Battle of the Ages (Revelation 12:1–6) | Coronation (Part 23)

Transcript

JRNT 522
BATTLE OF THE AGES
REVELATION 12:1-6
4/12/2026
JESSE RANDOLPH

The fact that Israel, the Jewish people, the descendants of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, have been, over the centuries, regular targets of accusations and discrimination and persecution and hatred and violence and murder, is just one of those incontrovertible facts. It’s just plain truth. Entire books have been written on this topic. Entire courses are taught on this topic. But I’ll remind you just now of some of the highlights, or lowlights, as it were, of the fact and reality of persecution and discrimination against the people of Israel going back through the centuries.

Cicero, the Roman politician and lawyer who lived before the days of Christ, spoke of the “odium of Jewish gold.” Tacitus, the Roman historian who lived a generation after the death of Christ, was contemptuous of what he referred to as “base and abominable” Jewish customs. Juvenal, a Roman poet who lived around that same time of Tacitus denounced Jews as being generally rowdy and drunk. In the centuries that followed, Jews in Egypt and Mesopotamia were sold into slavery with such regularity that the price of an able-bodied Jewish slave eventually depreciated in value so that a Jewish slave was about the same value as the price of a horse. Justin Martyr, the early Christian apologist, included in his arsenal of arguments for Christianity that the Jews had killed the Christ. Tertullian, a Christian father writing in the third century, wrote that the Jews were especially wicked and deserving of righteous anger.

In the medieval period, the Middle Ages, the Jews continued to be a regular target of hatred and persecution. The Crusades of the eleventh century resulted in the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of Jews. The Jewish people were blamed for the Black Plague. Jews were slaughtered in the English town of York in 1190 A.D. They were expelled from England altogether in 1290 A.D. They were purged from France in 1306 A.D. They were targeted by Ferdinand and Isabella in Spain, in 1492 A.D.

Then during the Reformation and the post-Reformation era of the 1500s, Martin Luther had some especially hideous things to say about the Jews. He wrote this in his 1543 work, “On the Jews and Their Lies” — he said “and so, dear Christian, beware of the Jews. You can see how God’s wrath has consigned them to the Devil, who has robbed them not only of a proper understanding of the Scriptures, but also of common human reason, modesty and sense. Thus, when you see a real Jew you may with a good conscience cross yourself, and boldly say, ‘There goes the Devil incarnate.’”

Edmund Burke, an English economist and philosopher in the 1700s, blamed the revolutionary fervor of his day on Jew brokers and old Jewry. When the nation of France which was influenced by the American experience, was preparing their own new governing documents in the late 1780s. A new category of civil rights rooted in the recognition that all men are born and remain free and equal, was enacted. But there were three groups of people who were excluded from those new civil rights. Actors. Kind of understandable. Protestants, this was a Catholic nation and Jews. In 1843, Karl Marx, though of Jewish origin himself, laced one of his socialist rants with plainly anti-Semitic rhetoric saying, “Money is the jealous God of Israel before whom no other god may stand. The god of the Jews has been secularized and has become the god of the world.” Do I even need to speak of the horrors of the Holocaust in Nazi Germany in the early twentieth century?

Now even today, not yet 100 years after those atrocities were committed, and proving that there really is nothing new under the sun, Jews have been targeted up to the present day with violence. Think of the events of October 7, 2023 with accusations and blame of various types. There were those who blamed the Jews for the economic collapse of 2008. There were those who blamed the Jews for the COVID-19 fiasco of 2020. And you even today have online Christian nationalist pastors who are convinced that Jews are the cause of the crumble of civilization that we all see happening around us today. There are even some, I kid you not, who recently, these are Christian nationalist pastors, who are getting down to the level of blaming Jews for the invention of, no joke, rap music.

Well, I’ve run through all of this to establish that it really seems as though Israel has had this perpetual target on its back throughout history. And truth be told, it has. Israel has had perpetually this target on its back. And as we’re going to see in our text for tonight, the one who placed it there was Satan himself.

Turn with me in your Bibles, if you’re not there already, to Revelation 12. Tonight we’re going to be working through the first six verses of Revelation 12 as we get some of the backstory, as it were, about these many centuries of opposition to Israel, to the people who God long ago called the apple of His eye. Revelation 12:1-6. It says, “And a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars. And she was with child, and she cried out, being in labor and in pain to give birth. Then another sign appeared in heaven: and behold, a great red dragon having seven heads and ten horns, and on his heads were seven diadems. And his tail swept away a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman who was about to give birth, so that when she gave birth he might devour her child. And she gave birth to a son, a male child, who is to rule all the 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 had a place prepared by God, so that there she would be nourished for 1,260 days.”

