Satan Persecutes the Seed of the Woman
By Steve Billiter
From the time that Lucifer in heaven rebelled against God’s government of love in heaven and was cast out to the earth, he caused our first parents fall by insinuating that God was withholding something good for them greatly to be desired. He exulted in their sin knowing that now he was the god of this new world and wished to rule it forever. God then tells the serpent that the “seed of the woman” would crush His head; ”And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; it shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel”( Gen 3:15).
“Christ in a special manner bruised the head of the serpent, but the prophecy is far-reaching. It is a declaration of an unwearied conflict between Christ and His followers, and Satan and his angels and human agencies on this earth, to the close of time” {CTr 322.2}.
Satan knew that some kind of plan was made to save man and war against his kingdom. Later on, Satan figures out that Abel must be the seed of the woman, Eve. That added to the fact that when Abel obeyed God and brought the lamb for a sacrifice that represented Christ; Satan watched carefully discerning something from heaven to earth occurring that relates to what God told him concerning the “seed of the woman.” The Devil thinks that he can just “destroy the seed” and cause Cain to kill Abel, which he does; but Satan doesn’t seem to have his real thinking cap on, because the Scripture says “the seed,” not the one and only seed; and besides, doesn’t he know that God has all-power? Sin must have corrupted his thinking! The text below tells us that Satan was not nearly as wise as he used to be. How easily foolish pride can overcome godly wisdom if cherished!
Eze 28:17: “Your heart was lifted up because of your beauty, you have corrupted your wisdom by reason of your brightness: I will cast you to the ground, I will lay you before kings, that they may behold you.”
Seth was born, and the name Seth means “substitute.” Besides, Eve plainly says Seth is the new seed; “And Adam knew his wife again; and she bore a son, and called his name Seth: “For God,” said she, “has appointed me another seed instead of Abel, whom Cain slew” (Gen. 4:25).
• Satan becomes more enraged because he cannot destroy the royal line but remains in hot pursuit of Jesus, the promised Messiah.
• God preserved the seed of the woman as Noah and his family of eight were saved upon the ark as the great flood destroyed all the rest of the wicked, unbelieving inhabitants of the earth.
• Many years later after Abraham was called by God to be the father of a great nation, Satan caused Esau the brother of the royal line to move upon Jacob to kill him as he traveled with his two wives, servants, and flocks. However, the Holy Spirit was with Jacob and he begged forgiveness of Esau for defrauding him of his birthright (Gen. 31:1-4).
• God preserved Jacob who had 12 sons, thus becoming the 12 tribes of Israel with the seed of the woman continuing through the son of Jacob, Judah.
• Mat 1:2 Abraham begat Isaac; and Isaac begat Jacob; and Jacob begat Judas and his brethren;
• Mat 1:3 And Judas begat Phares and Zara of Thamar; and Phares begat Esrom; and Esrom begat Aram;
• The next significant event is how King Saul came to hate David who also of the royal ancestry and tried over and over to kill David (see on 1Samuel 18:11) being filled with evil, but God preserves David and the line continues on down through Solomon to baby Jesus.
Jesus is born, and when the wise men came to worship him, King Herod sought to kill the holy Child and sent soldiers to kill all babies 2 years old and under in Palestine; “Then Herod, when he saw that he was mocked of the wise men, was exceeding wroth, and sent forth, and slew all the children that were in Bethlehem, and in all the coasts thereof, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had diligently inquired of the wise men”( Mat 2:16). Before baby Jesus was to be killed with the other babies; an angel appeared to Joseph and told him to flee with his family to Egypt (Matthew 2:13). “And she being with child cried, travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered”( Rev 12:2) “…and the dragon stood before the woman which was ready to be delivered, for to devour her child as soon as it was born”(Rev 12:4).
Many times before Jesus was finally put to death, the Jews tried to stone him (John 8:59) and push off a cliff, but angels of God protected the Lord because it was not yet His time to die for the sins of the world. But at the end of His prophesied 3 and ½ year ministry Satan succeeded in inciting the Jews to employ a Roman cross—a horrific instrument of torture to put the Lord of glory to a horribly painful, shameful death; “without the gate” (Heb. 13:12) of Jerusalem, where condemned criminals were executed. He was nailed to the cruel cross with a malefactor on either side of Him as his mother and disciples wept in misery not remembering His words that He would rise on the 3rd day;
Matthew 27:35; “And they crucified him, and parted his garments, casting lots: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, “They parted my garments among them, and on my clothing did they cast lots”(Psalms 22:18).
