Okay, now that everyone has streamed in, okay, this maybe is as good as it gets this morning. Okay, let's go ahead and start. I will, oh, before we get started, any visitors that you would like to introduce today? Dixie, it's good to see you. Well, we will take you out if there's any problems back there. Would you like to introduce yourself? Okay, welcome. I know you were here last week and anyone else? Okay, and as other people come in, be sure and try to embarrass them. Or make them feel welcome. Okay, let's start with, I think we pretty much finished chapter 12. But I got the feeling at the end of the class that there were perhaps still some aspects of chapter 12 that we didn't cover completely. There was a question at the end of the class about just who is the woman in chapter 12? And my wife has been peppering me all week with that question and why we didn't answer it. So we're going to try to give some more attention to that at the beginning of the class today. So I will begin by reading chapter 12, verses 13, to the end of the chapter, and then we'll pray. Let's hear God's word. And when the dragon saw that he had been thrown down to the earth, he pursued the woman who had borne the male child. But the woman was given the two wings, the great eagle, that she might fly from the serpent into the wilderness to the place where she has to be nourished for a time and times and half a time. The serpent poured water like a river out of his mouth after the woman to sweep her away with the flood. But the earth came to the help of the woman and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed the river which the dragon had poured from his mouth. Then the dragon was angry with the woman and went off to make war on the rest of her offspring on those who keep the commandments of God and bear testimony to Jesus. And he stood on the sand of the sea. Father, you have indeed placed us in perilous times with dangers about us, with a world that is in many ways hostile to you. And you have seen fit to place in our paths certain obstacles by which you test us and perfect us. And how we thank you for the message of this book that is so reassuring, that it assures us that no matter how difficult our path here, and no matter how we may feel surrounded by the beast and all his minions, that the Lord Jesus Christ is on the throne and he rules over all things for our benefit. We thank you for the hope that you have given us, we thank you for the motivation that that gives us day today. And we ask that you would meet the needs of all your people this day as we come to worship you. Father, now we ask you to open our eyes to be among us by your spirit, to instruct us through your word and may our fellowship this morning be pleasing in your sight. Christ's name, amen. Once again, we are in the last several verses of chapter 12 in our study. Would it be helpful to go back and just give a little brief overview of where we are in the book of Revelation and how some of us have to be a little bit intermittent in the class, can't be here every week. So maybe some of you have missed something. We have tried, wow, look at this. Yeah, this means I can really write. This is quite an improvement. Is there a donor to thank for this or something? This is great. I don't have to worry about knocking it over with my hand. Okay, we have talked about an outline of Revelation, and in order to try to help us maybe get a better grasp on it, how do we look at Revelation? How do we divide it? Well, if we can sort of picture the whole book and outline it, I would suggest a fairly simple outline based upon the four major visions in Revelation. What I would call the four major visions, of course, there are a lot of other visions. But you could say that there is, you could divide it in a prologue, which would be all the first eight verses, I believe, of the book. And then from one nine starts the first vision, and that's basically chapters one through anybody? Very good. One through three. And do you remember what the source, the basic vision was, first vision? Okay, it was a vision of the risen and ascended Christ who appeared to John in chapter one, and the aftermath of that, what I would call the aftermath, maybe that's not a real good word. But what happens after that initial vision, in many ways, depends on that vision. In this case is the letters to the seven churches, and we saw how in many ways those letters look back to that initial vision. And this had to do with the church, of course, the seven churches in their specific situation, right, then in history, of course, that looked to the future as well. Then, starting with chapter four, we have another major vision. Do you remember how long this one goes, a whole lot, right? This is the longest section for counting by visions. This would go all the way to the end of chapter 16.
