Even before Adolf Hitler and Antiochus Epiphanes and all the others, Thomas Takamata and the Roman Catholic Spanish Inquisition, the torturing of the Jews, the killing of them, we see this as New Testament Christian. We say, hey, John. Your generation did not understand so much of what you wrote. It's not until the technological age that we've really got a lot of information, but Even before that it began to come in place. This is Cross-Reference Radio with our pastor and teacher, Rick Gaston.
Rick is the pastor of Calvary Chapel, Mechanicsville. Pastor Rick is currently teaching through the book of Revelation. Please stay with us after today's message to hear more information about Cross-Reference Radio, specifically how you can get a free copy of this teaching. But for now, let's join Pastor Rick in the book of Revelation chapter 12 with this edition of Cross-Reference Radio. Revelation chapter 12, we'll take Verses one through six in our study and in our reading.
So if you have your Bibles or not, Revelation 12 verses 1 through 6.
Now a great sign appeared in heaven, A woman clothed with the sun with the moon under her feet and on her head a garland of twelve stars. Then, being with child, she cried out in labour, 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 on his heads. His tale 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 the rod of iron.
and her child was caught up to God and His throne. Then the woman fled into the wilderness. Where she was where she has a place prepared. By God, that they should feed her there one thousand two hundred And sixty days.
Well, the difficulty is you want to comment as you're reading that out loud. Ooh, you know who this guy is? Yeah. What makes expository teaching exciting to a pastor? is when his audience is excited about the material.
And if the audience is not excited by the material, then it makes the work a little bit more difficult. I'm reminded of what David said in Psalm 122: I was glad when they said to me, Let us go into the house of the Lord. And I think a lot of Christians begin to lose that. I think they find out, and I'm not scolding anyone, this is sort of an encouragement part of the. Exposition.
That's a little separate from the exposition. But I think a lot of Christians lose that excitement for many reasons, and I think we should be reminded. that there's no excuse There's no justification. We it's part of the the the work. And if you're not interested in what the scripture has to say as a Christian, Uh there are reasons for that.
Perhaps you crave Pulpit pep talks. An exposition makes you think too much, or it's a little bit too convicting, or it covers material that you would rather avoid. You think these things through. Don't be comfortable with just being that way. What might help If you're struggling through expository teaching, verse-by-verse teaching, if it's too much information for you.
or something like that. Uh what might help is if you maintain regular Bible reading on your own.
Now, the devil's going to fight you on that. He's going to come up with all sorts of ways to keep you from having your devotional time. you'll have peaks and you'll have valleys. Expect that. It's sort of like getting older, you have to begin to face things.
that you weren't ready for when you signed up for life. And you know, the first news, you know, for for a man is, oh man, I'm losing my hair. For some of you, well, you got to accept that. Or or whereas of a Marie Antoinette wig, But anyway. I want to close this section of this morning's message.
with what Jesus said in Luke 13. Strive to enter through the narrow gate. Strive. Agony is related to that. And so don't be surprised and don't think you're the only one.
Satan loves that lie. It's you. Your problem is unique. Everybody else has got it together. But you.
And uh he can bet beat us down.
Well, now we turn to our study in Revelation after that brief devotional. Still with the intervals, the third of three, each one talking about while the great tribulation is taking place on earth, what's happening with the believers, the saints. And this one will last into chapter 15. We've already had the sounding of the seventh trumpet. But now the delay before we start seeing what happens when the bowls of wrath are poured out in chapter 15, 16.
And in this section here, in chapter twelve, these six verses is too much here to rush through. John receives This vision That identifies the evil powers attacking the good and the saints on earth. Attacking Israel, eventually, in the second half of the tribulation, Israel will be attacked. But the Gentile converts have been persecuted all the way through.
So, the characters that we're going to consider in chapters twelve and thirteen.
Well, the woman in this chapter, that's Israel. The child is Messiah. The dragon is Satan, that's probably the easiest one to identify. The drawn stars that his tale drew to himself, those are the fallen angels. Probably making up the demons, including the demons coming out of that number.
Then there's Michael. He is the archangel. No nonsense, tough guy amongst the angels. The beast That's the Antichrist. Another beast, the false prophet who assists the Antichrist.
