THE DRAGON, THAT OLD SERPENT
THE DRAGON, THAT OLD SERPANT
“And the
great dragon was thrown down. The serpent of old who is called the devil and
Satan who deceived the whole world; he was thrown down to the earth and his
angels were thrown down with him.” Rev. 12:9
It is
amazing to see the many cartwheels that Bible Scholars have gone through to try
and prove that the serpent in the Garden of Eden was a literal snake. Some say the
snake was more intelligent than the other animals and could talk… some say that
Satan talked through the snake… while others say that it couldn’t have been
perceived as Satan in the Old Testament times because He had not been named as
such in Old Testament times. Well, in both the book of Job and Zechariah, he is
called the Adversary and “Satan” is the Hebrew word for Adversary.
One Bible
scholar rationalized that it was probably an orangutan that was later mistaken
for a snake… Whaaaat? Give me a break. Sometimes Bible scholars can give you a
headache, especially when they resort to human wisdom over the plain Word of
God.
In
Revelation 12 we have no problem whatsoever equating the dragon and serpent
with Satan, so why is it that we have such a hard time equating the serpent in
Eden with Satan Himself? It was Satan himself, the fiery Nachash, a covering
Cherub that spoke to Eve in the Garden.
We need
to remember that Eden was, before the fall, a place where heaven and earth
touched each other. God Himself walked and talked with Adam and Eve and the sons
of God and angels and so on had access to the Garden and in fact, they had been
assigned to minister to Adam and Eve and to teach them the ways of heaven.
Notice
in Ezekiel 28 what God says about Satan. He says: “You had the seal of perfection, full of
wisdom and perfect in beauty. You were in Eden, the garden of God; every
precious stone was your covering… you were the anointed cherub that covers… You
were on the holy mountain of God.
So let
us look at a few things here.
1.
Satan was in Eden, the garden of God
2.
God placed him there. Ez. 28:14
3.
Every precious stone was his covering… but these
stones listed there are the same stones that were on the breastplate of the High
Priest. In other words, Satan had been appointed as a high priest of sorts
between God and man, but at some point instead of giving the glory and worship
to God, he began to crave that this new creature, man, would worship him
instead.
Noticed
as we have mentioned before when it comes to the garden of God and the mountain
of God and the city of God, it is almost impossible to distinguish whether it
is talking about heaven or earth and I truly believe that before the fall, the garden
of God and the mountain of God and the city of God occupied the same space.
Eden was a place where heaven touched earth… in fact there may have been a time
when the spiritual realm and the physical realm were united in a way that made
the physical realm eternal and it made man eternal as well. Adam never had to
die. He was designed to live forever.
But
when sin entered… when Adam and Eve decided to follow and believe Satan over
God, there was an instant separation. The physical realm and the spiritual
realm parted and the moment they parted, everything began to die. Entropy set
in throughout the entire physical universe. And that is why, as it says in
Romans 8:19
“For
the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons
of God. For creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will, but
because of Him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself also will be
set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the
children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains
of childbirth together until now and not only this but also we ourselves,
having the first fruits of the Spirit even we ourselves groan within ourselves
waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body.” Rom 8:
19-23.
Does a picture begin to form in your mind? The
physical Universe and the Spiritual universe were torn apart by man’s choosing
to follow the adversary. Now all of creation is anxiously waiting for its
restoration… the reuniting of the spiritual and physical realms. But notice that
we have been given the Holy Spirit as the first fruit of that coming marriage
of the physical and spiritual realms. In us, whose bodies have become temples
of the living God, the physical and spiritual realms have been reunited in
part. We don’t have the fullness of it yet, but we have a first fruit of it.
And when we, the sons of God are finally revealed in the fullness of the Spirit
it will mean the redemption of the entire creation as well.
If only
Bible scholars and we would allow the Bible to interpret itself, we would be
eons ahead in our understanding of some things. And like I said in a recent
article… if we could understand that the mountain of God in Jerusalem and the
mountain of God in heaven once occupied the same space and the Garden of God and
the river of life and the tree of life and all of those things can be seen as
being both in heaven and on earth and that they were separated because of the
fall, then we would begin to understand just what the battle is over in the
Holy Land today. Everyone is fighting over ownership of Jerusalem and the
Promised Land. Why is this?
It is
because the issues are much bigger than what we see on the surface. In fact
this is Satan’s last great struggle to hang on to his stolen kingdom and we can
see that battle being played out in a literal and physical way between God’s true
People and Satan’s people and as I am writing this I am reminded of a story in the
Bible. In 1 Kings 3:16-28, two harlots come to King Solomon claiming ownership
of the same baby. Solomon proposes cutting the baby in half so that each of the
women can have a part of it, but the true mother of the baby was willing to
give the baby up rather than to have it cut in half, so Solomon gave the baby
to her.
Is this
not exactly what is going on in in Israel today? Many harlots are fighting over
the same temple mount, but the true mother will prove to be the one that
refuses to allow the city to be cut in half… and she may lose the baby for a
while, but she will gain it in the end, for when the true Messiah comes He will
restore all things.
