Revelation 12:1-17 | The Great Rescue

This sermon was recorded at Faith Evangelical Free Church in Grand Forks, North Dakota.

If you've never been to a planetarium, you're missing out.

You are watching an animation that moves from our view of space here on Earth and zooms in on the details of the Orion Nebula, one thousand three hundred light years away.

It's possible to see the faint light from Orion from some locations on Earth, but our eyes can generally only discern a cloud-like structure suspended in space.

Telescopes bring our eyes closer and closer.

And as they do, we begin to see intricate elements of God's creation.

Segments of space that reveal his handiwork.

And we're reminded, as we see those things, that scripture says that God hung those stars in space with his fingertips.

They reveal his handiwork.

Thank you.

We can return the lights now.

This video may be the most captivating element of this sermon.

But I hope it has grabbed your attention.

Because I want to follow the same pattern in this video as we look together at Revelation chapter 12.

Revelation 12 · chapter mention

I don't have a Revelation 12 video for you.

But as we were captivated by a look at the Orion Nebula as a distant cloud of glory, and we zoom in until we can see some of its intricacies in sight, I think we can also, in the same way, be captivated by that process applied to the vision seen by the Apostle John in Revelation chapter 12.

Revelation 12 · chapter mention

We will miss out on the scale of the universe if we don't look at the nebula from earth.

And we miss the scale of what God reveals in Revelation 12 if we don't put it in the context of all of Scripture.

But as we move closer and closer in Revelation 12, we begin to see more and more of the details until the full glory of God's work is revealed to us.

I warn you, we're going to find ourselves quite small in this process.

Yet we will be awed by God's grandeur and grace.

We will see his sovereign work from the beginning of Scripture to the end of this age.

We will see the cosmic battle that rages on and on until it reaches a fever pitch, and we will find ourselves astounded by the details of Scripture, the plan of God and his marvelous grace to us.

So let's read Revelation chapter 12.

Revelation 12 · chapter mention

If you are our guest this morning, you should know that we've been working our way through the Gospel of Matthew.

And we've spent the summer months in chapters 24 and 25.

They're heavy sections detailing God's program from the time of Christ until the end of this present age of history.

And I want to conclude that focus on the end times thoughts by considering Revelation chapter 12.

Revelation 12 · chapter mention

So if you would follow along with me as I read that passage of Scripture.

Again, John is recording the things that God has shown to him.

And he says in Revelation 12:1, a great sign appeared in heaven.

Revelation 12:1

A woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars.

She was pregnant and was crying out in birth pains and the agony of giving birth.

And another sign appeared in heaven.

Behold, a great red dragon with seven heads and ten horns, and on his heads seven diadems or seven crowns.

His tail, the dragon's tail, swept down a third of the stars of heaven and cast them to the earth.

And the dragon stood before the woman who was about to give birth, so that when she bore her child he might devour it.

She gave birth to a male child, one one who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron.

But her child was caught up to God and to his throne.

And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God in which she is to be nourished for one thousand two hundred and sixty days.

Now war arose in heaven, Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back.

But he was defeated, and there was no longer any place for them in heaven.

And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent who was called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world.

He was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him.

And I heard a loud voice in heaven saying, 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 brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God.

And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death.

Therefore rejoice, O heavens, and you who dwell in them.

But woe to you, O earth and sea, for the devil has come down to you in great wrath, because he knows that his time is short.

And when the dragon saw that he had been thrown down to the earth, he pursued the woman who had given birth to the male child.

But the woman who was given the two wings of the great eagle so that she might fly from the serpent into the wilderness, to the place where she is 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 a flood.

But the earth came to the help of the woman, and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed the river that the dragon had poured from his mouth.

Then the dragon became furious with the woman and went off to make war on the rest of her offspring, on those who keep the commandments of God and hold to the testimony of Jesus.

And he stood on the sand of the sea.

Amen.

I think Lowell probably spent a month on this one chapter.

Is that about right, Lowell?

I'm gonna try to do this in 40 minutes.

Pray for me.

Maybe pray for you.

