The Woman, the Child, the Dragon Rev, 12:1-6

It was a year ago last Sunday that I came here for the first time. And one of the things that I recall as being both confirming and amazing was this, that I spent a good deal of time talking with Hal, because I had sent him all these responses to, I don't know if you're aware of Holly Hill's questions.

There's a lot behind these questions. I was apparently one of about a half dozen people that got these half dozen questions. And somebody else that Hal talked to that got these questions, apparently when he asked this person about additional questions, the person just hit the roof. And I came back and said, well, those are great questions that need to add some more.

But the thing that was both amazing and confirming to me was this. that here was Hal, and as a lot of you are familiar with, I have kind of a background out in the orchards and the farm country, and here's Hal who grew up in the Bronx, other side of the United States.

He didn't go to the same schools I did, except for a few, you know, he didn't read the same books I did, and yet when we sat down and started, you know, comparing, you know, okay, there's this doctrinal position and that doctrinal position, and what's the understanding of the scriptures, I was in some ways amazed, and in some ways not, to find out, this man has drawn exactly the same conclusions. And even as we're going through this book of Revelation, one of the things that I like to do, because I certainly don't like to get up and teach something where Hal and I are not on the same page, what I find is, I say, Hal, this is what I've concluded based on Scripture, what's your understanding? He says, oh yeah, I agree with that. He's already there. And again, it's not because we haven't read the same books, we haven't gone to the same school, we haven't grown up in the same community.

It is because the Scriptures teach the truth, and our approach to the Scriptures, regardless of the fact that we come from very different backgrounds, our approach to the Scriptures draws us to the same conclusions. And so as we look at the Word this morning, we're going to be looking at a passage where Within Christendom, there are lots of different interpretations, but what narrows the field down substantially is the fact that when we take a literal approach to Scripture, and we just assume that what God said He meant, many things become quite clear, and a lot of the ambiguity just drops off. So we'll be taking a look at Revelation 12, verse 6, and in fact, the rest of chapter 12 in Revelation just kind of expounds and it further explains that, and we'll look at that next week. But these first six verses lay things out in terms of what these symbols mean.

The approach that I'm going to use will be a little bit different from the usual this morning, but bear with me, track with me. The intent is, and you should have two handout sheets, not just one. The intent is that we establish a good foundation here together. and then are able to continue on next week having established that good foundation. So let's dive into the passage, okay? Let me begin by reading the first six verses again. Brian did a great job and I think it's good to just keep it crisp and clear in our minds.

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, and she was with child, and she cried out, being in labor and in pain to give birth. Then another sign appeared in heaven, and behold, a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and on his head were seven diadems. 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. And she gave birth to a son, a male child, who was to rule all the nations with a rod of iron, and her child was caught up to God and to his throne. Then the woman fled into the wilderness where she had a place prepared by God, so that there she would be nourished for 1,260 days."

To start with, trying to imagine what did John see is a little bit of a task to grasp. Here's one artist conception, just taking John's description here and trying to put as much as possible into one view. And here you see, here's a woman, clothed with the sun, so there's the sun's radiance, and the moon beneath her feet.

And the crown of 12 stars, so you see that ingredient there. Seven heads and ten horns. And here's this red dragon, see that person is there. The tail sweeping, and you see these stars. And the idea that sweeping a third of these stars from the heavens.

So this is an artist's conception of, I would say, not all of, but most of the passage that we've looked at here. So with that as a kind of a pictorial intro, let's take a look at the next part. And I think in order to understand this, I want to kind of spell out where are we headed with this? What are we going to end up with? And I want us to look at that ahead of time so that when we get there, it'll be clear. Okay?

We're going to see in this Revelation chapter 12, Israel, through its troubles, will bring forth a Messiah at His first coming. One thing to notice is that it's not going to be without those troubles. Those troubles are going to very much be a part of bringing forth the Messiah. And we'll see that in not just one, but a couple of different parts of this singular passage. Israel's coming forth with the Messiah wasn't a matter of God just appointing and saying, okay, you're going to be the one to bear the Messiah, and the Messiah is born and you're all done. Thank you. See? It wasn't like that, was it? It is a long process, and in fact, since that initial bringing forth of the Jewish nation, it's been in a rough neighborhood of about 4,000 years. So this has been a drawn-out, long process. In fact, the completion of all this is simply not done yet. And one of the reasons it's not done is because God is one who not only makes promises, but He keeps them.

