’s people; and this is one purpose behind this little delay before God brings His people into Heaven.
Another purpose is due to what God called His people as He brought them out of Egypt. Do you know what He called them? He called them sheep.
It says in Psalm 78:51-53:
And smote all the firstborn in Egypt; the chief of their strength in the tabernacles of Ham: But made his own people to go forth like sheep, and guided them in the wilderness like a flock. And he led them on safely, so that they feared not: but the sea overwhelmed their enemies.
Since this ends with the sea overwhelming their enemies, this means that this period where He is saying that they are “like sheep” and “like a flock” has to do with when they left Egypt until they crossed the Red Sea.
One characteristic of sheep is their helplessness. After all, it is most likely that, previously, Pharaoh probably had the greatest army in the world of that day before God had done some damage to Pharaoh and to the Egyptian army. He practically destroyed Egypt, but they still had chariots and enough men to man the chariots. And an army of slaves without many weapons was not any kind of a match. But soon after this, after the Egyptians had buried their firstborn, they wondered what they had done and said, “Why have we done this, that we have let Israel go from serving us?”
We know that this Pharaoh died in the Red Sea. And forget about that movie titled, “The Ten Commandments,” because Pharaoh was not on the shore watching all of this. The Bible tells us that he died in the Red Sea. Pharaoh, his army, and all of the Egyptians went into the Red Sea. God then closed the waters on them and they drowned. And, again, Pharaoh and his kingdom was a picture of Satan and his emissaries.
Well, we still have some time left, and we could say that, in some ways, we are like a sitting duck. Who is going to protect us? Who is going to watch out for us? Do you think protection would come from the world or the media or maybe the churches?
I do not know what may happen, and maybe it will be nothing, but God does say that He “led them safely.” We also know that nothing did happen to the Jews, that Pharaoh and his army were not able to hurt them. But this did not mean that somebody was not going to come after them, that some were not going to pursue. This could happen in some way, but probably not on the physical level. In some way, though, something like this could happen.
So God said that He would visit after 70 years, and He did. Let us now go to Exodus 13. It says in Exodus 13:17-19:
And it came to pass, when Pharaoh had let the people go, that God led them not through the way of the land of the Philistines, although that was near; for God said, Lest peradventure the people repent when they see war, and they return to Egypt: But God led the people about, through the way of the wilderness of the Red sea: and the children of Israel went up harnessed…
“Harnessed” is a word that is normally translated as “armed.” This is why I indicated that the Israelites might have had some weapons. It continues:
…the children of Israel went up harnessed out of the land of Egypt. And Moses took the bones of Joseph with him: for he had straitly sworn the children of Israel, saying, God will surely visit you; and ye shall carry up my bones away hence with you.
God moved Joseph to prophesy this long before this happened, actually hundreds of years before. At Joseph’s death at the age of 110, he told the Israelites that when God visited them, they were not to forget him; they were to take up his bones when they left. And so they did. They remembered. This was handed down through all of those years.
Joseph was a great man of faith. If we had to list something that Joseph had done that was faithful to God, we would have a lot of things to write about. But the one thing that God lists in Hebrews 11 about Joseph is this statement.
Let us look at this. God did not list Joseph being faithful when he was in Potiphar’s house. He did not list Joseph being faithful in prison. He did not list the wonderful blessings upon Joseph’s faithfulness as God lifted him up to be the second in charge under Pharaoh. There were a lot of things that God could have said, but this is what He said in Hebrews 11:22:
By faith Joseph, when he died, made mention of the departing of the children of Israel; and gave commandment concerning his bones.
That is it. This is all that we read about Joseph here.
Wow! This must be important. This must be something since God moved Joseph to give this commandment that when they left, they were not to forget him. He would be dead, but they were not to leave his bones in Egypt. And we read in Exodus 13:19:
And Moses took the bones of Joseph with him: for he had straitly sworn the children of Israel, saying, God will surely visit you; and ye shall carry up my bones away hence with you.
They took his bones with them when 600,000 footmen, the Israelites, left Egypt, not to mention a mixed multitude of other nationalities as well as women and children, and they also had one dead man. All of the living Israelites left Egypt and they had one dead man. This meant that he went through the gates of Egypt and that he went through the Red Sea, and then they carried him forty years in the wilderness. Then he went across the river Jordan, and then they buried him in the sepulcher that his father had been buried in. And so this was a very important thing. Maybe later, we can talk about this a little bit more to see how this relates to May 21 and the 200 million.
But here, we see the tie-in and the similarity between Egypt and Babylon. God says of Babylon that after 70 years, He would visit them. And through Joseph, He also said that He would visit them. This took 430 years, but He did. He did and He freed His people.
