We come to study the section that begins
here, chapter 12, chapter 13 and 14, and
this is the section in the Book of
Revelation that basically digresses back across some of
the time we have covered.
And it looks at this time of the
Tribulation from the angle of studying the Antichrist,
the work of Satan, and basically the career
of the Antichrist.
In this section, there are several key players
in the drama, and we will meet three
of them today.
Israel, Satan, and Jesus Christ.
In the process, we're going to discover the
long history of Satan's never-ending assaults on
the people of God and why it continues.
There is, for me, much practical insight to
Satan and his tactics here in this study.
I find that when you open the Bible
and you begin to study it, especially verse
by verse, because that's how you understand the
flow of thought that's in the Bible.
God in the Bible says what he means
and he means what he says.
So when you take it verse by verse,
you begin to finally discover what his flow
of thought is.
As you understand what the flow of thought
is, you begin to think the thoughts of
God after him because he's written them down.
This is God's word.
Every word is inspired.
The books are written in order with a
purpose, a context, a flow of thought.
So as you study verse by verse by
verse, you get the thoughts of God into
your mind and you start thinking the thoughts
of God after him because he recorded them
for you on the pages of the Bible.
When you begin to do that, you will
find that great light is shed on the
strategies of Satan.
As Satan realizes that you are beginning to
understand his strategies, he will then put you
on his hit list because, may I say
it, the vast majority of average Christians do
not understand the strategies of Satan.
It is the biblically literate that understand the
strategies of Satan.
To be biblically illiterate, then, is to become
demonically deceived.
So studying through the book of Revelation, we
find that we are pulled in our thoughts
and in our pages of our Bible back
across the entire Bible.
In the process, we learn a lot about
Satan.
And in the process, we begin to have
more victory over him as we see Christ
is God, not Satan.
So we have these things before us.
Now, there's a lot of talk today about
the Antichrist.
People want to identify the Antichrist.
They want to understand the Antichrist.
But may I say this?
You must understand the conflict of Israel, Jesus
Christ and Satan if you're to understand the
Antichrist, because he steps in at the culmination
of God's plan for all of it.
I'd like to read in Revelation 12, verse
one down to verse six, if we could.
Now, a great sign appeared in heaven, a
woman clothed with the sun and under the
moon her feet and on her head a
garland of 12 stars.
Then being with child, she cried out in
labor and in pain to give birth.
And another sign appeared in heaven.
Behold, a great fiery red dragon having seven
heads and ten horns and seven diadems or
crowns on his head.
His tail drew a third of the stars
of heaven and threw them to the earth.
And the dragon stood before the woman who
was ready to give birth to devour her
child as soon as it was born.
She bore a male child who was to
rule all 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 has a place prepared by God that
they should feed her there one thousand two
hundred and sixty days, which is a phrase
used throughout the book of Revelation.
It's three and a half years.
We are in the last three and a
half years of the seven year tribulation period,
the last three and a half years of
man's history on this earth as we know
it.
That's where we are right now in the
book of Revelation.
In this section here in these six verses,
there is a crisscross of time, spans of
time, eternity.
It is a huge panorama.
There is symbolic language here, but let me
say this.
It can be understood and don't make a
bigger deal out of it than you need
to.
See, one thing about verse by verse teaching
is that it has a way of sweeping
out false thinking.
It has a way of correcting aberrant theology,
theology that has truth, lie, truth, lie, truth,
lie.
It has a way of correcting and straightening
out a lot of things.
You do that by comparing scripture with scripture,
which is what we will do to understand
this.
So here we have this great passage.
Now, whatever is not clear to you, I'm
certain that there are three things that stand
out in the passage that are clear.
There is a woman here, there is a
dragon here, and there is the male child
here.
Those are the three things we'll look at
the woman, the dragon and the male child.
To begin with the woman versus one and
two, we read now a great sign appeared
in heaven.
The word great is here for a reason.
It is in the Greek, a word that
you actually already know.
It's the word mega.
We use it all the time.
Mega vitamins.
Mega is a new one for Christians.
Mega blessing.
We use it for all kinds of things.
And it means exactly what you think.
It means that when you see it translated,
great mega sign appeared in the heaven, it
means that everything about this vision is huge
in size and huge in significance.