And He will keep them, and that's what this is really all about. It's about God's character. The next thing, this passage is telling us that Satan will lead a failed rebellion of the angels, attempting to usurp authority that is not his to take, attempting to hold a position and claim a character that he does not have. Because of that failed rebellion, one-third of the angels will fall with him from heaven. That's the next part that comes across here. The flip side of that is that two-thirds of those angels will remain faithful to the Lord and remain in that position.

The next point, Satan will fail in his efforts to kill, and I might add to that, to disqualify the Messiah in his first coming. Some of the ways that we see that that happen, the disqualifying of the Messiah, do you see that? Satan trying to tempt Jesus.

What did he do? He tried to offer him these kingdoms in advance. He says, hey, you can have all these now. You don't have to wait and go through all this stuff. I'll give it to you now if you just bow down. What was he trying to do? To disqualify the Messiah. He didn't have to kill him, just take him out of the picture as being qualified to do what God intended and desired for him to do.

Also, we can see this in Herod killing the babies in Bethlehem. You recall that? It's kind of a tragic part of the Christmas story, isn't it? Here's Herod sent his soldiers down Because it says, basically, take all the infants out, anywhere in and around Bethlehem, just kill them all.

I don't want any chance of this other king coming to be king over Israel. Even the crucifixion itself, I'm sure Satan thought, now I've got something here. Now I'm really going to take him out. Even the crucifixion itself was, I'm sure in Satan's mind, something that he thought was going to give him a place of victory. left with only three and a half years of the tribulation, because you notice up until this time, the tribulation has not really shown Satan's dominance and involvement. It's been subtle. Now it's going to become prominent. Satan, left now with this three and a half year period of time, knowing that he's got a time window in which he can make things happen, is going to focus his efforts upon Israel.

He's going to be in a place where what is on the earth and the people on the earth are the only areas in which he will have any latitude. So what is he going to do? He's going to say, all right, whoever are the people that God cares about, I'm going to really take them out. I'm going to take them out in a big way. We have the Holocaust in our recent history, which took out about a third of the Jews, if you can imagine that. about a third of the Jews then living. He's going to say, alright, I'm going to go after these Jews again, only this time I'm not going to go for percentages. So that's the next part. Israel will flee into the desert and be spared by God, mercifully, faithfully, by His almighty and sovereign hand. It talks there about nourishing them here in the desert. So we'll take a look at what that means. And then the last point, failing again, Satan will persecute. Who will he persecute? He will persecute every Tribulation Age believer. Every Tribulation Period believer. One of the phrases we see beginning to show up now from this point on, from now into the end of the Tribulation Period, you'll see blood of the saints. Blood of the witnesses. Blood of the Prophets.

Those kinds of phrases will all of a sudden begin to show up. Why? It's because that is another way in which Satan can express his great wrath. And we'll see a word pop up here in the Greek is epithumia. We're talking volcanic anger. Great rage. And he will focus it upon everyone whom God counts dear.

That's going to be showing forth and we see that beginning to come out here. Okay, let's move on. There is a passage we're going to need to look at, and here's Genesis 37, 9 and 10, in order to clarify this, because this passage starts off with John as seeing a sign in heaven, okay? When you see that word sign, that's telling you this is something where there is something symbolic.

Now, anytime there's something symbolic, if we don't go to Scripture to understand what that symbol is, we're going to be grabbing at straws. We're going to be guessing. What we don't want is man's best guess. We don't want to come up with a different interpretation for everybody who's taking a look at this.

So here's a passage that lays out what the sun and the moon and the stars are. Here's Genesis 37, 9 and 10. And here's again a confirmation Many of the things that you see started in Genesis are finished in Revelation. This is one of them. Verse 9, And now he, and that's Joseph, had still another dream, and related it to his brothers, and said, Lo, I have had still another dream, and behold, the sun and the moon and eleven stars were bowing down to me.

And then verse 10 says, He related it to his father and to his brothers, and his father rebuked him, and notice that his father understands exactly what this means. There's no ambiguity in the father's voice or words here. And his father rebuked him and said to him, what is this dream that you have had? Shall I and your mother and your brothers actually come to bow ourselves down to the ground before you?

