Revelation 12:1-17 Part 5
REVELATION 12:1-17 Part 5
1) Then a great sign in the heaven was made visible: a woman sun-clothed, the moon underneath her feet, a crown of twelve stars on her head,
2) having in her belly, crying out travailing and pained to bring forth.
3) Then another sign in the heaven was made visible: and lo, a great fiery dragon having seven heads and ten horns and on its heads seven diadems,
4) and its tail draws the third of the stars of the heaven and cast them into the earth. And the dragon stands before the woman who is about to bring forth, that when she brings forth it might devour the child.
5) And she did bring forth a son, a male who intends to rule all the nations by means of a rod of iron; and her child was hastened away to God and to His throne.
6) But the woman did flee into the wilderness where she has a place having been prepared there of God, that there they may feed her a thousand two hundred and sixty days.
7) And fighting was in the heaven, Michael with His messengers to fight the dragon; and the dragon (and its messengers) fought,
8) but it did not prevail, a place no longer found for them in the heaven;
9) and the great dragon, that old serpent (the whole world’s deceiver) called diabolos and ‘o Satanas, was cast into the earth and its messengers cast with it.
10) And I heard a great sound in the heaven declaring ‘now the salvation and the might and the kingdom of our God and the authority of His Christ did come to be, for the accuser of our brothers that accuses them before our God day and night was cast;
11) for they did overcome him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their life even unto death.
12) Because of this rejoice, heavens and you who dwell in them; woe the land and the sea for the devil did go down to you having great wrath, knowing that it has little time.’
13) And when the dragon beheld that it had been cast into the earth it did pursue the woman whoso brought forth the male;
14) and the two wings of the great eagle were given to the woman so that she could fly into the wilderness into her place away from the presence of the serpent where she is fed there a time, times and a half time.
15) And the serpent did cast water from its mouth as flood after the woman that it might bring about her carrying away,
16) and the earth did run to the aid of the woman; and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed up the flood which the dragon cast from its mouth.
17) And the dragon was enraged regarding the woman and did go forth to make war with the rest of her seed, that is those keeping the commandments of God and holding the testimony of Jesus.
The early Revelation of Yahveh to the wicked king Ahaz through Isaiah (chapter seven) said that there would be a “sign” to Israel: the virgin would conceive and bear a son; and He would be called Immanuel. It was Mary to whom it was revealed that she would conceive and bear a son; and she was to call Him Jesus.
And He (Immanuel – Jesus) would “abandon” Israel until such time as the “woman” – the Daughter of Zion – brought forth in pain and travail; and the One brought forth from Mary would lead them and shepherd them in the might and glory of Yahveh, they having been united to the Christ by rebirth. And the newborn would be the remnant kept by Yahveh for His Own; and this remnant brought forth of Jacob would be as the “dew of Yahveh” among the nations of Gentiles.
“Behold”, Yahveh has proclaimed to the end of the age (Isaiah 62), Say to the daughter of Zion, “Behold, your salvation comes; behold, his reward is with him, and his work before him.”
It is the New Israel, you see… ruled under the authority of the One born of Mary Who rode into Jerusalem on an ass, proclaiming (directly from Isaiah 62), “Lo, daughter of Zion; lo, your king comes to you” – the One Who bought and paid for her-who-is-birthed-in- pangs-and-travail.
All that Israel experienced in the wrath of Yahveh in the last days is the “bringing forth” – the childbirth – of the “Daughter of Zion”. And there was great pain and travail in her birth.
The sign we see here at the beginning of chapter twelve is the sign of the Daughter of Zion…Yahveh’s perception of His Church… prophesied in the four passages we read last Lord’s Day from Isaiah and Micah. The sign is made visible to John in the heaven.
The woman has twelve stars in a crown on her head. The lights of the old Israel having fallen out of the cosmos, the twelve tribes of Jacob (the twelve stars in her crown) are the lights of the New Israel – the elect of God from the twelve tribes of His covenant people.
The woman is sun-clothed. The sun over Israel having been darkened, there is a new sun-clothed daughter brought forth for the glory of Yahveh. It is the newly-birthed Church of Jesus Christ – all its “little ones” having been kept by God for Himself until the fullness of the time, the “last days”, in which The Anointed One made atonement for them, marking them, sealing them, and “birthing” them out of Zion into the nations.
