EPISODE 263 REVELATION CHAPTER 12 "Deciphering Symbols"

Welcome to Share the Word. Revelation continues to get better and better, or should I say more profound. Today, as Pastor Paul tackles chapter 12, we witness battles of cosmic proportion, dragon adversaries, and scenes of fantastic aspect, with an adversary we all know as Satan. Here we go. Revelation 12: Deciphering Symbols. What we're going to see start playing out now in chapter 12 is setting the stage for the final war in the universe.

According to the Bible, it began sometime before the creation of our world, when Lucifer, very high-ranking angel of God, led a rebellion in heaven, and one third of the angels joined him. That original rebellion and Satan's defeat were actually alluded to in this chapter in the last book of the Bible. What a stupid, tragic decision to challenge Almighty God. But pride and rebellion often lead to stupid and tragic decisions. Most of us can attest to that. Failing to unseat God, a powerful spiritual being better known now as the devil because of his deceptions, or as Satan, which means the adversary, then turned his efforts to undoing what God was intending to do in His special creation when He placed us on this planet.

That's where the story begins in Genesis. The conflict that ensued between light and darkness has played out now over centuries and centuries, and when we reach Revelation chapter 12 and following, John is shown the end of it, and Satan's final furious, futile attempts to lash out at God and anything connected to Him. It he can touch. C. S. Lewis famously commented about Satan, There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race, the human race he meant, can fall when it comes to devils.

One is to disbelieve in their existence altogether, and the other is to believe it, but develop an excessive unhealthy interest in it. They are equally pleased by both errors, he says. God is showing John now some things happening behind the curtain, as I like to say, scenes relating to this cosmic war which is playing out out of our sight normally, but in the end times will spill over obviously onto the earth. From our point of view in trying to interpret the things John writes about in these visions, something changes in chapter 12. Up until now, I've been stressing the importance of understanding the author as literally as it seems possible to do, while recognizing, yes, he uses figures of speech, but to not get hung up on a lot of wild speculations assuming all of what John writes here is some mysterious allegory.

By figures of speech, I mean he has used similes and metaphors, yes, as he says things like, I saw this, I think it looked like that, it resembled this. That, I believe, was just a first-century man seeing things in his visions far in the future, far from him, so completely foreign to him and his world, plus much of what he sees is happening in the spiritual dimension, which none of us are really privy to. But these are real things, and John has done his best to describe them with the words at his disposal. Now, when we come to chapter 12, I think it's interesting and important to notice that he starts using a particular word going forward. A word translated in most versions, sign, as in this chapter's opening verses. Listen.

A great sign appeared in the heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head. She was pregnant and cried out in pain because she was about to give birth. Then another sign appeared in heaven: an enormous red dragon with seven heads, ten horns, seven crowns on his heads. His tail swept a third of the stars of heaven out of the sky and flung them to the earth. What's very interesting to me here is that John now starts using a word, sign, the Greek word semeion. It also is a favorite term of his he uses in the fourth Gospel.

He used sign in his Gospel to describe seven great miracles Jesus did during his earthly ministry. The Gospel of John is the very first writing we took up on Share the Word, and I stressed then that John purposely used that word, sign, for the miracles of Jesus he chose to include. Question: Why? Why did he use sign rather than the more usual word used in all the other Gospels, miracle? Answer: Because for him, they were more than amazing miracles; they were symbolic. They meant something more than what people saw on the surface.

They had a deeper meaning and showed something about Jesus' identity and potential. So, it's noteworthy to me that John brings that word back into his descriptions of events now. Guess what? He's going to introduce us now to seven signs in Revelation as we go forward. So we're going to switch gears a little, realizing John is now definitely using symbols to describe what he's showing us next. Ready to do some deciphering?

