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Casting Down The
Dragon
When Paul
visited the city of Athena, it was wholly and
completely given to idolatry. The dragon ruled
there; the pagan Roman Empire had complete
control of that city. Now Paul was not as modern
people who say, "If I preach truth here, it will
just stir up trouble and cause a lot of
problems, so the best thing I could do is to
just slip on away from here." No, Paul got right
in the middle of it and began to cry out with a
message about The Unknown
God. He said, "For as I
passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an
altar with this inscription, To The Unknown God.
Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him
declare I unto you." (Acts
17:23).
In Acts 19, we read about how the
city of Ephesus was wholly given to idolatry,
and Paul preached the truth there. Many people
confessed, burned their books of curious arts,
the Word of God grew and prevailed, and the
dragon was cast down. Idolatry had been lifted
ad the very religion of that country, that city,
and that people, but when the Word of God
prevailed through Paul's teaching, one of
Christ's angels (remember: angel means
"messenger or minister"), the dragon was cast
down.
Follow through the Acts of the
Apostles: even before the Apostles died, history
tells us that the temples of the gods were
completely forsaken for true Christianity. They
turned the (then-known and then-populated) world
upside down. If they would have kept that fire
and zeal and trueness to God, they would have
turned OUR world upside down. A little later,
though, the devil turned around to attack the
woman, "the Church", and he did it through
powerful overthrow? NO! He did it through
lukewarmness and carelessness! He cooled off
"the Church" and there was a falling away, even
after they had cast the dragon, paganism, down
to the earth.
You may question, "What do
you mean, 'cast down to the earth'?" Paganism
had been exalted as a religion. He wanted to be
a religion right along with true Christianity,
but true Christianity will not let ANYthing be
exalted beside it, not even you or me. When the
Truth went forth and the Word of God prevailed,
the dragon (paganism, idolatry, infidelity) was
cast down to the earth. It was no longer to be
held as a religion, but was proven to be earthly
and devilish, with no god in it whatsoever. That
is what the Revelation means when it speaks of
"being cast down to the
earth".
Satan, Or The
Adversary
Revelation 12:9 tells us,
And the great dragon was cast out, that old
serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which
deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into
the earth, and his angels were cast out with
him. Many people cannot see the dragon as
paganism because the Bible says he is called the
devil and Satan. We made it plain earlier in the
lesson that the devil is a spirit; he is not
some beast with seven heads and ten horns. That
only symbolized the Pagan Roman Empire that the
devil was working through.
Among the
Hebrews, the word Satan is used in a
very literal sense. The word devil in
the Greek is actually translated, "accuser or
slanderer". This is exactly what it means when
it says, "that old serpent, called the Devil,
and Satan, which deceiveth the whole
[then-known] world." My friend, it is using it
in the sense of him being an accuser, or an
opposer.
I will give you some living
expressions of it in the Bible. When Balaam
failed God and went against God, God tried to
talk to him, but couldn't stop him that way.
Numbers 22:20-22 tell us, And God came unto
Balaam at night, and said unto him, If the men
come to call thee, rise up, and go with them;
but yet the word which I shall say unto thee,
that shalt thou do. And Balaam rose up in the
morning, and saddled his ass, and went with the
princes of Moab. And God's anger was kindled
because he went: and the angel of the Lord stood
in the way for an adversary against him. Now he
was riding upon his ass, and his two servants
were with him. The King James Version says
that the angel of the Lord was an "adversary",
or a Satan, against him. There, the angel of the
Lord is called Satan because the Hebrew actually
means that he was an adversary. He was working
against Balaam to stop him.
The words
Satan and devil, in the light
of Bible language, are used in lots of different
ways. In I Samuel 29:4, David was called an
adversary, or Satan, to the Philistines: And
the princes of the Philistines were wroth with
him; and the princes of the Philistines said
unto him, Make this fellow return, that he may
go again to his place which thou hast appointed
him, and let him not go down with us to battle,
lest in the battle he be an adversary
(referring to David there) to us: for
wherewith should he reconcile himself unto his
master? should it not be with the heads of these
men? In Matthew 16:23, Jesus called Peter,
"Satan": But he turned, and said unto Peter,
Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art an offence
unto me: for thou savourest not the things that
be of God, but those that be of men. If you
insist that the dragon was the devil, then you
would have to say that Peter was the devil. WE
know differently, Amen? Jesus called Peter
Satan because at that moment, Peter was
in direct opposition to that which Jesus wanted
to accomplish, the Will of
God.
