Daily Devotional

If waters represent a populated region in Bible prophecy, then it follows that its opposite, “the earth,” represents an uninhabited land.

The Protestant Reformation resulted in religious wars throughout Europe between Catholics and Protestants. In the aftermath, Protestant refugees began to flee across the ocean to a country that was much like a wilderness. The New World was vastly unknown. America was a new beginning—even more so, it meant religious freedom.

It was this migration that “swallowed up” the devil’s attack. We see in today’s verse further confirmation that the dragon and the serpent are one and the same creature: Revelation describes them both as the perpetrator of this “flood.”

“The flood” was issued, in particular, by their “mouth.” It was the “mouth”—not the might—that incited the persecution; it was the religious rhetoric that controlled the Roman army, not the other way around. There is another “mouth” repeatedly given prominence in the book of Daniel—the little horn that grew out of the fourth beast.

Read Daniel 7:25. Yes, this is the 1,260-day prophecy again. But who is this little horn? According to the verse, the little horn persecuted God’s people and tried to change God’s law in the Dark Ages—the very same deeds of the Catholic Church. The little horn is none other than papal Rome. Just as the little horn grew out of the fourth beast, history shows that papal Rome emerged from pagan Rome.

Here is another indication of Scripture’s emphasis of this prophetic time period, this Roman entity, and its persecution of God’s people. Let us take heed and pay close attention to it.

As the devil’s attack came from “his mouth,” so did the earth’s counter defense come from “its mouth.” The United States is built upon two principles: civil liberty and religious liberty. There is no king and no pope. Each citizen is free to worship as his conscience sees fit. It is this belief system, this Protestant republic, that protected the fledgling nation from becoming a persecuting dragon, just like its one-time oppressor. But Revelation also foretells that this will soon change.

My Strength and Shield, though persecution abounds, teach me to use my “mouth” to proclaim Your righteous truths.

For Further Study: Numbers 16:28–33; 1 Kings 17:4–6; Jeremiah 51:53–56