{"id":7379,"date":"2020-11-24T05:35:00","date_gmt":"2020-11-24T11:35:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mbcnewhaven.com\/wp\/?p=7379"},"modified":"2020-11-23T18:46:28","modified_gmt":"2020-11-24T00:46:28","slug":"revelation-12","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mbcnewhaven.com\/?p=7379","title":{"rendered":"Revelation 12"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

12\u00a0<\/strong>And a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman\u00a0clothed with\u00a0the sun, with\u00a0the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars.\u00a02\u00a0<\/sup>She was pregnant and\u00a0was crying out in birth pains and the agony of giving birth.\u00a0
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Later in the chapter, it is clear that this child born of Israel is Jesus<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

3\u00a0<\/sup>And another sign appeared in heaven: behold, a great\u00a0red dragon,\u00a0with seven heads and\u00a0ten horns, and on his heads\u00a0seven diadems.\u00a04\u00a0<\/sup>His tail swept down\u00a0a third of the stars of heaven and\u00a0cast them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman who was about to give birth, so that when she bore her child\u00a0he might devour it.\u00a05\u00a0<\/sup>She gave birth to a male child,\u00a0one who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron, but her child was\u00a0caught up to God and to his throne,\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Clearly, this refers to Jesus Christ, the Messiah. He rules the world with a\u00a0rod of iron\u00a0(Psalm 2:9 and Revelation 19:15).<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

6\u00a0<\/sup>and the woman fled into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God, in which she is to be nourished for\u00a01,260 days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Satan Thrown Down to Earth<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

7\u00a0<\/sup>Now war arose in heaven,\u00a0Michael and\u00a0his angels fighting against the dragon. And the dragon and his angels fought back,\u00a08\u00a0<\/sup>but he was defeated, and there was no longer any place for them in heaven.\u00a0
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the mid-point of the great tribulation, God will turn the tide against Satan \u2013 first in heaven, then on earth. A battle will take place that will deny Satan access to heaven.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

9\u00a0<\/sup>And\u00a0the great dragon was thrown down,\u00a0that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan,\u00a0the deceiver of the whole world\u2014he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him.\u00a010\u00a0<\/sup>And I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, \u201cNow\u00a0the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers\u00a0has been thrown down,\u00a0who accuses them day and night before our God.\u00a011\u00a0<\/sup>And\u00a0they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for\u00a0they loved not their lives\u00a0even unto death.12\u00a0<\/sup>Therefore,\u00a0rejoice, O heavens and you who dwell in them! But\u00a0woe to you, O earth and sea, for the devil has come down to you in great wrath, because\u00a0he knows that his time is short!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The blood of Jesus heals our troubled conscience, because we know that by His death our sin is atoned for (Hebrews 9:14). But to\u00a0only<\/em>\u00a0use the blood of Jesus in that way is selfish. We should be like \u201cthese saints used the doctrine of atonement not as a pillow to rest their weariness, but as a weapon to subdue their sin.\u201d (Spurgeon)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

13\u00a0<\/sup>And when the dragon saw that he had been thrown down to the earth, he pursued\u00a0(AC<\/a>)<\/sup>the woman who had given birth to the male child.14\u00a0<\/sup>But the woman was given the two\u00a0wings of the great eagle so that she might fly from the serpent\u00a0into the wilderness, to the place where she is to be nourished\u00a0for a time, and times, and half a time.\u00a015\u00a0<\/sup>The serpent poured water\u00a0like a river out of his mouth after the woman, to sweep her away with a flood.\u00a016\u00a0<\/sup>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.\u00a017\u00a0<\/sup>Then the dragon became furious with the woman and went off\u00a0to make war on the rest of\u00a0(AI<\/a>)<\/sup>her offspring,\u00a0on those who keep the commandments of God and hold to\u00a0the testimony of Jesus. And he stood on the sand of the sea.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"excerpt","protected":false},"author":1168,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":"","filesize_raw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7379","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bible-reading"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mbcnewhaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7379","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mbcnewhaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mbcnewhaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mbcnewhaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1168"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mbcnewhaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7379"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mbcnewhaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7379\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7380,"href":"https:\/\/mbcnewhaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7379\/revisions\/7380"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mbcnewhaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7379"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mbcnewhaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7379"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mbcnewhaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7379"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}