So you're going to find mega at different
times.
That is what it is.
Huge in size, huge in significance.
The word great.
What about the word sign?
A great sign.
The word sign.
It is used to describe a symbol that
points to a reality.
A symbol used to describe a symbol that
points to a reality.
A woman is pointed to here.
The symbol is a woman.
The reality is not a woman in this
case.
So you have the word great mega in
importance, huge in significance, the word sign, a
symbol pointing to a reality.
So this woman is a symbol pointing to
the reality.
What is the reality?
What is the woman's symbolism?
Israel.
The woman represents Israel.
And I say that immediately bypassing a lot
of explanation because there are those that teach
that the woman is the church.
And again, according to your theological grid, you
may be here with that part of your
grid today.
My Bible that I teach out of the
heading says it is right over the section.
The heading says a description of the Church
of Christ and Satan under the figures of
a woman and a great red dragon.
That heading is not consistent with biblical terminology.
That's why I'm saying that when you see
the woman biblical terminology that is consistent all
the way across the Old Testament, especially God
pictures Israel as a woman.
Israel is spoken of as a wife, God's
wife, unfortunately often spoken of as an unfaithful
wife.
Jeremiah three one.
God says you have played the harlot with
many lovers yet returned to me, says the
Lord.
He's talking to Israel.
In the language of speaking to a wife
in Jeremiah three twenty, surely as a wife
treacherously departs from her husband, God says, so
you have dealt treacherously with me.
Here it is.
Oh, house of Israel.
So in Ezekiel sixteen thirty two, God says
you are an adulterous wife who takes strangers
instead of her husband.
So the language of the woman, the language
of the wife is very consistent with God's
dealings with Israel throughout the Old Testament.
And when we come to the book of
Revelation, Israel is at the center of all
the promises that God made to Israel throughout
the Bible in the book of Revelation.
So we have seen in our last several
studies the of the two witnesses that have
a distinctly Jewish quality about them.
You have one hundred and forty four thousand
Jews that are sealed by God to preach
the gospel.
And so the presence of Israel in the
book of Revelation, may I say it is
everywhere.
The woman is Israel.
You're going to see this further as just
we move as we move along.
The woman's garb underlines this revelation.
Twelve one now great sign appeared in heaven.
A woman clothed with the sun, the moon
under her feet and on her head, a
garland of twelve stars.
This is language that God has already used
to describe Israel.
Hold your place here and turn in your
Bible to Genesis chapter thirty seven, verse nine,
and we will find the same terminology.
Amazing used at the beginning of Israel's history
and used at the end.
Why?
Because God is consistent and God is precise.
God is exact.
Genesis thirty seven nine.
You have Joseph is not out with his
brothers because he's the youngest and they're out
tending the sheep and all the flock.
And he comes and he shares his dream
that God gave him.
Second dream, he says, in verse nine of
Genesis thirty seven.
Then he dreams still another dream and he
told it to his brothers and he said,
look, I have dreamed another dream in this
time, the sun and the moon and the
eleven stars bowed down to me.
They don't like that yet.
Eleven brothers didn't like that.
Verse ten.
So he told it to his father and
his brothers and his father rebuked him.
Jacob rebuked him and said to him, what
is this dream you have dreamed?
He interprets it for us.
Show your mother and I son of the
moon and your brothers stars indeed come to
bow down to the earth before you.
So in case you have any question whatsoever
about it, Jacob is Israel named by God
to be Israel after he wrestled with the
angel and he interprets it for us.
So here is the same exact terminology used
to describe the woman and revelation used here
with Israel, Jacob and the nation.
And it's very, very beginning back in the
book of Genesis.
Then one interesting thing I want to point
out before we go back to Revelation, verse
eleven of Genesis thirty seven says his brothers
envied him.
His brothers envied him.
He's seeking the Lord.
The Lord gives him a vision.
It really is from God.
God really does talk to him.
God really does have a huge plan for
Joseph, even though he's the youngest.
His brothers envied him.
And even though his father rebuked him, look
at the end of verse eleven, it says,
but his father kept the matter in his
mind.
You see, the godly reaction to something you
don't understand when God is doing something far
greater than you can imagine, the godly reaction
is to do what Jacob did here to
keep the matter in your heart and your
mind and to ponder these things.
