Push it, pull it, turn it, bop it. You lose.
I stood in the living room staring at the warped piece of white plastic adorned with colorful buttons and knobs in my hand. The kids can do this, so why can’t I?
If you’ve ever tried your hand at Bop-It, you know what I mean. At first, it’s not so bad. Slowly, a perky male voice issues simple commands. Push it. Pull it. Bop it. Easy enough. I can do this. But in the second round, the pace picks up a bit, and by the third round, the formerly friendly voice sounds more like a drill sergeant with hemorrhoids.
So what if I twisted instead of pulled. No need to get nasty! The worse part was that after my dismal failure, the voice announced the high score. Not mine, of course.
Doesn’t it drive you crazy when you try to beat another person’s record, but fail? OK, maybe you don’t play Bop-it. Video games might be more your thing, or possibly cross-country racing or the high jump. Whatever it is, you’ve probably fallen just short of a record. Frustrating, huh?
I suspect that Satan feels a little bit like that in his prolonged struggle against the authority of God. Sometimes it might look like he’s making some progress, but he never can quite pull it off.
As we come into Revelation 12, we will see three areas where he makes a valiant attempt to disrupt God’s plan for the ages, but fails miserably. And, boy, is he mad.
First, he failed to prevent the birth of Jesus. That’s what the symbolism of the pregnant woman (representing Israel) and the red dragon (representing Satan) is all about. The dragon attempts to thwart the birth of Jesus, but fails.
Having botched in that attempt, he focuses on Israel, unleashing massive persecution of the Jews. That effort also fails miserably, because God makes preparations to whisk His off into a safe place in the wilderness.
Finally, in one last desperate attempt to interrupt God’s plan, he turns to the offspring of the woman. The offspring symbolizes those who have come to faith during the Tribulation—mainly Gentile believers.
While Revelation 12 ends without describing the results of this assault, we will find later in the book that he fails in this one also. Surprising, huh?
The devil is a frequent failure. Over and over he tries to gain the upper hand on God, and over and over he fails.
In the end, whose side would you like to be on?