And you remember the initial vision, chapter four and five, had to do with John being taken up. Remember, he was told to come up, and there was an open door in heaven. He came up to the heavenly throne room, where he sees a vision of the throne of God. And it's surrounded by four living creatures, and by 24 elders, and they worship the Lord, and praise him for his creatorhood. And then in chapter five, they worship him, excuse me, for redemption. And in that chapter, the fifth chapter is where the Jesus is introduced to us as the Lamb of God. Of course, we're familiar with that concept from the Gospels, particularly from John's Gospel. But in chapter five, the Lamb is given something. He's not only sitting on God's throne, but he is given a scroll, a scroll with seven seals. Some major interpretative challenges that the scroll itself and the seven seals. We see that in chapter six, he proceeds to break each of those seals, well, six of the seven. And we see things happening in heaven that John sees certain visions as each seal is broken. We've suggested here that most of those, the first four have to do with what's happening throughout the whole age between the first and second coming. Of course, different approaches to this, but that's what I'm suggesting in this class. That brings us through chapter six. We come with actually with a sixth seal in chapter six, which appears to bring us to the end already to the end of human history. There seems to be a depiction and figurative language of what's going to happen at the last judgment or at the return of Christ. So that's already in chapter six. And then in chapter seven, we have a kind of an interlude between the drama builds as we're waiting for the seventh seal to be broken. The drama builds, but in chapter seven, we have two visions of the church. The church being protected on earth. The first part of chapter seven, that's the introduction of the 144,000. And they're sealed with the seal god and their foreheads. And the second part of chapter seven has a vision of an innumerable multitude in heaven, which I've suggested is also another picture of the 144,000. But this picture is the church already in heaven, as there's 144,000 sees them as on earth. Still undergoing persecution, still liable to being pursued by Satan. Then with chapter eight, we have the seventh seal actually broken. And there is silence in heaven as the prayers of the saints are about to be heard. And with the prayers of the saints being heard, then we have this another very dramatic element of the angel. One of the angels casting down a sensor that had been filled with coals from the heavenly altar. And you remember that what happens after that is seven angels with trumpets. Make ready to blow, and they blow their trumpets. And we see then John sees things that correspond with each of those trumpets. Most of them have to do with the disasters on the earth. And again, we suggested that we ought to look at the whole of human history. That is the whole of history between the first and second coming as being depicted in various ways by these trumpet judgments. That brings us through chapter eight and actually chapter nine. By the time we get to the end of chapter nine, chapter 10, John sees a great angel coming down from heaven. And this angel gives John, this time John gets a scroll. And he is told to remember eat that scroll. And it was sweet in his mouth, but bitter in his stomach. And he was told that he had to prophesy again about many nations and tons of peoples. Then we come to chapter 11 where John is introduced to the two witnesses. And we have also statement about the temple being protected. That the outer court of the temple is, John is not to measure that. He is to measure the temple, but not the outer court because that is given to the Gentiles. The Gentiles will trample it down for 42 months. And the interpretation that we suggested is that the temple that is protected is the temple of God's people. It is the temple in heaven that is mentioned throughout the book of Revelation. The only real temple that forms the subject of anything in Revelation is the heavenly temple, where God's throne is, where the ark of God is, and where the heavenly worship is taking place. But the outer court seems to be a symbol for the church still on earth, still subject to persecution. And so it is subject to being trampled. So we are also introduced to this anigmatic number of 42 months, which as you recall, we have seen in various manifestations. The 42 month period is how long? Three and a half years, three and a half years. And we have seen it express this 42 months, anything else? 1260 days, and time, times, and half a time. And the passage that I read this morning, that was the expression, time, times, and half a time. If you take a time to be a year, it is the same period. We talked about the various interpretations of the three and a half year period. And most everybody agrees that there are illusions to Daniel, but not everybody agrees on how to interpret that illusion. I have suggested that we ought to view it as another symbol for the time between the first, basically the first and second coming. From the time of the ascension, and associated with that is also God's judgment on Israel, but from that time till the second coming. And just last week we looked at what I think is probably the more than anything else, the key that helps us to determine that. And that comes at the beginning of chapter 12, where we have this wonderful vision of a woman, close