The Woman, the Child, The Dragon - Revelation 12:1-6
Revelation 12:1-6 · Vern Peterman · Aug 2, 2009
Revelation (2009), No. 31
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4926140224948

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Okay, this is Revelation 12, 1 through 6, the woman, the child, the dragon. Because we're in a situation as we are once a month where the table that we ordinarily have these on is used for the Lord's table, here's the handout. And we have the last couple of weeks' handouts on the front pew here if you need to grab hold of those.

Now, first thing is we're stepping into a section which is between, at least in passage-wise, is between the seven trumpet judgments and the seven bowl or vial judgments. It goes from chapter 12, the first verse, to chapter 14, verse 20. So it's kind of an interlude between, and what this section does is it provides insights into things that happened actually during the entire tribulation period, or even beyond that. And as we'll see in today's passage, this particular section of scripture refers to things that goes back to Genesis. Things that even have references in the book of Job. So you're going to find references to sweeping teachings from all of Scripture in today's passage. And this whole section here has that character.

One of the things we'll be taking a look at here is between the book of Revelation and the book of Daniel 9.27 that we covered, and chapter 7, You get the tribulation period being seven years long with a distinctive break in the middle, in the first half and the second half, each being of the same length. It's half a week by definition in Daniel, three and a half years by all the accountings we have, 1260 days. It's as if John wanted to make it very clear, as well as 42 months. And so all those designations are basically the same. When we say half a week, it's a week of years that is being referred to. And by the way, that also comes out of Genesis. How long did Jacob work for Leah and for Rachel? A week of years.

That's the Jewish terminology there. So you have between Daniel and Revelation four different measurements, four different ways stated in order to make it abundantly clear. Just very clear. In other words, if you said it several different ways, you would say, boy, that's real clear. And that's exactly what the intent is here. OK. Let's see, this is not responding.

From Daniel 9.27, we have this, He will make a firm covenant with the many for one week. In other words, the Antichrist will make what seems like a resolution of great conflicts with the Jews for this one week period, but will break it in the middle of the week. He will put a stop to sacrifice and grain offering, all of a sudden violating the treaty.

And by the way, violating the treaty in the middle of the treaty time, that's a Muslim pattern started by Muhammad himself. That interesting thing, as we go through this, Islam, which didn't start until about six centuries after the New Testament era, shows up with characteristic patterns here, and this is one of them. another pattern is beheading as a means of capital punishment as a Muslim tradition and It is amazing as we move here into the times that we're moving into with Islam being the number one fastest growing world religion with Islam essentially a next generation taking over Europe Europe has a minority of Muslims and But the reproduction rate of the Muslims is such that within one generation, they will have a majority. So taking over Europe, not by the sword, but by reproduction, by infiltration, basically in reproduction, you'll have a Muslim Europe. And that will explain Muslim customs showing up in what is the reconstructed Roman Empire.

Yes. We didn't have a Muslim president. Yes. So is it that you can't count on their word or is it halfway into the tree? The point is, here's the example that I give. Mecca, which is of course the big city of the Muslims, this is the place they come to regularly. Mecca had a treaty with Muhammad for 10 years. It was a 10-year peace treaty and the only reason that Muhammad could not excuse me, the only reason he did that was he could not militarily pull it off. He wasn't ready to pull it off. Three years into the 10-year treaty, without notice, when he was ready to pull off this military attack, he did. He broke the 10-year peace treaty. So you're saying they're just not honest?

No. It is an established pattern by their leader. You can make a treaty and break it in the middle. It doesn't have to be exactly in the middle. It doesn't have to be in the middle. He doesn't care. But the Antichrist, it says here, will break it halfway through. Exactly. even to the day.

Yes. What accelerates that Muslim growth rate here is the fact that the non-Muslims growth rate has dropped down to less than one. That's right. The non-Muslims are shrinking in terms of number while the Muslims are growing at a very high rate. Yeah. Good point.

And that's another thing. Just another generation, they will have the majority. And that's how it will happen. The general population does not have the majority, but the schools do. And so that tells you the story. Half or more of the schools are Muslim children. Good point.

And then, even to a complete destruction, one that is decreed is poured out on the one who makes desolate. Christ is revealed in both the Old Testament, Psalm 2, and New Testament, Revelation 19. We'll put down the rebellious forces of the Antichrist in the same way He created the world, by the word of His mouth.