And I would encourage all of us to
seek the Lord to give us that great,
wonderful, holy habit.
Nice to have holy habits, by the way,
contrast to some of the other kind we
have.
So here we find the terminology.
It's very exact.
The woman's garb speaks out of the fact
it is Israel.
Then go back to Revelation twelve to we
come to the woman's pain, the woman's pain,
then being with child.
She cried out in labor and in pain
to give birth in Genesis three fifteen, right
after man sinned in the garden.
God appeared to him and the basic scene
there is you have Adam and Eve and
Satan.
And in Genesis three fifteen, God gave the
prophecy of the Messiah that he would come,
that he would die on the cross.
Effectively, it's the first prophecy of that.
And right looking, I'm sure right at Satan.
Said you will bruise his heel.
He will fatally bruise your head.
He will be your undoing.
He will be the undoing of what you
have done here.
I love it.
No sooner does Satan destroy paradise and lead
man into sin than God rushes in with
the promise of bringing it back.
First promise of the cross.
Genesis three fifteen.
And so ever since that time, Satan has
been attacking Israel because Israel is the chosen
people through whom God would bring the Messiah.
If you've ever in your whole life wondered
why is Israel called the chosen people?
What is it about them that makes them
the chosen people?
Simply this.
God chose them as a nation to work
with personally, through whom he would bring the
Messiah, the savior of the world.
That's simple.
It is as it is.
And that is as profound as it gets.
But that is why chosen to bring in
the Messiah.
Because of that, Satan knowing since the fall
of man in the garden that God was
going to do this.
This is why he has for the centuries
attacked Israel.
He has assaulted every everything that God has
done to fulfill that promise.
And thus, all through the history of the
nation of Israel, there has been pain and
grief and bloodshed because of Satan.
So the woman's pain, crying out in pain
to give birth.
It's after all the pain of all the
years through Satan that Jesus Christ was finally
born on this earth.
The woman is Israel.
The dragon.
Let's go to the dragon.
Verses three and four.
We read in verse three and another sign
appeared in heaven.
Behold, a great fiery red dragon having seven
heads, 10 horns and seven diadems or crowns
on his head.
The dragon is Satan.
So how do you know that?
Just keep reading.
Look down at verse nine.
I think one of the greatest habits we
could develop as Christians is to simply read
on.
So often when we have questions, if we
would simply read on, they would be answered.
Look at verse nine.
Same chapter.
So the great dragon was cast out.
That serpent of old called the devil.
And just in case you are wondering, Satan.
So the serpent, the devil, Satan, who deceives
the whole world, he was cast to the
earth and his angels were cast out with
him.
We will get to that next time.
So he's called many things in the Bible,
but a dragon is far more terrifying than
anything, really.
It is very graphic.
Why fiery red?
Because it speaks of the bloodshed of Satan
that he causes the death.
Jesus Christ himself in John 844 said the
devil said of the devil, he was a
murderer from the beginning.
The Bible says that Cain slew his brother
because he was of the evil one.
So the fiery red is all the bloodshed
that will happen during this time because of
Satan and his demons.
And we've been studying that recently.
So that should be very obvious to you.
What about the seven heads and the seven
crowns?
Verse three, the dragon has seven heads and
seven crowns on his heads.
Well, to save you a lot of time
and chasing around the Bible, which we could
do, but it would take the rest of
the night.
The seven had seven crowns basically speaks of
the seven consecutive great world empires throughout man's
history that ran their course under the power
of Satan.
What are those empires?
Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, Rome.
And what will be the seventh?
The empire of the Antichrist.
So you have the seven heads and the
seven crowns.
What about the ten horns?
Revelation 12, three, seven heads, seven crowns, but
ten horns.
Horns in the Bible represent power, usually kings.
And here are these ten horns represent the
kings who will rule under the Antichrist.
The final kingdom of the Antichrist will be
a ten nation confederacy, a ten nation confederacy.
Many people today believe that will ultimately take
its shape through the European economic community.
And that is very possible.
I, for one, believe that is right.
And we'll talk more about that as we
go through the book of Revelation.
So you have the ten horns, kings involving
a ten nation confederacy in the empire of
the Antichrist, the seventh of all the great
world empires.
So the imagery of the dragon, he is
Satan.