Jesus Is Called An
Adversary
Matthew 5:25 tells us to
agree with our adversary quickly, while you are
in the way with Him. There, Jesus is spoken of
as an adversary: Agree with thine adversary
quickly, whiles thou art in the way with him;
lest at any time the adversary deliver thee to
the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the
officer, and thou be cast into prison.
There, Jesus is spoken of as an adversary. Why
do I say it is Jesus that "adversary" in that
scripture is referring to? Because scipture
tells us, in 2 Corinthians 6:2, (For he
saith, I have heard thee in a time accepted, and
in the day of salvation have I succoured thee:
behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is
the day of salvation.) Now, today, whenever
you receive the call of Christ upon your life,
agree to come to Him quickly. Jesus is called an
adversary to the sinner because the sinner is
living in opposition to Him. The Bible tells us
to agree with Him quickly, while He is dealing
with us, or why He is in the way with us. Why?
You can go on by the hour that God is dealing
with you in conviction--you could be sealed in
your sins.
In Matthew 23:33, Jesus called
the scribes and Pharisees "serpents": Ye
serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye
escape the damnation of hell? In Revelation
12:9, the dragon is called "that old serpent":
And the great dragon was cast out, that old
serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which
deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into
the earth, and his angels were cast out with
him. You might ask, "Why is he called a
'serpent'?" When God made Adam in the Garden of
Eden, He took a rib out of his side and brought
forth his bride. Just as soon as the bride came
forth, the serpent was there to beguile the
first Adam's wife. Now, the second Adam, Jesus
Christ, went to Calvary, and out of His side
flowed blood and water that purchased "the
Church", the Bride of Christ. As soon as the
second Adam brought forth His bride, right there
was the serpent ready to beguile, destroy, and
knock her out. So, my friends, the Pagan Roman
Empire is spoken of as "that old serpent, called
the Devil, and Satan" because he is an opposer
of, an adversary to, true
Christianity.
In no way, however, did it
say that the dragon was the devil himself. You
might contend, "Are you sure? I thought this was
where the devil was cast out." My friend,
nowhere in the Bible does it say that God cast
this dragon down--the ministry cast him down.
Revelation 12:10,11 tells us, And I heard a
loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come
salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our
God, and the power of his Christ: for the
accuser of our brethren is cast down, which
accused them before our God day and night. And
they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and
by the word of their testimony; and they loved
not their lives unto the death. The ones
who were battling him cast him down and overcame
him. I hope I have made it plain to you that the
dragon is the Pagan Roman Empire. Nowhere does
the Bible even suggest that the devil was kicked
down. He is still operating; it was the dragon
that was put out of business for that particular
time. The devil then changed his clothes and
came up another
way.
There Is Power In The
Blood
Let us now consider verse
11 (of our scripture text above): And they
overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by
the word of their testimony; and they loved not
their lives unto the death. Have you ever
wondered how they overcame this dragon by the
Blood of the Lamb? We know that the Blood of the
Lamb cleanses from all sin, but just being set
free from sin, or cleansed from sin, would not
give you power to overcome the dragon. There
must be some deeper truth in John's
language about the Blood of the Lamb. There was
something about the Blood of the Lamb that made
them overcomers. Regardless of what the devil
threw at them, even terrible, gruesome torture,
they overcame it, put it down, and lived
consistently right down to the minute they
died.
In this day where people are giving
up so easily, we need to get a deeper vision of
the blood of Jesus Christ. There are people who
claim to be Christians who are going to have to
get a greater hold on the power of the blood of
Jesus Christ, or they are not going to make it!
None of us have resisted unto blood. Brothers
and Sisters, the Blood of the Lamb is still the
Blood of the Lamb. When you truly get hold of it
and let it work in your life, it will produce
the same experience as it did back
then!
It is a proven fact that you could
not take martyrdom, the fire, or the persecution
that they took by just resting on the fact that
the blood of Jesus has cleansed you from all
sin. There must be something more to the blood.
Just the fact that you know you are clean does
not give you power against the enemy of your
soul. The blood of Jesus Christ does MORE for us
than JUST cleanse us from all sin. It is
The Power
Source.
There were two
things that enabled them to overcome, and the
first positive, powerful one was the blood of
Jesus. If we ever overcome, we are going to have
to use the same means that God afforded for "the
Church" in the first period of time. The
Scripture says that they overcame by the Blood
of the Lamb, or they overcame because of the
Blood of the Lamb. We have to face the fact that
Christ may bid some of us to die for Him. I
don't know that, and neither do you. We may have
to sign our testimony with our own blood one of
these days, but if we are never called to die
for Him, He has certainly called us to LIVE for
Him!! If we don't do the lesser, if we are not
completely willing to do the lesser, we'll never
do the higher and more glorious.
