You know, you can't get any more plain than that. But what is not so plain is this, the second entity it represents, and that is pagan Rome. We find that Herod, a king of Rome, I know he wasn't the king, but he had jurisdiction over, I think, Jerusalem.
SourceHe put out a decree to kill all the baby boys, you know, two years and younger, trying to get rid of the seed. And we're going to read about that in Matthew in just a minute. And so the dragon stood before the woman, which was ready to be delivered for to devour her child as soon as it was born.
We want to understand that it is always the dragon. It is always Satan working through his seed, the wicked. Different time periods, different seed, different wicked ones.
But we're looking here at Rome being the major seed or servant of Satan as he worked through the pagan phase as well as the papal phase. So the dragon represents Satan, primarily, secondarily pagan Rome, because we read about the account of how Satan worked through Herod, king of pagan Rome, in a failed attempt to devour her child as soon as it was born. I just picked out a few verses that give us a kind of a summary of the events.
In Matthew 2, 3, when Herod the king had heard these things, remember when the wise men came before him, he was troubled and hauled Jerusalem with him. And when he, you know, that's interesting. Why would Jerusalem be troubled? You know, wouldn't they be excited? Are we excited to see Christ coming? Well, I am excited to see Christ coming.
Why would Israel not be excited to see the Messiah come? It's beyond my understanding. That just came out to me today, even though I've read this before. It just hit me today.
And when he had gathered, when Herod had gathered all the chief priests and scribes of the people together, he demanded of them where Christ should be born. Why? Because he wanted to get rid of him. He didn't want any rivals.