The woman has a new moon under her feet, for Israel’s moon had turned to blood. All the “lights” in the heaven are turned on for the “daughter” who has travailed and brought forth. In the horror of the last days travail, the “Light of Life” has come to them; and there is now a New Zion – a new “nation” of God’s people with its own cosmos! The cosmos belongs to the “daughter”; and it’s full of “light”!
When in great pain and travail the woman had “brought forth”, the newborn was scattered among all peoples of the earth; and she was a “light” to the Gentiles and the “dew” from the new mountain of Yahveh, a dew which settled onto all the nations and isles of the world.
This was a glorious, powerful sign to the Church for its comfort and confirmation in the last days; for it confirmed to them all that Yahveh had “signed” and prophesied previously.
And the “Ruler” of the New Jerusalem, the One Who had paid for her with His Own blood, and Who had baptized her on the eighth day (Pentecost), and the One now with all authority in the heaven and on the earth, had “made it known” to the daughter of Zion that which was now “necessary to be done in quickness”.
Understand this, now; get it to register clearly in your mind. There is, here in the text, a new humanity born – brought forth - into this creation of God – the visible manifestation of which is the Church. In God’s perception it was “birthed out of Zion” in much the same way that the state of Israel was birthed out of Egypt. The birth of a nation out of Egypt was prophetic of this New Humanity that was to be birthed from Zion. In the text of the Revelation we even see the plagues upon Israel before the exodus of the remnant, (plagues) that are similar to the ones upon Egypt when Israel was born as a nation.
And it (this new humanity) is ruled by the One Who died for it and birthed it and baptized it!
And HE, our Lord Jesus Christ, was given all authority at His ascension; and at His Parousia His rule is over all the mountains (all the authorities) of the earth. It is the “new Mount Zion” (as it is seen and defined from the heaven); it is the Kingdom of God and of His Son (the old mount Zion having been thrown into the sea); and His new humanity rules with Him – in Him.
And this new humanity (having been birthed in the Christ and baptized into Him), we are NOT the aliens here. Having been born into Him, we are the legal heirs and citizens of this cosmos – ruled by the One with the scepter of iron (the rod of iron, the eternal standard of Yahveh).
As much as they might claim it for themselves, none of this belongs to illegals! In as much as they may contest the authority of the Christ and, by insolence and bravado, assert their own authority, they are still illegals! There is a NEW humanity and a new heavens and a new earth… newborns all, birthed into the body of the Christ of God. And the others are encroachers and trespassers – aliens after the order of Adam and Cain and Esau, and cursed of God.
That’s the “cursed” humanity.
All the creation is “ruled” by the One Who created it and has authority over it; the One Who is revealed to John having the Sword proceeding from His mouth; the One Who rides out of the heaven on the white horse “overcoming and to overcome”; the One Who appears to John as Archangel Michael – the Commander of all the messengers of God in the glory cloud; the One revealed Whose legs stand as “pillars” on the land and the sea; the pillars of the earth attached to this One Who is revealed as the “Rock” to which the cosmos exists and is sustained.
He is Savior of this world and the Ruler of it all. And He has “brought forth” in Himself a new humanity washed in the blood of the Lamb, baptized in Holy Spirit, birthed into the wildernesses of Gentile nations. And He has “many” in the nations who belong to Him.
But these lost sheep of the house of Jacob who have been “found” are the “firstborn” of The Christ; they are the “Dew of Yahveh” from His new “mountain of Zion”. And all those after them are their heirs to the Kingdom. That’s us.
They were the firstborn of the Christ – the Daughter of Zion (we after them), for they kept the Commandments of God and held to the testimony of Jesus (Revelation twelve, verse seventeen).
And by the Sword of His mouth and the work of His Spirit, the cursed creation (which includes all the aliens and the powers of the air) will be overcome (for He is the “Overcomer”). Pretenders to His authority will be destroyed until all the earth acknowledges His Kingship.
We are not the “dew of Yahveh” for nothing. We are not “salt and light” in a world that belongs to somebody else – or something else! We’re the OWNERS in Christ. We’re not “invading” a land ruled by another king; there is no other king! It’s only a creation that has “aliens” in it… and there is a “pretension” of ownership by them! But the gates of hades won’t prevail; they’re thrown wide open. And every one and every thing that won’t acknowledge the Kingship of Christ will be cast into the shaft!
So, we need to stop acting like homeless wanderers, or pilgrims, or refugees!