We who believe and were raptured with Him will also live with Him here on earth, Revelation 5.10, but not as earthly beings. When the Lord comes again and puts an end to the reign of the Antichrist, We'll come with him, but we will already have been raptured and raised with new bodies.

I'm looking forward to that. This is a diagram you also have in the back couple of pages and I think it's very helpful. We'll dig into the details and I'll leave that on the screen. One of the things I want to point out here, this is kind of the second paragraph there on the first page of your handout.

We're going to be drawing from various books of the Bible, and especially the Old Testament. Why the Old Testament? Remember what we said earlier in our study of Revelation, how much of Revelation is from the Old Testament? About 70%. A revelation is drawn straight out of the Old Testament. People will read the book of Revelation and be puzzled, not realizing that more than two-thirds of it comes straight out of the Old Testament, and this passage is an illustration and an example of that exact situation.

So we'll be looking at some Old Testament passages, not in depth, but at a glance, in order to gain understanding and insight. The Bible is profoundly consistent And John, here in Revelation, demonstrates that. He doesn't just concoct and come up with something. He comes up with something that is so filled with the Old Testament that it shows the profound consistency of the Bible.

There is a book by a man by the name of Raphael Patai, Jewish, if you hadn't guessed. Rafael Patai has put together a book called the Messiah Texts. It's written basically from a Jewish standpoint. He is not a Christian. But he references the various books that talk about the Messiah and about the coming millennial reign. Because Orthodox Jews believe in a seven year tribulation period at the end of which the Messiah will come. Why do they do that?

Old Testament scripture. Raphael Pitai, very interestingly, included quotes from the Book of Revelation in that, because he saw it as, this fits exactly with our Jewish scriptures. Even though it's a Christian text, and usually they would shy away from it aggressively. But he included it because it's so consistent with what the Old Testament prophets said, and what other portions of the Old Testament lay out.

Genesis, by the way, has prophecy in it, right? It's one of the reasons we're making reference to it this morning and as we go along. Okay, let's take a look at the next section, what we're going to be seeing in Revelation chapter 12. Israel, through troubles, will bring forth the Messiah at His first coming. So this is actually going back in history. You see that in the first coming of Christ? That's in the middle of this illustration on the chart there.

Satan will lead, and this is actually looking back in kind of a prophetic sense, Satan will lead a failed rebellion of angels, which he did, and here in Revelation is revealed something that is not revealed anywhere else, and that is how many of the angels fell with Satan. And it says one-third. One-third of the angels will be cast to earth for a time. Satan will fail to kill the Messiah at his first coming, though he will attempt to do so, Left with but three and a half years of the tribulation, Satan will focus his attack upon the nation of Israel, which is another evidence of a rapture prior to this point, since the church is not present to be the subject of Satan's attack. So here's Satan.

He's got three and a half years. He's got to, you know, make hay while the sun shines, so to speak. And so what's he do? He is desperate. He has, as we'll soon see, been pressed. He no longer, at this point, has access to heaven. He's been cast out of that access. All he can do, under his sort of house arrest on earth, is to go after God's people who are here.

The church is not mentioned. Why? The church has been raptured, right? That's one reason why we believe in a rapture prior to this point, and every other sign we've seen has pointed to a pre-tribulation rapture. Anything else just doesn't fit. The reason he's going after Israel at this point in time is because the church is gone. The church has been taken. Israel will flee to the desert and be spared by God's merciful, faithful, almighty, and sovereign hand. Okay? Israel will flee to the desert. Failing again, Satan will persecute Israel to the end.

Persecute, but not overcome them. Not wipe them out. Yes. Okay. I haven't read that recently, but doesn't it say that God sends them someplace for protection for three and a half years? That's correct. And we'll get into that. Okay, so are you saying then that Satan persecutes them Where God sends them? He tries to go after them. Where God sends them. But he is unsuccessful. Why? Let me ask this question. Why is Satan unsuccessful in wiping out the Jews? Why? God protects them. God protects them. Why? Because they are his people. They are his people. Why? He made a covenant with them. He made a covenant. When? Genesis, yeah, first book. And so when we went through Genesis, starting with Genesis 12 verses 1 through 3, those are primary principle verses. Are the Jews ever going to be wiped out on planet Earth? Nope, not going to happen. That is really cool. That is really cool.