“And Satan with his angels, in human form, was present at the cross. The archfiend and his hosts were co-operating with the priests and rulers. The teachers of the people had stimulated the ignorant mob to pronounce judgment against One upon whom many of them had never looked, until urged to bear testimony against Him. Priests, rulers, Pharisees, and the hardened rabble were confederated together in a satanic frenzy. Religious rulers united with Satan and his angels. They were doing his bidding.” {DA 746.4}
The Lord lay in the cold grave and rested upon the 7th Day Sabbath that He Himself with the Father had created. The disciples were hiding in the upper chamber thinking they might be next in line to be killed after their entire hopes were swept away upon the death of their beloved Lord. However, unbeknownst to them, the most powerful of the heavenly angels came to earth to call the Lord to life;
"And, behold, there was a great earthquake: for the angel of the Lord descended from heaven." Clothed with the panoply of God, this angel left the heavenly courts. The bright beams of God's glory went before him, and illuminated his pathway. "His countenance was like lightning, and his raiment white as snow: and for fear of him the keepers did shake, and became as dead men." {DA 779.2}
“Now, priests and rulers, where is the power of your guard? Brave soldiers that have never been afraid of human power are now as captives taken without sword or spear. The face they look upon is not the face of mortal warrior; it is the face of the mightiest of the Lord's host. This messenger is he who fills the position from which Satan fell. It is he who on the hills of Bethlehem proclaimed Christ's birth. The earth trembles at his approach, the hosts of darkness flee, and as he rolls away the stone, heaven seems to come down to the earth. The soldiers see him removing the stone as he would a pebble, and hear him cry, Son of God, come forth; Thy Father calls Thee. They see Jesus come forth from the grave, and hear Him proclaim over the rent sepulcher, "I am the resurrection, and the life." As He comes forth in majesty and glory, the angel host bow low in adoration before the Redeemer, and welcome Him with songs of praise.” {DA 779.3}
Satan was disappointed when his fallen angels fled at the holy angels presence, and he knew that his kingdom would end and that he would finally die. His rage increasing, he takes the only action that he can and goes after the apostles having them all martyred except John the Revelator; “You have condemned and killed the just; and he does not resist you”( James 5:6).Thus begins the bloody period of the second horseman (2nd seal) of the apocalypse. “And there went out another horse that was red: and power was given to him that sat thereon to take peace from the earth, and that they should kill one another: and there was given unto him a great sword” (Rev 6:4 ).
This time period in history was from 100-313 AD when great persecution entered the church and the blood of the martyrs became the seed of the faith. According to the Roman historian Tacitus:
“Besides being put to death they [the Christians] were made to serve as objects of amusement; they were clad in the hides of beast and torn to death by dogs; others were crucified, others set on fire to serve to illuminate the night when daylight failed. Nero had thrown open his grounds for the display, and was putting on a show in the circus, where he mingled with the people in the dress of a charioteer or drove about in his chariot. All this gave rise to a feeling of pity, even toward men whose guilt merited the most exemplary punishment; for it was felt that they were being destroyed not for the public good but to satisfy the cruelty of an individual” (Henry Bettenson and Chris Maunder).
Out of 54 Roman Emperors during this time, only about 12 persecuted and executed Christians, so there was an estimated 129 total years of persecution and 120 total years of peace. Those Roman emperors such as Nero who were given over to the most vile, evil passions; Satan was able to use these rulers as agents of the saints destruction; but for every one killed many more sprang up in his/her place. The people beheld the joy and serenity as the condemned witnessed for their faith—a religion worth living for should be worth dying for.
History will repeat itself soon when America makes the image to the first beast (the papacy) and makes a National Sunday Law, “And he had power to give life to the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed” (Rev 13:15)” ….and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark on their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years” (Rev 20:4).
After these times, in the 4th century, Emperor Constantine enters the scene and decides that killing Christians is getting Rome nowhere, so he professes Christ himself and began the merging of baptized paganism with nominal Christianity. His rule was the foundation of the papacy that had its official start in 538 AD with the degree of Justinian and ended with the capture of the pope by Napoleon in 1798. During these Dark Ages, some estimates run as high as 100 million saints executed by the papacy for following the Bible and not the traditions and errors of Rome. Foxes’ Book of Martyrs contains many records in history of the names and circumstances of the more significant saints who witnessed for the faith of Jesus and His Ten Commandments by their deaths.
The pages of Bibles that some of us study every day while tens of millions gather dust on the shelf unread are stained with the blood of faithful martyrs who died for its truths rather than give in to papal Rome’s demands. Others managed to hide from the fury of Satan and his agents of terror, “And to the woman (the true church) were given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness, into her place, where she is nourished for a time, and times, and half a time, from the face of the serpent.” Christians hid in caves and in the catacombs of Rome, and in wilderness places such as the Italian Alps as the Waldensians kept the faith and taught the gospel at great cost of life, and the word of God and the faith of Jesus was preserved by God’s providence.
In the 15th century began the migration of saints to the New World which later became America; fulfilling this prophecy and becoming the greatest nation in the world with an unheard experiment in personal freedoms and religious liberty, “And the earth (America) helped the woman, (the persecuted saints) and the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed up the flood which the dragon cast out of his mouth” (Rev 12:16).
After 1798 begins the time of the end as Satan becomes more enraged and viscously attacks the seed. “And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ” (Rev 12:17). This writer and millions of other 7th Day Adventists believe that this verse is a part of the prophetic Biblical record that describes God’s end-time people who have the faith of Jesus and keep all of the Ten Commandments and not just 9. While Adventists are not exclusively the only people of God, we believe that Satan attacks us harder because of our commitment to the 7th Day Sabbath in which he, Satan, has attempted to change through his agents, the papacy.
This great controversy between Christ and Satan will continue and increase in intensity as Satan’s rage against the “remnant of her seed” fulfills prophecy in the mark (666) of the beast, through the great time of trouble, (Daniel 12:1) and climaxes with the greatest event the world will ever see; the second coming of Jesus Christ in the clouds to rescue His church and execute the wrath of the Lamb on the wicked who despised the free grace of Jesus and said by their lives, “We will not have this Jesus rule over us.” May we be faithful unto death and the Lord will give us the crown of everlasting life to us who love His appearing!
References
Henry Bettenson and Chris Maunder, eds., Documents of the Christian Church, 3rd. ed. (Oxford UP, 1999), p. 2.Web; Retrieved from; http://www.religionfacts.com/christianity/history/persecution.htm
Ellen White; DA 746.4; DA 779.2; DA 779.3; (From the Desire of Ages). CTr 322.2; (Christ Triumphant)