Book of Revelation – Part 5

Revelation 12:1 

A great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head. 2 She was pregnant and cried out in pain as she was about to give birth. 3 Then another sign appeared in heaven: an enormous red dragon with seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns on its heads. 4 Its tail swept a third of the stars out of the sky and flung them to the earth. The dragon stood in front of the woman who was about to give birth, so that it might devour her child the moment he was born.

So what does the 12 stars refer to? 12 Tribes. So this is a picture of Lady Israel, the bride of the King.

All right, so who’s the dragon? Yeah? Satan. One thing that I found out about Leviathan,  the sea monster in Job.  Apparently, according to at least the Canaanites, it had seven heads.  Basically it was a seven headed sea dragon.

So we’re talking about Jesus here, when Herod tries to kill Jesus.

5 She gave birth to a son, a male child, who “will rule all the nations with an iron scepter.” And her child was snatched up to God and to his throne. 6 The woman fled into the wilderness to a place prepared for her by God, where she might be taken care of for 1,260 days.

Well, there’s that 1260 days again. So what we’re getting now is the point in the the history of the world where Israel comes to the birth of her king. Then how His church ends up having to be scattered, to be protected from the dragon in the wilderness, to a place prepared for her by God.

And again, symbolically, this is church is now part of Israel. Paul in Romans talks about how we are grafted into Israel. So we’re basically, for a time, they had to be in hiding because of persecution.

In a sense, that’s been the state of affairs ever since Jesus. The real Christians, what’s the right word? Anyway, they were never really prominent, necessarily in any church or state.

Yes, you notice where, at least at first, Christianity spread away from Europe. Eventually a couple of Christian  emperors who had converted to something resembling Christianity imposed it on the people, more so in the west than the east. In the East Christianity expanded  more by conversion. In the West it happened more by conquering pagan territories.

And so the woman fled to the wilderness where she has a place prepared of God. So in a sense, God has prepared this place for this remnant of people that’s been scattered throughout the world for this whole 2000 years. Yeah,

So first, first within or first two centuries being outside of the Roman Empire was, was a better place, Armenia, for instance, was on the fringes of the Roman Empire. Armenia was, actually, was a battleground between Parthia and and Rome. So there are very old Armenian churches, which only recently have been destroyed by Muslims. So that’s probably where that started. But notice how the church managed to grow more in North and South America than in the actual territory of Europe for several generations. And of course, mixed in among the traditional Catholics were some more or less evangelical Christians who spread the gospel.

The number 1,260 has some significance. Divide it by 360 and it works out to 3.5 years. So I think this goes back to to Daniel. This appears to be a symbolic number, because the Messiah gets “cut off” in the midst of a “week,” and so prophetically speaking, we’re living out the rest of that week.

7 Then war broke out in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back. 8 But he was not strong enough, and they lost their place in heaven. 9 The great dragon was hurled down—that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him.

In the book of Job, you find that Satan is still able to come and talk to God. But after this, Satan doesn’t have any place at all to go up and talk to God. It doesn’t seem like it has happened yet.

Just in case we hadn’t missed the identity of the one who leads the whole world astray, we are told that the dragon is “the devil or Satan.” He was hurled to the earth and his angels with him. We’re going to find out in verse 13 that that hurling down to the earth brings on intense persecution.

10 Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say: “Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Messiah. For the accuser of our brothers and sisters, who accuses them before our God day and night, has been hurled down. 11 They triumphed over him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death. 12 Therefore rejoice, you heavens and you who dwell in them! But woe to the earth and the sea, because the devil has gone down to you! He is filled with fury, because he knows that his time is short.”

13 When the dragon saw that he had been hurled to the earth, he pursued the woman who had given birth to the male child. 14 The woman was given the two wings of a great eagle, so that she might fly to the place prepared for her in the wilderness, where she would be taken care of for a time, times and half a time, out of the serpent’s reach. 15 Then from his mouth the serpent spewed water like a river, to overtake the woman and sweep her away with the torrent. 16 But the earth helped the woman by opening its mouth and swallowing the river that the dragon had spewed out of his mouth.

17 Then the dragon was enraged at the woman and went off to wage war against the rest of her offspring—those who keep God’s commands and hold fast their testimony about Jesus.

Member asks: Is there a way that us being all in little, tiny groups like we are, he protects us in our house for time, times and half time? I don’t know. I’m just throwing it out as a question. That’s how the church in China, for instance, grows, yeah, house by house, yeah, and they have to be careful of how and when they meet, because, you know, the neighbors are watching.

Perhaps in a real sense, they’re being protected in a way in their house.

Now, holding the testimony about Jesus is a theme that’s been running all the way through this book, which tells me that there isn’t, for the vast majority of Christians, a rapture, right. But what might be happening is that these people are fleeing the country. They’re fleeing that particular nation, and those who can get out of the Beast system are in a better place until, until you know World War Three starts.

So the remnant would be those who are still unable to get out of that nation or company of nations, or whatever you want to call it, that Confederacy, finds itself subjected to increasing persecution.

As we speak, there’s this is actually happening in Syria. The news was saying, “Oh, yay! Assad is gone. Now we got this new guy, and he’s going to bring freedom in Syria!”

Yeah, you have freedom, all right. It looks like if you are a Christian or Aloite, you have the freedom that comes from death. 10,000 people already, apparently, yeah, mostly Christians and Aloites, which are another form of Muslim, who are generally peaceful people. And I forget Kurds. There’s some Kurds involved, and they’re claiming on mainstream media, like 1000 people or something.

Okay, so, it almost seems that the dragon hasn’t been cast from heaven yet. If it’s like this when he hasn’t been cast from heaven yet, imagine how much worse it’s going to be when he is cast down.

Yes, he’s mad because the message of Jesus is getting out in spite of all the persecution. His mission will be to completely annihilate the church and all of its members.