with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and so forth, and a great red dragon. Remember the story now of being in chapter 12. The dragon is their waiting for the woman who is pregnant and about to bear, waiting for her to bear her child so that he might devour the child. But before he is able to do so, the child is caught up to heaven to the throne of God. And immediately, and we're told right there in chapter 12 verses 5 and 6, when this happens, the woman flees into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared for this three and a half year period, 1,260 days. From that figure, we see, I think, that the beginning of that three and a half year period has to do with the time of the ascension of Christ, when he is taken up to the throne of God. That seems to be when it is initiated. It's true, I suggested that's a real key, because it means that A, it doesn't start some time way at the end of history, the last seven years or the last three and a half years of history, before Christ comes. Which is probably the most popular view of things today. And also would mean that it has got to be figurative, because we can't really identify anything momentous that happened just three and a half years after the ascension. So this would mean that it started in the first century, but has been going on. I suggested that you might think at first why the figure of three and a half years, then why would he choose, why would God choose, that figure to depict this age. And we suggested last week that there were a couple of reasons. One, there is a definite illusion to another three and a half year period earlier in Scripture. And that was when Elijah was able to, through prayer, able to shut the heavens for three and a half years, and you remember during the ministry of Elijah, how would you characterize the state of the church at that time? That, those are the days of Jezebel and a half. And the church is largely pushed under ground. It's persecuted, but it is preserved, isn't it? Elijah gets so discouraged at one point, he runs off to Sinai and says, I even I alone am left, but God encourages him. There are still 7,000 who have not bowed the knee to bail. So God is preserving his church, and I think that's a fitting way to characterize even our age. That there are times, there will be times, and there were certainly times in the first and second century. When the church very much looked like it had to be underground, and it looked like it was losing the battle. But yet God was preserving, and God was giving the triumph, and the church in the wilderness is being preserved for 1,260 days. Yeah, that's good. That's good. But it's not a complete time, and that even makes me think of that the other text that we went back to, there are several texts in the book of Daniel, where the three and a half year period is mentioned. And those have to do with the dominion of what's called there, the little horn, probably if not the Antichrist, an Antichrist figure. Again, a time when the church is persecuted but preserved. And we also suggested that maybe it's also the last, this gets a little bit complicated, but the last half of Daniel's 70th week. We looked at that famous passage in Daniel chapter 9, where Daniel was told by the angel, 70 weeks, or 77s, are decreed for your people to do a number of things, to avoid the most holy, to put an end to sacrifice and offering. And we're told in the rest of the prophecy there, that a number of things will happen by the midst of that last week, in the middle of that week, and things like, well, sacrifice and offering will cease. But the prophecy sort of leaves us there, and we're never told about the last half of that week, the last half of that seven, which would be an incomplete period, it would be the last three and a half years. So in a figurative sense, we could see that last half of the last seven, the 70th week, as again, providing the figurative numerical description of this whole age, from the time when sacrifice and offering ceased because of the one time sacrifice of Christ. And then subsequent that to that, the destruction of even the temple where it was sacrificed, from that time on until the end of Christ's messianic reign before the last judgment. Okay, still with me? Those are old testament backgrounds that I think inform us as to the meaning of this three and a half year period. That pretty much brings us up to date. We are in this sort of another interlude section and revelation between the seven trumpets and the seven bowls, which are coming up next. Chapter 12 to 14 then are in this, this second vision area, but they're kind of an interlude because we're going to have the seven bowls later. So we haven't come to the third and the fourth visions. Third is going to be chapter 17 through probably 21, eight or so. And then 21, nine, I think it is to 22, six, and then we have an epilogue. Okay, quick overview of Revelation. Any questions or comments on just the overview? Okay, good.
In chapter 12 then, so far we have seen, so we already described the woman giving birth to the male child who is to rule the nations with the rod of iron. He is taken up to the throne of God and the woman flees to the wilderness. And then in verse 7 through 12, we read about a great war in heaven evidently to be taken as the immediate consequence of the child being taken up to heaven. War breaks out between Michael and his angels and the dragon and his angels. Well, it's no real contents. The dragon is thrown down and there is great rejoicing in heaven.