Might be here till lunchtime.

Like much of Matthew 24 and 25, this sounds intense and more than a little frightening.

And if you are not a Christian, and if you have not trusted in Jesus' call to trust in him and to believe in him and to follow him, then this should be alarming to you.

But let that alarm spur you to know Jesus Christ, to trust him and to love him.

Because if you do, this chapter will not be a source of fear for you, but a source of joy.

For in it we find God's rescue of his people from the most frightful time that will ever be upon this earth.

Let's begin by looking at this chapter from a great distance.

Sort of like looking at a nebula from your backyard.

You're looking up at the night sky and you see this distant cloud, and you're trying to make sense of it, and you see it only from far, far away.

So let's look at Revelation chapter 12 from far away, and what we see are hints of familiarity.

Revelation 12 · chapter mention

There are characteristics that we observe as we look at this from far away that set the stage for other details that we will see as we draw closer and closer to it.

There are four details, I think, that we see from far away.

Number one is we see that this chapter reminds us of the beginning.

There are elements that are reminiscent of things that we've heard before.

We pick up details here that remind us of a woman and a serpent.

Just like we find in Genesis, in the very beginning.

We find elements of temptation, we find elements of sin, we find elements of war.

This is reminiscent of the beginning where that serpent tempted that woman to disobey God's command.

We also then see that there is a reminder of the divine promise.

God promised Eve that there would be enity, war between her descendants and the serpent.

But there was a promise that one day, one day there would be there would be a child, there would be a man, there would be a seed, a descendant who would crush the head of the serpent.

We're reminded of the cosmic war between God and Satan.

From the very beginning until, at least at this point, there is a cosmic battle that is going on right this very moment.

We see hints of it all throughout the pages of Scripture.

And here it seems to be reaching its fever pitch.

We're reminded of that.

We're reminded also that Scripture interprets Scripture.

We read this chapter and it sort of sounds like a Hollywood movie.

Like, what?

That's just crazy.

What is meant by that?

Is anything meant by that?

And so we could approach it like a Hollywood movie, and we could come to it and say, well, this is what I think it means, and this is what I think it means, and this is what I think it means.

But we really only get to what it means if we let Scripture tell us what it means.

That's when we really begin to understand what God intends for us to see.

So as we look at this nebula from far away, as though we're standing on the ground and we're looking up at the night sky, and all we see is this faint cloud.

We begin to see forms, we begin to see some shapes.

We can see those four elements.

It reminds us of the beginning, it reminds us of God's promise, it reminds us of this cosmic war that continues, and it reminds us we need to go to Scripture.

God often brings, brings the same or similar images back into the storyline of Scripture.

He may not do it in exactly the same way.

It may be tweaked a little bit here and there, but we see images, we see metaphors, we see similar language recurring here and there, again and again throughout Scripture.

Sometimes they repeat the same themes.

Sometimes it gives a little bit more revelation.

Sometimes it provides a little bit expanded picture, and we begin to see more and more as we trace those things throughout Scripture.

But to see those things, we need to take a little bit step closer.

We need to take a step closer to that nebula, and as we do so, we begin to see that there are three primary images in this vision.

If you're familiar with your Bible and if you listen to it well, you will detect several Old Testament connections.

The first image that we see, obviously, is this woman.

She's pregnant.

And she's dressed very strangely.

She's clothed with the sun.

The moon is under her feet.

And she's wearing a crown.

Not with diamonds in it, not with precious jewels, but with stars in it.

Those cosmic elements of the sun and the moon and the stars instantly tell us that God is drawing this picture to allude to picture Israel.

And you say, well, how do we know that?

Well, we have a very clear parallel to the dream that God gave Joseph in the book of Genesis.

Genesis chapter 37, verse 9.

Genesis 37:9

He tells his family, listen, listen, guys.

You gotta hear this dream that I had.

It's so amazing, it's unbelievable.

The sun, the moon, and the 11 stars were bowing down to me.

Can you believe it?

And his brothers and his dad got mad at him.

They said, You're nuts.

We're never gonna bow down to you.