What is
the higher and more glorious? To be able to lay
down our lives for Him. It's very easy to
testify that you would die for Jesus, but you
cannot die for Him unless you LIVE for Him!
Friend, if we can't overcome in life, we can't
overcome in death. They overcame by the Blood of
the Lamb.
The conflict with evil is
really a spiritual conflict carried on, first,
within us. Mark it down, before any one of those
martyrs went to a burning stake, they had a
great battle within before they ever had a
battle without. They had to settle the battle
within. Right here is where the failure comes.
My friends, the first approach of the enemy is
the battle within the mind. Much of the area of
Armageddon is fought within the mind. There must
be a work that is wrought within us through the
blood of Jesus Christ, whereby we can live a
settled life in the inner person. Unless we find
that settled peace for the inner man (woman), we
will NEVER be able to live it
outwardly!
The Life Is
In The Blood
Paul said,
When Christ, who is our life, shall appear,
then shall ye also appear with him in
glory. Colossians 3:4. Over and over he
taught the fact to "the Church" that Christ is
our life. What does that have to do with the
blood? John the Baptist was the first to cry
out, when that beautiful young man appeared
where John was doing some baptizing, The
next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and
saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away
the sin of the world. John 1:29. Think
about how awesome (for lack of a better word)
that must have been to John to see His Redeemer:
"BEHOLD! Let me have your attention. Stop what
you are doing and look here!" And then to
announce, "...the Lamb of God, which taketh away
the sins of the world." What a declaration of
recognition! He didn't enlarge upon it, but the
Apostle John, however, in First, Second, and
Third John, in the Book of John and in the
Revelation, went into a deep study of the Lamb
of God. The word lamb to John meant
much more than just the general, submissive,
loving character that Christ
possessed.
All through his writings, the
Apostle John associated the figure of The Lamb
with sacrifice. In Revelation 5:5,6, when the
book couldn't be opened, and the Lion of the
Tribe of Judah took hold and opened it, John
wrote, And one of the elders saith unto me,
Weep not: behold, the Lion of the tribe of Juda,
the Root of David, hath prevailed to open the
book, and to loose the seven seals thereof. And
I beheld, and, lo, in the midst of the throne
and of the four beasts, and in the midst of the
elders, stood a Lamb as it had been slain,
having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the
seven Spirits of God sent forth into all the
earth. In Revelation 13:8, he wrote,
And all that dwell upon the earth shall
worship him, whose names are not written in the
book of life of the Lamb slain from the
foundation of the world. Every time he
dealt with The Lamb, he dealt with it as a slain
lamb, or a lamb that was offered in
sacrifice.
He taught that Christ was a
Lamb that was offered as a sacrifice for the
removal of sin, and a deeper something was in
the Blood of the Lamb. What was it? God began
teaching in the days of Noah, when they first
began to bring animal sacrifices, that the shed
blood stood for a life yielded. Moses taught the
people that "the life was in the
blood".
In those days, it was the life of
an animal that was taken, its blood spilled in
sacrifice for sin. We all know that the blood of
bulls and goats cannot take away sin, but the
picture God wanted to hold before them was that
the life was in the blood. Even though the blood
of animals could not deliver them, yet it was a
schoolmaster, or a shadow, to teach them that
deliverance from sin took more than merely
spilling blood. It took a life given. The life
was in the blood; when the blood was spilled,
the animal laid down his life.
As God
held that before them, that the life was in the
blood, He tolds it true right over into the New
Testament. In Hebrews 9:13,14, we find:
For if the blood of
bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer
sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the
purifying of the flesh: How much more shall the
blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit
offered himself without spot to God, purge your
conscience from dead works to serve the living
God?
How did Jesus offer His blood?
He gave Himself to God. How did He give Himself?
He laid down His earthly body through the
eternal Spirit. When He gave Himself to God, His
blood that was spilled cleanses and sanctifies
you, or sets you apart, and the very life that
was given in the blood makes you able to serve
God in holiness and righteousness all the days
of your
life.