Now it starts to get really interesting.
Next thing is what I would call the
irrationality of Satan, the irrationality of Satan reverse
for inverse forces of the dragon.
Now we know he's Satan.
His tail drew a third of the stars
of heaven and threw them to the earth.
And the dragon stood before the woman who
was ready to give birth, etc.
His tail drew a third of the stars
of heaven.
In the book of Job, the Bible says
that in creation, the morning stars sang together.
Angels in the Bible are referred to as
stars here.
These are the one third of the holy
angels that rebelled with Satan against.
God, with his tail, he drew a third
of the stars of heaven and from there
he uses his demons to attack Israel and
then later Jesus Christ in his original assault.
This is when he drew a third of
the holy angels.
What happened was this.
Satan was one of the highest created angels.
We know Michael's an archangel.
We know Gabriel's an archangel.
Most likely, Satan was as well.
We have seen in the book of Revelation.
There are Sarah from their cherubim.
There are angels, presence angels.
They blow trumpets, trumpet angels, and there are
archangels.
We're going to see Michael in a in
a study that will blow your mind when
it says in a few more verses, war
broke out in heaven.
It will literally blow your mind.
I'm going to talk about the rapture.
You want to talk about spiritual warfare.
You want to talk about millions, if not
billions of holy angels clashing with unholy demons
in another realm and the rapture at the
same time, then you better come back for
the next message because war breaks out in
heaven and it's all tied together.
So in the beginning, Satan was one of
the highest created beings.
The Bible paints a picture that perhaps he
was the leader of worship in heaven, the
anointed cherub that covers and the beauty of
his pipes in heaven and all of that.
But in the end, he said, I will,
I will, I will, I will.
Five times, he said, I will ascend to
the throne of the most high.
I will become God.
And he was so convinced.
That he could pull it off, follow this,
that he was able to pierce through perfection.
Into the holy angels hearts and convince them
that they would win in overthrowing God.
You see, these holy angels were created by
God.
They were created by God.
They were not born as we are born.
They were created each one by God.
Uniquely by God, holy, perfect.
So they for us to be tempted is
one thing.
We've grown up in this world.
We're shot through with sin.
We've got weak points all over the place.
But for a holy angel to give in
to temptation, the temptation would have to be
very strong.
Satan so convinced himself he could overthrow God.
He was able to pierce through perfection where
there was no pride and foster it, give
birth to it and then lead one third
of these holy angels in rebellion against holy
God.
Amazing, amazing, phenomenal and utterly irrational because he
lost.
Because he never had a chance, but you
see, utterly irrational because he so believed it.
How about this utterly irrational?
Because even after he failed and he fell
and these holy angels become forever unholy demons.
He doesn't stop.
He goes right on.
And when God creates man and he puts
him in the garden on the beautiful earth
he's created and gives man charge over the
garden and the earth, he goes right into
the garden and he goes right to work.
Utterly irrational thinking he can overthrow again what
God has done.
So I say to you that when you
read that he took a third of the
stars of heaven with him in his rebellion,
it's the ultimate irrationality.
You see it in his original assault.
You see it in his endless assaults.
So what we're dealing with here, brethren, is
a foe that is far more treacherous, far
more relentless than we ever imagined.
That's what we're dealing with here.
You see, Satan and his irrationality does not
give up.
So you go from the original assault and
you go to the relentless ones.
It starts in the garden.
You just move right through the Bible.
You don't even get past chapter six in
the Bible until the flood comes and you
have Satan seeking to create an unredeemable human
race.
So God has to judge that race in
the flood.
Only eight of them survive.
You see these great attempts on the part
of Satan.
He goes on, he seeks to kill Moses.
When the prophecy of the deliverer is there
and Pharaoh charged by Satan seeks to kill
Moses and so all the infants die, the
male infants, Moses is saved.
You know, it is amazing to me.
In dreadful things like this, I like to
stop for sweet spots.
What is amazing to me is that when
Moses was saved, all the male children were
being killed and his mother put him in
a little ark and put him afloat down
the Nile.
The Bible says that Pharaoh's daughter heard him
weeping.
He was saved by a tear.
Think of it in a very loud voice,
which causes me to believe he was a
better speaker than he told God he was
at the burning bush.
But that is another story.
