Revelation 12

Verses 1-3

The Woman and the Dragon

“Then God’s temple in heaven was opened, and the ark of his covenant appeared in his temple. There were lightnings, voices, thunders, an earthquake, and a great hailstorm.

A great sign appeared in heaven: 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 cried out in labor and in the agony of giving birth.

Another sign appeared in heaven: behold, a great red dragon with seven heads and ten horns, and seven diadems on his heads.”

 

1. When does what we find in Revelation 12 take place?

2. Why do we read again here about lightnings, voices, thunders, an                      earthquake, and a great hailstorm?

3. Who is represented by the woman?

4. Who is represented by the dragon?

 

(1) When does what we find in Revelation 12 take place?

In terms of content, the last verse of chapter 11 belongs to chapter 12. For that reason, it is discussed here. Revelation 11:19 is a very important verse because it allows the reader to view history from a new perspective, while also taking a step back in time. This is again evident from the verb tense, which often indicates a disruption of the chronological order. Until and including Revelation 11:18, it was the past tense. The twenty-four elders "fell on their faces and said..." What follows is indeed in the present tense: "We thank you..." However, that is because what they "said" is quoted verbatim.

In verse 19, the past tense suddenly switches to the passive voice in the past tense: "was opened – was seen – was seen – was seen." What was seen is then again in the past tense. The passive voice, which John transitions to is new in the book.

 

Looking at what happens before 11:19, the break in chronology is unavoidable. After all, given the blowing of the seventh trumpet and the worship of the elders, the coming of God and the fulfillment of all prophecies are imminent. Then there is no room for another period of "one thousand two hundred and sixty days" (Revelation 12:6), or "time, times, and half a time" (Revelation 12:14).

The vision inevitably places us back in time. However, how far back? Are we placed again at the beginning of the final half-week of the year? The answer is twofold: on the one hand, no, and on the other, yes. It is crucial here to view Revelation 11:19 as the foundation upon which chapter 12 rests. But to understand this properly, we must return once more to chapters 10 and 11.

 

In Revelation 10, the mighty angel descended from heaven with an open book, the prophecies concerning the people of God, specifically concerning the people of Israel until the coming of Christ. This all seems to begin beautifully with a temple and a sacrificial service (sweet to the palate), but ultimately it degenerates into the greatest conceivable horrors of global idolatry (the stomach becomes bitter).

Revelation 11 then shows how this relates to the temple. The outer court and everything outside it are given to the nations for forty-two months, who will trample the holy city. The two witnesses block access to the temple and prophesy to the entire world for 1,260 days. They are then killed by the beast from the abyss, which, as indicated in Revelation 9, unfolds worldwide as the most cruel and totalitarian tyrant in human history. The death of the two witnesses opens the temple to this tyrant. But the two witnesses rise and ascend to heaven. An earthquake destroys a tenth of the city. The seventh trumpet blows, announcing the coming of God Himself.

 

Based on the events of Revelation 11, one might think that everything revolves around the temple. The beast from the abyss has defiled the temple, and therefore God comes with his judgment and his reckoning. But then Revelation 12 reveals a deeper layer of history. While God's earthly temple is important, there is something even more important. In the vision, John and his readers' gaze is directed from the earthly temple to the heavenly temple. "And the temple of God in heaven was opened." And what does John see there? "...and the ark of his covenant was seen in his temple."

It is the ark that was missing from the earthly temple. At the beginning of Revelation 11, only the temple, the altar, and those who worship there needed to be measured. The ark of the covenant has been missing since Jeremiah hid it from Nebuchadnezzar's armies, who captured Jerusalem and burned the temple with fire. This happened around 600 BC. Since then, no one has heard anything of it. There is much speculation about the whereabouts of the ark of the covenant, and books and films have been written about it. But no one knows for sure where the ark of the covenant is. For God, that chest and its contents have lost their meaning. Since the Babylonian exile, we read of no further reference to it in the Bible, except here.