So here is the sun, who is Jacob. The moon, who is Rachel, the mother. And the 11 stars plus Joseph makes 12. So those are the 12 stars. and the moon and the 12 stars here are shown in this passage. So let's make sure we got that real clear. The woman here is the nation of Israel, the woman in this passage. Now how do we know that? Jacob is the sun, Rachel is the moon, the 12 suns are the 12 stars. See that picture? Between Jacob's sons, who would involve the 11 brothers, plus one more being Joseph himself, that would mean 12, So we have the sun and the moon and the 12 stars, according to this passage, would be the nation of Israel.

This is the woman of chapter 12. The woman is with child, that's verse 2, and the child is the one who rules with a rod of iron, that's in verse 5. This is Christ who is from the nation of Israel, and we have several passages given here to illustrate that indeed Jesus, the child, was from the nation of Israel.

There are other passages that we could look to as well. And as a matter of fact, up until 70 AD, the records were available to anybody who wanted to check it to demonstrate that Jesus was Jewish, that he was of the tribe of Judah, that he was descended exactly as is recorded in the Gospels. Anybody could have checked that, gone to the temple. As a matter of fact, if they disputed it, they could have gone to the temple up until that time of destruction, looked at the records, and confirmed or denied. whether Jesus was Jewish and of the lineage that the gospel said. So now, you might be asking, you say, well Vern, how do I know you're not just reaching? What about this women thing? Does anywhere else in scripture have that? Well, yes. Israel is portrayed numerous times in scripture as a woman in labor. Seven times at least, to be exact.

And there's one passage in Isaiah, four there listed in Jeremiah, and then the final one in Jeremiah, and I'll talk about the difference here shortly, and then in Micah 4, 9 through 5, 3, and that last one is the passage where it talks about Jesus being born in Bethlehem. Now, what we notice is the first and the last two that I've listed here are in this blue highlighting or blue lettering And the reason for that is this, that out of those seven passages that convey Israel as a woman, three of those passages are actually in a context that speak of the Messiah in his first and or second coming. So not only is it clear that Israel has been conveyed repeatedly as a woman, just as we see in this passage, but also in three of those passages it's referring to the Messiah.

So the connection from the Old Testament prophecies is clear. And this reinforces what we've said here numerous times before, 70% of the book of Revelation is straight out of the Old Testament. This is no exception. That means over two-thirds of the book of Revelation is Old Testament prophecy brought forward, clarified, and congealed in what is an amazing and consistent prophetic masterpiece.

That's what's being laid out here. What John is conveying is not some mind-numbing, bewildering mass of words that people are scratching their heads about. Instead, they're saying, oh, I've seen that. I've seen that. Yes, that's clear. I've seen that. I know that. So I think that's important to keep in mind. This is not something that we can just grab meanings from. It's something that's well-entrenched, saturated into the Jewish understanding based on their reading of the Old Testament. Now, let's take a look.

How about this red dragon that shows up here in verse 3? It turns out that John, as I mentioned before, is an amazingly consistent writer. He uses the phrase, loud voice, dozens of times. I've been told that the nursery has been awakened too many times by my loud voices, so I won't use that this morning. But anyway, He also uses this word dragon or other very clear references to it. There's one instance, for example, that doesn't use dragon, but he talks about the being that has the seven heads and ten horns.

If you look at those from here in verse 3 all the way through Revelation 20 verse 2, the dragon is mentioned all these times in the book of Revelation. So John is very consistent in the way he uses this wording. It is a tribulation-specific phrase that he draws upon here, and it is specific to the last half of the tribulation. This dragon-like character comes forth boldly during the last half of the tribulation period. We have here just the one passage where it shows up, but it keeps showing up again, even as we go through chapter 12 and on into the very time when this dragon, Satan himself, is being cast into the lake of fire.

Excuse me, bound. Okay, now, who is the dragon? What happens is we find here and in Revelation 20 verse 2 are very similar passages and each of them does something very interesting. It is as if to tell you, I don't want you to be in the least bit uncertain about who this dragon is.

So here's the definition that comes out in Revelation 12.9, and you can look up a similar one in 20 verse 2. And the great dragon was thrown down, the serpent of old who is called the devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world. It's as if to say, I don't want you to be uncertain about who this is. I want to be very clear. I'll use all the different names. If you have any doubt, here it is.

So the first chapter in which this dragon gets brought up gets this definition. The last chapter in which the dragon gets brought up gets that definition. So the whole thing is bracketed with a definition of who this dragon is. There's really no question, is there? It's laid out here from beginning to end of this segment of scripture as to who this dragon is. This dragon is Satan.