Little did they know that God was preparing them to do just that.

If you don't know the rest of the story, read the end of Genesis, the last 12 chapters or so.

Jacob very clearly, and his sons very clearly understood this dream that Joseph had to be referring to them as a family.

And as we pick that up here, that is paralleled in this chapter of Revelation to refer to the people of Israel.

Now, how do we how do we affirm that, or how do we confirm that that is the right understanding?

Well, if you read throughout your Old Testament, you will see again and again and again that the descendants of Abraham were likened to stars.

Over and over and over again.

Genesis 15, Genesis 26, Exodus 32, Deuteronomy 1, Deuteronomy 10, Deuteronomy 28, it goes on and on and on.

Over and over and over again that the descendants of Abraham are going to be like the stars in the sky.

Israel as a nation is multiple times pictured as a woman about to give birth.

Micah chapter 4, Isaiah chapter 66.

Micah 4 · chapter mention Isaiah 66 · chapter mention

And so while the far-off image, looking at the nebula from earth, the far-off picture reminds us of Eve and the serpent.

Eve, the mother of all the living, and the promise to give her a son who would crush the serpent, that image is clarified as we draw closer.

We get more details the further we get.

And the first image in the sign reminds us of Eve, but it represents a collective group.

We might say it's corporate, if you'll permit that word.

It represents Israel, the Jewish people, because it was through Israel that the promise to Eve would be fulfilled.

So by concluding Joseph's dream, we see that this image of this woman by herself is not of a, not intended to represent a person, but a people.

That's the first image.

The second image is a great red dragon.

A great red dragon.

Another sign appeared in heaven, verse 3, and behold, a great red dragon.

Seven heads and ten horns, and on his head seven diadems.

Notice the attention getter.

Behold, a great red dragon.

If you thought the woman was weird, the dragon's stranger.

This is one strange dragon.

But God interprets this image for us in verse 9.

He says, the great dragon is that ancient serpent.

Again, another Old Testament image that's passed on down through the pages and the ages of time.

This dragon is representative of this entity, this being that we know as Satan, the devil, the deceiver of the whole world.

But there's an echo here to the book of Daniel in chapter 7.

All kinds of echoes here back to Daniel.

Daniel chapter 7, Daniel was given a vision, a dream of something very similar.

Daniel 7 · chapter mention

There was a creature with seven heads, each with a crown in Daniel 7, and ten horns.

Now in Daniel chapter 7, those heads and horns represented kingdoms, earthly kingdoms with human rulers and governments that were influenced by Satan and his demons.

Daniel 7 · chapter mention

That was what Daniel saw, and that's what Daniel was told.

And that that image is being brought back now at the end of the New Testament to remind us.

Do you remember this?

Do you remember what God said?

Now, in many prophetic texts, but especially in Daniel, human governments and people groups are said to be influenced by spiritual beings.

Either holy angels or evil angels.

Demons.

In fact, Daniel may suggest that every nation on earth has a demon assigned to it.

By the way, I'll give you a little tidbit to argue about over lunch in case you don't have enough to argue about.

That may be a little bit of a hint why God never says to fight against your government, to never go against your government, to never rebel against your government.

Now I'm not commenting on whether that's right or wrong.

I'm just saying God doesn't say that.

Because the bigger picture behind world events is not whether one nation is fighting against another nation or whether one government is righteous and another government is unholy.

The bigger issue is that there's a cosmic battle going on that you don't understand, and your best bet against anything going on in this world is to pray for your rulers and your leaders, as the Apostle Paul says.

Because there's a spiritual battle going on.

A third of the stars of heaven are cast down to the earth in verse 4 by this dragon's tail.

Sometimes people are referred to as stars in scripture.

We've already seen that sometimes Israel is referred to as stars.

But the of heaven part here probably indicates that these are angels.

And notice how the vision goes on to describe in verse 7 and verse 9 that there is this dragon with his angels.

The dragon here is pictured as attentive to the woman about to give birth because he wants to destroy her child.

So there is enmity between the woman and the dragon and between her child and the dragon.