 

But here, it is not about the earthly temple of God, but about the heavenly one. The eternal resting place of the ark is no longer in an earthly temple, but in a heavenly one. That is where it belongs from now on. The reason for this is twofold. (1) First, heaven is the "established place" of God's dwelling, as Solomon prays at the dedication of the temple. But even more importantly: (2) heaven is the place where the Savior brought his blood. "For Christ has not entered a sanctuary made with hands, a copy of the true one, but into heaven itself, to appear in the presence of God for us." “But Christ, having come as high priest of the good things to come, through the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands (that is, not of this creation), nor through the blood of goats and calves, but through his own blood, entered the Most Holy Place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption.”

Eternal redemption is connected to heaven. That is why God directs our gaze from the earthly temple to the heavenly temple. There stands the ark of the covenant. Do we see what lies upon it? The blood of Christ, as of an unblemished and spotless Lamb. And when it comes to the place where Christ shed his blood, God directs our gaze to a level that goes deeper than the temple, a level that goes all the way back to the beginning of creation, where all the problems began. We will return to this later in point (3).

 

In conclusion, Revelation 11:19 places us at the moment that the earthly ark was replaced by a heavenly one, when God gave up his earthly throne because of the sins of his earthly people, Israel. At that time, the temple and the city were destroyed and the people were led into exile in Babylon. This is where Revelation 12 starts, with God's earthly people removed from their central place on the world stage. They were replaced by world empires, that came under control of the dragon.

 

(2) Why do we read here again about lightning, voices, peals of thunder, an earthquake, and great hail?

The lightning, voices, and peals of thunder are the usual manifestations emanating from God's throne, as we see in Revelation 4:5. When a door is opened in the heavenly temple and the ark of God is seen there, as the throne of God, it is not surprising that we also see and hear the manifestations associated with that throne. However, there is more to come, namely: "earthquake and great hail." The earthquakes in Revelation display a symmetrical pattern, with the great earthquake of Revelation 11:13 taking center stage. After that earthquake, the seventh trumpet sounds, and the kingdom of the Lord and of his Christ is announced. The twenty-four elders, in worship, have described God's final appearance in the world, for which "the time has come." All thunders and lightnings going out from the throne will finally culminate in the great judgment of the last vial that will be poured out 'on the air' in Revelation 16:16, ending in the greatest of earthquakes and hailstorms the earth ever witnessed. After that, no more is heard of thunders and lightnings going out from the throne.

 

The thunders and lightnings follow the display of heaven's ark. God's coming and his final appearance in the world are based on the ark of the covenant upon which the blood of the Lord Jesus was sprinkled. Everything is based on his atoning work. He was slain and He has redeemed us for our God… and therefore He is worthy to take the scroll and break its seals. He has sprinkled his blood in the innermost sanctuary of heavenly reality, and that is the basis for God's final dealings with this world, both in rewarding all who sided with him and in dealing with those who sided with the adversary. The latter is further underscored by the earthquake and the great hail. It is a foreshadowing of all that is yet to come and which will definitively crush Satan's kingdom on earth. The seven bowl judgments are coming. The earthquake is the first shock, heralding the greatest earthquake in the history of the seventh bowl (16:18). The hail is a foreshadowing of the enormous hail that will fall upon the earth under that same seventh bowl.

 

(3) Who is represented by the woman?

After focusing on the blood of the Lamb on the ark in the heavenly temple—see point (1)—the deeper layer of history can be explored. And that is shown here in a "great sign" seen in heaven. It is "great" in the sense of "important," more important than the earthly temple of Revelation 11. The Spirit of God takes us from the misery the beast inflicts on earth (Revelation 9), through the mighty angel with the little book over the people of Israel (Revelation 10), the earthly temple with the two witnesses (Revelation 11), and via the key verse of the ark of the covenant in the heavenly temple (Revelation 11:19) to the central theme of world history. This central theme runs through "the woman." It was through the woman that Satan brought evil to the earth and unleashed rebellion against God. It will be through the woman that God will turn evil into salvation and that rebellion against God will be crushed. The central theme of the woman throughout world history is the theme of redemption and victory. The thread that Revelation 12 picks up began long ago with a prophecy about the woman. There would be enmity between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent. The seed of the woman would bruise the serpent's head, and the serpent would bruise its heel. That is the essence of world history.