So then along with that, the reason that Satan and through Hitler and Mussolini and all these other people that have tried to wipe the Jews off the face of the earth. Is that because of what we talked about last week where Satan actually has reign of the earth and he's not going to have complete and entire reign of the earth until he gets rid of God's people? Is that the idea?

Yeah, no, his thought is, I am mad as, and I'll say it because it is fitting, I'm mad as hell, okay, at at God's people. I'm mad at God and the only way that I can get at them is to go after the Jews. And the reason I say mad as hell is because that's where he's headed. I'm not swearing, I'm saying that's where he's headed.

It will not succeed That is exactly where he's going. Jesus even said that hell has been prepared for Satan and his angels. Prepared is perfect tense. Completed past action, ongoing results into the future. He is going to be there. It's not some guess or God's hope that he's going to be there. That's where he's headed.

So why is he so angry at them? Because he is the complete antithesis of God? Yeah, if you look at it, what did he say? I'm going to make myself God, right? I'm going to set myself up, I'm going to be like God. And now that I've been booted out of heaven, which is an acknowledgement of the fact that he doesn't have control of everything, right? Now that I've been booted out of heaven, I don't have access to God anymore, and the people that are here, not that I'm under house arrest here on planet Earth, the people that are here that I can go after are the Jews.

And so he's going to go after them because he is maniacally insane spiritually. He is nuts. But boy is he angry. And he is going to go after the Jews as God's chosen people. He will not succeed because God made a promise to Abraham. And is God going to keep it?

Yeah. Yes. What I was going to say was that he knows it and he's now acknowledging it so he's acting out and that's going to make life as miserable as possible for anybody that is there that he can do. He has to realize he's not Yeah It's it's like a chess game where the end is already Determined is it just got to play itself out and and yeah, he he is motivated. Basically. He has no choices left His only way of expressing his extreme and insane anger his maniacal anger is to go after the Jews and that's exactly what he does, but we know from God's promise that that he will not succeed, and his attempt to do so will be to the detriment of all those who go after the Jews, all those people who go after the Jews.

Yes. So in other words, it's kind of an analogy to war. Because God is off in his third heaven, Satan can't really attack God. So it's just like the general who's in the headquarters in some place, and the opposing enemy can't get at the generals and the rulers until they go through So, in a sense, this is a war tactic on Satan's part, trying to get at God. That's right.

It is a desperate but losing war tactic. God promised to Abraham. Isn't it amazing? Here's this guy who was raised in, as far as we know, a pagan household. God made a promise to him, and the rest of the history of planet Earth is all going to be based upon God's promise to this one guy. And we are told about it by divine revelation.

God says, I will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you. By the way, if you read in Matthew 25, it tells about the judgment of the Jews and the Gentiles at the end of this tribulation period. Because Matthew 24 is about the tribulation period, right? Here's the judgment of the Jews and the Gentiles at the end of the tribulation period. And do you know what the Gentiles will be rewarded for who live during this time and go into the millennium? You know what they'll be rewarded for? Blessing the Jews. Genesis 12, 3. Isn't that amazing? They will be rewarded for blessing the Jews. This is the passage where it talks about, you know, I was thirsty and you gave me a drink and that's the one.

Yes? Iran really has to make a problem with these terms. Iran? Iran, yes. Because they're having to develop, possibly, those headlines more than what they need. Yes. The atomic bomb. that I'm sure the Jews didn't have to take it out. They said it was too bad, we're going to annihilate Israel. We know that's not going to happen. In the end, Jews will not be wiped off the face of the earth in spite of what Satan will attempt to do. In spite of what Satan will attempt to do, the Jews will not be wiped off the face of the earth. It will not happen. They cannot make that situation.

Yes. Yeah. We've got a modern day setup, if you will, for exactly that. Yes. And it's not only Iran, but it's the United States of America as we're moving in that direction. As our education has been dumbed down and as Christianity has been taken away from this country, we are allowed to have people, I won't mention any names, that seem to be placing more credence to the Isn't that interesting? What's happening is we are seeing this all come into place.

