Just as predicted, during the Dark Ages of the Christian era, Satan sent “a river” of persecution “to sweep” the church “away with the torrent.” This is spiritual warfare. It’s deadly serious. Satan wants to destroy Christ’s influence by wiping out His church and He uses every trick his evil genius can devise. The dragon represents Satan primarily. But remember that Satan uses human institutions in his role as dragon to attack God’s people. He used the Roman king Herod in an attempt to murder the Christ child as soon as He was born. He worked through Christ’s jealous religious rivals to stalk and harass the Saviour, and finally secure His execution on the cross. But Satan’s apparent victory turned into Christ’s greatest triumph. Furious over his defeat at the cross, Satan turned his wrath against the church that Jesus established.

During the decades after Christ’s crucifixion, thousands met their death in the Roman Colosseum, in arenas, city squares, dungeons, and desert hideaways. At first secular authorities initiated this persecution.

But after the death of the apostles a gradual change crept into the church. During the second, third, and fourth centuries, many in the church began to modify, and sometimes even reject, the truths Christ and His apostles had taught. Some apostate leaders even began to persecute those Christians who insisted on the purity of New Testament beliefs.

Scholars estimate that about 50 million of the faithful perished. In an unsuccessful attempt to drown out the church and completely destroy it, the devil sent “a river” of persecution and false doctrine “to sweep her [the church] away with the torrent.” “But the earth helped the woman by . . . swallowing the river” of persecution and false doctrine.