We're using a word to picture him. Okay. Let's take a look because there are some words that come out in this third verse and following that I think are important for us to track here and to get some insight into. John describes him as a red dragon. And to underscore that, you put the letters in red there. The first thing we see though is he's great. That refers to his magnitude of influence.

During this period of time, the dragon's influence is substantial with capital letters. Okay? His power is not absolute. There's a difference, right? But his influence is substantial. There is no question about it. The next thing is he is red. And it's interesting, although you see the dragon mentioned elsewhere, he shows up here being described as red. And that red comes out as he is a murderous and bloodthirsty character.

John 8.44 says that he was a murderer from the beginning and that's why from here on out we see repeated reference to the blood of the saints, the blood of the witnesses. The reference to blood after this point as a result of the actions of the dragon are clear and repeated. He is bloody. He does not want to simply take their life, he wants blood to be shed.

And so he's painted in this very first phrase where this great dragon gets described, he's painted red. Red for blood. He's out for all he can get. The next word you see is this word dragon. And that talks about his ferocious, nasty character. He is intensely cruel. Cruel is basic to his very nature.

It says there he has seven heads and ten horns. A head was in reference to being in charge. A horn, as we've talked about before, and it's used previously in the book of Revelation, a horn in the Jewish mindset always refers to power. And notice here, ten horns. He's got this places of power. And we'll take a look more into that.

This refers to the Ten Nation Confederation that's in Revelation 13.1. This gets into the core of the one world government that we'll see in the next chapter. And it's been dealt with in Daniel chapter 7 and several different passages there throughout chapter 7 of Daniel. And we dealt with that in some degree a few months ago when we were taking a look at the book of Daniel. The next thing is seven diadems. The word seven, especially as it's used in the book of Revelation, seven refers to totality.

So he's talking having great power. He's looking to grab every bit of power he can get. He doesn't want anybody to be excluded from his grasp. That's what he's looking for. He's looking to control the whole thing. He wants it all. Ever run into anybody like that? They're terrible to be with. Now imagine somebody who wants to run the whole world and they just want it all. And not only that, they get it. That's the picture.

The contrast that we have here at the bottom is right now Satan appears as an angel of light. You notice Paul? He writes that to the Corinthians, 2 Corinthians 11-14. He appears as an angel of light. He's happy to do that now, by the way. Here in the last half of the Tribulation, He will be revealed for what he really is. He will be unmasked. Now you'll get to see the full nasty. Because that will be exactly what he is. You want to know what Satan's character is like? This will be it. We'll be reading of it in the weeks and months ahead here. We'll see it very clearly. Exactly who he is. Okay.

Let's take a look at a certain part of this. One of the things that we'll find is these first six verses get further explained in verse 7 through the end of the chapter. And so I just want to kind of reach ahead a little bit here in order to clarify and get fixed in our minds what some of this is talking about.

In verse 4, in the first half of the verse, it says, And his tail swept away a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth. The stars of heaven are these fallen angels, and as we go into verses 7-9 in that same chapter, we see reference to these angels. His angels, these fallen angels now, are these stars of heaven. That same phrase is used in Job 38 verse 7, where it talks about the angels being stars, and it talks about these stars praising the Lord at the creation.

The other word that comes out here is through. Now those of you who are baseball fans might want to take note here. This word throw is balo. Balo. We get our word ball from that. The Greek word balo, this is to throw, to cast. So this throwing down is not a gentle tossing. They're not just sort of gently tossed towards the earth. This is a deliberate casting down.

This isn't an accident. This is something that deliberately takes place. And notice the emphasis when we get down into this passage. Here in verse 9, it comes up three times. Thrown, thrown, thrown. And it's a completed action. It's a done deal. So there is this deliberate and completed casting down that happens. And we'll get into that as we look at this passage next week.

But this idea of being thrown down to the earth is so heavily reinforced here that it comes through three times in that one verse. Throwing down, throwing down, throwing down. Cast to the earth. And the last thing is the repetition of the same word earth here. In the Greek it's the same word in each case.

So what we find is if you're looking for what the meaning of something is and you don't find clear definition in those first six verses, look at the rest of the chapter. It will reinforce, elaborate, and explain. Now, let's take a look here. There's another aspect of verse 4. This is the last half of the verse.