The first sign he describes in chapter 12 is as a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and a crown of twelve stars on her head. A woman who is pregnant and crying out in pain because she was about to give birth might sound at first as if he is seeing the young Virgin Mary about to give birth to Jesus, and maybe there's a shadow of that here. But for several reasons, I think it's broader than that. I think the woman symbolizes Israel. Israel in the Old Testament prophets is often described as the wife of God to emphasize their covenant relationship. You'll find this in Ezekiel, in Jeremiah, in Isaiah, and also a major theme in the minor prophet Hosea.

Listen to one example. This is from Isaiah 58, and God is speaking. For you, your Maker, is your husband. The Lord Almighty is his name. The Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer. He is called the God of all the earth.

The Lord will call you back as if you were a wife deserted and distressed in spirit, a wife who married young only to be rejected, says your God. For a brief moment I abandoned you, but with deep compassion I will bring you back. Amazing. Fascinating, really, the way God describes his difficult love relationship with Israel. How because of her unfaithfulness, they would have a separation of sorts, but also how because of his great love and compassion, he will redeem her, and the Jewish people will be called back by him. That is reconciled to him.

I've shown you passages saying similar things before, I think. But specifically, I'm telling you this one now to hear God say to Israel, Your Maker is your husband. It's how God describes His ongoing covenant relationship with the Jewish people in many Old Testament prophetic writing. In this vision now, in the New Testament prophetic writing we call Revelation, the woman with the sun, moon, and stars and so on, I believe is symbolic again of Israel. It actually sounds like a reference back to a dream Joseph had way at the beginning of the nation of Israel, back in Genesis, the earliest days of the formation of the nation. What I'm referring to now is Genesis 37, where Joseph had a dream.

The sun represented his father, the moon his mother, the stars his brothers. Do you remember this? Joseph's father was Jacob, the man whose name God changed to Israel. The stars in the dream were his brothers, the men who became the patriarchs of the twelve tribes. Do you see the connection? In John's vision, the woman he sees in labor and crying out in pain represents, I believe, Israel at this point in the tribulation, in a time of great distress and pain.

The coming of her Messiah, Jesus, is close, and she is like a woman in labor, painfully awaiting that. As the vision develops, Satan is in a fury to stop that from happening. One way we know this is symbolic is because next John describes a mythical figure, a dragon. This symbolism interconnects with visions given to the Old Testament prophet Daniel. But without getting too far into the weeds, the multiple heads of this dragon represent world empires in Daniel throughout history. And the ten horns, I think, likely represent ten nations or perhaps ten world regions that will confederate in the last days to produce a final world empire, the one that will be controlled by the Antichrist.

We've already described how other world leaders at that time will cede their power to him to try and establish peace and security. But the dragon is the real power. The dragon is Satan. That's an easy association to make because of the allusion to the dragon's tail sweeping one third of the stars from heaven and flinging them down to the earth, a reference back to Satan's rebellion against God when a third of the angels in heaven joined him. By the way, just as Lucifer became Satan, God's adversary, the angels who joined in that rebellion became demons, still powerful spiritual beings, but now doing Satan's bidding. Pause button.

If you're hearing this all for the first time, I'm sure you're thinking, Crazy, this is way out there, or something similar. But what John is seeing now are things going on in the spiritual dimension, the cosmic struggle behind the curtain, which we can't really see most of the time, the war between evil and good, Satan trying to undo or prevent what God is doing. So John sees the dragon. I'll let him describe it. The dragon, he says, stood in front of the woman who was about to give birth so that it might devour her child the moment he was born. She gave birth to a son, a male child, who will, he quotes, rule all the nations with an iron scepter.

This is obviously Jesus. And her child then was snatched up to God in heaven and is sitting on His throne. That's Jesus' ascension. The woman fled into the wilderness to a place prepared for her by God, where she will be taken care of for 1,260 days. That recurring time, the 1,260 days, is also three and a half years. I'm sure John sees in this vision the parallel to when Satan inspired the paranoid old King Herod to try and destroy the baby Jesus, killing all the babies around Bethlehem.