In both cases when God said that He would visit them, He brought judgment on that kingdom and He brought deliverance to His people. This is important when we read of God’s visitation. If someone is a child of God, this is wonderful. If someone is an enemy of God, this has to do with His judgment.
Let us look at a verse that will really help us to see how God uses these two nations and kings. We read in Jeremiah 23:7:
Therefore, behold, the days come, saith JEHOVAH, that they shall no more say, JEHOVAH liveth, which brought up the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt;
But what a big deal this was. What an enormous matter this is in the Bible. How many times does God remind Israel that they were bondmen and bondwomen in Egypt and that He brought them up out of the land of Egypt?
Every time they held the Passover feast, this was a reminder that God spared them. And where did He spare them? He spared them in Egypt when the death of the firstborn went through.
The Feast of Tabernacles was held to commemorate the time when they came out of Egypt and dwelt in booths in the wilderness.
The Ten Commandments are framed by a statement that has been repeated in the churches down through the centuries and that Israel would have been very familiar with. We read in Exodus 20:2-3:
I am JEHOVAH thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
Then God continues with the Ten Commandments. But this theme is a huge part of the Old Testament.
So now God is saying in Jeremiah 23:7-8 that there is going to come a time when:
…they shall no more say, JEHOVAH liveth, which brought up the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt; But, JEHOVAH liveth, which brought up and which led the seed of the house of Israel out of the north country…
This would be referring to Babylon. It continues:
…and from all countries whither I had driven them; and they shall dwell in their own land.
Again, it does not matter whether we are reading of the proclamation of Cyrus to release the Jews or whether we are reading of the release of the slaves from Egypt, because they are spiritually representing one and the same thing.
This is amazing because we would think that the deliverance from Egypt should be far greater, because look at all of the miracles God did. Look at all of those plagues that He brought about. After all, He did not do any miracles to have Israel released from Babylon. He did not plague Babylon. He only raised up a king, King Cyrus of the Medes and the Persians, who issued this proclamation. But, still, as God views things, they are one and the same.
By the way, someone actually said something to me and others recently. They said, “I think you are making too much of a big deal out of May 21.”
Is this too much of a big deal? We have God, who spent much of Scripture looking at the deliverance from Egypt. Let us say that there were one and a half million who came out of Egypt. This would have included the women and children, the mixed multitude, as well as the 600,000 men. And so let us say that there was this many. Of them, how many were actually saved? Only a handful of them were actually saved. And this was all physical. And so this was a picture or an illustration, like when Jesus would heal the leper, and yet this did not mean that the leper became saved.
But what was greater? Was it the healing the leper of his leprosy, or was it what this pictured, which was an actual act of salvation and cleansing a sinner of his sins, sins which are inwardly as ugly as leprosy? What is greater? Of course, what is greater is not the actual outward physical thing; it is the spiritual reality.
Well, the deliverance from Egypt was of a small nation that consisted of maybe one million or a million and a half. But on May 21, God delivered tens of millions of people of those living at that time, maybe one hundred and ninety million, maybe one hundred and ninety-five million. We do not know.
But the sum total of all of His elect, the 200 million, were delivered in one way or another on May 21. And this was not a sign or an illustration of deliverance. This was the reality of the deliverance in setting His people free from their sin so that they are now no longer in captivity to their sin or to Satan and that they now have the wonderful gift of eternal life.
How could we ever make too much of this? How could we ever say too much about this or assign too much glory to God for what He did? We cannot.
So Jeremiah 23 is another way where Babylon and Egypt are identified with one another. Look also at Nehemiah 9:11, which says:
And thou didst divide the sea before them, so that they went through the midst of the sea on the dry land; and their persecutors thou threwest into the deeps, as a stone into the mighty waters.
This would be referring to Pharaoh and his army. They were thrown into the deeps of the Red Sea like a stone.
Turn to Revelation 18:21. This says:
And a mighty angel took up a stone like a great millstone, and cast it into the sea, saying, Thus with violence shall that great city Babylon be thrown down, and shall be found no more at all.
Again, we read of Egypt being like a stone and of Babylon being like a stone, and both were thrown into the sea.
Here is a verse that I think really says it all. We read in Isaiah 48:20-21:
Go ye forth of Babylon, flee ye from the Chaldeans, with a voice of singing declare ye, tell this, utter it even to the end of the earth; say ye, JEHOVAH hath redeemed his servant Jacob. And they thirsted not when he led them through the deserts: he caused the waters to flow out of the rock for them: he clave the rock also, and the waters gushed out.