So it says in the middle of verse 4, And the dragon stood before the woman who was about to give birth, so that when she gave birth, he might devour the child. Now notice something here. Satan didn't simply come around when the child was ready to be born. It says he stood before the woman. So what it means is he is sitting there menacingly present with Israel during this time. From the time Israel became a people, here's the 12 sons, things got very difficult.

They go into Egypt and they have a kind of a high point where here's Joseph as a vizier in Egypt, but shortly thereafter, what takes place? They go for centuries into slavery and bondage. Then what happens? They go out into the desert. Should have been a two week trip and they spend 40 years out there. They go into the promised land and they have to battle for the land that they're to take. Then they spend the time described in the Judges where they're going in this cycle of falling away and everybody doing that which is right in their own eyes. They have a high point around David and Solomon and then things fall again and then they have a time where they're exiled into Babylon.

All these tremendous difficulties. This is not a smooth highway. This is an instance where we can see Satan is standing before them. Satan wants to oppress them. The book of Esther is an example of an attempt at aborting the birth of the child. Because what happened? Haman was trying to do all the Jews in. This is just one of many instances where the Jews were opposed as a people.

So then, the other thing we see, this correlates with verse 2. Do you see that? And she was with child and she cried out being in labor and in pain to give birth. It was not simply a matter of saying, okay, you're picked, now the Messiah is born, and we're done. But this was a painful, difficult process to get there. Practically two millennia from the time that Jacob and Rachel and the sons were singled out. Okay, now, in verse 5.

It says, And she gave birth to a son, a male child, who was to rule all the nations with a rod of iron. And her child was caught up to God and to His throne. So Israel is the source of this child, the Messiah. But notice something here. It speaks of the first coming, then it jumps ahead to the second coming as an identification mark, and then goes back to the first coming. Notice this carefully. She gave birth to a son, a male child. That's the first coming, right? Who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron? Well, that's still yet to happen, isn't it? So this is looking ahead to what is to take place. And then going back to, and her child was caught up to God and to His throne. This is the ascension and the Lord being seated, right?

So, we have a statement like this. If I were to put this in modern vernacular, Barbara Bush gave birth to George W. Bush, who was to be the president, on July 6, 1946. You see that kind of a statement? It's inserting something in the middle that is a future happening. So that's what this verse is about. It's saying, this is past, and that's going to happen, but we're going to finish it off with a statement about the past. That's exactly what's happening here.

She gave birth to the son, this male child, the first coming, and this male child is going to be the one who will rule in the future with a rod of iron. But, in the first coming, this male child was caught up to God and to his throne. So you see that step there? And what's that intermediate step for? It's to tell you what is the future of this child. It is also to identify this child. This is the one who is to rule. You see that? One of the phrases that comes out of here is the rod of iron. And we see very consistently in scripture this coming out.

This comes out of chapter 2. Psalm chapter 2, verses 8 and 9. This is specifically talking about the end of the tribulation and the beginning of the millennium. Here's Psalm chapter 2, verses 8 and 9. Christ the Messiah is conquering of its enemies and rule over all the earth. This is what Psalm chapter 2 is talking about. We brought up Psalm chapter 2 last week and actually we're going to be looking at it again in the future.

Now, here in Revelation 2, verse 27, we see the first of three references in Revelation to this rod of iron. The first time we looked at, back when we were looking at the seven churches, And so that's the first reference, looking ahead to this time when Christ would rule with the rod of iron. In the current passage, the one here in the blue lettering, the one we're looking at now, refers again to this rod of iron. We're going to see it one last time in Revelation 19, which refers to Christ's second coming. And that phrase will show up again, and for the last time. So here's the four places in scripture where that comes up, the first one being there in Psalms, and the last three being what we see here in Revelation. We're now seeing the second of those three references to the rod of iron. In each case, it has to do with the Messiah ending the tribulation period and ruling into the millennium. In each instance. It's referring to that.

Let's take a look at portions of Psalm 2 in order to get this clearly in our minds. The first part in verse 2, and we have to remember who's talking here. Here's David speaking to us and he's writing, the kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against His anointed. That Hebrew is Hamashiach, or we would say Messiah. So that's the first statement.