Just because there are creatures all around with an attitude? Act like refugees on our own property? Do we ask permission of aliens to be a newborn in Christ?
I’ll give you a few hints about the pretenders – those who “pretend” that they have ownership of, and authority over, this creation of God.
They make up stuff about how this world came to be, so they don’t have to be under authority.
They say that the rules of societies change with the times; that’s so they don’t have to repent from what they like to do.
Rules on others are great, as long as they don’t apply to them. But it’s the Christians that are a threat to their lifestyle (actually The Christ is the Threat – indicating that they really do know who the real authority is!), so they try to ridicule us or intimidate us, and otherwise marginalize us. And they’re so bold as to re-define us as if they also owned the language!
Some of them actually seek to subvert and repress The Faith (anything that has to do with Christianity), and they’ll do it by force if they have to (some even want to – and seek an opportunity!). There is repression, persecution and torture and murder actually going on right now in many places of the world.
Many of them would like for you to disappear, and they would make you disappear.
Some say the Church is okay as long as it stays where it belongs and doesn’t foment sedition against the “powers that be”; after all, religion is only a “crutch”.
They say that one religion is just as good (or bad) as another… Christianity especially needs to keep its mouth shut and its “holier than thou” rules to itself.
These are just “hints”, as I said; but, you see, these folks are made in the image of God; and they live in the creation – His creation; and the creation is made to look like His sanctuary in the glory cloud. So the knowledge of God in all His might and glory is all around them… and even IN them (since they’re His image); and they can’t get away from it.
However, they constantly expend their energy denying everything about themselves and everything about the creation in which they live! They deny it all! And they don’t want anybody telling them that all of this doesn’t belong to them!
And it gives them great confidence when we act like homeless people who are intimidated. That gives them a sense of power that they don’t have.
The One Who has all authority in the heaven and on the earth OWNs His creation – and we IN HIM. And it’s our job to bring the King’s Word to bear on everything, including the aliens who pretend that they own it!
They can speak and act with authority and its okay. But when we speak and act with the authority of the King, then we’re hated. They don’t like it when their pretensions are exposed and overruled! But we must be the corrective – in the Name of the King and by His Word – without shame and without being intimidated, because you own it In Him. Then if they continue to deny the Word of the King, then you’ve done what is expected of you in asserting His authority; for that’s how He “overcomes” this world order!
Okay. Now. There are other kinds of creatures in this creation that use that denial (the denial of the illegals) to further provoke these people against Christ and His Church (although much of the time they don’t really need much provocation – they’re pretty good at it on their own).
But these other creatures have a leader (the leader also being under the authority of the Christ, by the way). And this creature (the one that’s the leader) is highly motivated… its goal being to cut off, or interrupt, the covenant that our Triune God has made with His people and His creation.
Its provocations range all the way from inciting world conflagrations (on the one hand), even to instigating suffering in order to turn one of God’s elect. If it could just cause one newborn to be aborted post-partum, then our God’s covenantal faithfulness would be exposed as a lie!
So, suffering and persecution of the Lord’s people, and false witness against us, are all prompted and aroused by this creature in order to disconnect (separate) our Lord’s elect from His covenant. This creature desires to provoke us and incite us to rebellion against our Savior and King.
On the other hand, the Lord Jesus Christ has authority over the creature and all of its sycophant parasites.
The great wisdom of Solomon was a brief foreshadowing of the Source of Wisdom to come. When he built the temple on the dome of the rock in Jerusalem, he built a gate through the wall of the city called the “dung gate”. And all the human and animal “waste” was carried out to be dumped in the valley to the southeast. It was called the valley of gehenna; and there was a continual fire there burning the waste; and there were the flies and other scavengers among all the waste and garbage.
The valley of gehenna was on the southeast because the wind almost always came off the Mediterranean from the West; so the wind carried the odors and the smoke and the flies across the river into Jordan.
Gehenna came to be an analogy of the “pit” called hades; and the creature opposing the Lord and His people was called the lord of the flies and the lord of the dung.
Well, that’s a good example of the wisdom of the One Who has all authority in the heaven and the earth; for He uses this creature for His Own purposes… this “dung lord”.
But remember that, in the last days, our Lord had a substantial number of His Own in Rome itself. Those Jews who had come to Passover and stayed for Pentecost 30AD included some (maybe many) from Rome. And they went home as “newborn babes in Christ” and founded His Church there right in the seat of world power.