Do you see what God did? He conjoined these two things. He began saying to go out of Babylon. Then, immediately, He starts speaking about the rock being cleaved and water coming out of the rock. This is because these are the same idea. They are synonymous.
Let us look at one other comparison. Let us go to Jeremiah 51:34. This says:
Nebuchadrezzar the king of Babylon hath devoured me, he hath crushed me, he hath made me an empty vessel, he hath swallowed me up like a dragon, he hath filled his belly with my delicates, he hath cast me out.
So this says that Nebuchadrezzar “swallowed me up like a dragon.”
Now turn to Ezekiel 29:2-3. This says:
Son of man, set thy face against Pharaoh king of Egypt, and prophesy against him, and against all Egypt: Speak, and say, Thus saith the Lord JEHOVAH; Behold, I am against thee, Pharaoh king of Egypt, the great dragon that lieth in the midst of his rivers, which hath said, My river is mine own, and I have made it for myself.
So Nebuchadrezzar is referred to as a dragon and Pharaoh is referred to as a dragon. And who else is a dragon? Satan is also referred to as a dragon.
Take a look at Revelation 20:2. This is speaking of Jesus who is arresting Satan, and says:
And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years,
Here are four names for the same being: Satan, serpent, Devil, and dragon. These are four names for one and the same person. Satan has several more names. “The beast” is one of his names. “The false prophet” is a name that he identifies with. And there are maybe others.
So here “the dragon” is also the devil, and let us look at “the dragon” a little bit. We do not hear too much about dragons except in fairy tales. In the Golden Book series, we can read where the noble knight slays the dragon.
Actually, a noble knight would be a picture of God. If we look at Isaiah 27:1, we read:
In that day JEHOVAH with his sore and great and strong sword shall punish leviathan the piercing serpent, even leviathan that crooked serpent; and he shall slay the dragon that is in the sea.
So God is the knight who slays the dragon, and the dragon is Satan, the devil.
I would have to guess that the picture of the fire-breathing dragon that we see or the idea of the Loch Ness Monster are ideas that come from the Bible. There are so many things in our society and in our world that come right out of the Bible. In some cases, certain images and common expressions come from the Bible.
Maybe you have heard me say this before. But it is like when you are just walking down a street and you hear a dog barking. You look over to the yard and you see a sign that says, “Beware of Dog.” This is a quote from the Bible. You probably do not even know this Scripture, but it says in Philippians, “Beware of dogs.” Of course, our modern society has gotten so far away from the Bible that they have no idea just how many things revolve around the Word of God.
Turn to Revelation 12. This chapter begins with a view of a woman in Heaven, and this woman is representing believers. She is going to bring forth the Lord Jesus. Then it says in Revelation 12:3:
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.
Here we see some color added. The dragon is red, and this is Satan’s color. When we read in Revelation about the rider on the red horse, this is referring to Satan. And when we read about this “great red dragon,” this is also referring to Satan.
Then it says in Revelation 12:7-8:
And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, And prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven.
At the cross when Christ defeated Satan, he came down. He had access to Heaven prior to this, like the book of Job tells us. But at the cross, he was defeated, he was bound for a figurative number of “a thousand years,” and he was cast out of Heaven.
Revelation 12 is speaking about the time from the cross, all the way through the New Testament period. And knowing that he has a little time, Satan then pursues after the woman, but this has nothing to do with our present day at all.
Let us now turn to the next chapter, to Revelation 13. We read in Revelation 13:1-2:
And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy. And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion: and the dragon gave him his power [or authority], and his seat, and great authority.
So the beast is Satan. This is a name that God has given to him to identify with the great tribulation of 23 years. When we think of the great tribulation, we think of the beast, but there is someone behind the beast, which is the dragon. The dragon gives the beast authority.
It was God who loosed Satan. Remember that we read of four names when God bound him: the dragon, the serpent, the devil, and Satan. These are the four main names for Satan. And so the dragon was loosed also, as well as the devil.
It is God who gave him authority; but for reasons of God’s own, He speaks of within the kingdom of Satan as the dragon giving authority to the beast and then the beast will perform the things that have been given to him, like it says in Revelation 13:4:
And they worshipped the dragon which gave power…
This is a Greek word that is also translated “authority,” which is a better understanding for me. It continues:
…which gave power [authority] unto the beast: and they worshipped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast? who is able to make war with him?
This is the first beast, but there is a second beast. We read in Revelation 13:11:
And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spake as a dragon.
So the dragon is completely identified with the beast. And when we read about the image made to the beast, this has to do with what has been going on in the churches and congregations over the last 23 years; and the dragon is completely involved with all of this.