Now I suppose there might be some of you this evening who are thinking what in the world does that have to do with Israel? I don’t even see the word Israel here. What does this have to do with a target being placed on the back of Jews throughout history? We’ll get there in a moment, but I think it would be worthwhile to mention again, as I’ve been pointing out in the most recent sermons in this Revelation series, that where we are in our study at this point of the Tribulation is seeing that times are going to come into future, specifically during the tribulation where God is clearly going to turn His focus progressively more and more on Israel.

I know that it can be sort of a tough concept for us to grasp because we live in a different period. We live in the church age. We are gathered here as the church. And so, we have this built-in tendency to see ourselves, maybe not personally but as a people, as a church, as the center of God’s plans and God’s purposes. But that’s not what the Scriptures actually reveal. No. A fair reading not only of Revelation, but the Scriptures as a whole, show us that God has significant plans for Israel throughout the course of history. He works significantly through Israel in the past, and He will yet again work significantly through Israel in the future.

And the church age in which we live sits in the middle of all that. The church age of today has been said many times before is this parenthesis sitting between God’s past and future program for Israel. Sort of a humbling thought, isn’t it? To think that we’re parenthesis people. God has chosen us for salvation. And we know from Ephesians that He’s chosen us from before the foundation of the world. And so we say yes, amen, thank you Lord for that truth. But we are not actually God’s chosen people, His original chosen people. No.

The people He first chose were who? The Jews, the people group He first chose was Israel. Here’s Deuteronomy 7:7,8, written some 1400 years before Jesus, before there were Christians and before there was such a thing as the church. This is God, Yahweh speaking through Moses. He says to the people of Israel, Deuteronomy 7:7,8, “Yahweh did not set His affection on you nor choose you because you were more in number than any of the peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples, but because Yahweh loved you and kept the oath which He swore to your fathers, Yahweh brought you out with a strong hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.” So God loved Israel notwithstanding their lack of love toward Him. God set His love upon Israel. And God still has a future plan for Israel as we’re going to see in our text tonight.

In the text we’ll be in this evening, these first six verses of Revelation 12, God again through the revelation He gave or Christ gave to the Apostle John, is going to highlight His care toward and His protection of and His plans for Israel.

Now yet again to get our bearings here chronologically, I’ll remind you that two Sunday nights ago we got to this place in our study of Revelation where not only had the seven seals of the Tribulation been opened, and now we’ve seen how that the seven trumpets of judgment have been blown. So that chronologically places us at the midpoint of the Tribulation. It’s a seven-year Tribulation period. We’re halfway into the Tribulation as we work through this prophecy. That means there’s three and a half years to go. And that final three and a half years is known as the Great Tribulation out of which these seven bowls of judgment still need to be poured out.

In our text for this evening, and actually in our next several sermons in Revelation going all the way through Revelation 14, we’re going to be exposed to something different happening in this vision. What I mean by that is instead of John revealing to us this next series of sequential events, this vision at this point, for these next 3 chapters, hits pause in terms of the chronology being further developed. And John, through this vision in these next 3 chapters, is going to introduce us to these various players who are going to play a part in later events in the Tribulation, specifically in connection with these seven bowl judgments that are yet to be poured out before Christ returns to set up His kingdom on earth.

And the next few chapters we’re going to encounter a woman, a dragon, a male child, Michael the archangel, a beast which comes out of the sea, and a beast which comes out of the earth.

But tonight, as we work through these first six verses of chapter 12, we’re going to start with those first three figures. The woman, the dragon, and child.

And as we’re going to see in this chapter, though it doesn’t exactly move the narrative forward in the words of this prophecy, it does give us some critical information about this battle that has been brewing. This Battle of the Ages between Satan and Israel with Israel’s Messiah, the Christ being right in the middle of it all.

As we’re about to see, as these three figures are introduced to us in this text, by way largely of symbolism, John, through this vision he receives here at Patmos, is actually going to take us back several centuries in history. He’s going to take us all the way back to the days of Abraham and then he is going to run us all the way forward to future days in the Tribulation when God’s wrath continues to be poured out upon the earth.

And again, the focus here is Israel. The church has already been taken out of the world at the Rapture. And while there will be some who, though not of Israel at this point in the Tribulation, will have been converted through the proclamation of the gospel. Very much so the focus is Israel, its past, its future, and that future is all grounded in the covenants that God has made with her.

So, with all that as background and sort of setting the stage, let’s go ahead and get into our text, Revelation 12:1-6. I’ll read verses 1 and 2 again as we dissect this part. “And a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars. And she was with child, and she cried out, being in labor and in pain to give birth.”