So this vision is consistent.

It's consistent in this way.

The first image represents a people group.

It's corporate because it isn't a single person, but many.

In the same way, the dragon isn't merely the evil angel that we call Satan.

The dragon is Satan, but along with him are a bunch of other evil angels.

Evil angels with him and human beings and governments and people groups that he influences to do his bidding.

It too represents more than a single element.

It is a corporate image.

So the first one is the woman.

The second one is the great red dragon.

The third one is the male child who will rule the nations.

This child is a target before it's born.

You can ask what that says about or indicates or alludes to about life before birth.

This child is a target before it is born.

The dragon and his cronies are ready and waiting to destroy the child at birth.

Remember Herod?

Remember Herod?

But this child is not just any child, this child is one who will rule with a rod of iron.

So this son, again reminding us of the seed of Eve through the woman Israel, this son will rule the nations with a rod of iron.

And that echoes Psalm chapter 2, verse 9, where God says of his son, Yahweh says of his son, I will make the nations your heritage and the ends of the earth your possession.

Psalms 2:9

You shall break them with a rod of iron and dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel.

Have you ever broken a lamp?

Or broken a dish?

That's a potter's vessel.

It's something that's that's made with clay-like substance that can shatter and break.

And if you hit that thing with a steel rod, the rod of iron, it's going to shatter.

The language here is reminiscent of the exodus from Egypt.

Like Moses, who was rescued from Pharaoh's orders to destroy all the male children, and was brought to the mountain of God in his glorious presence, so too this child is rescued from the dragon's intentions and taken to God and his throne.

Like Israel's flight into the desert to be cared for by God, so too this woman will flee to the desert to be cared for by God.

Do you see all of these repetitive themes coming back to us from the book of Genesis, from the book of Exodus, and on?

We see these things coming back again and again and again.

So Scripture helps us interpret Scripture.

These are some of the things that we observe as we draw closer to the nebula.

So where are we?

We've observed from a distance the elements that remind us of God's eternal plan to restore his sin-cursed world to himself.

We're reminded of God's promises, and along the way, we see how he brought about those promises.

And as we've stepped closer, we begin to see more details about the characters involved in God's purpose and plan and how those characters relate to each other and how they fulfill God's intent.

We also see that at least two of these characters represent something more than just a single entity.

They represent much more than that.

They are representations of a corporate or a group of characters.

But we have yet to discern exactly how the third image, the image of the child, is fleshed out, is developed in this vision.

But to see that more closely, more clearly, we have to move closer to the text.

We have to get closer to the nebula, as though we're moving into the inner depths of that nebula itself.

And there we begin to see something of the mind of God.

Now let remind us all where we're going.

As we seek to understand what John the Apostle saw and recorded by the will of God, we're going to find ourselves quite small.

As we begin to see the awesome stretches of the universe and what's out there and our place in it, we feel very small.

Yet in the end, we're going to be awed by the grandeur and the grace of God.

We're going to see his sovereign work from the beginning of Scripture until the end of this age.

And we're going to see the cosmic battle raging on and on until it arrives at its fever pitch.

And we're going to find ourselves overwhelmed by the detail of Scripture, the plan of God, and His marvelous grace to us.

Are you still with me?

Good.

Now to get there, we have to delve even more into the riches of the details of the mind of God, as though we're entering into the very depths of the nebula.

Because we have a dilemma before us.

The first two images, the woman and the dragon, represent more than one entity.

They represent groups, peoples, powers, influences on the world stage.

But how are we to understand the image of the child to whom the woman gives birth?

Now, at first glance, it comes, I think, easily to the Christian mind that the child, that's the Lord Jesus Christ, whom Satan attempted to destroy at his birth, but whom God rescued and later raised up from the dead and who ascended into heaven.

That doesn't sound like a corporate image.

It sounds like Jesus.

And let's be honest, seeing the child as representing Christ alone is a very possible interpretation of this image.

But if we're also honest, we have to recognize that if that's the case, then it would break the consistency that we see so far in the first two images.

We'll be going from corporate entity, corporate entity to singular, one.