I wanted to go through those verses because of what we read in Ezekiel. Let us go back to Ezekiel now. In Ezekiel 29, we saw that Pharaoh was called a dragon. Then in Ezekiel 32, he is called a dragon again. We read in Ezekiel 32:2:
Son of man, take up a lamentation for Pharaoh king of Egypt, and say unto him, Thou art like a young lion of the nations, and thou art as a whale in the seas…
This word for “whale” is the same Hebrew word as “dragon.” In Genesis where we read of God creating whales, this is the same word. In Exodus where it says, “For they cast down every man his rod, and they became serpents: but Aaron's rod swallowed up their rods,” this word “serpents” is the same word as “dragon” or that is translated here as “whale.”
So, again, God is calling him a dragon here in Ezekiel 32:2:
…thou art as a whale [a dragon] in the seas: and thou camest forth with thy rivers, and troubledst the waters with thy feet, and fouledst their rivers.
We can understand this. The Gospel is likened to water. And here is Satan messing it up. He is just polluting it. He is fouling it with his emissaries. He is twisting it.
God says, “Let my people go,” but what lets spiritual prisoners go free? The Bible tells us, “The truth shall make you free.” It is the truth.
So Satan is typified by Pharaoh who will not let them go for anything, and he does not want the truth, which is like the key that opens the lock. He does not want the truth to be heard, and so we find multitudes of denominations, multitudes of various gospels within Christianity, multitudes of religions within the world, until we have such a huge mess.
Once we have this huge mess, who is ever going to find the truth? Who can find this of themselves? No man can do this. It is only when God draws someone through this whole mess, through this church and out of that church and out of that religion or maybe even out of secular humanism, whatever it was that they thought was true and that others things were not.
But, really, these things were all just part of the lie. It is only when God leads us to Himself that we finally have truth, and He uses this truth as a key to open the door of our dungeon and to let us go.
Satan, therefore, fouls the river. And all of the rivers of the churches today are foul. And, of course, all other religions never had the pure water of the Gospel to begin with. It is only Christ who is “the way, the truth, and the life.”
Then it goes on to say in Ezekiel 32:3-8:
Thus saith the Lord JEHOVAH; I will therefore spread out my net over thee with a company of many people; and they shall bring thee up in my net. Then will I leave thee upon the land, I will cast thee forth upon the open field, and will cause all the fowls of the heaven to remain upon thee, and I will fill the beasts of the whole earth with thee. And I will lay thy flesh upon the mountains, and fill the valleys with thy height. I will also water with thy blood the land wherein thou swimmest, even to the mountains; and the rivers shall be full of thee. And when I shall put thee out, I will cover the heaven, and make the stars thereof dark; I will cover the sun with a cloud, and the moon shall not give her light. All the bright lights of heaven will I make dark over thee, and set darkness upon thy land, saith the Lord JEHOVAH.
He just told us when He was going to do this. Did He not? He just told us when.
Look at Matthew 24:29. This says:
Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken:
This is immediately, but some people are trying so hard to explain this away. I understand that there was confusion for a time, but they are getting into more confusion and trying to say that this word “immediately” here does not mean “immediately.”
Well, this word is used 80 times in the Greek New Testament. If you check out all 80 and look at how this word is used, you will find that 77 have the idea of being immediately. For example, when Jesus would cleanse a leper or make his hand whole, there was no delay. His hand would become whole anon or immediately right then and there.
But there is one time where what is in view is kind of a little hazy, which would make 78. Another time would be 79 and we can find this in 3rd John.
By the way, I think that the epistles of 1st, 2nd, and 3rd John were written by John the apostle. We know that the Gospel of John was most likely written by Lazarus, but this might not be the case with these epistles.
So we read in 3rd John, “But I trust I shall shortly see thee.” This word “shortly” is the same word. And so, please, check this out in the Strong’s Concordance.
But for someone to take the one instance where this is translated “shortly” and another where it maybe has the idea of a longer period of time and then to say that this is not talking about right after the tribulation, they are wrong. Yes this is. This is immediately after the tribulation:
Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken:
I am going to have to stop here. Let us close with a word of prayer.
Dear Father, we do thank You for Your grace and we thank You for being the Good Shepherd who feeds His flock. Father, we do thank You that we are safe and secure, that no one can harm us, that we are in Your bosom. Who can snatch us out? Father, we pray that You would bless each one of us as we continue on these next days. Help us today to spend time throughout this day in Your Word and in keeping our thoughts on Your Word and, therefore, keeping them on things above. Help us to consider just how wonderful a deliverance this is when You have set all of Your people free. They are all free. Father, we ask for Your blessing, according to Your perfect will. We pray this in Christ’s Name. Amen.