Then it goes on into verse 4, and this is from the perspective of God speaking to us. And God is saying, but as for me, I have installed my king upon Zion, that is in Jerusalem, that's the hill in the southern part of Jerusalem, my holy mountain. And so Christ is to be king, okay? And now in verse 8 and in verse 9, here is the Father, this is from the perspective of the Father speaking directly to the Son. ask of me, and I will surely give the nations as your inheritance, and the very ends of the earth as your possession." Now let me ask you this, does that sound like just reigning over Israel? No. This is everything, isn't it? This is ruling over the entire earth.

And you shall break them with, and here's the reference that gets drawn upon three times in Revelation, you shall break them with a rod of iron, you shall shatter them like earthenware. Why the use of that phrase rod of iron? Why the shattering? It's because when Christ comes at the end of the tribulation period, the world structure, the nations of the time, will not be welcoming him. He's going to have to suppress them because they are under the power and immense influence of this red dragon. So he will at that time have to put them down forcefully. It will be necessary.

When we get into looking at the millennium later, we'll look at this in further detail. Now, let's go through this sequence here. This is something you have on your handout. At first glance, you might look at this and say, good heavens Vern, what happened to you? What I'd like to do is go through it one step at a time, because what John has done in these first six verses is to lay out for us the symbols, and he has tended to lay out more, you know, first the woman and the child, and then lay out the dragon, and lay out the symbols in that sequence. What I'd like to do is to look at these in a timeline sequence, and that's what you have in front of you here. Let's start with, just here on the very left hand, the creation. That's the beginning of time the Lord creates things.

Sometime between there and the time where you see the serpent approaching Eve, there is a fall. That fall being the fall of these angelic beings with Satan. So that event takes place in there. So that's why very shortly after I have the dragon and one-third of the stars fallen. and down here the interpretation of that being Satan and one-third of the angels are fallen. You see that? So after creation, that's step one. This is step two. This falling takes place.

Now in truth there's a further diminishing of the dragon's influence and access that takes place in the middle half of the tribulation period. But their initial fall takes place in here between the time of the creation and what we see described in Genesis chapter 3. Now, the next step that we see is the sun, moon, and the 12 stars. The sun, moon, and 12 stars, as we saw from Genesis, 37, 9, and 10, is Jacob, Rachel, and the 11 brothers plus Joseph, meaning the 12 stars. So that's the next point. That took place, by archaeological estimates, almost 4,000 years ago. So that was some time back. That would be step three in this sequence. Next step.

Something that I have here just really described by these arrows, and that is the distress that Israel undergoes during this time. Israel is undergoing distress. Four centuries of slavery, dealing with going around in circles during the period that's described in the book of Judges. the distress of the exile, splitting the kingdoms, being overtaken by different one kingdom after another, as Daniel describes. So that's what these arrows are intended to represent.

That's part four. The next part, part five, is the child is born and the dragon seeks to kill him. Then it says, and notice this carefully, the child is caught up to God in his throne. These all take place at the first coming of Christ. And notice here that we have this little arrow because this being caught up to God in the throne is his ascension and seating, right? In this we were identified, correct? So there's reference there to our involvement from what we understand from Paul's writings. Okay, now, number six. Now we're into the period of time that John is specifically focusing on here.

Here's the dragon. with seven heads and ten horns, and the woman fled into the wilderness, as we see it described. This takes place during the last half of the Tribulation period. So let's think of what this looks like, based on what we've already studied in Daniel and in chapter 11 of Revelation.

At this midpoint of the Tribulation period, the beast, who is the Antichrist, breaks the covenant that he has made. Ready? A seven-year covenant. Halfway through, he breaks it. He kills the two witnesses who have been witnessing the first half of the tribulation period. He goes in and violates the temple. He desecrates it. Jesus talks about it in Matthew 24. This is the abomination of desolation. It was the most repulsive thing possible to the Jew. So right here in the middle of the tribulation period is the time when this starts. Violating the agreement, killing the two witnesses, desecrating the temple, grabbing power. That's what you see described right in the middle.

And what we'll see reinforced more than once as we go through these next several chapters is it'll keep referring to this period of time, 1260 days, 42 months. It'll keep talking about this period of time. And it's because this period of time gets to be very intense. The last thing that we see on the chart, off to the right-hand side, is the child rules during the Millennium. That begins by ending the Tribulation period when he comes to rule with a rod of iron, putting those who are in power, including the red dragon at its head, out of commission. Taking them out of power. So that's what this chart is about. What you see in the top couple of rows is the verses that correspond to that.

