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Welcome to our 73rd lesson in the study of revelation. I've entitled it Heads, Crowns, and Horns. And I want us to understand that we do not grasp these concepts in the, as the readers of the first century would have understood them, then we will be not able to clearly understand what is being communicated here. And I think that throughout church history, this has been the case. What do they mean when they say the heads, the crowns, the horns? We can look into mysticism. We can look into Gnosticism. We can make it up. We can allegorize it. And you can arrive at pretty much any solution you wish. And we've seen this happen in the writings, especially in the last 50 years or so, where people have just run riot in imagination. And why is this? Because you're always, always faced, when you come to the Bible, with whether you're gonna exegete or eisegete scripture. Exegete means you get the meaning out of Scripture. Eisegete means you're going to put your meaning into Scripture. So, what is your purpose for coming to the Bible? And it's really no more complicated than that. To understand the biblical metaphors of prophetic imagery, we must exegete by these guidelines. And they're not exhaustive. They're just a brief overview. Scripture defines Scripture. Words are defined by the authors who use them as they would have known them or defined them. We can't put our definitions upon words. that they would have had no understanding of. They would have made it totally incoherent to them. And definitions are shaped by historical, cultural, political, and religious contexts of their time. So we have to go back through archaeology, through literature, and study of history and try to understand how they would have used those words. What was their worldview at the time? Well, were the problems they were dealing with? What were the solutions that God was giving them and having them write down? And to be honest, and Scripture tells us this, that they did not always understand the answers that they were given. They were just faithful to write them down. And it would take study. It would take millennia And now here we are toward the end of the ages, and we have the benefit of all this hindsight. And yet we squander it. And we do so because, at heart, we're sinners. And we want to justify ourselves. And so, what happens? We push modern definitions and contexts onto ancient writings, and thus we eisegit the scriptures. We read our meanings into them. This legitimizes sin's purposes rather than search out God's meaning in passages. We want to arrive at our approved meaning. rather than God's meaning. This is a hermetic dialectic that is fundamental to Satan's methodology throughout time, but which only in the last 100, 200 years have we come to realize just how it works and how effective it is. And it has permeated everything. is the favorite tool of false teachers and false prophets led by the great dragon. God says, come, let us reason together. Let us exegete scripture. And it begins, of course, with the law of identity. And that is what we're going to do. We're going to Briefly, very briefly, look at these three terms, head, crown, horn. Because here we are in Revelation chapter 12 with the mesmerizing dragon, as we discussed in the past lesson. It has seven heads, seven crowns, 10 horns. They don't even match up. What is the meaning? What are we supposed to understand? And if we do not identify these clearly in Scripture, by Scripture, we will continue to not understand. And we can force that text to mean anything we want to. Well, this only illustrates our sin. It hides the truth from us. But it does God no violence. is he is the source of truth. He knows the truth and the truth will come out. So, we're going to begin with the head. And I've used the Latin term Princess Civitantis, which is the title that Augustus took to himself, first citizen, because this really encapsulates what the head is. Now we're talking about the head, we don't mean the head on the top of your body. though that can be a metaphor for what we're talking about. The head is the person who represents the family, the culture, the religion, the nation, such as Adam, he is the head of all mankind, 1 Corinthians 15, 20 through 22. Christ, the last Adam, is the head of all who will be saved, who will have the new covenant, You have the first Adam, you have the last Adam. Each is the head. And Paul in 1 Corinthians 15 goes into great detail illustrating this difference. Because in Adam, all sin. We're all conceived in iniquity. We all run to do evil. There is none righteous. No, not one. Abel, he was designated to be Adam's replacement. He was to be the next head of the family. Except Cain, through his mother, was raised to be that person. And he took umbrage when God did not choose him. He'd been training his whole life, hundreds of years, to take that position. And God says, no, you're not the one. And so Cain killed Abel. He assassinated him. Then he went and started his own clan. And not just his own clan, but he instituted the first urban government, the first social system. apart from God's social system. So right at the very beginning we have this dichotomy. We have this duality that's contrasting and opposing each other. Now Augustus, after seeing Julius Caesar assassinated, he decided, well, I'm not going to call myself emperor or any other title. I'm just going to call myself first citizen. This was an excellent move, but he didn't make it up. As we can see, it's a very ancient concept. the head of the government, the head of the family, the head of the tribe, is the first person. They are the ones that speak for the tribe, the clan, the organization, the religion, the nation. And so he's emphasizing this equality, this fraternity. Of course, what we're sacrificing, of course, is liberty. Now Christ, Jesus, is the head of the church. He's the first fruits of the new creation that will extend into the new eternity. Christ leads, though, by serving. Though he is God, should be served. He represents the Father. So Christ is the head of the body. He's head of the family. Talks about this in Ephesians 5 through 23. He is our example in all things. Husbands should be serving the family. That's how you lead. You lead by serving. It's not how Satan leads though. He leads by driving, by forcing. Satan