Now, note right away John’s word choice here. It’s important. He says that a great sign appeared in heaven. And what that tells us immediately as we apply faithfully our consistent, literal, historical, grammatical, hermeneutic, taking God at His Word, is that what John saw here in this scene wasn’t actually a woman. Rather it was a symbolic representation of what appeared to him to be a woman.

And those words, a great sign appeared in heaven. Those ought to be causing alarm bells to be going off in our heads because John is going out of his way here to describe what he sees as this great symbol. And now the alarm bells should be going off because if he says here that this is a symbol, what does that say about the other bits of information he’s revealed to us in this prophecy up to this point and later? It means that those aren’t to be taken reflexively as symbolic. It means that, contrary to those who want to allegorize or spiritualize these concrete details given to us in revelation about the future, unless we’re told otherwise, like here where the words great symbol is given to us, we are to take the book of Revelation literally. It is describing, literally, the people and the forces and the events and circumstances which will take over this earth during these dark days of the Tribulation. Demon locusts swarming all over this planet? Literal. Stars falling out of sky? Literal. Plagues? Literal. 200 million people dying in a single event. Literal.

But this woman mentioned in verse 1? Not literal. How do we know? The text tells us. The text tells us that this is a symbol, a sign, a great sign. Meaning the vision that John experienced of this woman wasn’t of an actual woman arrayed with the sun or standing on the moon. No. What John is conveying here rather, is that in this portion of his vision he saw what appeared to be a woman who was draped in this brilliant apparel of the sun, with the moon under her feet. With the lesser light appearing to be like the footstool for her and then, end of verse 1, on her head a crown of twelve stars.

Now, this isn’t the only woman who appears symbolically in Revelation. Back in Revelation 2 in Jesus’ letter to the church at Thyatira, we encountered a literal woman who was identified symbolically as Jezebel. And she was identified with that name by Jesus as He gave that letter to John, because she was leading that church into error, into sin. Here’s Jesus’ description of Jezebel, in Revelation 2:20. He says she “calls herself a prophetess, and she teaches and deceives My slaves so that they commit sexual immorality and eat things sacrificed to idols.”

And then in Revelation 17, we’re not quite there yet, we’re introduced to a harlot, one who is described in Revelation 17:4 as having “a gold cup full of abominations and of the unclean things of her sexual immorality.” That harlot is symbolic of the false religion that will be peddled by the Antichrist in those future days. After that, in Revelation 19, we encounter another woman who is portrayed as the wife of Christ. She’s called the bride of the Lamb. She’s the church joined to Christ in glory. And then here in Revelation 12, we see this symbolic woman clothed with the sun, the moon under her feet, her head a crown of twelve stars.

Now, the question becomes what does this symbolism mean? Who does this woman represent? There are a number of different views out there. I found it really interesting that Mary Baker Eddy, Christian Science Mary Baker Eddy, said it’s me. I’m the woman. No.
There are a few majority views out there that have been presented through the course of church history as contenders for who this woman might be.

First, there is the Roman Catholic position. According to a Roman Catholic scholar the woman represents who? Mary. The thought is that because Mary is the mother of Jesus and because she is described here as giving birth to a son as we see down in verse 5, that this son, this male child, will be shown to be Jesus. We’ll work through that later. Well then the woman giving birth to Him is obviously must be Mary.

Well, if that were the only component to this prophecy, that view that this woman is Mary might actually work. But that’s not all that we’re given in this text taken as a whole. Look down in verse 6. We’re told that this woman fled into the wilderness for 1,260 days. Is there any record of Mary ever doing that? No.

Or if you drop down to Revelation 12:17 which we’ll be in next week, I would really love to hear an explanation from the Roman Catholic Apologist as to how this woman could be Mary when we see here in verse 17 that “the dragon was enraged with the woman and went off to make war with the rest of her seed.” Isn’t the official position of the Roman Catholic Church that Jesus didn’t have other brothers and sisters and that Mary was perpetually a virgin? So how do you square that up with verse 17?

Another view, and this is the majority view actually among Protestants scholars today, is that the woman represents the church of Jesus Christ, the church corporate, the church global. Proponents of that view will go with Ephesians 5:23 where it’s said that as the husband is the head of the wife, Christ also is the head of the church. And because the church there is described in wifely language, the inference is made that the woman here in Revelation 12 has to be the church, the bride of Christ.

But that position also collapses under some simple scrutiny. The woman described here can’t be the church, for the simple reason that this woman in verse 5, is depicted as giving birth to a son, a male child, who we’re going to see, is Jesus. But the church didn’t give birth to Jesus, right? No. If anything happened the opposite is true. Jesus, you could say for sake of argument tonight, gave birth to the church. The church was born only following the death and resurrection and ascension of Christ. That’s when the Spirit was sent in Acts 2 at Pentecost. We know that Jesus is the builder of the church. Matthew 16:18. He says, “I will build My church.” And we know that Jesus is the church’s foundation. 1 Corinthians 3:11 says, “No one can lay a foundation other than the one which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.”