One way to put it is there is nothing that needs to happen in order for the church to be taken out and the Antichrist to take over control. Right now, There is nothing that needs to happen. There is no historical event that is waiting for that to take place. The Lord could take us home at any time, or He could wait a while, but there is nothing that is like the next milestone before the Lord can take us home. The Lord could take us home at any time.

Yes? Globalization? Yes. Yeah, it's interesting. Proposals of all kinds, international monetary unit rather than having all these different currencies and exchange rates and all that, that would go away. One of my courses in business school was international monetary exchange. That whole issue would just go away. it would just disappear.

I thought that the temple had to be rebuilt prior to the tribulation. Here's the interesting thing. The things that are necessary for the temple are actually fairly minimal. Because remember they had the tabernacle out in the desert and that was all done according to the law. It could be done fairly quickly. All the objects that are necessary to make that happen.

Everything that the law prescribes to make that happen in order for there to be legal sacrifices are sitting in a museum in Jerusalem. The Eccles have seen that museum. Everything that's necessary is sitting there right now, waiting there in Jerusalem.

The group called the Temple Mount Faithful has made multiple attempts to go and put that in place, but they keep getting shut down by the coalition there. Yes? Why will the sacrifices be instituted again? The sacrifices will be instituted again because there will be at least a group of insistent Jews who will want to reinstitute the sacrifices Just because that's a part of the Old Testament law. That's not happened since 70 A.D. when the Romans took out the temple.

That's because of people then rather than God ordained. Yes, but there's one other thing and that is it was a part of God telling the Jews, you've got a problem. It goes into some other issues we don't have time to touch on. Even the gift of tongues was a warning to the Jews of coming judgment. And it ceased at the destruction of Jerusalem. There's no evidence that it continued after that time.

Okay, we've got to get on to verse 1. Yes, Dan? Okay, the second bullet here says that they were cast to earth for a time. Yes. So are you saying that during Christ, or during Jesus' time here on earth, Satan and one-third of the angels was cast to earth. I think that would explain the tremendous amount of demonization that happened. Let me quickly describe what took place.

Here at the very beginning, when Satan and his angels were cast out, basically fallen angels, that was one-third of the angels back then. Satan has access, but apparently the rest of them do not, and are relegated here to planet Earth. Those are the demons that you see described in the Gospels, and actually both in the Old and New Testaments. Those are the demons that are behind idol worship, as Paul puts it, and also the Old Testament law puts it.

And those demons are here, stuck on planet Earth. They constantly seek embodiment, which is one of the reasons recorded in more than one of the Gospels. Remember the demoniac, the one who is Legion? My name is Legion. In one of the Gospels it says, when they first see Jesus, you aren't going to start torturing us yet. They know what's coming. You're not going to start yet, are you?

In this panicked expression to Jesus. And so they plead to go into these pigs, and of course the pigs drown, which created an ecological mess, I'm sure. But now, those demons and Satan will ultimately be cast in the lake of fire. During the Millennial Kingdom, will Satan be free? No, Satan will be bound. Which is one reason we can't go around binding him now. When the binding time comes, that will be during the millennium and we won't do it.

All right, verse 1. A great sign appeared in heaven, a woman clothed with the sun and the moon under her feet and on her head a crown of twelve stars. As we'll point out in more detail next week, This is the first of seven signs, three of them in heaven, four of them on the earth, in chapters 12 and 13. Seven signs. That's one of the things that's very interesting. How many seals were there? Seven. How many trumpets? Seven. How many bowls will there be? Seven. How many signs? Seven.

Very interesting, this pattern. John's very consistent, by the way. Now, let's look at this. A great sign appeared in heaven. Remember we said John writes like a musician? Well, in between those various places where he has a crescendo, he also writes like an artist. Because what he's doing is verbally painting a picture for us. This is a great panorama of time. So a great sign appeared in heaven as a picture painted, if you will, clothed with the sun, the moon under her feet and on her head a crown of twelve stars.

Where did we study that? Genesis. Remember the dream that Joseph had. He told his dad and his brothers about it. In that dream there were eleven stars. Why are there twelve here? Blessings. Why are there twelve here in this passage, whereas Joseph dreamed about eleven? Because now the Jews have been added. Okay, in other words, this is about the Jews most certainly. What were the eleven stars representing? Tribes. His brothers. His brothers, okay. He's the twelfth one, right? He's one of the stars because he's one of the brothers.