God can do whatever he wants, and so that might be what's happening here.

So it's worth asking, though, if there is more to this child than we first observe from the distance.

As we move closer to the text and we get deeper into it, is there more to see?

And the answer is, yes, there is.

There is.

Because we're beginning to see what's going on in the mind of God.

This child is mentioned specifically four times in this text.

In verse 4, we see that the woman bore her child.

And the dragon wanted to devour it.

We see in verse 5 twice she gave birth to a male child, and her child was caught up to God and to his throne.

Again in verse 13, we see that the woman who had given birth to the male child.

These four references to the child employ three different Greek words.

You have to remember, the Apostle John is seeing this on the island of Patmos.

He's sort of in prison on an island that was normally used for prison.

And God gave him this vision, and he's writing it down in his language, which was Greek.

And he used three different words in these four references to refer to a child.

That may be insignificant or it may be of great significance, depending on many variables.

Now in verse 4, and at the end of verse 5, we find a typical word for child.

Now, even in English, our English word child doesn't refer to a particular sex of child unless it is defined in the context.

So in verse 4, she bore her child.

In verse 5, at the end of verse 5, her child was caught up to God.

But in the first part of verse 5, the woman gave birth to a male child.

Two different words are employed here.

And neither one is the generic word for child.

The primary word at the beginning of verse 5 is the word for son.

She gave birth to a son.

That noun is followed by an adjective describing the son.

And it's a word that refers to biological sex.

It's male.

So if you're reading from the English Standard Version, it's obscured by the translation child.

So it's the second line on the screen here.

She gave birth to a male child.

So the first word, male, is the actual word for son.

Child is male.

ESV's kind of flipped it up.

A literal rendering would look like this.

She gave birth to a son.

Male.

You can see why we have to change that up in English, right?

We have to make it a little bit smoother for people to read.

But what's going on here?

The same word that is male here in verse 4 is the word used in verse 13, the woman who had given birth to the male.

And we add child to make it make sense.

So we should wonder if there's anything significant about using different words to describe this child.

And I would suggest to you there is something, and it is essential.

There is a flashing neon sign that is easy to miss in English, but impossible to ignore if you are a person in the first century reading John's writing in Greek.

Imagine flying into the Orion Nebula and seeing a giant flashing star that it is at once blinding in its brilliance, but so intriguing that you can't take your eyes away from it.

Sort of like rubbernecking on the road when somebody has a wreck.

Look at that kind of thing.

You can't take your eyes away from it.

What's going on here?

That neon sign is in verse 5.

It's the adjective that God had John write to describe the woman's son.

That adjective is the word male.

Now, we need to observe two things about that word, two elements.

Number one, it's not unusual for a noun to be followed by an adjective that further describes the noun.

Now, in English, we flip the word order around.

In English, we usually put the adjective first, so a bright star.

A tall boy, a pretty girl.

The first element that draws our attention is like the star's brilliance.

In this case, the adjective is entirely unnecessary.

John does not need to say she gave birth to a son male.

Son already implies, is biologically male.

Already implies the sex.

There's no need to repeat it with a different word.

So that's God's way of drawing our attention to it.

He makes it stand out.

But the second element that draws our attention is comparable to that brilliant star turning on and off like a flashing light bulb.

You can't miss it.

It's brilliant.

You can't help but see its brightness, and then it's flashing on and off.

And God's saying, Hey, you're in the midst of the nebula.

Do you see this?

You can't miss it.

I look weird up here, don't I?

You can't miss it.

See, as John wrote what God revealed to him, he purposefully broke the rules of Greek grammar.

Big deal, right?

We all break the rules.

Well, the English language doesn't rely on the gender of words as much as some other languages.

In John's Greek, the adjective that describes the noun, so you have two words, a noun and an adjective, those two have to be of the same gender.

So if son is masculine, then male, the word for male, must also be masculine.

That's the rule of the grammar.

But John broke the rule.

Son is masculine, and the word for male is not masculine or feminine.

It's neuter.

That shouldn't happen in Greek.