So, this woman here in Revelation 12:1 isn’t the church. And again, that wouldn’t make a ton of sense in context anyway, since God in this section of the Tribulation is clearly turning His attention to Israel, not the church at this point. That then leaves a third option which is that this woman is symbolizing Israel. And that’s the correct view, by the way, that the woman here is Israel. She’s a picture of Israel in the end times.

I hold to this view, not only because of the Jewish context of this scene as a whole, but for another reason. And most importantly for a biblical reason. Look at the language of Revelation 12:1 again. It says, “And a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars.”

Now there’s one very prominent place in the Old Testament where you’re going to see that configuration, that language echo of what we see here in Revelation 12. And that’s found back in Genesis 37. Turn with me over to Genesis 37 for just a moment. This is that scene where Joseph had his two dreams. And we’ll pick it up in verse 5, just for some context to get a running start. And we’re really going to drill down in verse 9. (Genesis 37:5-11) “Then Joseph had a dream, and he told it to his brothers; so they hated him even more. And he said to them, ‘Please listen to this dream which I have had: Indeed, behold, we were binding sheaves in the field, and behold, my sheaf rose up and also stood upright; and behold, your sheaves gathered around and bowed down to my sheaf.’ Then his brothers said to him, ‘Are you really going to reign over us? Or are you really going to rule over us?’ So they hated him even more for his dreams and for his words.” Now look at verse 9, where we’re going to see some familiar language pop up. “Then he had still another dream and recounted it to his brothers and said, ‘Behold, I have had still another dream; and behold, the sun and the moon and eleven stars were bowing down to me.’ And he recounted it to his father and to his brothers; and his father rebuked him and said to him, ‘What is this dream that you have had? Shall I and your mother and your brothers really come to bow ourselves down before you to the ground?’ And his brothers were jealous of him, but his father kept the saying in mind.”

Now, in the immediate context, the sun, the moon, and the eleven stars in Joseph’s second dream here, they represented Joseph’s father, mother, and 11 brothers bowing down to him, following his leadership one day. But for our purposes here this evening as we study Revelation 12, I’m bringing up this account of Genesis 37 to highlight the fact that the symbolism associated with John’s vision of this symbolic woman. Remember John was Jewish and has roots in the Jewish Scriptures. And the Genesis 37 roots of this text support the idea that this woman in Revelation 12:1 is not the church, is not Mary, but instead is Israel, which recall, descended from Joseph’s brother Jacob.

And then there’s this in terms of another reason to believe that this woman is Israel. At various places in the Old Testament Israel is presented as the wife of Yahweh. Isaiah 54:5, “For your husband is your Maker, whose name is Yahweh of hosts.” Jeremiah 31:32, this is the Lord speaking. He says, “‘I was a husband to them,’ declares Yahweh.”

But Israel we know, as we read through the Old Testament, wasn’t a faithful wife to Yahweh. No. She was unfaithful. And as a result, God Himself said in Jeremiah 3:8 that He was going to divorce her, that He did divorce her. He says, “for all the adulteries of faithless Israel, I sent her away and gave her a certificate of divorce.”

Some of you might remember our Sunday evening series a few years ago in the book of Hosea which was all about God’s dealings with His faithless wife, namely, Israel. So the fact that Israel is portrayed in the Old Testament as the wife of Yahweh in the Old Testament Scriptures is further support for the idea that the woman here in Revelation 12:1 is representative of Israel.

Here’s another one. Both the Old and New Testaments reveal that it was Israel nationally as a people who gave birth to the Messiah. In human terms, it was Mary who gave birth to the Messiah as He came through her womb. But He was also the product of His people. And we know that from the Scriptures’ prophetic language in the Old Testament. Isaiah 9:6, “For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us.” Micah 5:2, “From you (meaning, from Bethlehem in Judah) will go forth for Me to be ruler in Israel.”

And then even in the New Testament, listen to these words from the Apostle Paul in Romans 9:3-5. “For I could wish that I myself were accursed, separated from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen according to the flesh, who are Israelites, to whom belongs the adoption as sons, and the glory and the covenants and the giving of the Law and the temple service and the promises, whose are the fathers, and from whom is the Christ according to the flesh, who is God over all, blessed forever.” “From whom comes the Christ”, he says. He’s saying Israel is the one who produced Christ. Christ came from Israel. He was born corporately from Israel. Mary did give birth to Jesus, but what this is symbolizing, what this is pointing to here, is that the woman is symbolizing Israel.

