Revelation 12
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Important messages
Chapter 12
1. And a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman
clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of
twelve stars.
2. She was pregnant and was crying out in birth
pains and the agony of giving birth.
3. And another
sign appeared in heaven: behold, a great red dragon, with seven heads and ten
horns, and on his heads seven diadems.
4. His tail swept
down a third of the stars of heaven and cast them to the earth. And the dragon
stood before the woman who was about to give birth, so that when she bore her
child he might devour it.
5. She gave birth to a male child, one who is to
rule all the nations with a rod of iron, but her child was caught up to God and
to his throne,
6. and the woman fled into the wilderness, where
she has a place prepared by God, in which she is to be nourished for 1,260
days.
7. Now war arose in heaven, Michael and his
angels fighting against the dragon. And the dragon and his angels fought back,
8. but he was defeated, and there was no longer
any place for them in heaven.
9. And the great dragon was thrown down, that
ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole
world – he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with
him.
10. And I heard a
loud voice in heaven, saying, “Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom
of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our
brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God.
11. And they have
conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for
they loved not their lives even unto death.
12. Therefore,
rejoice, O heavens and you who dwell in them! But woe to you, O earth and sea,
for the devil has come down to you in great wrath, because he knows that his
time is short!”
13. And when the
dragon saw that he had been thrown down to the earth, he pursued the woman who
had given birth to the male child.
14. But the woman
was given the two wings of the great eagle so that she might fly from the
serpent into the wilderness, to the place where she is to be nourished for a
time, and times, and half a time.
15. The serpent
poured water like a river out of his mouth after the woman, to sweep her away
with a flood.
16. But the earth
came to the help of the woman, and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed the
river that the dragon had poured from his mouth.
17. Then the
dragon became furious with the woman and went off to make war on the rest of
her offspring, on those who keep the commandments of God and hold to the
testimony of Jesus. And he stood on the sand of the sea.
The woman and her Child
The first detail that we need to pursue in this chapter
is the identity of the woman mentioned… who she is and who she is not. One of
the opinions, especially of those who hold to the replacement doctrine (that Israel was replaced by the church),
is that the woman represents the church. I think the evidence of Scripture much
more strongly suggests that she is Israel. These verses give us her history in
a nutshell, her primary purpose and then, we see her in prophecy concerning the
end times.
The only similarity to the representation of the woman in
this passage is found in the book of Genesis in Joseph’s dream, so the history
takes us back to the beginning of Israel (v.1). Please turn to Genesis 37:9: “Then (Joseph) dreamed another dream and
told it to his brothers and said… ‘Behold, the sun, the moon, and eleven stars
were bowing down to me.’” There is no question about the meaning of his
dream. The sun represented his father, Jacob or Israel, the moon, his mother,
and the eleven stars were his brothers. Joseph himself was the twelfth star.
The great purpose of Israel, from the very beginning of
its formation, was to bring forth a man child, Jesus Christ, according to the
flesh, the Messiah. Verse 5 can refer to no one else, but the Son of God,
revealed in Psalms 2: “You are my Son… I
will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession.
You shall break them with a rod of iron…” and in the depiction of the
returning Christ in Revelation 19:15: “From
his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations, and he
will rule them with a rod of iron.”
The Father saw His Son, when Israel was freed from the
slavery of Egypt. Hosea knew it prophetically: “When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my
son” (Hos.11:1). Matthew confirms that Hosea was referring to the Christ:
Joseph “took the child and his mother by
night and departed to Egypt and remained there until the death of Herod. This
was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet, ‘Out of Egypt I called
my son” (Mt.2:14,15).
Israel’s pain in carrying out God’s purpose was very well
described in verse 2… “the agony of
giving birth”. The first difficulty was in the sterility of Sarah’s womb. Later,
Pharaoh was an oppressor, threatening to wipe out the race by having all the
male children thrown into the Nile. Haman in Persia also wanted to exterminate
the Jews and Satan’s effort continued after Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem, when
Herod sent soldiers to kill all the infants from two-years-old and under. John
sees the dragon ready to devour the infant, who, finishing His earthly service, “was caught up to God and to his throne.”
See Warren Wiersbe’s comments: “Pharaoh is called a ‘dragon’ (Ez.29:3), and so is Nebuchadnezzar
(Jer.51:34). At one critical point, the royal line was limited to one little
boy (2 K.11:1-3). When Jesus Christ was born, Satan used King Herod to try to
destroy Him (Mt.2:1-23).
In Daniel 9:24, the angel Gabriel opens a period of 490
years (70 weeks) to Daniel concerning his
people. We go on to the future, of which Christ spoke in Matthew 24:15-21,
concerning the last half of Daniel’s 70th Week, beginning with the
Abomination of Desolation: “So when you
see the abomination of desolation spoken of by the prophet Daniel, standing in
the holy place (let the reader understand), then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains” (Mt.24:15-16).
This is strictly and literally for the Jews in Judea through verse 21. The
winter refers to Judean winter and the Sabbath flight would be complicated by
Jewish custom (v.20).
The reader is to understand what this prophecy means, as
Christ proclaimed in verse 15, “(let the
reader understand)”, and shows that the Great Tribulation begins with the
Abomination of Desolation and continues for 3 ½ years: “Then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been from the
beginning of the world until now, no, and never will be” (Mt.24:21). There
is no mistaking these events.