Now you might ask, well, did somebody make a mistake?

Did somebody make a copying mistake?

No.

This goes all the way back.

This is consistent.

John did it this way.

It shouldn't happen in Greek, but John did it anyway.

That's the flashing star in the nebula.

And to top it off, this appears to be the only time in all of Greek literature where we find these two words together.

What is John doing?

The better question is what's in the mind of God?

God's giving John a vision, and he's telling him, write this down.

What's in the mind of God?

Our first step in solving this dilemma is to see if we find an answer in the scripture.

And we do.

At the end of the book of Isaiah, in Isaiah chapter 66, verses 7 and 8, God spoke of, guess what?

Isaiah 66:7

A woman in labor giving birth to a son.

And the word used for son is John's word, male.

But the interesting point, there's a connection there, but the more interesting point is in the following verse of Isaiah 66, Isaiah 66, 8, where the text asks, who has heard such a thing?

Who has seen such things?

What's strange about a woman giving birth to a son?

Well, that's not strange.

What is strange is who the son represents.

Shall a land be born in a day?

Shall a nation be brought forth in a moment?

See what John's doing?

John's tying in this son of Revelation 12 with the son of Isaiah 66, so that we might see that this son is not simply a single entity, but he's picturing somebody being brought forth as a nation.

The nation's not Israel in Isaiah 66.

The nation's an entirely different group of people in Isaiah 66.

Isaiah connects the birth of the male with the birth of a group.

And the word that John uses as a flashing neon light was used in Isaiah to describe God bringing about a new nation, a new people in the language of a woman giving birth, even with labor pains.

So John says that the seed of the woman in Genesis that is delivered through the nation of Israel is Christ the Lord, is Jesus, and he represents a new nation, a new people brought forth by God.

And that is exactly what Peter implied when he wrote.

Thank you.

You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a what?

A holy nation.

A people for his own possession, so that you might proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness and into his marvelous light.

He goes on, it's it's really fascinating.

I wish we had time to delve into this more.

He goes on to connect God's church with this language.

He says, You who are once not a people are now a people.

We weren't Israel, now you are brought into God's family.

How?

Because he caused a new nation, a new group, a new people to be born out of Israel.

How?

Through the child to whom she gave birth, the Lord Jesus Christ, who would draw people to himself.

Now, let's notice another detail in verse 5 about ruling with a rod of iron back in chapter 12 of Revelation.

Her child is one who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron.

Now that sounds like Christ, right?

That sounds like Jesus.

That applies to Jesus, right in line with Psalm 2 verse 9.

Psalms 2:9

But is it only Jesus?

It's surprising how many, how many commentators talk about this verse and say that that decides the issue.

This is Jesus and only Jesus.

It cannot refer to anybody more than Jesus.

Well, I would quibble with that because John in the book of Revelation says it's more than Jesus.

If you look back at chapter 2 of Revelation, chapter 2, verse 26, Jesus says to the ancient church of Thyatira, he says, to the one who conquers and who keeps my words until the end, to him I will give authority over the nations, and he, the one in Christ, who's part of his church, who conquers in Christ, he will rule them with a rod of iron, as when earthen pots are broken in pieces, even as I myself have received authority from my Father.

Revelation 2:26

John himself is recording the words of Jesus who says to his church, I am granting my church the authority to rule alongside me.

I am giving them my authority, they will reign with me.

Therefore we are identified with him even in the rod of iron.

My friends, do you see how scripture helps interpret scripture?

What does all this mean?

It means that the particular details that God gave John to include in this letter connect Jesus, the Son, with his church.

Jesus is the Son of verse 5.

But the church is connected to Jesus through that strange adjective that looks back to Isaiah 66 and the birth of a nation.

And in Jesus, the church will rule with him in the book of Revelation.

It also means that each image in this vision is corporate.

They represent more than a single entity.

And John takes great pains to make that connection obvious, as though we're in the middle of the nebula and we got this bright light flashing on and off.

Now, it also means then that the church will be rescued from the time of great tribulation that will come upon the whole earth.