Then there are the saints, which are the Jews and the Gentiles. I point that out because many commentators lose sight of the fact the church is not here, it's gone. There's no legal assembly of believers anymore except the apostate church. which is going to be the subject of chapter 17. One more group stands out: the 144,000 Jews who have been sealed.
They're pretty much the untouchables. And their job is to preach the Christ. And they will They will have converts.
So the list of characters, they are identifiable. We have all sorts of clues as to who is who. If I told you there was a fat guy in a red suit that had a sleigh with reindeer in front of it, you'd know who I was talking about. The Easter bunny. But you'd know that.
Because you're aware of, you know, you have some knowledge of these things.
Well, in scripture, it's the same way. When we begin to talk about, well, this emblem means this.
Well, we have something to base that off of. It's not random.
So let's look at verse 1.
Now a great sign appeared in heaven, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet. and on her head a garland of twelve stars.
Well, this is a great sign seen in heaven. With events that will involve heaven in this chapter later on, but on earth too. And each of these signs, the sun, the moon, the garland, the moon under her feet, they all tell a story. spanning over thousands of years. This great sign of verse 1 is in contrast to another sign that's not so great in verse 3.
It's merely another sign and it has to do with the enemy. A woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and the twelve stars.
Well, what is the emblem of the church in Scripture?
Well, the lampstand is the primary. Emblem of the church. Jesus said, I'm the one that moves between the lampstands. You know, if you don't get this fixed, I'm going to take your lampstand. You won't be considered an assembly of believers anymore.
You'll be apostate.
Well, what's the emblem of Christianity?
Well, the cross of Christ is our primary emblem. of our faith. Both emblems, they speak volumes. There's so much to back up what goes into that. All the prophecies of Christ and His coming, His death, His resurrection, the cross has all of that in it.
These emblems here go back Well, they do include creation in Genesis 1, but essentially to understand. What's happening here to this woman who we've already said represents Israel is Genesis 37. This belongs to the dream that little naive Joseph had. When he told his brothers, you're going to bow down to me.
Well, they're going to kill him. He's like, Joseph, you might want to not tell them that way. Anyway, it's not an actual woman. But symbolic. Of Israel and all the things that go with it are easy to color in.
This links the Jews, the Jewish people, and the Old Testament. to the Messiah. There's this unbroken witness of the righteous from Genesis to now. and will continue. until Christ returns.
So Bible-believing, Bible-heeding Christianity. That is the church. Three other symbolic women appear in the Revelation, where there is that woman. Jezebel. And she represents paganism entering the church and with.
Some degree of success causing apostasy, infecting the church. The scarlet woman of Revelation 17 represents the Apostate Church. And the easy signature over that one on that one, the emblem, is that. She is adulterous. She's not faithful.
Well, you have to have some allegiance for that to happen that has been broken. And in her case, she was supposed to be the church, but she becomes the apostate church, and she's very comfortable. Riding on the beast. Because she has these The compromises that belong to her.
Well, the beast is hating her all the time, and they're going to deal with her. Anyway, The other one, the other woman symbolic in the Revelation, is the wife of the Lamb in Revelation 19. And of course, they symbolize or she symbolizes The true assembly of believers. that is in heaven and that was on earth. This threefold description The sun to moon.
the stars, and then we have the garland too. From Jacob's dream in Genesis 27, as I said. Where he saw the sheaves bow down to him, and then he goes ahead and says that the sun, the moon, and the eleven stars bow down to him also.
Well, the sun and the moon in this context are Joseph's parents. Joseph had 11 brothers. He makes number 12, the 12 tribes of Israel. and Jacob and mainly Rachel. Jacob had two wives, Leah and Rachel, and he had two concubines.
Bill Da and and uh Zilpa. Uh anyway. I don't know why there are not more nursery rhymes with those names, Bilha and Zilpah.
Somebody's got to work on that.
Well, coming back to this. the eleven stars Versus brothers He makes the twelve star again that makes up Israel.
Well, his dream was prophetic. It had a near fulfillment, which is standard in Scripture. And it had a far fulfillment, which is also standard in Scripture, where you have a prophet says something and it happens not long after he has said it, but then it also reaches into the future. And it could have two or three of those, as with Joel, when Peter said, This is what the prophet Joel said: Your sons shall dream dreams, and your old men, your sons shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams.