And, of course, some of the elect from the lost sheep of the house of Jacob (found by our Lord and His disciples) ended up going to Rome where their families and tribe members were located. So the Church was thriving even under persecution in the very heart of world tyranny.
But the creature itself, fomenting and inflaming hatred and war and terror, and inciting passions in Rome in its effort to cut off the covenantal salvation of the world, could do nothing except our Lord’s desire; the newborns who were there belonged to Him and to none other.
Listen to the apostle Paul (who wrote his letter to the Churches in Rome, although having not yet been there):
If God is for us, who is against us?
32) He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not also, with him, freely give us all things?
33) Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It is God Who justifies;
34) who is he that condemns? It is Christ Jesus that died, yea also that was raised from death, who is at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us.
35) Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or anguish, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?
36) Even as it is written, For Your sake we are killed all the day long; We were accounted as sheep for the slaughter.
37) No, in all these things we are more than “overcomers” through him that loved us.
38) For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers,
39) nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
“Nor any other creature”! So, the creature, while fomenting world-wide conflagration in Rome (that ultimately destroyed the temple and the city and the nation of Israel) was also attempting to separate just one (out of many), just one newborn in Christ from his Lord. NOT FROM THE INSIDE (it has no power to do that), but from the outside – by intimidation, by scorn, by persecution, through suffering, by fear of torture and death… by whatever means possible. It’s very good at inciting hatred and ridicule for the King and His people.
But it’s not able to separate even one of the Lord’s newborns, for they are already rebirthed into His new humanity. Paul assures them in the Roman Churches that no other creature can separate them from the love of God. The Father loves the Son and all who are In Him. We are “new creations” in Him.
But this creature and all its legions of minions persecute the Christ and His Church. It must do that! Its whole desire is to cut off the covenant. It’s done it since the garden! And in the absence of any success in accomplishing that, it must prolong the completion of the covenantal promise! (And it has a really favorite way to do it; it uses the illegals!)
But what’s the covenantal promise? The salvation of the cosmos! What happens when our Lord finishes His work? The creature and all its followers go into the lake of fire and brimstone beneath the throne of God. So, what choice does it have?
And as far as our Lord’s authority over the creature is concerned, there’s no better place to look than in Matthew chapter twelve, where the demons and Beelzebul are the context. The same words there are also recorded by Mark and by Luke, by the way; and we’ve referred to it a couple of times before, haven’t we?
Here it is, from Matthew twelve:
“… how can someone enter a strong man’s house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man? Then, indeed, he may plunder his house.”
In the Lord’s analogy, He is the one who owns things in the strong man’s house! So he just goes in and “binds” the strong man and takes whatever he wants.
And you remember our lengthy discussion of “binding” and “loosing”. Whatsoever is “loosed” on the earth shall have already been loosed in the heaven; and whatever is “bound” on earth shall have already been bound in the heaven. So the creature is bound in the heaven; and can’t stop Jesus Christ from snatching away whatever He wants from the Gentile nations.
So the Lord has this creature completely under His authority; and He uses it deceptively in order to complete His work (as prophesied)! And the two great examples of that are right here in the Revelation; for the destruction of Israel and Jerusalem and the temple was for one purpose – that of the Christ, and for an entirely different purpose – that of the creature!
The creature thought, and always did, that the destruction of Israel would cut off the covenant; but the Christ wanted it destroyed because there was a new heaven and a new earth, and a new Jerusalem and a new temple; for the old was obsolete!
The second example comes from the words of the apostle Paul to the Church at Corinth (as reiterated in the seven letters to the Churches), when Paul said that the Church was under full frontal attack “in order that those who are approved are made manifest among you”. In other words, the persecution and suffering and the false witness and the heretics and the ridicule and the scorn made it very clear who the real newborns in Christ were!
So the creature and all its minions had a purpose in raising up false teachers and false prophets and heresies and provocations and persecutions in its effort to shut down the extension of the Kingdom into the nations.
However, under the authority of the Christ, the creature was performing a work FOR HIM in manifesting those who belonged to Christ; for the newborns in Christ were the ones who refused to be turned. They kept the commandments of God and held the testimony of Jesus.
And let me say two things here before we get to verse three. Illegals don’t keep the Commandments of God, and they don’t hold the testimony of Jesus. And they heap scorn and ridicule on you, and even persecute you, when they’re corrected by the Word of the King and Owner of this creation.