is the head of sinful man through whom he seeks to expunge the saved from all existence. So we have this dragon, this mesmerizing dragon, the body of it. That is Satan. Revelations 12, 9. We'll get to that in our next lesson. And we'll see that that runs throughout the entire length of the scriptures. And all who are born in sin, which is all of us, are enslaved to him. He is our father, John 8, 44. All who are born in sin are sons of Satan. You want to be a son of God, you have to be born from above. Christ will pay that price so that you may be born from above. But it means changing heads, changing families. What is the crown? seem to think of the crown as a symbol of my authority. The king wears the crown. He has the authority. He has the power. It is his or hers or whomever. But that's not what the crown represents. The crown does not represent you. It does not represent your authority. The crown represents delegated authority. See, Christ wears no crown because he is the Son. He gets his authority directly from the Father. Angels are not in position of authority. They're ministering spirits. They get no crowns. Thus, Satan doesn't get a crown. He has no delegated authority. Now, yes, there will be delegated what they need to do to accomplish their mission, but they're not being given this delegated authority to set up this realm to carry out certain specific purposes. That is limited strictly to people. That's the symbol. The crown is the symbol of this delegated authority, and it's worn on the head, showing that the first citizen, head of the clan, leads by serving. Shows himself, herself, being under submission to the one whose badge they're wearing. This is probably the best example of this in the scripture is the mitre crown of the high priest. They had the mitre, the white cloth, but they also had a gold band, the crown, and on it was inscribed, holy to the Lord, showing that that high priest was under the authority of the Lord. That high priest should not be acting on their own. Aaronic priesthood had problems with that But that was the essence of it and we see that in Exodus 39 30 and 31 Though God does allow governments to rule Romans 13 1 through 7 he states this and to rebel against them is to rebel against him, however, I This does not mean that governments are godly. This does not mean that governments are an extension of God. Because as we've already seen, Cain established the first government. It was not godly. And every government since then has not been godly, whether it be from Nimrod or Cyrus or Babylon or Persian or American or European or whatever. They're not God. Godly. They are all in rebellion against Him, seeking to establish their own. And why is that? Because while the authority to rule comes from God, God gives them space. He gives them up. to declare what they believe. Romans 1, 18 through 28. God not only gives up the individual to follow their sin and thus show themselves worthy of judgment, but he also does the same for governments. Remember, Jesus, as the Son of Man, when he was condemned by the Sanhedrin, and pronounced worthy to be the Paschal Lamb by the high priest, was turned over to the Romans, who then mocked him, and placed on him a crown of thorns, showing that they didn't believe he had any authority. And Pilate emphasized this when he said, what is truth? Christ says, I speak truth. My kingdom is not of this world. Pilate says, well, what's truth? He rejected that. Man rejects that. Satan rejects that. It's always and only about themselves. And so they taunted him. And Satan taunted through them, trying to get him to sin, trying to get him to stand up and say, I'm God and you're going to worship me, because that would have made him unworthy to be the Paschal Lamb. So even at this late moment, he was still being tempted to sin. And yet Jesus shares his sonship with the saved. represented by crowns. That's why we are adopted sons. He shares that authority received from the Father with us, and we get the crown of life, and the crown of righteousness, and so on and so forth, but only as we wear his righteousness. It is not of our own. But Satan rejected the son's authority, yet. He has no authority except through violent rebellion. He declares his own authority. If you want to understand how that works, well, 1st Samuel 15 23 says rebellion is the sin of witchcraft or necromancy or out now rebellion. You go to 1st Samuel chapter 8. And here The Jews are rejecting theocracy. They're rejecting God as their leader. They want a king like the Gentiles have. They want a sinful king. They want a king that will fight their battles, that will do their bidding. They think they can control. And God threw Samuel to them explains the essence of good government. And the essence of government is, it takes. It takes. It takes. It doesn't give you anything, but it takes. And it takes. And it takes. And then it will take some more until it is all used up. This is what governments do. And this is what Satan does. And Satan, by his very essence in Ezekiel 28, 14 through 18, is violent. And so the crown will express itself in violence. So you have sinful man being the head, being delegated the crown. Well, who's the source of authority for sinful man? Satan, who has no authority of his own. He's just stealing it. He's making it up because he's in rebellion. And then you have a horn. So Christ allows the governance so man can declare his allegiance to Christ's government or to Satan, man's tyranny, under the Liberté, Équalité, Fraternité label, because it's always a lie. There's never about liberty. It's never about equality, except equality and slavery. And it's never about family. unless we're all just going to be in the same slave pit together and yet in satan's realm some are always more equal than others so what is the horn then the horn is the projection of this authority it's the projection of violence when it's used by satan See, the horn is a production of delegated authority to accomplish or obtain the authority's goals. Now, God does have a horn. It's the horn of salvation, which gives refuge from the ravages of sin and judgment based on the faithfulness of Christ's sacrifice for those who believe. 