the dragon

Week 52 Revelation

I’m not a zoologist but I’m pretty sure dragons don’t exist…at least not materially in the 21st century and not in Alberta. Whether they existed at some point in the past I can’t say for sure.
But in Revelation 12 John saw a creature that he called a dragon and he described it this way..
It was huge and red
It had seven heads and ten horns
Its tail dragged a trail of stars
It wanted to kill the child of the woman clothed with the sun
It waged war with the archangel Michael.
Whatever I might think the monster is John takes the guess-work out of the problem when he says: this great dragon – the ancient serpent called the Devil, or Satan, the one deceiving the whole world – was thrown down to the earth.
So the ancient serpent of Genesis = the red dragon of Revelation = Satan.
I spot two troubling things to think about…
First is that Satan was thrown out of heaven. But where he landed was on earth. So that isn’t very good news for the world.
Second is that Satan failed to assassinate the child of the woman with the tiara. The result – John says – is that: the dragon became angry at the woman, and he declared war against the rest of her children – all who keep God’s commandments and confess that they belong to Jesus. So that isn’t very good news for me.

Note: quotes from Revelation 12:9 & 17 (NLT)