And what you notice is that the verses are not purely sequential here. The verses aren't sequential because what John is doing is presenting symbols and those symbols have kind of a distributed involvement. For example, verse four describes things that happen early as well as late. Verse 2 and then 5 describe things that happen in the middle, and then verse 5 towards the end. So there are things that are time distributed, that he's presenting the symbols in sequence.

Now, in order to zero in on this tribulation period, because there's no way we can get quite to detail, the flip side of your handout will convey this. Here's the rapture. Following the rapture, then, is the beginning of the tribulation period. By the way, the tribulation period is started, as we know from Daniel, by this agreement that the Antichrist establishes. That's actually the start of the tribulation period. The rapture must take place prior to or up to the beginning of that time. But it's actually not the rapture that starts the tribulation. it is that agreement that starts the tribulation period. So that's a distinction made there.

But what we see focused on here in verse 6 is this last half, these three and a half years, 1260 days, Revelation 12.6 points out this is a time Israel will flee into the wilderness. They'll be sustained by God, a remnant being preserved miraculously from Satan's desperate and anti-Semitic assault. A couple of things to note here. Antisemitism is rooted in Satan's encouragement and activity.

That's where it comes from. You think, why on earth would somebody want to go and kill millions of Jews? That just seems very, very extreme. Well, guess who's behind it? Satan is carrying this out. This will be his last time window of antisemitism, so he is really going to carry it out.

He's going to focus an immense amount of energy with this epithumia, this volcanic anger that he has towards God that can only be focused on those people on earth who are precious in God's sight. The other thing to be noted here is God will sustain them out in the wilderness and here we don't see described but Think of what happened when the Lord was taking them from Egypt up to the Promised Land. What did He do? He provided for them in every way. He gave them manna. He brought them a huge, huge bunch of quail to come by and give them that. He provided them water in the middle of the desert. All these provisions of the Lord will essentially come back again. It doesn't describe them as exactly being in that same form.

But you will see the miraculous provision of the Lord and the miraculous protection of the Lord during this period of time. And we'll get into more detail on this later. But that's going to be very apparent. We see first mention of it here, in this book anyway, right here in this verse, 12.6. But we're going to see the Lord miraculously and marvelously providing for these people.

It will become very clear, very clear to them, that it is only by God's hand that we are surviving. We should be dead by every human reckoning. There is no provision for us out here apart from God's provision. There is no means of surviving the onslaught that's coming at us apart from God's provision. It will become very apparent to them that God is miraculously dealing with them.

And finally, their hearts will be changed. If you go to Israel now, Christianity is tolerated in a very minimal way. A time will come when they won't be dealing with Christianity, they will be dealing with the Messiah. That's an exciting time to look forward to, but they've got some tough times to go through between now and then. Think of what this is like right now.

Here's a population density map of Israel. If this were to take place right now, the darker areas that you see on this map are those areas that have most of the population. This area down here, you're talking about somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 people here per square mile, as opposed to these areas here where you're looking at sometimes thousands per square mile. So this is a sparsely populated area.

What's going to happen is you're going to see these populations moving down into the wilderness And we'll take a look at more detail on this at some later point in time. There's actually some ancient cities that are still there but totally unoccupied now that they could move into. It's just that there's no way to have enough food and water provisions there, so guess what they'll need? The Lord will provide for them, see? So anyway, it appears that they'll be heading down into this area in order to be preserved. We'll look more in the future here.

Now, the exile and preservation of the remnant of Israel in the wilderness during this last half of the tribulation period is referred to multiple times in scripture. We list here Daniel 12, 1. Zechariah 12, 13, and 14 are about this very thing, about what the Lord is going to do to preserve these people. There are some very exciting verses in here. It actually says in this passage, it says that God himself will touch foot on the Mount of Olives.

Okay? I mean, this is an amazing passage. So it's very clear. It is precisely the reverse of what the angels told the disciples on Jesus' departure into heaven. He will come back in the same way that he left, and at the same place. Anyway, more detail on that than we could go into here, but it's exciting. Matthew 24, we will be looking at in a few months out. We have a schedule to go through the entire passage there. Mark and Luke have similar passages there.

Even Romans 11.26, all Israel will be saved. You're wondering, what does that mean? That's what it's pointing to. All Israel All Israel will be saved at the end of this time and it will be apparent to them it is only by God's miraculous action and intervention that they will be saved. Only by God's miraculous action and intervention that they will be saved.