Verse 10, rejoice in now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come for the accuser of our brethren has been thrown down who accuses them day and night before our God. Pointed out last week how important this is for a Christian view of the world, the Christian view of spirituality just for the Christian life to know that the accuser of our brethren has been thrown down. He has been decisively and, once and for all, cast out of heaven, his place, whatever legitimate place he might have had, or might have thought he had, has been taken away. Jesus, when he went to the cross, said in John's Gospel, now is the judgment of this world. Now is the ruler of this world cast out. I think he was talking about the same thing. The crucifixion and the resurrection of Jesus was to affect a resounding defeat for the same. So whatever power Satan still has now, and he's cast down to earth, whatever power he has now, they're severely curtailed. His accusations no longer come to bear against the Christian. There's now, therefore, no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Yes, right. Yes, I think it does. And that's a very market contrast. If you look at his role in Job as being before the throne of God and being able to make accusations against Job, presumably against all the saints. And it may not mean a change in Satan's nature, that is, that he still is an accuser, and we probably feel the barbs of that, all of us. But it means that his accusations no longer have a place before God. There are always before the sacrifice of Christ, I think you could say there was always a sort of plausibility to Satan's arguments and Satan's accusations, because the redemption had not fully been accomplished, but Christ's redemption changed that. So there we have this very interesting juxtaposition again in chapter, in the middle of chapter 12. Heaven is told to rejoice, but woe to you, O earth and see, for the devil has come down to you in great wrath, because he knows his time is short. And then in verses 13 on, we come back to the situation of the woman. She had fled to the wilderness, and here we have that again. The woman, excuse me, the dragon pursues the woman, but she's given the wings of an eagle to flee into the wilderness where she is nourished for this time, times and a half a time. And the servant poured forth water like a river from his mouth after the woman, but the earth swallows up the river. I think that is another figure, not to be taken literally. But what could it mean, though, that the dragon pours forth a flood from his mouth against the woman? Any ideas on that? Is that conjure up any meaning, if that's a figure of speech or a symbol? We've seen other things in Revelation come out of people's mouths. Anything come to mind there? Christ and the sword, right? The sword that proceeds from his mouth. Of course, that's not a literal sword, but it means his word is like a sword. His word does his work conquer on his behalf. What about a flood from the dragon's mouth? Okay, his hostility against the world or against the church, we'll still haven't really identified the woman here, have we? And particularly, a lot of interpreters have associated this with his deceptive hostility, his deceptive work, and you mentioned darkness, which also has the connotations of deception and lie and sin. There are a couple of Old Testament passages, probably more than that, really, where a flood or a torrent of water is associated with lies and deceit. There are a couple of psalm texts when we're David refers to the torrents of Belial, Belial being another name for Satan. And in Psalm 143, he asks, were deliverance from many waters? And in the context, it seems like that is a figure for the lies, those who have spoken to seeds and falsehood. So a lot of interpreters take this as referring to Satan's lies, his deceitful words, which by which he tried to deceive. And this is very much reminiscent of, well actually, of Genesis, where we have the initial confrontation of the serpent and the woman, a woman. And what does he do? What he deceives her with words, right? This character of Satan is consistent. We read it when Paul is speaking to the Corinthians, 2 Corinthians 11, 2 Corinthians 113, he says, but I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ. And the immediate danger then in Paul's day was that there were some deceitful workmen he goes on to talk about. For such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ, and no wonder for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of life. So it is not strange if his servants also disguised themselves as servants of righteousness, their end will correspond to their deeds. In other words, Satan's work is to try to deceive one of his works, and he tries to deceive the church. And I think that's what's going on here in Revelation. It's a picture of Satan trying to slander, trying to lie, trying to blaspheme, trying to deceive. You're probably picked up by now that I think the woman is a figure for the church, figure for the church. Now you could, your various interpreters have nuanced that a little bit, just what aspect of the church, or just what time period of the church, things like that. Some have said, well maybe it's the Jewish church, or the church of the Old Testament, which gave birth to the Messiah in a figurative way. And then when we have in verse 17, the dragon going off to make war against the rest of her offspring, the rest of her offspring would then be the Gentile church. That's one way that interpreters have looked at that. Others