Well, that has a near and far fulfillment. Also So, with his dream, it is all Hebraic. It has something to do with Israel. That's helping us understand who this woman is. This is predictive prophecy on Joseph's part.
Now he would not have known that when he said it. He couldn't say, well, there's going to be a church that comes out of Messiah that comes out of Israel and this is going to they didn't see that far, but they saw far.
So this Verse 1. Signed. It promises that Israel will survive Jacob's trouble. That comes from It's stated that way in Jeremiah 30, verse 7, but it's preached elsewhere in the Old Testament, and certainly in the New.
Now back to Rachel. What is so special about her? Where the sun and the moon bow down.
Well, if If it weren't for Rachel. Because she had no authority over the ten sons of Jacob. She couldn't tell Reuben, hey, you you can't play uh over there in that part of the fields. It wasn't her son. But she was Jacob's true love.
And without her the moon, symbolically There would have been no Leah. And Bilhah and Zilpah, he would have found a wife somewhere else, the whole story would have been different. But because of his love For Rachel, All these other things then fell into place. That's how I see this. And of course, you know it's always best to agree with me about things like this so that I can stay happy and not offended.
Yeah, well, let's get back to reality.
So this woman clothed with these celestial bodies. Genesis 1, verse 16. Then God made two great lights. The greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night. He also made the stars.
That's Genesis 1.16.
So our sun in the sky represents Israel's created light in this, so she's clothed in the sun, in this light, this radiant. garb that she has.
Well, is that not the Old Testament influence on the Jewish people? And well we love our Old Testament. We love those heroes and they are clothed in the light of God.
Now this is a lot of allegory, but I think it's very accurate. It's backed up. The moon under her feet. shows that Israel will ultimately prevail. The moon being the lesser light, being Israel.
And incidentally, a reminder: the moon has no light of its own. The light it gets is reflected from the sun. Otherwise, you just have a big dark rock. floating around or orbiting the Earth. The garland here is Stephanos in the Greek, and that's significant because the beast on the ten heads are wearing ten crowns, diadems.
There's a distinction between the two. This is the victor's garland. And that is saying to Israel, you're going to survive. you're going to still be a victor. And uh the twelve stars.
will ultimately be restored, the twelve tribes. And that's the whole point of Ezekiel chapter forty through forty eight, telling us about the Millennial Kingdom and how Israel is going to be enjoying her time with the Messiah.
Well Also, the woman represents Israel at The virgin birth. This the connection she is with child and having labor pains. God is saying through John, our Old Testament comes together. God has carved out a channel for Israel. He is in total control.
But there are human elements under the curse that are going to happen. Just make sure if it's you, be on the right side of them. And these are end-time events without question.
So the twelve stars speaking of the twelve sons of Jacob. Today, the nation Israel. Is blind to her Messiah. and her prophetic future. What Jew can say to you that from Zechariah, someone who is anti-Messiah is going to come along and he's going to do this to us right there.
They don't have that look anymore. At this scripture. They have a whole nother take on things that they should never have had. And it began it began When Christ came. They alter their commentaries.
So that they could bypass it being Jesus Christ. And they begin to spiritualize. Isaiah 53, oh, he's not talking about an individual person, it's talking about the nation Israel. He was wounded for my transgressions, bruised for my iniquity. How does Israel get to have that status?
Before Christ came, they said this is going to be the Messiah.
So. We're aware. of this going on Therefore, they are blind to what John is saying about them, but we are not. May God give us more opportunities to share. from our Scripture, particularly the Old Testament with the Jews.
I remember years ago sharing the Old Testament with a Jewish person, and they didn't know half as much as just a newborn Christian after about a year. of their Old Testament. It's so many not all of them, but many of them are very Just like we have nominal nominal Nominal. Christians. Yeah, you know.
You know what? They're not really into it, but they claim to be Christians. In number only. Verse 2: Then being with child, she cried out in labor and in pain to give birth.
Well, the gender of the child will be made clear in verse 5, but Jesus Christ chose to come from the most hated people the world has ever known. He chose the Jewish people. knowing that they were already hated. by many peoples and would be hated by many more. He chose to come as a Jew.
So the woman at the well, the Samaritan woman, said to him, How is it you being a Jew? Ask me for a drink.