But now we're in the future, and it's about Satan trying to prevent Jesus the Messiah from becoming the earth's rightful ruler, trying to prevent the promised kingdom of God when He will literally rule over the earth. Satan has always been trying to prevent what God is doing, or realizing he can't, to disrupt it then, or somehow poison and ruin it then. Much of what has gone on through history involved the Jewish people, because much of what God has done and will do revolves around the Jewish people. And certainly Satan would do anything to prevent the Messiah, Jesus, from coming back to reign over the earth from Jerusalem, as the Jewish prophets say He will. The woman here, again, Israel. During the tribulation, will at a certain point flee to the wilderness, trying to escape the dragon, Satan's fury.

Remember, Jesus warned about this during His Olivet discourse when He said, Antichrist, when he comes to power, he will defile the temple in Jerusalem. And then He tells the Jewish people, Run, flee for the hills. Listen to what he said. This is Matthew 24. When you see standing in the holy place the abomination that causes desolation spoken of through the prophet Daniel, this is when the Antichrist defiles their temple, by the way, by placing some weird image of himself in its holy place, then let those who are in Judea, Jesus says, flee to the mountains. Let no one on the housetop even go down into their house.

Let no one in the field even go back to get their coat. How dreadful it will be in those days for pregnant women or nursing mothers. Pray that your flight will not take place in winter or on a Sabbath day. For then there will be great distress unequaled from the beginning of the world until now, never to be equaled again. Verses 7 and following describe more of what will happen at that time. But again, in the spiritual dimension, the cosmic war between good and evil, God and Satan.

Satan and his forces will once again come against God and the holy angels. Listen. Then war broke out in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back. But they were not strong enough. They lost their place in heaven.

The great dragon was then hurled down, that ancient serpent called the devil and Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth and his angels with him. This is not completely explained anywhere, as well as I wish it was, unfortunately, because I would like to understand this much better. But Satan is called in the New Testament elsewhere not only the ruler of this world, but also the prince of the power of the air. He has some dominion over the earth now and some access to God now, and I'm talking now, today. He communicates with God.

He accuses Christians, we're told in the New Testament, just like he accused Job before God in the Old Testament. But that limited access is going to end at this time in the future when this war takes place, which John is seeing. A war breaks out in heaven, and Satan and his forces will be defeated again and will be cast down to the earth, and he will be furious. And John hears a loud voice in heaven then call out, Now have come the salvation and the power of the kingdom of our God and the authority of His Messiah, for the accuser of our brothers and sisters who accuses us before God day and night has been hurled down. Therefore rejoice, you heavens and all you who dwell in them. But woe to the earth and to the sea, because the devil has gone down to you.

He is filled with fury because he knows his time is short. Filled with fury because he knows his time is short. Yikes! Just because he cannot win does not prevent Satan from frantically acting out, trying to cause as much trouble and pain as he can before he finally goes down. The word used here is an emotional rage, not any kind of rational anger. Satan will be out of control, angry, lashing out in rage during the second half of the tribulation time.

Much of that will be directed directly at Israel. He hates the Jewish people because they are especially dear to God, and because God all through history has brought about His purposes through them. This again is why, as I was stressing a couple lessons ago, nobody who is a Bible-believing Christian should ever get anywhere near the kind of anti-Jewish sentiments that Satan is successful at stirring up on planet Earth every few generations, it seems like, and which he is doing again right now. I'm not saying that everything Israel as a nation does is good or right, or that any political party or government in Israel is godly and righteous. Not at all. But the people, the Jewish people, are chosen.

Don't take my word for it. God has made this perfectly clear many times in His Word. For example, and this was written, think about this, long ago, just as Israel was about to be judged and driven into captivity by the Babylonians, so this is the sixth century, and Jeremiah writes, At that time, this is what the Lord says: He who appointed the sun to shine at day and decrees the moon and stars to shine at night, one who stirs the seas so that its waves roar, the Lord God Almighty. Only if these decrees vanish from my sight, declares the Lord, will Israel ever cease being a nation before me. This is what the Lord says: Only if the heavens above can be measured and the foundations of the earth below be searched out will I ever reject the descendants of Israel because of all they have done, declares the Lord. Think about that.

