SATAN is called, “a great red dragon”. In describing his activity, Jesus summarized it as he “steals, kills, and destroys”. His fiery red appearance signifies angry and violent warfare, and his primary aim is “the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.”
AND THEN there is Jesus the Christ (Messiah). In contrast to Satan’s evil destruction of everything he touches, Jesus “came that they may have life and have it abundantly.” He declares, “Fear not, I am the first and the last, and the living one. I died, and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades.”
SATAN is, “the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience” and what unites humanity is that WE are “the sons of disobedience—among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.” THAT is what Satan wants HAS done and wants to CONTINUE doing!
JESUS CHRIST is, “the Word” who “was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.” Jesus is God and Creator; Satan is Destroyer and Deceiver.
IN JESUS CHRIST “was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” And, “God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.”
LONG AGO, God told his people this: “I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live, loving Yahweh your God, obeying his voice and holding fast to him, for he is your life and length of days”.
AND SO IT STANDS today. God continues to hold out life while warning us of death. He continues to reveal his blessings while reminding us of the curse of sin. He proclaims “good news of great joy” into a world that Satan has made a cesspool of evil.
WHAT WILL it look like in this world that Satan continuously seeks to “steal, and kill, and destroy,” while God, through Jesus Christ, “being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved”?
ANSWER: “the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world—he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him.” It is said of him, “Then the dragon became furious with the woman and went off to make war on the rest of her offspring, on those who keep the commandments of God and hold to the testimony of Jesus.” The “woman” is the church Jesus is building; her “offspring” are those who become the children of God by repentance and faith in Jesus Christ, and “they have conquered him (the red dragon) by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death.”
WE NOW HAVE salvation working throughout the world, saving people “from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages,” who all agree that “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!”
AT THE same time, the end of the red dragon is described as, “the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur where the beast and the false prophet were, and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.”
IN THIS WORLD, it is possible that God’s children will face, “tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword”. But the promise is that “in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.” And this is why we are “sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
YOU AND I are either still blinded by the evil one so that we cannot see “the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.” Or we have been made alive in Jesus Christ so that God “has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” And when we repent and return to God through faith in Jesus Christ, “with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord,” we “are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another.”
BECAUSE the red dragon is furiously working to “steal, and kill, and destroy” (and this is more blatantly evident now than it was even four years ago), we must tell the world that it is still true that “the true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world.” That is still the most wonderful news ever. The eye-witnesses declared that “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth”, and, “from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace.” So, even though, “No one has ever seen God”, we have this glorious good news that “the only God, who is at the Father's side, he has made him known.”
HOWEVER, because the devil has deceived the whole world, although Jesus “was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him.” This is sadly so true, that the world at large does not know Jesus Christ, and in its dead condition has no interest in doing so. Satan’s success over Israel at the time Jesus came was that Jesus the Messiah “came to his own, and his own people did not receive him.” Yes, even those who had received the covenant of God through Moses, and the promises made to Abraham, were so deceived by Satan that they would not receive the Messiah they were waiting for.
THE GOOD NEWS of God’s grace presents the unstoppable power of Jesus Christ as our Light and our Life so that, “to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.” Satan can deceive the world; he can steal, and kill, and destroy what will one day be destroyed forever, but he cannot stop Jesus from building his church, for Jesus himself declared, “on this rock (the testimony that Jesus is “the Christ, the Son of the living God”) I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”
I DO NOT write this so you will choose which side you want to be on, the evil side of the red dragon, or the holy and righteous side of Jesus the Christ. Rather, I hold out to you two persons who have a will for your life. Your heart can only follow one or the other. Do you feel the zombieness of a dead soul that cares nothing for your Creator and Savior who laid down his life for sin? Or do you hear the voice of Jesus calling to you so that, in all the expressions from God’s word in this Pondering you know that he is calling you to deny yourself, take up your cross of salvation, and follow him wherever he leads you through life?
AND WHAT should you do if you realize you believe in Jesus Christ as revealed in the word of God?
IN THE very first sermon that was preached after Jesus’ resurrection, so many people were grieved at what they had done to crucify the Messiah God had promised that they desperately cried out, “Brothers, what shall we do?”
THE ANSWER that was given continues to give direction and hope to us today: “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.” The question is, do you hear God calling you to himself? Then obey him in faith and “confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father”!
HOW DID IT go at that first invitation for people to receive eternal life in Jesus Christ? Well, as the preacher “with many other words… bore witness and continued to exhort them, saying, ‘Save yourselves from this crooked generation’” it says that “those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls.” The devil was thwarted in his work of stealing, killing, and destroying, and Jesus Christ was glorified as the Savior who gives life abundantly.
IF YOU also “confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.” And then you can know what it means that “Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.”
AND IF GOD is
doing that work in you, neither death, nor hell, nor the red dragon himself,
can thwart Jesus’ promise to his brothers, “I give them eternal life, and
they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father,
who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch
them out of the Father's hand. I and the Father are one.”
© 2023
Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8
Email: in2freedom@gmail.com
Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the
English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text
Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of
Good News Publishers.)
SCRIPTURES:
- Revelation 12:3 ~ “a
great red dragon”
- John 10:10 ~ Satan
steals, kills, destroys; Jesus gives abundant life
- II Corinthians 4:4 ~
Satan blinds unbelievers
- Revelation 1:17-18 ~ “I
am the first and the last”
- Ephesians 2:1-3 ~ Satan
is “the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience”
- John 1:1-3 ~ Jesus is the
Word
- II Corinthians 4:6 ~ God
shines into our hearts
- Deuteronomy 30:19-20 ~
choose life
- Luke 2:10-11 ~ “good news
of great joy”
- Ephesians 2:4-5 ~ God “made
us alive together with Christ”
- Revelation 12:9 ~ “the
great dragon was thrown down”
- Revelation 12:17 ~ “the
dragon became furious”
- Revelation 12:11 ~ believers
“have conquered” the red dragon
- Revelation 7:9-10 ~ “from
every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages,” all agree that “Salvation
belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!”
- Revelation 20:10 ~ “lake
of fire” for the devil
- Romans 8:35-39 ~ “more
than conquerors”
- II Corinthians 3:18 ~
transformed into Jesus’ likeness
- John 1:9 ~ “the true
light”
- John 1:14 ~ “the Word
became flesh”
- John 1:16 ~ “from his
fullness we have all received, grace upon grace.”
- John 1:18 ~ Jesus is “the
only God” who makes the Father known
- John 1:12-13 ~ those who
believe
- Matthew 16:17-18 ~ “I
will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”
- Acts 2:37-41 ~ “Repent
and be baptized”
- Philippians 2:9-10 ~ “confess
that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father”
- Romans 10:9-10 ~ “confess”
and “believe”
- I Peter 1:8-9 ~ “the
salvation of your souls”
- John 10:28-30 ~ we cannot
be snatched out of God’s hand
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