Christ-Life
How did they
overcome through the blood? Through the life of
the blood. It is the same way you and I
overcome. We can be cleansed through faith in
His blood, but if we overcome, it will take some
life within us. That is why Paul said, I am
crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet
not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life
which I now live in the flesh I live by the
faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave
himself for me. We can be MORE than
conquerors through Jesus Christ that lives
within us. Christ met the prince of this world,
and He overcame him. Sixty millon (plus) martyrs
met the best that the devil could throw at them,
and they overcame him with the Blood of the Lamb
(the life of the Lamb). The same life that was
in them that was in Jesus. How did it affect
them? They loved not their lives unto the
death.
Too many "professing" Christians
can't enjoy this kind of life because they love
their life too well. When you want your way, and
have reserves that you won't give up for
anybody, you will never find this life. Jesus
made it plain in Luke's Gospel that if you ever
find this life, you have to hate your
life.
Whenever the blood is applied
through faith to your life that cleanses you
from all sin, the life of Christ comes in also.
The blood is not reaching these people who only
see cleansing and no power to live right. Many
times, it isn't their fault. Why not? Because
they are NOT being taught! All they see in
Christ is the Lamb of God that just keeps them
under the blood while they still live in
sin--there is NO overcoming in that kind of
life!
They can't overcome the devil when
he comes around and says, "Here's a Lucky
Strike. Take it." Then they answer, "Well, I
just can't help myself. Jesus will forgive me
tonight." There is no overcoming in that. They
are continuing in their sins. If you can't
overcome a mere cigarette, you can't overcome a
burning stake!
There is overcoming power
in the Blood of the Lamb. Why? It is just as the
animal that was killed--his blood was not only
spilled--his life was laid down. Now there was
no way in the Old Testament for them to take on
the life of the animal. Jesus, however, lay down
His life and spilled His life's blood that we
might take on His life through the eternal
Spirit. In other words, the inner man took the
outer man and lay him on the altar and slew him
there. When you come to God in old-time
repentance, that same Holy Spirit that He
offered Himself to God through, works on your
heart and life to make you a NEW creature IN
CHRIST.
I hope you are able to see that
there is something more about the blood than
just a cleansing action. There is also the
keeping action--it not only cleanses us from our
sins, it also keeps us holy unto God.
Christ-life is given to us when we take faith in
His blood. So the New Testament teaches "the
Church" that it is Christ IN you, or Christ
formed in you. For I through the law am dead
to the law, that I might live unto God. I am
crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet
not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life
which I now live in the flesh I live by the
faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave
himself for me. Galatians 4:19,20. So, we
overcome that which is ready to devour all
goodness by the virtue of the Blood of the Lamb,
or the Christ-life that is in us. Here is the
assurance of victory over all the forms of evil.
Not only did they overcome back then, but we can
overcome today! The life-giving power through
the blood gave them (gives us)
victory.
"...By The
Word Of Their
Testimony..."
They
overcame, first, by the Blood of the Lamb, and
secondly, by the word of their testimony. We
must have the real inner life, and an open
confession. Why an open confession? Why did ther
have to be the testimony? Life only keeps
healthy when it finds expression and exercise.
Any life, even physical life, must have exercise
and expression. You can't keep this life of
Christ down inside without an open expression or
testimony. If you don't tell it, you will lose
it.
Not only did the early Christians
believe in the life of the blood, but they were
not fearful to testify. Whenever the life of
Christ is working in the inner man, you will
lose your fear to speak out. Those early
Christians lay down their lives for the word of
their testimony.
Someone may ask, "How
did that overcome the dragon?" My friends, this
is the power that brought him down. Every time a
martyr would stand with a real burning testimony
of what Jesus had done for him (or her), and he
would not deny the Lord or blaspheme Him, they
would kill him (or her). It was nothing to see
twenty-five people fall on their knees and give
their hearts to God because of one martyr's
testimony.
OUR world of today could be
reached the same way if we would get the real
life of the blood, the life of Christ, working
within us, and then fearlessly stand against
wrong. Let people know that you don't have to
have time to make up your mind. It's already
made up: "I'll serve Jesus if it kills me." Here
is salvation, and we need to take a fresh look
at it. Jesus can do more for man than he is
doing for a lot of people who claim to be
Christians.
Revelation 12:10 tells us,
And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven,
Now is come salvation, and strength, and the
kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ:
for the accuser of our brethren is cast down,
which accused them before our God day and
night. There is power through our Christ to
put the devil down, any way he comes. That is
salvation! I want to tell you, Friends, we need
a good shaking, and God is doing a mighty
shaking already to get us ready. There is only
one way to overcome--through the life that is
found in the Blood of the Lamb. That life will
enable us to walk up to the chopping block, if
necessary, as Paul did. Let's overcome. The life
is in the blood, and it will make us overcomers
in all things. |