Okay, in Revelation 16 and 19 we'll be looking at passages and there are others too that we won't have time to go into this morning. Think of this, the church is now and has gone through persecutions. Those persecutions are horrible. We heard this last week of the New Tribes missionaries, you know, the husband was killed in a raid to try to free them and save them.

But it's really one small instance, and I'm not making light of the tragedy that took place, but it's one small instance of the deaths that take place. It's been estimated that more believers have died for their faith in the last century than all the prior centuries combined. Okay? We think of the first few centuries as an era of martyrdom. This century, the time we're living now, is a time of great martyrdom.

And a great many Christians are losing their lives. My brother has a good friend who frequently goes over to Sudan. And there the Islamic government regularly comes by the villages where there's lots of Christians and just strafes and bombs the villages. A great many Christians are being killed now.

Yet, there will come a time the Lord will rapture his church out and preserve them from the tribulation period, prior to the tribulation period. What he is describing here in brief is Israel will be preserved through the tribulation period. See the difference? The church preserved from, Israel preserved through. There's the difference there, okay? Important not to cross those two because they're very different paths that the Lord has in mind Okay All kinds of things about somebody else, but let's let's look at what are some points that we can take to heart from this passage, okay?

One of them we know from Paul's writings that we have been identified with Christ in his death burial resurrection ascension and feeding and we noted from The end of verse 5, it talks about Christ being taken up to God and to His throne. That's referring to Christ's ascension and seeding, isn't it? We have been identified with Christ in those things. So this passage makes indirect reference to that very thing, from the truth that we understand from Paul's writings.

The next thing, God is faithful to all His promises to Israel and to us. And why? It's because of His character. It's because of who God is that we can depend upon all of His promises. All of His promises to Israel. All of His promises to us. Everyone. It's who He is that is such that we can depend upon Him in everything that He's promised.

Next, we have been identified with Christ in His first coming. Those are the things we talked about here. Those five things. We will come back to reign with Him in His second coming. You see, both the first and second coming are referred to in this passage we just looked at, right? Because we know we've been identified with Him, we know the reference to the first coming, we've been identified with Him, now we know from other passages that this second coming that will take place, we will come to reign with Him. As we brought up last week, the word reign And I'm not talking about the stuff that falls out of the sky from the clouds, okay? The word rain is used most often in the New Testament of the Messiah, but one of the other usages of it is when we rain with him.

Isn't that neat? That's marvelous stuff. The next thing, standing in our eternally secure position in Christ, Satan cannot prevail in our condition. Okay? Satan cannot prevail in our condition when we stand in our position. That's what resisting him is all about. Resisting him isn't doing our best human efforts to try to stand against him. It's standing in our position. It's what the spiritual armor is really about in Ephesians 6, isn't it? The spiritual armor is about standing in our position.

Satan is not one of whom we should shake on our boots. We should not do that because Satan, as we see here, will be totally and completely defeated, and that's the last point. Satan's terminal. Satan is terminal, and so is our battle with him. We have now, while we're here on planet Earth, enemies, the world, the flesh, and the devil. They will all come to an end. There will be an end to it. And the Lord will cut the church off from that at the time of the rapture. Entirely. The church will be away from those enemies. completely.

As we look at these words here in this passage, yes, a lot of it is dealing with Israel. Yes, a lot of it is dealing with this child that comes from Israel. Yes, a lot of it is dealing with Satan. But it is important for us to bring in the truths from the rest of Scripture so that we maintain the biblical position on where we as believers stand in this age. We do not need to tremble in fear The world has a lot to fear. But we do not need to tremble in fear because both in stance of time and in stance of position, we don't have anything to worry about.

The Lord has provided all that we need. We have every spiritual blessing in Christ. Every. Let's pray. Lord, thank You that as we look at this passage, certainly there are things that draw us in as we look at this sign, the set of symbols that you've laid out. You've spelled out a number of things to us, and yet in it, Lord, there are other things that you've spelled out elsewhere, that as we look at this, Lord, we can have a perspective that, frankly, this world will not understand. And Lord, we give you thanks for that. We give you for the blessings that we have. We give you Thanks for the position that we have and the stance that we have, untouchable in the heavens. And we just pray, Lord, that you would be teaching us what that means here and now until the time that you come to take us home. Thank you in Jesus' name. Amen.