2 Samuel 22 and Romans 10, nine through 17. We, the saved, We do not look to earthly kingdom, but we look for one to come, or we shouldn't be. We should be like Abraham. We should be looking for the new Jerusalem to come. In Hebrews 11, 8 through 12, as Paul talked about in Galatians 4, 21 through 31, when he compared the difference between earthly Jerusalem, which was slavery, with new Jerusalem, which is free and above, and which will come at the end of our study of Revelation. This is the city we look for. This is the government that we look for. This should be driving us, motivating us. Because see, Christ carried the load. His burden is light. He's done the work. And he is just guiding us as discussed in Psalm 23. And as Matthew wrote in Matthew 11, 28 through 30, government uses the horn though to enlarge itself at the expense of others, both the citizens and the foreigners. It seeks to dominate. It's always about the violence. It's always about extending its own power, its own control. It's always about taking, taking, taking, taking. So, When horn is used in reference to government other than God's good government, it's about war. It's about taking. It's about vying against each other for supremacy. Remember Christ's government? It's mild. Isaiah chapter nine. It's meek. It's gentle. But Satan's government, it's like first Kings 22, one through 28, horns of iron pushing, shoving. War. Taking. Enlarging. Defeating others. Always stretching out. Always trying to defeat others until you yourself are in turn defeated and replaced by another and replaced by another and replaced by another. There is no faithfulness with Satan in governments. Satan in crowns. There is no loyalty. There is just him. Now God said he would not strive with Satan or man's sin continually. I supplied the word horn in there. And that comes from Genesis chapter six, verse three. And he didn't. First he had nose cataclysm. We remade the earth and we began the second age and now in Revelation we're looking at the end of the second age and its cataclysm, the Great Tribulation, and at the end of the third age you're going to have a third cataclysm in which it all ends. Because it must come to an end. And it does come to an end. And then eternity future is what will unfold. But it began with Cain, government, the horn, the violence. And will continue until the end of the third age. So here we are talking about the mesmerizing dragon. with the seven heads, the seven crowns, and the 10 horns. Remember, Satan left his first estate. He was an angel. He was a ministering spirit. He was there to do what God wanted him to do. That was his only purpose in life. And he said, no, I don't want to do that. So he degraded himself. And thus, whenever Satan is depicted in the scripture, it's as an animal, because he left his first estate. And it's true of all sinners, God made us in his image, or Christ did. And then we sinned and we rejected that. And while we retain elements of that, we are certainly less than the man and the people that God made. Now, with the new nature and later with the new body, we will be people. We will be people of the Lord, the people of the book. There will be no animals. But as Christians, when we decide to sin, and as the psalmist wrote in Psalm 73, 21 through 23, When we become angry with God, when we become frustrated with God, we become like brute beasts. We become unthinking. We just follow our instincts. We just do what we want to do. And that's what people do. With no more justification than that. That's less than human. Now Satan claims himself as the authority. That's why he is the beast there. And he has the seven heads. So all the governments, all the first citizens that are being represented, and seven being the complete number here, all trace their origins back to him, rather than Christ. Satan has stolen authority and Christ has allowed it for a time. And Satan delegates this illegitimate authority to them, controlling them, as long as they do what he wants them to do. Remember, he's the great scientist. He's playing governments off against governments, peoples off against peoples, refining and developing. And if you don't make the cut, you're defeated and you're thrown away. And he'll go to a new group and play them off. He is the great experimenter. We see this in Daniel 2 and Daniel chapter 7. We see it in our histories. And it's the horns, the projection of this illegitimate control of exerting Satan's dominance. Now remember, some are more equal than others. That's why you have 10 horns, seven heads, seven crowns, 10 horns. Because you have a couple of heads that have more power. More authority is delegated to them. They're being used and developed because Satan, what's he trying to do? He's trying to distill everybody down to one government. Now he never gets to accomplish this, but that is his goal. He ruthlessly suppresses those who do not extend his dominance until only he remains and all are enslaved to sin and death. This is his goal, his Armageddon. At Armageddon, he's going to take the four principal powers that are in existence, one of which is controlled by his Antichrist, and that's the one he wants to win, and he's going to defeat the other three. That's his plan. Doesn't work because Christ shows up and they're all defeated. So Satan never gets the one world government, but that's his goal. And that is what we're seeing unfolding here now. Remember, we're looking at it from the Jewish perspective. We're looking at it from, how this is working, especially in the latter part of the Great Tribulation. But this is how it's always worked throughout history. Revelation is just a building up of everything that has gone before. And I want us to understand this imagery here, so that we stay on point, so that we don't go off into mythologies, and we don't go off into mysticism, and we don't go off into just making it up. Because that's not what God does. God said, come, let us reason together. That's what he wants us to do. Reason together. Search the scriptures and you will find the answers. Thank you.
Revelation 73 Heads, Crowns and Horns
Series Revelation
To understand the metaphor of the Great Red Dragon requires one to understand the biblical definition of Head, Crown and Horn which is not as self-evident as one may believe. It embodies the concept of submission which is antithetical to Satan and sinners.
Sermon ID | 11124633503383 |
Duration | 32:06 |
Date | |
Category | Bible Study |
Language | English |
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