Kid had a set of lungs.
Anyway, he was saved by a tear.
Think of it.
The plan of God of redemption hung by
a tear, but it didn't escape the hand
of God.
God is always in control.
You come to the book of Esther and
you have Haman who seeks to exterminate the
Jews.
He puts together a plan to wipe out
the Jews.
He builds a gallows to hang Mordecai on
God and his sovereignty hangs Haman from his
own gallows.
He fails and the Jews are saved.
You see, so all through the Bible, you
find these relentless attacks of the devil to
stop the plan of redemption.
You come to the New Testament and Herod
seeks to destroy the Messiah being born.
And so all the infants, two years old
and under are killed.
And yet God gets his son away in
safety.
You find in the wilderness 40 days, Jesus
is tempted in the wilderness.
Satan takes him at the end of the
40 days to the top of a high
mountain and to the top of the temple.
And he tells him to jump off the
top of the temple.
Why?
I've got you now in a human body.
I want to kill you.
And so it goes.
He preaches in Nazareth.
They hear him preaching.
They're so upset by his preaching.
Satan stirs up the crowd and they seek
to push him off a cliff and kill
him.
The Bible says he passed through the midst.
He just blinded their eyes.
Why?
Because it also says it was not his
time yet.
His time had not yet come.
Finally, you see him nailed to a cross,
a crowd, a mob shouting, crucify him, crucify
him, stirred by the devil to finally kill
him.
All these murder attempts throughout his life.
But finally, he goes to the cross and
he does die.
And the devil thinks he's won his ultimate
victory.
You can see him and all the demons
as they're hammering in the nails.
He's so excited.
Finally, I have hammered home the defeat.
But you see, he's twisted.
Jesus said there's no truth in him.
Way back in Genesis 315, you will bruise
his heel, but he will bruise your head.
Da, Satan.
He rose again from the dead in triumph.
And you would think at that point he'd
walk off the battlefield, but he doesn't.
You see his original assault.
You see his endless assaults.
You see all the way into the book
of Revelation across time and history and geography,
all the way into the book of Revelation.
You come to the time, the climactic assault
of Satan on Christ at the battle known
in the Hebrew tongue as Armageddon.
And he does not win.
Christ comes and destroys him with the word
that comes out of his mouth as a
sword.
You say, well, surely he gives up then.
No, he doesn't.
He is then bound for a thousand years
in the bottomless pit as Christ rules and
reigns for a thousand years.
We're told in the book of Revelation, these
things literally.
And he's bound for a thousand years in
the bottomless pit.
At the end of that thousand years, the
Bible says he is loose to deceive the
nations for a time.
He is successful.
Think of it in deceiving people who have
lived right on the earth, seeing Christ reign.
So he is still utterly convinced that he
can win, even after having been bound in
the bottomless pit for a thousand years and
being loose, he still deceives the nations.
And fire comes out from God and destroys
those people that rebel with him, you say,
well, wait a minute.
What is wrong with him?
Can't he read the Bible?
Doesn't he know?
I mean, he quoted scripture to Jesus.
Surely he does know the Bible.
He does know the Bible.
He knows the Bible better than you or
I do.
So you said, well, then can't he read
the rest of the book of Revelation?
Doesn't he see that he's thrown into the
lake of fire that burns forever and ever?
Doesn't he know that's where he's going to
end up?
Sure, he can read it.
There's a big problem.
Jesus said there is no truth in him.
He cannot come to the ultimate true conclusion
of the word of God.
So he's twisted.
And he has displayed from his first assault
and he will display it to the last
one that he does not believe he will
end up in the lake of fire.
That is what has driven him all the
way.
He believes he can win and he will
triumph and he still believes it.
His demons believe it.
People will believe it on planet Earth during
the last three and a half years of
the tribulation.
They will believe it during the thousand year
reign of Christ on Earth during the millennium.
He believes it.
And guess what?
That is why he fights with such unrelenting
fury.
So often we hear this phrase, the devil
knows that he has very little time and
he's really mad.
Oh, folks, it goes way beyond that.
It is way beyond that.
The devil knows he's got very little time.
Christ is coming back and he's in a
rage.
This is well beyond rage.
This is the full blown, unshakable belief that
he cannot be stopped.
He was not stopped in the past.