have said, it's more like the church from a perspective of heaven, and the church is thus preserved and protected and nourished, but the church from the perspective of earth is being hotly pursued by the dragon who goes to make war on her the rest of her offspring. I wouldn't push too hard for either, for one of those, but they both, particularly the latter one might have some insight as to this distinction between the woman and her children. But that could also just be more or less a figure, part of the metaphor as well. Because if you think about it in the Old Testament often, Jerusalem stands as a figure for the whole people of God, and Jerusalem is sometimes spoken of as a mother with her children. So you have that kind of, let's say pregnant imagery, but you have this sort of imagery of the woman and her children and they're essentially to pick the same thing. Jerusalem is the mother, and she has children, and the Israelites individually are her children, but yet collectively they are the woman, the mother, which we have in the New Testament as well. Paul says in Galatians 4, he talks about Jerusalem above, which is our mother. Yes, right, good, yeah, that's another symbol that we've seen already, the 12 and the 12, where by means of the number itself, I think you have that unity of the Old and New Covenant. I think that's probably the case here, the church, it's the church collectively, Old and New Testament. Any other, yeah, Andy? Yeah, that might be possible. But I think in the context, it happens right after the man-child is taken up to heaven. Now there could be a reconciliation there, but what's associated with the beginning of that war in heaven, you know, it says that the woman is preserved in the wilderness, and then after that war is depicted, we come back to that in verse 13, where the dragon after he is cast out pursues the woman into the wilderness. So it seems like it's happening, if the woman going to the wilderness happens after the ascension of Christ, which also appears to be, that seems to be the setting here for the war in heaven. But you're right, it does seem, okay, right, yeah, yeah, well that's true, sorry? Well there's only one depicted here, yeah, I just don't know, I mean I wouldn't say much about that original fall of Satan, I just don't know how to depict it, or exactly where you have the Isaiah 14 passage, I think it is. Where it said Lucifer Son of the Dawn, and the original context, I mean it's an oracle, I believe against the king of Babylon, and a lot of interpreters see that as behind that reference to Satan, but that too is so much figurative language. It does seem to be similar, and this may be a final or a later defeat of Satan that is later than the original fall, whatever that meant and whatever that was. So I think one of your points Andy was, this shows us that even after his original fall, he still had some kind of access in heaven. I think we see that in Job, for instance, you probably could, I'm not quite sure, I'm not quite sure in the life of the believer what those implications are exactly. Other than, well that seems to minimize it, I don't want to do, but there's certainly the assurance, not necessarily I think that the believer does not feel the attacks of Satan like he, like in the Old Testament was possible, but I think that we have the assurance, we have the assurance that those accusations mean nothing, and if they're all thrown out of court they're out of order. In God's court, because they have been taken care of once and for all. I think, and that the Old Testament saints only had to look forward to in faith, was we now have had it in our past and we know it, we can count on it in a way that they couldn't. That's one of the differences that's, that always has to be brought up when we talk about Old Testament and New Testament. Right, good. We're so, so much subject to the secular mindset in this country, it is, it is easy to go through a day and look only at things in materialistic terms. Cause and effect in the world, and without, without even thinking about God and his spirit's power or Satan and the powers of darkness. I think, Laurie, did you? Far be it for me to be prejudiced on the basis, on that basis, but maybe, I think it's, I think it's more that I, I don't see the real need for, for positing that one. That is with the whole idea, even in the Old Testament, that there, there is this sort of interplay between, between the people of God as, as a woman, as a mother and her children, and that's, that's already there in, in the Old Testament, as well as in the news from places I think. Yeah, and there, in that way, it can, it can be a symbol for all the church. Obviously, before Christ was born, it was, the church was basically Israelite. So I have no, no problem with that. You could certainly say that. And I don't know, it, it may be, some interpreters take that view, but I don't know if it's, if you have to go that way. And then you have, then you have, of course, well, what might be a little problem of now separating the, the Israelite church from the, the Gentile church, since becoming Christ. And that's why I find a little bit harder to find room for. We did that two weeks ago, Richard, if you were not here, then guess you missed it. Well, basically, that's, which talks about, a hardening has fallen upon part of Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles comes in. And in this way, will all Israel be safe, be saved. Very briefly, that, that is a controversial text. And a lot of reformed theologians do believe that