So That is something we should be very clear about. And when we especially see this hatred for the Jews, we know where it's come from. And that's what this story is telling us. In the story, the pregnant woman is ready to give birth. and that is the nation is now ready to bring forth the Messiah.
It's not centered on Mary. She's a part of it. She certainly was the Jewish last that God chose to bring forth the Messiah, but it's expanded. Where it says she cried out in labor. and in pain to give birth This is Israel.
Not the church. The church, Israel is giving birth to the church. And again, that's the Old Testament to the New Testament, the Old Covenant to the New Covenant. Israel is described in the prophets as travailing in birth. It's in Micah.
It's no less than twice in Isaiah. It's never. applied to the church.
So I cannot deny The prolonged pain and struggles illustrated by her labor pains of the Jewish people to survive long enough. To bring forth a Messiah, and then to continue to survive long enough for Messiah to return. according to the prophecies. That's why it's going to have so important. You know, we look at, well, you know, Christ didn't have to come as a virgin, he could have just showed up.
He could have and died on the cross for our sins. But God poured so much predictive prophecy into His coming that this overwhelming proof That's why Peter said, we've got to show more word of prophecy. If you want it, there it is. If you don't want it, then you will be judged.
So we cannot deny these prolonged pains from Abraham to Bethlehem. The Jews have been struggling. Abraham and Isaac, part of that process that gave us Jacob, who gave us the 12 sons, who gave us. the Israelites. the Jewish people.
There was Canaan, where they almost perished for famine. But Jacob had a connection in Egypt that he didn't even know. was his son, Joseph. The Egyptians tried to perform genocide on them. Then there was their wilderness experience.
The Assyrians wiped out the northern kingdom. Then there were the Babylonians that took them captive. After him came Antiochus Epiphanes that hated the Jews with a passion. Daniel talks a lot about him. He becomes the poster for the Antichrist.
And so, if you're reading Daniel, particularly chapters 7, 8, and 11, you get in there and you say, This sounds like somebody who's coming.
Well, it tells you he's coming. But he's already come. Because Antiochus was a type. Of the Antichrist. And the type is never as big as the fulfillment.
Shadow of a thing is not bigger than the thing itself, kind of a an approach to that.
So the pain's illustrated and documented in Exodus with the attempted genocide of the Jewish people, and then the book of Esther is all about how Haman wanted to wipe them out. And he ends up haming on a stick. Impaled. You know, our Bible, we talk of gallows, we think of the hangman with the rope, but actually, it's an impaling. That's how the Persians did it, and they did a lot worse.
I mean, they'd lock people in a hollowed out log with a r rat or s I mean they just had all sorts of ways to torture you to death. And then throw you in the water and plan it so you could survive two or three days in that misery before you died. All right, that sounds very cheering. Today You see someone siding against Israel. Satan's meddling.
It's his work. Because there's no excuse for this. And if you see them aggressively against Israel, it's totally Satan. The Jewish race has been targeted satanically, energized by men to exterminate it. And so, yeah, the struggle to bring forth Messiah, even before Adolf Hitler and Antiochus Epiphanes, and all the others, Thomas Takamata and the Roman Catholic Spanish Inquisition, the torturing of the Jews, the killing of them.
We see this as New Testament Christian. We say, hey, John. Your generation did not understand so much of what you wrote. It's not until the technological age that we've really got a lot of information, but Even before that, it began to come in place. I love to read old commentators who were sure that God created.
The universe, and there's no such thing as evolution long before Darwin came along, and even after he came out, my Bible says he created them each after its kind. Yeah. This has been Cross-Reference Radio with Pastor Rick Gaston. This program is a radio outreach of Calvary Chapel, Mechanicsville, in Mechanicsville, Virginia. Pastor Rick has been teaching through the book of Revelation, but if you're interested in learning about a different book of the Bible, we have hundreds of past episodes available to listen to on demand.
Just visit us online at crossreferenceradio.com and you'll find an archive of Pastor Rick's past teachings. While you're there, you can also find links to follow our program on your favorite podcast app, as well as links to get connected with us on Facebook and YouTube. There's also an interviews tab where you can learn more about Pastor Rick's heart for ministry.
Well, we hope you'll join us next time here on Cross Reference Radio. Yeah.