He is not being stopped in the present.
He is not being stopped in the future
as we go on from here.
He will not be stopped until he is
literally thrown into the lake of fire.
He will not be stopped.
And so as far as he knows by
experience, he's never been stopped.
Oh, yes.
Limited, but not stopped.
In the beginning, when he rebelled against God
five times, he said, I will ascend to
the throne of the most high and I
will be God.
Well, you know what?
He is going to say it to the
end.
I will.
I will beat God.
I will beat his plan, his people, his
purpose.
I will beat his Christ.
He is shot through with that belief.
And that is why.
When we drift from our Bibles.
And we drift from Christ as a result.
He comes steamrolling with his demonic horde right
across our lives and we cannot stand against
him because there is only one way to
stand against such a formidable foe, and that
is to be found in Christ clothed in
the full armor of God.
Paul writes to the Ephesians and he says,
here's the full armor of God.
He tells us what it is.
He tells us to put it on.
He tells us to keep it on.
And then he gives us the secret of
the power switch.
Did you know the armor of God is
a power switch?
Helmet, breastplate, belt.
Sword, shield, the whole thing.
You know, it has a power switch, it's
called praying always.
So you read your Bible, you stay in
the word, you study it verse by verse,
line upon line, precept upon precept, because that's
the way it sinks into your heart and
becomes a part of your heart and your
life.
And you're thinking you put on the full
armor of God to do that.
You'll have to study what it is.
And then you're praying always to be filled
with the Holy Spirit and his power.
And Paul says that is the way you
stand and having done all and fighting against
the devil.
That is how you will be found standing
when the smoke clears and the battles over.
The only people that are ever standing after
the attacks of the devil are the ones
who know their Bibles, know their Christ and
know what it is to pray to him
on a daily basis, walk in fellowship with
him.
But now you have something of an idea,
I think, that was much bigger than when
you came in of the formidable foe that
we face.
He's relentless.
He's powerful.
He will not be stopped.
Only Christ can stop him.
So I'll tell you what, it puts in
my heart a great desire to be found
each day living near to Christ.
Because Jesus is my defense against the enemy.
And if God before me, who can be
against me?
And that verse in Romans eight is talking
directly about the devil mostly.
So the woman is Israel, the dragon is
Christ, is Satan.
The male child is obviously Christ.
Let's close off by looking at verses five
and six.
We'll be done.
She bore a male child who was to
rule all nations with a rod of iron.
And her child was caught up to the
throne of God.
Then the woman fled into the wilderness.
And she was has a place there prepared
by God that they should feed her there
one thousand two hundred and sixty days.
She bore a male child that is Jesus
Christ.
This verse is packed with theology.
This is the incarnation of the God man.
I love how Charles Wesley described it.
Our God contracted to a span incomprehensibly made
man.
She bore a male child.
It is the incarnation of the God man,
our savior.
And he was to rule the nations with
a rod of iron.
That is his coronation as king on earth
in the one thousand year reign of Christ
that we will study as we move right
on through the book of Revelation.
His incarnation is coronation that will be coming.
His exaltation to the right hand of God
after he died on the cross and rose
again, appeared and disappeared for 40 days teaching,
teaching, teaching until the beginning of the book
of Acts.
He ascended back into heaven.
He went to the right hand of God,
caught up to the throne of God, exaltation
to the right hand of God, where he
ever lives to make intercession for you and
I thank God for that.
He became a man, bore a male child
who was to rule the nations with a
rod of iron, caught up to the throne
of God, caught up to God and his
throne.
He went back to heaven as a man.
There is an exalted man who ever lives
in the heavens, who has gone through what
you go through here on earth, and he
ever lives at the right hand of the
father to make intercession for you.
That exalted man is none other than the
God man, Jesus Christ, caught up to the
throne of God, where he never takes his
eye off you and he never stops interceding
for you.
And that if you are a Christian today,
if you've been a Christian any length of
time and if you have blown it at
all along the way, which you have.
That is why you're still here and that
is why you came back and you're here.
That is why you always come back when
you're not near, because the good shepherd is
still leaving 99 to go get the one
and bring them back interceding on the right
hand of God.
This statement, as I say, is packed with
theology, is incarnation, coronation, exaltation to the right
hand of God.