Now as we turn to verse 2, we see that this woman, Israel is depicted as laboring as she awaits the delivery of her child. Verse 2. “And she was with child, and she cried out, being in labor and in pain to give birth.” Now each of those verbal ideas, crying out, being in labor, being in pain, they’re each in the present tense which in biblical Greek is emphasizing continuous action. So in other words, Israel here, the woman, is pictured as continuously being with child, continuously laboring in birth. And that completely fits. Because when we study the Old Testament and God’s various dealings with His original covenant people, we see that from the very beginning of that people as a people, going back to the call of Abram out of Ur, Israel was longing to see, to produce you could even say, give birth to their Messiah who would be their Redeemer, their Rescuer, who would deliver them.

Indeed, that is in many ways one of the threads that connects every part of the Old Testament, from Abraham’s call to Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem, from Genesis to Malachi. That anticipation and that settled hope that one of their own, the Messiah, the Christ, would come to this earth as God in the flesh, Immanuel, Isaiah 7:14, God with us, and deliver them.

So, in the way that a woman experiences labor pangs up to the point of delivering the child, so did Israel in preparation for the coming of Christ. That’s what’s being described here in this symbolic language in verse 2, that she was with child, and she cried out, being in labor and in pain to give birth.

So, we’ve been introduced to the first player on this stage, the woman. Now we want to consider another figure, the second figure, the dragon. Look at verses 3 and 4. “Then another sign appeared in heaven: and behold, a great red dragon having seven heads and ten horns, and on his heads were seven diadems. And his tail swept away a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman who was about to give birth, so that when she gave birth he might devour her child.”

Note that, as he does with the woman in verses 1 and 2, John here is expressly using symbolic language. He says it, “Then another sign (verse 3) appeared.” And then John describes this look-in that he received into this cosmic drama which traces back really to the foundation of the world.

He says, still in verse 3, “Behold, a great red dragon.” We can stop there for a moment and answer the question, what is that? Who is this dragon? Well, that one is actually pretty easy to answer because if you drop down to verse 9, we’re given the answer key. Verse 9, “And the great dragon was thrown down, the serpent of old who is called the devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world. He was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him.”

Something very similar is said in Revelation 20:2 which says, “and he laid hold of the dragon, the serpent of old, who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years.” So, there we have it. The great red dragon mentioned in verse 3 is Satan. The woman is Israel and the great red dragon is Satan.

I find that fascinating, by the way, that the Jewish Scriptures, our Old Testament, describe a woman and a serpent at the beginning of human history in the Garden of Eden. And then, here in the Tribulation as history draws closer and closer to its end, it’s yet another woman representing Israel, and another serpentine figure, this time a dragon representing Satan.

And this woman Israel, and this great red dragon Satan, they’ve been going at it for a long time. I’ve already given you some historical examples at the outset. I gave you some of those A.D. examples, those post-Christ examples at the beginning of the sermon, and I’m going to give you some other biblical examples momentarily. But for now I want us to take note of a few different characteristics of this great red dragon, again representing Satan in verses 3 and 4.

First, we see here that he is a murderer. The fact that this symbolic dragon is depicted as red, the color red indicates he’s murderous, he’s bloodthirsty. He’s stained with the blood of his victims. This is consistent with the words of Jesus in John 8:44 where Jesus says of Satan that “he has been a murderer from the beginning.” So, he’s not just the god of this age, as he’s called in 2 Corinthians 4:4, and he’s not just the prince of the power of the air, as he’s called in Ephesians 2:2. No. Satan is a cruel and destructive beast. He is ready and he’s eager to shed blood. And during the coming days known as the Great Tribulation, Satan will only escalate, he’ll only intensify in his murderous ways as he empowers more works of evil during those days. And we’re going to get into that more in chapter 13 and following.

Not only is he a cruel murderer though, Satan here is depicted as a ruler, a dictator even. Notice verse 3 again. “And behold, a great red dragon having seven heads and ten horns, and on his heads were seven diadems.” We’ll get more into the meaning of those terms, the seven heads, and ten horns, seven diadems, when we get to chapter 13 in a couple of weeks when we study the satanically empowered beast who comes out of the sea, and he’s described in a very similar manner.

But for a sneak preview, the seven heads are representative of seven consecutive
empires which arise at different points in world history. Egypt and Assyria, and Babylon and Medo-Persia, and Greece and Rome, that’s only six. So, what’s the number seven kingdom or empire? Well, that’s the kingdom ruled by the Antichrist. Revelation 17:10 gives us an interpretive clue. It says that “they are seven kings; five have fallen, one is, that would be Rome and the other has not yet come; and when he comes, he must remain a little while.” That would be the kingdom of the Antichrist, kingdom number seven.