He said that really at one of the lowest points in Israel's history, when they had been so disobedient, He was going to send them into judgment. The Babylonians were going to come down and destroy everything and drive them into dispersion. Yet, he says, the Jews are still my chosen people and will be until I stop being God. He says, regardless of what a lot of deceived people today think, these are still the chosen people. And what goes on in the tribulation time, which John is seeing, is clear testament to the fact Satan absolutely knows that. It's why he will inspire the Antichrist to go after them again with a vengeance during this future time.

So please, do not allow yourself, if you want to be on God's side of things, to be influenced by the anti-Semitic, anti-Israel conspiracies that are once again flying around in our day. These are the kinds of things that Satan has always trafficked in and which one day will play into the agenda of the Antichrist, who will break his covenants, quit pretending to be a man of peace, defile the Jewish temple in Jerusalem, and then furiously go after the Jewish people one last time. This chapter ends with the lines, Then the dragon was enraged at the woman and went off to wage war against the rest of her offspring, those who keep God's commands and hold fast their testimony about Jesus. Why is the dragon enraged at this woman in John's vision? Because she is symbolic of Israel, and Satan knows her offspring, the Messiah, will soon supplant him and soon destroy him.

But unable to get at many of the Jews who it sounds like God will providentially protect then, is going to go after anyone he is able to get at, anyone associated with them or anyone associated with Jesus and God. Yes, this section of Revelation chapter 12 and following gets symbolic. And from our vantage point now, we struggle to understand exactly what all these things John sees will mean then. But I'll tell you what: those for whom this book will become very precious will be those living in those days. No writing of the Bible will be as treasured and poured over by people stuck in the tribulation as Revelation. I'm certain.

And as the tribulation events unfold, which are described by the seals breaking and the trumpets sounding, and especially as the terrible days of the Great Tribulation, those last three and a half years, when Satan goes on a rampage against anyone and anything associated with God, tribulation believers, Jews and Gentiles, will be pouring over Revelation, looking for hope, looking for how all this ends up, counting down the days until the Messiah appears to put an end to it all. Those will be days like the earth has never seen before or will ever see again, Jesus said. Let me say this in closing. None of us fully appreciate all that has befallen the Jews over their long history. Some of it they've brought on themselves for sure by breaking their covenant with God and by their many acts of disobedience and unbelief. But much of it has been and still is satanic.

The Jewish people have been attacked and driven and maligned and murdered like no other race of people on earth, from the Islamic terrorists and maniacal mullahs in our day, to the satanic Nazis of the mid-20th century, to the Russian pogroms before them and the Crusaders before them who burned Jews in Jerusalem in the Middle Ages, and on and on, clear back to the beginning of their calling by God to be His chosen people. Yet they remain. One writer has described this remarkable fact in wonderful words, in my estimation. He wrote, The founder of the Jewish nation was Moses. The turning point in Moses' life came when he saw in the desert that mysterious burning bush which flamed and blazed away, but for all the fire was not consumed. That bush was Israel, he wrote, which it seems cannot be consumed despite the ceaseless hatred of her foes, because God is on her side.

This Israel, which could not be assimilated into nations, nor be exterminated by nations, she is the burning bush in the wilderness. Man, I love that. If you think this chapter was wild, you will not want to miss what comes next. Until then, this is Paul for Share the Word. Thanks for joining us, and thanks, Paul, for the continued amazing insight that you bring to the Book of Revelation as well as all of the New Testament. So have you started to see that the focus of all of this is simply to bring you, me, and the entire world into a fellowship with God through our belief and submission in Jesus Christ, who came to this earth, sacrificed Himself for us to remove our sins, to pay for our sins.

Have you accepted Christ? If not, why? Email us at info at sharetheword.org, and let's talk.