Daniel 11:31-32, gives the signs of the Abomination of
Desolation and the Jewish apostasy: “Forces
from him (the antichrist) shall
appear and profane the temple and fortress, and shall take away the regular
burnt offering. And they shall set up the abomination
that makes desolate. He shall seduce with flattery those who violate the
covenant, but the people who know their God shall stand firm and take action.” Daniel
writes of an end-time king of the north towards
the end of chapter 11 and pinpoints the chronology in the first phrase of
chapter 12: “At that time…”, and
that which follows are things, which will happen in the end times. He points to
“a time of trouble, such as never has
been since there was a nation till that time…”, the Great Tribulation. In
verse two, he points to resurrection day: “And
many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake.”
The Hebrew chronometer has begun its countdown in
Revelation 11 and in chapter 12, the first 3 ½ years are past and the last half
has begun. Zechariah also prophesies of that time stating: “In the whole land, declares the Lord, two thirds shall be cut off and
perish, and one third shall be left alive. And I will put this third into the
fire and refine them as one refines silver and test them as gold is tested.
They will call upon my name, and I will answer them. I will say ‘They are my
people’; and they will say, ‘The Lord is my God’” (Zec.13:8-9). It is this
remnant, to which Zechariah refers in 13:1: “On that day there shall be a fountain opened for the house of David
and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, to cleanse them from sin and uncleanness.”
It is the time of the reign of Antichrist (see Daniel
7:25), in which the bowls of God’s wrath will be poured out over the earth. The
woman of Revelation 12, Israel, flees from the serpent and is sustained in the
desert for 1,260 days (3 ½ years, Rv.12:6,14).
The dragon
The next sign, concerning a bloody red dragon, is much
simpler to discern. Jesus taught that the devil “was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth,
because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own
character, for he is a liar and the father of lies” (Jn.8:44). He works
through a deceived people to express his personality and, in the time of Christ,
his emissaries were the Jews, who killed the Lord.
In the end times, he is working through a beast that we
will study in the next chapter. The beast is a man, whom we commonly call the
antichrist. He has seven heads and ten horns, but we will also look into those
characteristics later, including the seven diadems (v.3). The tail of the
dragon swept a third of the stars of heaven to the earth (v.4). These are
fallen angels, whom he brought with him, when he fell from his position at some
point in the beginning of time. These demon spirits are allied with the dragon in
his opposition to God and His purposes.
There is a place in the heavens, in which the devil has
access. We know so little of these things, but Paul speaks of a man, quite
obviously himself, who was caught up to the third heaven (2 Co.12:2-7). That
means that there is also a first and second heaven. In the beginning, the devil
was cast out of the third heaven and cannot enter it again. However, he can
still rise to the second heaven and we find him there in Job 1:6-12 and Job
2:1-7. In 1 Kings 22:19-22, a lying spirit enters and gets permission to entice
Israel’s prophets.
We have come to an account in Revelation, where a war occurs
in this place in heaven (v.7). The opposing generals are Michael and his angels,
warring against the dragon, Satan, and his angels. Daniel 12:1 prophesies of
this war, which takes place during the tribulation time. Michael, as Daniel
reveals, is the angel, particularly associated with the people of Israel (Dn.10:13;
12:1).
Satan is defeated and he and his demons lost their last
corner of heaven and they are thrown down to earth (v.8). The great dragon is totally
defined in verse 9, so there is no doubt as to his identity. He is the “ancient serpent, who is called the devil (meaning
accuser) and Satan (adversary, enemy), the deceiver of the whole world.” This
is a tremendous victory, because now he has lost his place of prosecuting
attorney, from which he accused “our
brothers”, who are still on the earth. The angelic war threw him down and
heaven is now totally free of him (Lc.4:6; Ef.2:2). It was a necessary step, in
bringing about the final salvation of the Jews, the defeat of the antichrist, demonstrating
the majesty of God and His Christ, as He takes the kingdom for Himself (v.10).
The battle on earth was gained by the church through the
victory of Christ on the cross and because they maintained their witness (the
word means martyr), even in the face
of death. Christ was more to them than life (v.11). Now they rejoice in victory
in heaven, while the earth goes through its greatest turmoil ever. The enemy
will concentrate now on the earth’s inhabitants in a rage of anger, because he,
who was cast out of heaven, now has only a short time on earth (v.12).
The dragon focuses all his attention on the Jews, whose “male
child” did the work, which caused his ultimate defeat (v.13). We will look at
Wiersbe’s thoughts again: “Satan thought
that he had succeeded when he used Judas to betray the Lord and hand Him over
to be crucified. But the Cross was actually Satan’s defeat! He has a special
hatred for the Jewish people and has been the power behind anti-Semitism from
the days of Pharaoh and Haman to Hitler and Stalin.”
Israel is given supernatural protection for 3 ½ years, in
spite of all the dragon’s efforts. God gives her two wings to outdistance him.
The serpent poured water like a flood to drown her, but the earth came to
Israel’s aid. All of this will have special meaning for the people in the Great
Tribulation and we can only speculate today (v.14-16). John MacArthur suggests:
“God will protect Israel from Satan by
hiding her in the wilderness, perhaps in the region of Moab, Ammon, and Edom,
east of Palestine. Interestingly, those countries will be specifically spared
from the Antichrist’s attack against the Holy Land (Dn.11:41).”
The waters could be an extraordinary flood of antisemitism
in the world. Remember also that there is a tremendous number of Gentiles, who
have been saved through the testimony of Jewish Christians (chapter 7, verses
9-17). At the Judgment of the Nations they will be acknowledged for their help
and provision to the Jews (Mt.25:31-46). Perhaps, this is the cause of the
dragon’s fury, when he turns against the woman’s offspring (v.17). The text
indicates a body of Jewish believers… “who
keep the commandments of God” and Gentiles… who “hold to the testimony of Jesus.” The last words, “and he stood on the sand of the sea”,
are an introduction to the next chapter, as the devil prepares to carry out his
next strategy.
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