Now note at the end of verse 3, it says that on his heads were seven diadems. A diadem would be a band worn across the brow which was typically used to bind or secure the crown as it was placed atop one’s head. So, the diadem would usually be used to keep a crown in place. So, we have that description of seven heads and seven diadems worn on each head.

And next we see here in John’s vision that this great dragon had not only seven heads and ten horns and seven diadems upon those seven heads, but he’s got these ten horns. What are the ten horns? Daniel 7:24 gives us a clue. That passage tells us that the ten horns are representative of ten kings who will create a ten-nation confederacy under the influence of the Antichrist, who will be doing Satan’s bidding. Those ten kings come up again in Revelation 17:12-14 where it says, “And the ten horns which you saw are ten kings who have not yet received a kingdom, but they receive authority as kings with the beast for one hour. These have one purpose, and they give their power and authority to the beast. These will wage war against the Lamb, and the Lamb will overcome them, because He is Lord of lords and King of kings, and those who are with Him are the called and elect and faithful.”

We’ll get into that more, the topic of those ten kings, when we get to Revelation 17. But for now, it’s sufficient to say here in Revelation 12, that these ten horns represent the kingdoms of this world which, by and large, will still be under the domain of Satan.

What’s being portrayed here then through this seven-headed, ten-horned dragon, Satan, is the sad reality that while the kingdom of the world will one day become the kingdom of our Lord and His Christ, that kingdom hasn’t come yet. Rather, the earthly kingdoms of the past and the earthly kingdoms of today are still under largely the control of Satan.

That’s why Satan could say to Jesus in Luke 4:5,6, in that temptation account as he leads Him up and shows Him all the kingdom of the world, he says “I will give You all this dominion and its glory, for it has been handed over to me, and I give it to whomever I wish.’” And John was right when he said in 1 John 5:19, “that the whole world lies in the power of the evil one.” So just as this great red dragon has ruled over past nations, and just as he rules over regimes today, he’ll do the same with respect to the final kingdoms of this world before Christ comes to set up His kingdom on earth.

Well next we see that Satan is pictured as a deceiver. Verse 4. “And his tail swept away a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth.” Now sometimes in the book of Revelation stars can depict actual burning luminaries, the things that we see up in the sky when we look up at the sky at night. But other times stars in Revelation are symbolic depictions of angels. We see that in the Old Testament as well. In Job 38:7 after asking Job, “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?”, God mentions the angels calling them the morning stars.

And here in Revelation 12:4 that also appears to be the meaning. These stars in heaven which the great red dragon has swept away, throwing them to the earth is describing angels. Meaning, what we have described here for us or depicted for us is that angelic revolt in heaven where a third of the angels joined Satan in his rebellion against God. An event that is described not only in the Old Testament, Isaiah 14, Ezekiel 28, but it’s described by Jesus in Luke 10:18 where he says, “I saw Satan falling from heaven like lightning.”

And it’s also an event that’s alluded to in the immediate context of our passage. Look down the page at Revelation 12:7-9. “There was war in heaven, Michael and his angels waging war with the dragon. The dragon and his angels waged war, and they were not strong enough, and there was no longer a place found for them in heaven. And the great dragon was thrown down, the serpent of old who is called the devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world. He was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him.”

Back to our text, verse 4 where it says, “And his tail swept away a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth.” That’s speaking about Satan conspiring in his pride against God in his attempt to unseat God and ultimately to replace God on the throne in heaven when he deceived one-third of the angels to follow him and then they fell. And to this day we know that those wicked angels, demons, they operate under the sway, under the influence of this dragon, Satan himself. So far in verses 3 and 4 we’ve seen this great red dragon, Satan, described as a murderer, as a ruler, a dictator you could say, as a deceiver.

Next, we’re going to see him at the end of verse 4 depicted as an adversary of Israel. Look at the end of verse 4. “And the dragon stood before the woman who was about to give birth, so that when she gave birth he might devour her child.” John is using a verb tense there where it says here that the dragon stood before the woman. That really emphasizes the fact that Satan not only stood before the woman in the past, but that he did so continuously. He was always standing before the woman.

And again, this really highlights this battle of the ages that’s been brewing between Christ and Satan, and between Israel and Satan, because Satan has always known that he must destroy Christ or himself be destroyed. That’s been evident to him. He’s always had this all-consuming desire to see God’s plans for Israel accomplished through her Messiah thwarted, put to an end.