Alright, so there's the answer there. Now, in verse 2, which is on the top of page 2, there have been at least a few proposals regarding the identity of the woman in Revelation 12.1. One is the proposal that the woman is Mary. That's taught principally by the Catholic Church. The woman is the church, has been proposed. The woman is Israel and the church, or the woman is Israel.

I believe it's the fourth one, but let's take a look at some of the reasons why. The bullets here, the rest of the verse, a woman clothed with the sun, the moon, and under her feet and under her head a crown of twelve stars, is so obviously drawn from Joseph's dream about his family.

And the rest of the passage provides details that fit with what the Old Testament prophets predicted for Israel, but could not have predicted for the church since it was not revealed until the Old and New Testament epistles. That's what Paul says, the church was not revealed. It was a mystery only to be revealed by the apostles. Neither Mary nor the Church did or will do geographically or in time what I've spoken of in this passage. And Israel's location, citizenship, and blessings are earthly, whereas the Church's location, citizenship, and blessings at this time are heavenly.

The Church did not give birth to Christ, but rather Christ's death, burial, and resurrection gave birth to the Church. It got the sequence there as critical. Christ was born, died, and was buried and resurrected. That gave birth to the church. Not the other way around. The church did not give birth to Christ. As we'll soon see, the Old Testament prophets portrayed Israel as being in labor with child, but the church was never portrayed in the same way.

And so you have in this text box here, the woman is the nation of Israel. So there's Jacob as the son, Rachel as the moon, the twelve sons and the twelve stars are Genesis 37, 9 and 10. That's the nation of Israel and the woman here as identified in chapter 12.

The woman is with child, verse 2, the child being one who rules with a rod of iron. This is verse 5 and also in Psalm 2, 8 and 9. And we'll also see it quoted, or have seen it once, See, it quoted three times in Revelation. He rules with a rod of iron. This is Christ, the Messiah, who was born from the nation of Israel. We've got several references there in both the Old and New Testament.

That's all in your text box there on page two. Okay, now on to page three. I began to read so abruptly. Number two, and she was with child and she cried out being in labor and in pain to give birth. Israel is portrayed as this woman in labor. That is also done. It is amazing.

Remember we said Israel, excuse me, the book of Revelation is 70% out of the Old Testament. This idea of Israel being in labor with child, three Old Testament passages there. Isaiah 26-17 has that illustration of Israel being in labor. Jeremiah 30 verse 6 and Micah chapter 4-9 through 5-3. So those three Old Testament passages and then several others in Jeremiah portray Israel as a woman in labor. Those ones that we have as an asterisk there in the text box are passages that include reference to the Messiah in his first and or second coming. So here what do we have again? Scripture is profoundly consistent. Scripture is profoundly consistent.

From the time before the birth of Christ to the decades after Christ ascended, Israel had both major national traumas as well as specific attacks directed towards Christ. Satan wanted to make it difficult, if not impossible, for Christ to be born, and once born, to live. Here are some of the ways that it showed up.

The Roman takeover of Israel in 63 BC. The brief Parthian, remember that's the empire to the east that we've showed a map of and information about before, the Parthian takeover of Israel from the Romans in 40 BC. The Parthians pushed their way into the eastern part of the Roman Empire and actually freed Israel for a brief period of time. The Romans came back and pushed the Parthians out and they said, never again.

And so in order to make sure that they had somebody really, really nasty in place to keep the Parthians out, they put in Herod the Great. Because they knew he would be extremely nasty to the Parthians. Why do I say Herod the Great? Herod the Great was so nasty that the Caesar made a joke making a play on words in the original language. It is better to be Herod's pig than Herod's son. Why?

He had his own son killed. At Herod's death, he ordered that a large group of Jews be slaughtered in order that there would be mourning at his death. That, by the way, was called off at the last minute. But he also was the one who ordered the slaughtering of the infants in Bethlehem when the wise men failed to show up back in Jerusalem.

The taxes to Caesar question was posed to Christ because of the pain of Roman rules. There had been multiple, beginning in Galilee, multiple tax rebellions by the Jews. They were suppressed until the final revolt of Israel and its powerful suppression by the Romans in 66 to 70 AD.