If we do this exegetical work right, and we connect the pieces of scripture with the pieces of scripture, then the only conclusion that we can come away with is this one.

Yes, I'm talking about that event that we call the rapture.

Alright, let's go to lunch.

Our word for rapture comes from the Latin translation.

So you won't find the word rapture in your Bible.

Because it's the Latin translation of a word found in verse 5 of Revelation 12.

Her child was caught up.

Harpazo.

Latin translated that with the word rapture.

So word harpazo.

Is found here in Revelation 12, 5 and in 1 Thessalonians 4, verse 17.

1 Thessalonians 4:17

It's primarily a negative word in Greek literature.

It speaks of a forceful taking of something.

It would be like if you had your phone in your hand and I came walking by and I just ripped it out of your hand.

It's not gentle, it's forceful.

It's not a letting go, it's a taking away.

It's often used in context of theft, of robbery, and of war.

And the context of war is appropriate here in Revelation 12, for this is a war between God and the dragon.

The woman's child is caught up, is forcibly removed, rescued from the dragon.

Now, this is often used or thought to refer to Jesus' ascension to heaven.

Because he's obviously the Son and He was caught up to heaven.

Well, that doesn't work for at least a couple of reasons.

Number one, Jesus ascended by his own power.

He was not forcibly rescued from danger.

I mean, he'd already been crucified and risen.

What danger is there now to this one?

Second, the word harpazo is never used for Jesus anywhere else in Scripture.

But it is used for the church in 1 Thessalonians 4.

And since the image of the child, as we've seen, is corporate, this can, in fact, it must refer to the snatching away, the rescuing of Christ's church from coming danger.

I'm going to make a very strong statement at this point.

This passage provides the most detailed exegetical proof in Scripture that the great rescue comes before the tribulation.

God lays out the order of events following that great rescue of the image of Christ and his church.

I preached my time away.

Let's look at what God lays out in the rest of the chapter very briefly.

Beginning in verse 7.

So we've we leave off in verse 6 where the child is caught up.

A woman in the wilderness, she has a place prepared by God where she is to be nourished for 1,260 days.

That's three and a half years, which equals the time in verse 14, a time times and half a time.

So we see that John is sort of now kind of recapitulating.

He's going back and he's talking about some of the things that have already happened.

And what God lays out in the rest of the chapter looks like this.

He says, there's an intense war in heaven that follows the great rescue.

And it's important to note that scripture indicates this takes time.

In Daniel, I believe it's Daniel chapter 10, the angel Gabriel fought against a demon that was assigned to the Persian kingdom.

Daniel 10 · chapter mention

And that fight took three weeks, and he only took three weeks because Michael, the archangel, came to help Gabriel out.

Now multiply that by multitudes of demons and multitudes of holy angels.

The great rescue takes place, and there is war that arises in heaven, comes about because of that, and the dragon and his minions are thrown out of heaven as a result.

Now remember, they do not reside in heaven presently.

But they do have access to heaven.

Scripture doesn't seem to indicate that they are barred in heaven at all.

Job tells us in the first chapter of Job that the sons of God, demons, came to accuse Job.

And here it says there's accusations day and night.

Satan and his minions have access to heaven at this very moment.

But during this particular war, at the end of this particular element in the cosmic battle, that access will finally and intentionally be abolished.

The casting out of Satan and his demons from heavenly access will result in celebration in heaven.

I think my opinion is that this mimics the initial casting out that we see echoed in other prophetic passages where Satan's home, the evil angels before they rebelled against God, their home was in heaven, and they were kicked out of that home.

They were not kicked out of access to heaven, but that was no longer their home.

Instead, this world and this realm is their home.

But they still have access.

But this also marks the end of any accusations against God's people because there is no longer access to make accusation.

There's a war.

Satan is defeated, and Satan is finally and forever abolished from heaven.

Second, Satan's anger increases after his defeat.

And the permanent expulsion from heaven.

Verse 13, when the dragon saw that he'd been thrown down to the earth, he pursued the woman who had given birth to the male child.

That anger is taken out on the nation of Israel.