From the very beginning Satan has sought to do anything he could within his power to stop the Messiah in His tracks. To stop God from accomplishing His plans for Israel through His Messiah. And though the serpent won temporary victory against Eve in the Garden all the way back in Genesis when God cursed the serpent in Genesis 3:15, and said that the seed of the woman would bruise you on the head, and you shall bruise him on the heel. Meaning, Satan’s fate was already sealed at that point. He ultimately would be destroyed by the seed of the woman.

Well, that truth that Satan has already defeated the devil really launched him in his efforts throughout the ages to spoil God’s plans of having that seed of the woman coming to earth in the first place even.

It’s a dramatic story as you read through the Old Testament and you can readily trace throughout the entire Bible, specifically the Old Testament, how Satan is looking to thwart God’s plan to bring His Messiah to Israel. Satan, being aware that Israel was about to give birth to the Christ at various points in history, and being aware that that Messiah coming to earth was the only thing standing in the way of his own unholy ambitions, He did everything he could, in various settings laid out for us in the Old Testament, to prevent the entrance of Christ into this world.

Consider just a few of these examples and note Satan’s grimy grip on each one of these. Cain’s murder of Abel in Genesis 4. The corruption of the line of Seth in Genesis 6. The close encounters between Sarah and the Egyptian officials leading Abraham to deceive them in Genesis 12 and 20. The close encounters between Rebekah and Abimelech leading Isaac to deceive him in Genesis 26. In either of those instances, by the way, had relations actually occurred between either Sarah or Rebekah and those 2 foreign entities, that would have polluted the line.

How about the murder of the male children in Exodus 1, in Egypt. The attempted murders of King David by Saul in 1 Samuel 18. Queen Athaliah’s attempt to destroy the royal line in 2 Chronicles 22. How about Haman’s attempts over and over to slaughter the Jews in Prusa in the book of Esther. On and on it goes.

And then we see, of course, in the New Testament, various other events recorded where Satan made it evident that if he couldn’t prevent Christ from entering the world in the first place, he was going to do everything he could to destroy Christ after His entrance into the world.

After Jesus was born in Bethlehem, Herod, in his jealousy, sought to destroy Him. In the wilderness Satan sought to tempt Him. At Nazareth, we’ve seen this in our study of Luke, His own people wanted nothing to do with Him. They even took Him to the edge of the town to run Him off a cliff. And of course, at Calvary it all came to a head, where for a moment Satan thought he had won when in fact he had lost. And Jesus’ cry out, it is finished, teteasti, was a victory cry. Hebrews 2:14 says, “through death, Jesus rendered powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil.”

And now bringing it back to our text, Revelation 12:4, what this text reminds us of is that this dragon who, as it says here, stood before the woman who was about to give birth, so that when she gave birth he might devour her child. This dragon has been this long-standing participant in this cosmic battle, and this battle of the ages. And it has always been Satan’s aim to defeat and devour the Christ. And in doing so, to defeat and devour Israel.

Well, that takes us to our third player in this account. And that of course is Christ. Look at Revelation 12:5,6. “And she gave birth to a son, a male child, who is to rule all the 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 had a place prepared by God, so that there she would be nourished for 1,260 days.”

Now that son, this male child, is a reference to none other than the Lord Jesus Christ, who though He does not yet rule all the nations with a rod of iron, He one day will. We’re told that in Psalm 2:9, “You shall break them with a rod of iron, You shall shatter them like a potter’s vessel.”

Or if you turn over with me to Revelation 19, we see some very similar language, very similar by this rod of iron that Christ will one day rule with at the right time. Revelation 19: 11-16. “Then I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse, and He who sits on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He judges and wages war. His eyes are a flame of fire, and on His head are many diadems; having a name written on Him which no one knows except Himself, and being clothed with a garment dipped in blood, His name is also called The Word of God. And the armies which are in heaven, clothed in fine linen, white and clean, were following Him on white horses. And from His mouth comes a sharp sword, so that with it He may STRIKE DOWN THE NATIONS, and He will RULE THEM WITH A ROD OF IRON; and HE TREADS THE WINE PRESS OF THE WRATH OF THE RAGE OF GOD, the Almighty. And He has on His garment and on His thigh a name written, ‘KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS.’”

So back to Revelation 12:5. This son, this male child, is the Christ, it is the Messiah, the One who will one day rule all the nations with a rod of iron.

And now look at the next description we’re given of Him at the end of verse 5. It says, “and her child was caught up to God and to His throne.” That’s portraying the ascension of Christ. Now interesting detail, it’s the same verb, harpazo, from which we get our word rapture. It’s a word that simply means to be caught up or taken up or snatched away. For the believer, the event we’re praying for is that next event on the eschatological timeline, the rapture, when we are taken up to meet the Lord in the air. For Christ though, He went up at His ascension. Acts 1:9 says, “And after He had said these things, He was lifted up while they were looking on, and a cloud received Him out of their sight.”