That was a huge and pivotal time. Okay, verse 3. Then another sign appeared in heaven and behold a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and on his heads were seven diadems. This dragon is mentioned in Revelation 12, 3 here, verse 7, twice, 9, 13, 16, 17, and then again in chapter 13, verse 1, 2, 4, and 11. And then again in chapter 16 and 20. So it's very clear who this guy is and his participation during this time is also abundantly clear. Who is the dragon? Revelation makes that identification clear.

Revelation 12.9 and Revelation 20 verses 1 and 2. Let me read just 12.9 since that's the next passage. The great dragon was thrown down, the serpent of old who is called the devil and Satan who deceives the whole world.

Any guesses as to who that is? It's very clear, isn't it? And he essentially repeats a lot of that description in Revelation 20 verses 1 and 2, as you see there at the bottom of page 3. Okay. The Great Red Dragon, what do these words mean? This is on page 4 of your handout. Grape talks about the magnitude of his influence. Red is a murderous and bloodthirsty character.

John 8.44 is referenced there. The dragon means he's ferocious and intensely cruel in nature. Having seven heads and ten horns relates to the ten-nation confederation of the tyrannical system of the beast. The reborn, if you will, Roman Empire.

And that's out of chapter 13 that we'll read about and also we have several references in Daniel chapter 7. including one that we went over back in May. I think it was on May 3rd. Right now, excuse me, seven diadems means diabolical power. Remember the repetition of this number seven? Why seven? What's so significant about seven in the Bible? The number of perfection. He has, for this period of time, absolute power. Absolute power.

Right now, Satan appears as an angel of light. That's what we'll see in our study of 2 Corinthians 11. That masks his true nature. In the tribulation, Satan will be revealed for what he really is. Right now, he parades as an angel of light. In especially the last half of the tribulation period, that will not be the case. He will not go about parading as an angel of light. He will not go about masquerading as an angel of light. He will instead show himself for what he is. The great red dragon.

Yes. So one of these seven heads then is one that was killed and then healed, right? Yes, yes. That fits into seven, right? Yep. So there's actually six and then there's one that came back. Yeah, this goes into sections of prophecy that we We haven't, and I don't know that we will get a chance to go into directly, but your point is correct.

Verse 4, And his tail swept away a third of the stars of heaven, and threw them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman who was about to give birth, so that when she gave birth, he might devour her child. Was this in reference to? Satan, when Christ was born, made every attempt to, this shouldn't happen. Or, if it does happen, I'm going to get this kid.

And this is one of the reasons for the slaughter of the infants in Bethlehem. Based on population studies and our understanding of the demographics of Bethlehem, a few hundred infants probably were killed. A few hundred. And it was about six miles or so south of Jerusalem, they just sent soldiers down, slaughtered. children who were two years and under, and that was about 300 children.

So just slaughtered for no good reason. And in spite of the slaughter, Christ and Joseph and Mary got away. How come? How'd that happen? God warned Joseph, you know, get out of there. You need to escape. And Joseph listened. And Joseph listened, yes.

And isn't it interesting? I mean, you would think, why did the Lord have Christ born in such a fragile situation? Here the salvation of everyone on planet Earth, the reign of this Savior is dependent upon this little peasant couple getting out in time. You know? Out from a town where they didn't even have a residence and they just happened to borrow a kind of a stable.

I mean, this is really phenomenal stuff. The Lord in His sovereignty is astounding. These stars of heaven are angels. We have that in the footnote there. These stars of heaven are angels. And through them to the earth. And interesting, this word throw, throw, throw keeps showing up.

And Christ was Satan's target then. During the tribulation period, the Jews from whom Christ came will be the target as God's chosen people. Satan will attempt to thwart God's promise to Abraham, which he will not succeed in doing. Verse 5, And she gave birth to a son, a male child, who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron, and her child was caught up to God and to His throne. This one verse is a quick summary of the four Gospels in the first part of Acts. She gave birth to a son, a male child, who is who? Christ, right? Who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron. So, gave birth to the male child, first coming, to rule all the nations with a rod of iron, second coming, and her child was caught up to God and to his throne.

That's right, Acts chapter 1. So there you have a summary of some immense sweeping things. Now, let's take a look at, that's chapter, excuse me, page 4. Let's take a look at the top of page 5. And so that's why the urging now to us who are of the church, Colossians 3.1, therefore if you've been raised up with Christ, since you've been identified with Him, keep seeking the things above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. So that's our Christian response to what this verse is talking about. Christ is seated there in the heavenlies. You're seated with Him.