We
often miss the real message of the Bible because we divide it up into things
called doctrines that we hurl at each other like weapons, even as we miss the greater
message that the Bible is giving to us. We fail to understand the true issues
in the world today and because of it, the church is going back to Rome to
wonder after the beast, the old serpent that is called the devil. Many are
actually choosing the side of the devil in his fight for ownership of
Jerusalem.
And one
more interesting point here is this. The devil is described as a dragon with
seven heads and ten horns and on his heads seven diadems. And then again in
Revelation 13 we see another beast, a conglomerate beast that will preside over
the world in the end times leading up to the coming of Christ and this beast, or
global government is described as having 7 heads and ten horns and on his horns
ten diadems.
Hmmm… I
wonder who is empowering the presently forming global government and religion
of the Beast. Can you not see his players? Can you not feel the antichrist
spirit rising in governments, in many churches, in the college campuses… in
education at every level… in science… in human philosophy, in a renewal of
idolatry? Can we not see the dragon rising up in the beast to take over the whole
world? And in the middle of all of this is this battle over Eden… over
Jerusalem… because Satan knows that when heaven and earth are reunited, when the
true King comes. It will mean that Satan’s reign of terror is over and he will
be cast into the lake of fire.
Do we have
any idea what a huge privilege it is for us to have the Holy Spirit dwelling in
us? Do we understand that this is a foretaste of a greater reunion to take
place when the kingdoms of this world will have become the kingdom of our Lord
Jesus Christ? We have been given the first fruit of that coming Spirit when
heaven and earth are united as one once again one.
Jesus
Christ, the Son of God had to come down here and give His life in order to
break down the barrier of the dividing wall and it was demonstrated in the temple
by the veil being torn in two from top to bottom… and this broken down the
barrier of the dividing wall was initially between the Jews, God’s chosen
people and the Gentiles, who had previously been without God and without hope
in the world. Eph. 2:11-22
But in Romans
8, Paul also gives us the larger context in which all of creation will once
again be brought into unity with heaven and then we can all get on with
eternity. This is what Jesus bought for us. The separation of heaven and earth
has only been a temporary setback. Jesus bought back the physical universe on the
cross and now He, as our high Priest is waiting for all to hear the Good News
and to receive Him as Savior and Lord.
There
was no snake in the tree of knowledge of good and evil. It was Satan himself… and
his lies sent this world on a 6000 year course of mayhem, suffering, war and
death. But here in the last days Satan is still using the same old lies that he
used at the beginning. The sad thing is that many even among Christians are
falling away. They are making the same choices that Adam and Eve did. But this
time there will be no Savior coming to die for them. Jesus already did that and
He is our High Priest in heaven with arms open wide to all who will receive
Him.
But when
Jesus lays aside his priestly robes and returns as King of kings and Lord of
lords, He will separate the sheep from the goats, the wheat from the tares, the
wise from the foolish and those who have chosen Satan will go with Satan and
those who have chosen Jesus Christ will go with Him. The breach will be
repaired and heaven and earth will again prepare to share the same space.
So the questions
remains, will we walk through the eastern gate in the New Jerusalem in some far
distant galaxy, or will we meet at the eastern gate in Israel, the Promised Land?
I think it is both, for the Bible uses them interchangeably over and over again
so that we cannot make the distinction. In that day, heaven and earth will be
one. But perhaps the seventh millennium, the Sabbath millennium will be an interim
period when Jesus will restore all things and purify all things and prepare
this world for its eternal marriage with God. In that day the New Jerusalem
will come down from God out of heaven. Heaven and earth will indeed be one in
that day and eternity will become our new reality. This was Jesus’ prayer after
all. “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven
Ezekiel
describes the true millennial temple that will be built by the Messiah. It has a river flowing from it that brings life
wherever it goes. It has a tree by it that bears 12 kinds of fruit and its
leaves are for the healing of the nations. Ez. 47: 12 There will be all kinds of fish in
the river and the fishermen will cast their nets there. (Ez. 47:10) In short
Ezekiel spends 8 chapters describing in great detail the temple of God that
will occupy the coming 7th millennium as well as the apportioning of
the land to the 12 tribes of Israel. (See Ez. 47:1 as it was originally
intended) He also talks about an allotment of land for the prince Ez. 48:21
which we now know to be Jesus.
This is
not describing heaven or eternity for in the New Jerusalem we are told that
there will be no temple there. This is describing the millennial reign of
Christ and a holy temple that will be erected to teach the nations the ways of
God. It will be in the present location of the temple mount because part of the
river will flow to the east to bring life to the Dead Sea and part of it to the
west to the Mediterranean to bring life to the world. And we are also told in
Zechariah 14:16 that those who survive the Tribulation and the battle of Armageddon
will go up from year to year to worship the King (Jesus) and to celebrate the feast
of tabernacles.
There
are many mysteries hidden in the bible that I believe will be unsealed and brought
to light as we near the end. We know this is true of Daniel and we are also
told that it will be in the study of the Minor Prophets that the mysteries of
the last days will be revealed. In other words, our traditions often fall short
of the whole story and we need to know the rest of the story so that we can
understand the issues as they play out in these last days. Obviously many do
not understand the issues and so Protestant leaders are falling away in droves,
to join Pope Francis in his coming global religion and what that tells me is
that they don’t know nearly enough about the issues… either that or they are in
open rebellion against God. We live in very troubling times.
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