Finally, his protection of Israel during this time,
the last three and a half years before
he returns to planet Earth for six, the
woman fled into the wilderness.
She has a place prepared by God there
that they should feed her there.
One thousand two hundred and sixty days from
the time that the Antichrist sets himself up
in the temple to be worshiped as God.
Jesus himself cited the prophet Daniel in this
incident, and he said this spoken of by
the prophet Daniel, the abomination of desolation from
the time that the Antichrist turns on the
Jews after helping them rebuild their temple and
helping them with a lot of things, turns
on them and in their temple sets himself
to be worshiped as God in the place
of their God.
From that time, he will turn on them
and persecute them because they will reject him
and God and his graciousness, God and his
mercy, God and his love seeking to save
as many as he can and to fulfill
the word of God in Romans nine, 10
and 11, that Israel would come to know
Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.
He has a place prepared where he's going
to take them away to be fed for
three and a half years in the wilderness.
Now, says in the wilderness for six to
the Jewish mind, the wilderness is east of
Jordan and South Amman and Moab, that area
down there with a rock city of Petra
or Petra is so many scholars believe that
this is where they will be taken and
protected to get into Petra.
There is an opening about as wide as
one human being.
Once you pass through that opening, there is
this huge rock city inside.
Already there are Bibles hidden there by Christians,
tracts and everything else.
But all it would take is for the
Lord to blind.
A fallen angel and his other fallen angels.
He blinded the angels and Sodom.
All it would take is him to blind
the Antichrist to where this place is and
to be safe there.
God can do anything he wants.
And they will be fed there.
Perhaps he will once again give them manna.
I don't know.
I didn't know my God is an awesome
God, a gracious God, full of mercy, forgiving
sin.
He runs to forgive.
As the father did when the prodigal son
came home, looking afar off, he was out
there looking every day, looking afar off.
The Bible says he saw him and seeing
him afar off.
That stately old Jewish man would have been
wearing long flowing robes, wealthy, stately.
He pulled up those robes and he did
something an elderly Jewish man who was wealthy
like that would never, ever do.
He ran.
He ran down that road to embrace his
son afar off and forgive him of all
of his sin.
And he took him home and he broke
out the best and they had a party.
That is my God.
That's a picture of my God, your God.
You know him today.
He runs to forgive when you come for
forgiveness.
Isn't that great?
So the book of Revelation is an amazing
book.
It is woven into all the Bible.
And in studying it, you find that the
Bible in one place after the next is
opened up to you in a way that
it never was before.
And the goodness of God in a book
so full of judgment.
Becomes so full to you, his goodness, his
love.
But in the end, you cannot help but
love him more.
You cannot help but long more to go
to the place he's prepared for us.
And spend there forever.
When I see all of this activity.
And I'm looking at through the eyes of
my humanity.
And yet my God lives in his infinity.
I cannot help but ponder all the great
things he has in store for us to
do throughout forever.
And they're all going to be suited, get
this, to things you like.
He knew you in your mother's womb.
He gave you the natural talents and abilities
you have.
He gave you when you were born again,
the holy gifts by the Holy Spirit you
have.
The Greek word is a word that could
be translated as gracelets.
Same word that you almost as the word
translated grace, gracelets.
The gifts of the Holy Spirit are gracelets
in your life.
This is the God who has gone through
Jesus Christ to prepare a place for you.
And when the time is right, he's going
to take you there and you will dwell
in the house of the Lord.
Forever.
Oh, I can't wait.
We love you, Lord, because you have first
loved us so much.
And it wasn't just a one time event
at conversion, you love us first every day
that we live.
And every time we drift from you, you
love us first again as you come and
bring us back to yourself and how we
thank you, God.
You are a God who runs to forgive.
Oh, Lord, cause this vision of your love
to be etched upon our hearts in such
a way that each of us can each
day as we live and walk with you,
this this is the way we will relate
to you as our gracious and loving God.
And Lord, if there's any here listening that
don't know you, open the eyes of their
heart that they might behold your glory and
your love and open their heart to your
saving grace.
And may they invite you in this day
to save them from their sin and their
selves and take them to heaven forever.
Lord, we commit our lives to you and
we expect wonderful things for you are truly
a wonderful God.
In Jesus name we pray.
Amen.