Set your mind on those things. Psalm 2 is what this is drawing from, this passage is drawing from. It's a psalm of the tribulation. Isn't it interesting? The second psalm out of all the 150 psalms, the second one is about the tribulation period and the Lord's coming at the end of that tribulation period.

So here, the kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against His anointed. And by the way, the Greek translation there is against His Christos. Christ. And then in verse 4, but as for me, I have installed my King, notice the capital there, my King upon Zion in Jerusalem, my holy mountain.

The Father speaking to the Son in verses 8 and 9, ask of me and I will surely give the nations, there's the word nations just like in Revelation, as your inheritance in the very ends of the earth as your possession. The nations is your inheritance, that's why he is the king of kings, plural. He's not just king of the Jews, that would be a king, but he is the king of kings, plural, because he rules over the Gentiles as well. Gentiles is translated from the Greek ethnos, which is the Greek word for nations.

I don't even know how to ask this, but since the church has already been raptured, and during the tribulation period, since he rose from Zion, and he doesn't look at Jews, and there's gentile nations, and I assume there's going to be salvation during that time, so does that mean that there's, in a sense, a reenactment of the church? No. What it's talking about is that there is a body that we typically call the tribulation saints.

Jews and Gentiles that are referenced. Actually, we'll see them show up. So your point's well taken. We'll see them show up as we continue our study through Revelation. They will be Jews and Gentiles. They're not a part of the Church, but they're saints. Here's an interesting thing to make note of.

While the Church has unique characteristics as the Bride of Christ, as being raptured, as being promised to be exempt from this wrath during the Tribulation period, All the believers of all time, Enoch who walked with God, Noah who walked with God, Abraham, David, all the believers of all time including these who become believers during the tribulation period are called saints. Saved by faith, every single one of them. All saved by faith. But the church is a part of that great body called saints.

So that's an important distinction to make. Thanks for asking about that. That's really valuable. Yes. Yes. Is Israel. Yes. Yes. You would look at that except for the rest of the context. talks about the woman and what happens to her and that didn't happen to Mary. So that's why we know it's her.

Mary was the chosen one of Israel to physically give birth. But it was the nation in its entirety that fits the rest of the context here. By that single verse you might make that identity, and that's why I think some have made that identity. It's just that the only thing that fits with the rest of the passage is, here for example, here's the sun and the moon and the twelve stars, that's Israel, that's not Mary. Mary was only of which tribe? The tribe of Judah, right? So one tribe, and that doesn't fit the picture because this has 12 tribes.

Okay, then in verse 6, the woman fled into the wilderness where she had a place prepared by God so that she would be nourished for 1,260 days, which as we said is half a week of years, which is 42 months, which is 1,260 days, which is three and a half years.

And so basically you get it all four ways. It's as if between the book of Daniel and John they wanted to make it abundantly clear exactly what the time was. The first half and the second half are equally half a week of years, 42 months, 1260 days, and three and a half years. All right, now you see we go from there to a set of slides. Let me see how much time I've got here, if any. Very little. Okay. What we see on the bottom half of page five is a black and white illustration.

How many people have heard the term the Battle of Armageddon? We're going to get into that in more detail, but to give you the quick picture, The Battle of Armageddon should probably be more appropriately called the Campaign of Armageddon. There are, as this illustration outlines, three different geographical areas of focus, maybe four, it's probably better to state it, that end up being part of Satan's campaign against Israel and the Lord's defeating of each one of those campaigns in the end. And what you see is in the harbor in what is now called Haifa, that's right on the coast of northern Israel, that leads into the valley that is the valley of Harmageddon, or Armageddon as it's been carried over into our pronunciation of it.

And by the way, Nazareth was a town up on the hill where you could oversee that valley. Can you imagine Jesus as he's being raised, looking over that valley and realizing what would happen in that valley, the Battle of Armageddon in that valley as he was growing up. That's the place. Amazing.

And then in the area around Babylon, which is right now coming into focus again, around Jerusalem, An additional area, and by the way, this is where in the book of Zechariah, it agrees entirely with what Acts chapter 1 says, and that when Christ returns, his feet will touch the Mount of Olives. He will return, as the disciples were told, exactly in the way in which he left. That agrees perfectly with the book of Zechariah. He says his feet will touch on the Mount of Olives and that will be his coming back.