And, secondly, we know who the newborns in Christ are; for they are the ones keeping the Commandments of God and holding the testimony of Jesus (verse seventeen).
And so we are to speak with the authority of the King; for we are charged with making disciples in all the nations – teaching them to obey all that He commands. And we don’t know, among all the illegals, who His elect people are – those who He will rebirth! What we DO know is that He has promised to save the world and return it to the Father in its pristine, edenic condition.
He will do that; He is the Overcomer. Our job is to speak with His authority. He will bring forth the consequences… whether salvific or judgmental.
Well, we’ve been describing this “creature” and its motivations and its mode of operation and its reason for being. Before we stop for this morning, let’s look at the “sign” of the creature that’s shown to John – made visible to John – in the heaven.
The sign of this creature is to be sent to the Churches. The sign is our Lord’s perspective, just as the sign of the woman is His perspective; and it is a perspective of “the whole”. And it’s in His language which is all through the former written Word. And it’s all for the comfort and assurance and expectation of all His newborns in the Churches of the nations.
And the sign is the confirmation of all former prophecy with regard to this creature here in the last days, and it confirms what has been written about the authority of God the Son, and it confirms what has been said regarding the newborn “Daughter of Zion”.
It is for their repose and confidence in their Lord’s complete authority over all that is happening around them. They were to see the sign (as John wrote it) and be courageous and resolute under the extreme conditions that were then present and that were to take place quickly.
It is a sign of Yahveh; it is the sign of the dragon. The sign of the dragon with seven heads and ten horns and ten diadems (crowns).
As we close this morning, I’ll give you much to think about until we gather next Lord’s Day. The sign reveals this creature to be the power and the instigator behind the imperial thrones of the ancient world that persecuted the Lord’s covenant people.
Listen carefully as I read from Daniel chapter seven:
I saw in my vision by night, and, behold, the four winds of heaven brake forth upon the great sea.
3) And four great beasts came up from the sea, diverse one from another.
4) The first was like a lion, and had eagle's wings: I beheld till the wings thereof were plucked, and it was lifted up from the earth, and made to stand upon two feet as a man; and a man's heart was given to it.
5) And, behold, another beast, a second, like to a bear; and it was raised up on one side, and three ribs were in its mouth between its teeth: and they said thus unto it, Arise, devour much flesh.
6) After this I beheld, and, lo, another, like a leopard, which had upon its back four wings of a bird; the beast had also four heads; and dominion was given to it.
7) After this I saw in the night-visions, and, behold, a fourth beast, terrible and powerful, and strong exceedingly; and it had great iron teeth; it devoured and brake in pieces, and stamped the residue with its feet: and it was diverse from all the beasts that were before it; and it had ten horns.
In Yahveh’s sign to John in the heaven, the dragon has seven heads and ten horns. In Daniel’s vision, the four beasts arising from the sea of humanity had a total of seven heads and ten horns. And Daniel saw that they had “dominion”; so there were the obvious indications: they had diadems, or crowns, on their heads.
These beasts arising from the sea (called out, by the way, by the four cherubim at the four corners of the ark of the covenant below the glory of Yahveh), (the beasts) are the world-wide dominions of Babylon, Persia, Greece and Rome. (We’ll see much more of the last one later, the one with the ten horns.)
The existence of these four world-wide, culture changing, language changing, tyrant empires are attempts by this “dragon” to establish an illicit and illegal world empire to challenge the covenantal Kingdom of Jesus Christ (which is prophesied all through Scripture).
The fiery dragon with the seven heads (the sign of Yahveh to the Churches) is here perfectly identified with the four beasts of Daniel’s vision. In fact, it IS the beast of which these four empires were partial images! They are all in the likeness of the beast of Revelation twelve.
The dragon is seen in Yahveh’s perception as the “great” beast (the one behind the four beasts of dominion – with the seven heads and ten horns), the one that incites nations against the seed of the Covenant people. And here in the sign, it has the diadems of the four beasts on its own heads!
It is the ages-long murderer and liar, and the persecutor of the promised covenant seed, the persecutor of the daughter of Zion, and the persecutor of the seed of the daughter of Zion!
With the final reminder that this great dragon is under authority of the Son of God, we’ll stop right here and pick up again next week with “the sign of the fiery dragon”.