The Rev. 12 Standard - Part 1

      We have just finished the first half of the Revelation. It brought us up to speed as to what happened in Heaven after Jesus’ resurrection and into our own time. It also gave us  an overview of what is in our near future—the “time of the end.”
     In ancient literature, the middle of a written piece often highlighted the key point of the writing. So it should not surprise us that Rev. 12 is a pivotal piece of the end-time picture. As such, we need to be very certain of what it contains. As in the Exodus, we need to follow the leading of the Spirit. In effect, the pillar of cloud has not moved on, so we will linger here for a bit to make sure we see everything the Spirit has to show us.
         Before we tackle the contents of this chapter, we need to identify what it is depicting. In the confusing concoction of our man-made end-time views, many assert that this chapter abruptly changes course back to a past event—namely Christ’s ascension. You may recall that we already saw this in chapter 5.
      Yet when we make the necessary Spirit-inspired scriptural connections, what we see here doesn’t match that view. In short, what we need to determine is if the events described here are past events or events in our near future. If the events recorded here deal with what is to come, then this cannot be showing us Jesus’ ascension that is in our long-ago past.
           The chapter opens with a couple of signs in heaven. The first is a great sign of a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a garland of twelve stars. Why is John seeing this? The figurative language points us back to the same description seen in Gen. 37:9. Joseph, one of Jacob’s 12 sons, has seen a vision and shares it with his brothers. It is of a woman with the same sun, moon and stars imagery. He informs them that it means they will bow down and worship him some day. Needless to say, this didn’t go over well with the brothers, even though it did turn out to be true.
         The woman in Joseph’s dream symbolized the nation of Israel that would come forth through Jacob’s lineage. We are meant to see that the woman giving birth here in Rev. 12 is likewise the nation of Israel. But is it showing Israel’s past or her future? The answer is in the second sign that is seen in heaven.
            It is a great, fiery red dragon having seven heads and ten horns. Its red color tells us it is blood-thirsty. It’s tail drew a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth. What or who are the stars? We must stay with the context. They are the same stars of the first sign, the nation of Israel. You may remember that when God called Abraham to be the father of this nation, He told the man to look to the heavens and see all the stars in order to get a vision of how great the nation would become.
           We already know that the dragon symbolizes Satan, the power behind the counterfeit kingdom trying to establish it’s counterfeit one-world order on the earth. The fact that this dragon has seven heads and ten horns tells us that it is the final manifestation of the Gentile oppressors who have sought to destroy Israel.
           It was vividly portrayed in another prophetic vision in Daniel 2, which is commonly identified as the statue of Nebuchadnezzar’s dream. It portrayed the various Gentile empires that have come against Israel throughout history. The fact that the vision in Rev. 12 depicts seven heads and ten horns tells us we are at the bottom of the historical statue—the feet with ten toes. Since we have not yet seen this specific final manifestation of the Beast yet, we have our first indication that we are seeing a future event and not something from the past (as with Jesus’ ascension).
         End-Time Lesson: We know from the many Old Testament prophecies that Israel will suffer a huge invasion as the Day of the Lord comes (the 7th and last Day, also known as the Day of the Lord). So what we are seeing here is this initial swift invasion that kills one-third of the stars (people), when Israel thinks it is dwelling in peace and safety (1 Thess. 5:3).
           We’ve already seen from the signs of this current age reviewed in the first part of the Revelation that the final sign that signals Christ’s return is total darkness over the whole earth. This darkness has two impacts. The first is that it shall halt this sudden invasion in its tracks. The second is that it signals our Lord’s second coming. It is when the heavenly realm is scrolled back and the whole worlds sees Him coming to gather His Body at the rapture and take us back to Father’s House in the 3rd Heaven. We’ll see the effect of this later in this same chapter.