there will be a great influx of conversions from the Jews at the end. And I think that's certainly what we should pray for. But I'm not really sure that that's what the text means, because it seems to be, Paul seems to be, I think, giving a, kind of a course for the gospel in that passage where he says that the gospel goes forth to the Jew first and into the Greek. And the Jews by and large rejected it. So it went to the Greeks. But then he says, now it has made Jews jealous. You know, this, this has made some Jews jealous. And so it's sort of a rebound effect. And, and then many Jews like Paul himself believe. And I think he's making the point. And this is how all Israel will be saved throughout all the periods. So this sort of rebound effect of the gospel. But I think it is. And, but, you know, if, if thousands and tens of thousands of Jews convert, what can we do but rejoice? That's the, I think the point for, you know, our little squirmishes, squirmishes in the church. Over interpretation here is that one, if they do that, then they become the church. I mean, and then you have to look at the whole. So where's the distinction now between Jew and Gentile? Because we're all wanting squirmishes are squirmishes by square squirmish people. So, smemish. Well, Frank's the serious question was about the, the activities of Christ in his earthly ministry of casting out demons and what this might have to do in a proleptic way. Sort of a, a preview of coming attractions kind of before the actual big event happens. And yes, I think that's, that's a very good point. And Jesus said, you remember on one occasion if I by the spirit of God cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. And so his work of casting out demons was part of his, his program of, of defeating Satan and was proleptic. It looked forward to what was going to happen at the cross definitively. So, and you remember when after his disciples had gone out on a preaching tour in which they were preaching and casting out demons and they came back. And Jesus said to them, I saw Satan fall from heaven in, in their work in their ministry of preaching and casting out demons. And it's also sort of an outward, active symbol, I mean it literally happened, really happened. But it was also symbolic of the fact that the kingdom of God was advancing because the powers of darkness were receding. And they were having to retreat. And so I think that's very true, very good.
Good point. Good point. Whether it's on a small scale or a large scale. Right. No peaceful coexistence. Good. Good. Anything else on the end of chapter 12. Great. We are, we're just about our time, but as our, as for our custom, we usually go late. But maybe we can just introduce chapter 13 at this point. And get us started. That's a good one. I'm not sure that there is a specific identity for the, that is, if it's one thing that I could identify, other than that God uses the means of His creation to protect the earth from, but to protect the church from Satan's deceptive power. And you have, you have some old testament background where it, you have a literal swallowing up of God's foes. And I think actually in Exodus, there's a passage, Exodus 1512, I've written down here. Where the earth is said to have swallowed up Pharaoh in his house in the, in the sea. And also you've got the incident with Chora, Nathan, and a biram where they're swallowed up by the earth. And so it is a, you know, it's an idea in the history of, of Israel, of God swallowing up his enemies by means of actually using the earth. And, you know, I would say it's probably then it's carried over figuratively in Revelation 12. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm sure help. Yeah. But that's true. And we've, we've, when we looked at the seven compass judgments. And particularly there, their close relationship to the plagues of Egypt. And how, as you mentioned, that men did not repent. That really mirrored what happened with Pharaoh. Pharaoh seemed like his heart was softened for a while. And he'd let, he'd relent. And then he would, and then he would attack again. But in all those cases, the God used his creation as his means of judgment on, on wickedness. And so in a general way, I think he certainly affirm that.
Well, next week we will take up the issue of the two beasts. Notice where they come from. The first one comes from the sea and the second one from the earth. Maybe this is significant because back in chapter 12 verse 12, we have this voice in heaven saying, we rejoice in heaven and you that dwell therein, but low to you or earth and sea for the devil has come down to you in great wrath. And after we hear of low to you, earth and sea, we have in reverse order wrath from the sea and wrath from the earth following. And then I think we're actually having a picture of heaven after that in chapter 14. But the two beasts and at the end of this chapter, we have the number 66. So you won't want to miss next week. All right. Any final questions or comments? We thank you, Lord, for keeping your promises to us. We thank you that you do employ all the means of your creation, as well as the means of your supernatural powers and the Holy Spirit to preserve and protect your people, even as we feel as though the billows roll over us and we are sometimes swept away by the flood. We know that you are protecting us and that you will see us safely home to the heavenly harbor. We give you praise and thanks for this this Lord's day. May you be pleased in our observance of it in our worship of you in Christ's name. Come in.