It’s interesting. Here in John’s vision in Revelation 12:5, he’s given this window into the birth of Christ. We’ve seen that already. She gave birth to a Son. And now we’ve been given this window into the ascension of Christ where he says her child was caught up to God into His throne. But everything in between, the entire life of Christ, even the death of Christ, is passed over here. This vision reveals nothing about any of the details between the incarnation of Christ and the ascension of Christ.

And that’s because in the context of this vision that John was receiving at this time, at this moment on Patmos, the point of this vision was not to give John a full-blown Christology lesson. Instead, the point is that Satan was not only not able to defeat Christ by preventing His birth, but Satan was also unable to defeat Christ in either His life or his death. And His ascension sealed that fact as Christ was caught up to God and to His throne, proving Himself victorious over the evil one.

That brings us to the end of our passage for tonight where we see these words at the end of verse 6. “Then the woman fled into the wilderness where she had a place prepared by God, so that there she would be nourished for 1,260 days.” Now what’s really fascinating to me about this final verse is that that very first word of verse 6 then bears the weight of the entire church age. You and I live under that word “then.”

Verse 5 has just referred to the ascension of Christ. Her child was caught up to God and to His throne. And we know from Acts 2 that the Holy Spirit wasn’t sent, and the church age didn’t begin until that event when Christ ascended to the Father.

But here in verse 6, what we have, this reference now to this woman who we already know, we’ve seen is representative or symbolic of what or whom? Israel. So, we have this depiction here in verse 6 now of Israel going into the wilderness, it says, where she had a place prepared by God, so that there she would be nourished for 1,260 days.

Now that context, the context for that passage, this verse after the word “then” is that time during the tribulation during which God is yet again turning His attention to Israel in that second half of the Tribulation, the Great Tribulation when persecution of Israel by the great dragon, by Satan, intensifies.

In fact, if you look down to Revelation 12:13-17, you’ll see how this more intensified persecution of Israel during the tribulation unfolds. “And when the dragon saw that he was thrown down to the earth, he persecuted the woman who gave birth to the male child. But the two wings of the great eagle were given to the woman, so that she could fly into the wilderness to her place, where she was nourished for a time and times and half a time, from the presence of the serpent. And the serpent poured water like a river out of his mouth after the woman, so that he might cause her to be swept away with the flood. But the earth helped the woman, and the earth opened its mouth and drank up the river which the dragon poured out of his mouth. So the dragon was enraged with the woman and went off to make war with the rest of her seed, who keep the commandments of God and have the witness of Jesus.”

So this dragon, Satan, is going to increase his attacks on Israel in this next phase of the Tribulation for the same reason that he has been attacking Israel both in the past and in the present. Namely, he knows that if he were able to destroy Israel, it’s going to place him in some sort of position of superiority over God because it would expose God as being incapable of fulfilling His promises to Israel.

Well, just as Satan has been defeated in his past attempts to eliminate Israel, he will be defeated in his future attempts, as well. That’s what we’re going to see in our study of the chapters to follow.

But for now, end of verse 6, the woman, meaning Israel, fled into the wilderness, it says, where she had a place prepared by God, so that there she would be nourished for 1,260 days. 1,260 days is the equivalent of 3.5 years. Meaning, what is being depicted here is Israel fleeing into the wilderness during the second half of the Tribulation after the Antichrist desecrates the temple and as he is really ramping up his death campaign against the Jews.

Next time, we’re going to spend more time figuring out what this place in the wilderness might be. Where it might be. But for now, and as we close, I’d like us to note that this place to which Israel will flee is called here “a place prepared by God.” Just as Jesus told His disciples in John 14 that He goes away to prepare a place for them, here in Revelation 12:6, John is told in this vision that God was preparing a place for Israel in the darkest days of the Tribulation to which they would be able to flee.

And that takes us back to a point that’s been made over and over tonight, which is that no matter the season, no matter the era, no matter the timeline, God has always been watchful over His people, Israel. He’s always sheltered them. He’s always protected them. He’s always been faithful in His promises to them.

And one point of application we can draw from that as people who live in that parenthesis in the church age, is that the God who has been faithful in His promises to Israel, is a God who is faithful to each and all of His promises, including the promises He’s made to you and me as church-age saints.

I’ll close with that text I just mentioned. John 14:1-3. I hope it gives you some encouragement as you face whatever the Lord might have for you this week. John 14:1-3 says, “Do not let your heart be troubled; believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father’s house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also.” Amen. Let’s pray.