We see here in the form of a flood.

Verse 15, the serpent poured water like a river out of his mouth to sweep her away with a flood.

This is another biblical image.

A flood refers to invading armies when it's used in the context of war.

For example, you can look at Psalm 124, that refers to this.

David refers to people who rose up against Israel as a potential flood that would sweep people away.

It's a biblical image.

It's used again and again.

Isaiah 8 is another passage with similar language.

So after the war in heaven and Satan's removal, that dragon takes out his anger on Israel by instigating an attack against her.

However, that attack will be fruitless because of God's divine intervention.

Ironically, it's the reverse of the exodus.

In the exodus, the waters parted to allow Israel to go through, and when God's enemies came back, came through, the waters came in.

At this time, the waters go out to sweep Israel away, and the earth opens up to swallow them.

Angry with Israel, angry with his abolishment from heaven, Satan attacks Israel.

Verse 17.

Then the dragon became furious.

His attempts at instigating human governments and human armies against his enemy is thwarted by God, and so he becomes furious with the woman and goes off to make war on the rest of her offspring.

Who are those offspring?

On those who keep the commandments of God and hold to the testimony of Jesus.

There again we see that corporate nature.

We are linked with Jesus.

And he stood on the sand of the sea.

Angry with Israel, Satan will go after tribulation saints.

A person called the beast, described in chapter 13.

Now let's come back to Earth.

So we've gone, we've looked at the nebula from a distance, we've we've we've zoomed in a little bit, going into the very depths, and we've now we need to kind of take a step back.

Regain some perspective.

The Apostle Paul told the church in Thessalonica twice that Jesus will rescue us from the coming wrath.

One of those times he uses the word that we know as rapture.

We will be rescued, snatched away from the coming wrath.

In 1 Thessalonians, that wrath is called the day of the Lord.

A term that encapsulates Daniel chapter 9, Daniel's 70th week.

Daniel 9 · chapter mention

See, God designated a time in which to wrap up his earthly program, primarily oriented around the Jewish people.

Why?

Because she is the one through whom God would supply the seed of the woman to redeem the world, and through whom he would raise up a people for himself who would come back with him to rule with a rod of iron.

And that time is a time of great wrath.

Now in our churches, we often think of that as a time of the wrath of God, and it is true.

We will see that in the rest of Revelation.

But beloved, it's not just God's wrath.

Again, let's let Scripture interpret Scripture.

When we take a step back, we see that Revelation chapter 12, verse 12, describes the dragon coming down to earth in great wrath.

Revelation 12:12

Because he knows his time is short.

Further, he's full of anger which is poured out on the earth.

So if Daniel's 70th week, those seven years of tribulation, are times of great wrath or years of great wrath, and if God has promised to remove his church from those days of wrath through a great rescue, which we see in Scripture, a forceful snatching away from his enemy, then Revelation 12 answers all of the detailed questions about how and when that will happen.

And I would suggest to you that it's the only eschatological system that can fully answer all of the details.

Now, as we step back even further, and we take a deep breath, we find ourselves quite small in the scope of God's eternal plan as we back away further and further to terra firma, the ground upon which we live and walk.

Yet if we let our let ourselves rest in that and be comfortable in that smallness.

We can find ourselves awed by God's grandeur and his grace when we grasp that he loves us enough to make a way for that to be.

We can trust him with tomorrow.

We can trust him with the unknown.

We can trust him with the pains and the agonies and the sorrows of life.

We can fulfill his command to not be anxious, for the one who made all things holds everything together by the word of his power, and the one who holds all things together is the one who holds your hand and will soon take you home.

Lord Jesus, please come soon.

We as your people are humbled by your revelation.

And even though we may not grasp all of it, and we may have uncertainties and we lack clarity, we can trust that you hold all things together and you hold us to yourself.

You will not let us go.

You will not leave us nor forsake us.

And soon, Lord, may it be very soon that you come to snatch us away, to take us home, to be with you forever.

And so we look, Lord, for your return.

Amen.

That concludes this sermon from Faith Evangelical Free Church.

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