What we see in the bottom part of that illustration is Basra and Petra in that same general location. Next week I'll show you some pictures of that area so you get an idea what that looks like and why that's a perfect retreat place. Yes, it's in southern Israel, southern Jordan right now.

Yep. And what is noted as Edom is the area that was formerly known as the descendants of Esau. Yep. You got it right. Indiana Jones. Pardon? Yes. Indiana Jones, the last crusade is Part of that takes place in Petra. Part of the pictures are there in Petra. Okay, let's look at your last couple of pages which are single-sided colored slides. You have the slide that we showed previously that shows the 70th week and the redundants for the sake of certainty. description of the time. Half a week of years, three and a half years, 42 months, 1,260 days spelled out for the first half and identically for the second half.

It is abundantly clear because of those multiple references in both Daniel and Revelation. Why would Revelation draw from Daniel? Because 70% of Revelation is out of the Old Testament. We have these slides that I showed about the Antichrist making a treaty and breaking that treaty at the midpoint, which I said that's a Muslim way of operating.

And then finally Christ returns to reign. Now, on page 7, here you have on the top left is the slide similar to what you see on the screen, which is a one slide summary of verses 1 through 6 of Revelation 12. That's actually going to take a while to absorb, so I'll let you take that home. I won't go over it again.

One further clarification here we see from Revelation 12.6 is this 1260 days is describing the last half of the tribulation period. We call that a remnant of Israel being preserved miraculously from Satan's desperate anti-Semitic assault.

The exile and preservation of the remnant of Israel and exiled down in the wilderness during the last half of the Tribulation is also described in, and we gave a list that starts there with Daniel 12.1, Zechariah 12-14, I've made reference to that just briefly before, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, Book of Romans, Revelation, and we'll see it in additional chapters 16 and 19, and many other Old Testament passages. This is an event, the set of events in the last half of the Tribulation period is so clear, and there are so many references to it in the Old and New Testament, that is why I mentioned Raphael Ptah earlier, would say there's going to be seven years of an awful time on planet Earth, at the end of which the Messiah will come. Revelation chapter 20, that we'll get to, says he'll reign for a thousand years. The Jews didn't have that, because that's uniquely in Revelation 20, and the Messiah will reign for a long, long time, because that's all that they had revealed to them. Points from this passage to take to heart. We have been identified with Christ in His death, burial, and resurrection. His ascension and seeding is in verse 5, the last part of Revelation 12.

God is faithful to us in all His promises. to all of his promises to Israel and to us. That's his character. And that's why the Jews will not be wiped out. They absolutely will not be wiped out from the face of the earth in spite of the attempt of Hitler, in spite of the attempt of the Romans through Herod, in spite of the attempt of the Antichrist during this time.

Because we have been identified with Christ in His first coming, that's verse 5, we will come back to reign with Him in the second coming. That's in the other part of verse 5. Standing in our eternally secure position in Christ, Satan cannot prevail in our condition. This one who swept away a third of the angels of heaven. He cannot prevail. As long as we stand in our position, He cannot prevail in our condition, in our day-to-day walk.

Finally, Satan is terminal, and so is our battle with him. When we say terminal, what do we mean by that? He's around, but he's not going to be around forever. And there will be an end, and so will our battle with him be. It's not forever. It won't go on. indefinitely. There will be an ending time.

We're reading about it right here. I recommend that you bring this next week because some of these charts may be helpful. I'm going to have some pictures of the area where the Jews will be headed, out in the wilderness. So you get to see pictures of it.

What is clear is when you look at the pictures you see why they take refuge there. There are already places of protection for them there and places where an attacking army would get slaughtered. It's a place that an army should not attack if they know what's good for them. And you'll see that even if you have no military background, you'll see, boy, if I attack that, I'm a sitting duck.

All right, let's pray. Thank you Lord for this time just looking at your word and as we see the sweep of history and events that are perhaps even as close as three and a half years from now, we thank you for your faithfulness. We're thankful that we can rejoice in who you are and what you've done. We are amazed at your consistency in what you've written from Genesis to Revelation and the consistency and even to the point of redundancy in order that we be certain and clear of what you have revealed because you love us and care for us. We just pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.