 

However, we are not completely transported back to the Garden of Eden. For this woman is adorned with the sun, has the moon at her feet, and wears a crown of twelve stars. This is reminiscent of Joseph's dream, in which the eleven brothers bowed before him as stars and his father and mother as the sun and moon. We are dealing here with the people of Israel. From the descent of the mighty angel with the open book, history is placed in the perspective of the prophecies about Israel. For Israel, the sun was the blessed presence of God Himself. They were intended by God to be a people of light and of the day. The moon beneath her feet may indicate the moon as an important indicator on Israel's annual calendar, so that the people knew when to go up to the LORD to celebrate His feasts, but also when it was the time for sowing and reaping. The twelve stars here seem to represent the twelve tribes of Israel, each of which was to be a light for the surrounding nations. In short, the woman represents faithful Israel, as intended by God and which would become the channel through which He would bring "the seed of the woman," the Redeemer, into the world.

 

The question then is whether we are being placed here at the beginning of Israel's history. That seems not to be the case for two reasons. (1) The ark of the covenant was the first thing John's attention was drawn to in Revelation 11:19, and that ark is seen in the heavenly temple, not the earthly temple. The point in time at which Revelation returns the reader is the same point where the reader of Daniel 2 or Daniel 7 is placed. At the beginning of the nation of Israel under the world empires, God no longer assigns his people a central place in world history and counts the years according to the kings of the world empires. (2) The presence of "the other sign in heaven", the dragon, also indicates that we are dealing with a faithful Israel, severely oppressed by world empires, so much so that the Redeemer, who comes from her, could be devoured by those empires.

 

This threat to the nation's survival also occurred at the beginning of Israel's creation as a nation, when Pharaoh forced it to throw newborn boys into the Nile. However, this lasted only a relatively short period of a few decades, and was quickly dealt with by the LORD. But since Israel failed as a witness of God on earth and was taken into exile under the world empires, the faithful part of the nation has been in constant danger for centuries. The Babylonian Empire brought the exile and the compulsion to idolatry. The Median Persian Empire threatened Israel's survival because of Haman. Two parts of the Greek empire, the Ptolemies and the Seleucids, were constantly at war, causing Israel, which lay between them, to bear the brunt. In Herod's Massacre of the Innocents in Bethlehem, the Roman Empire almost literally did what is described in Revelation 12:4. This naturally brings us to the fourth question.

 

(4) Who is represented by the dragon?

The dragon is depicted as fiery red, with seven heads and ten horns, and seven diadems on its heads. Who the dragon is need not be a mystery to any interpreter, because John tells us in verse 9: "And the great dragon was cast out, that ancient serpent, called the Devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world."

From the ark in God's temple in heaven, we have already seen that this chapter concerns God's plan of salvation. It was a plan that was announced to the serpent immediately after salvation became necessary due to the sin of the first human beings. Naturally, the serpent does everything in his power to prevent the Redeemer of humanity from coming into the world, who will crush his head. We can trace these efforts from the moment the first human couple leaves the Garden of Eden. However, John's vision reveals Satan's efforts from the moment the ark of the covenant was moved from the earthly to the heavenly temple, and God no longer dwelt on earth among his people, as we saw in Revelation 11:19.

 

Satan is "the prince of the power of the air." He is a "prince or power in the heavenly places." He can only exert his influence on earth by influencing people to work for him. He does this by having them build a vast world empire and thus seize all power for himself. But because they do this in obedience to Satan, it is Satan who holds all the power. For this reason, we see Satan as a fiery red dragon with seven heads, each crowned. Thus, seven crowns. Throughout history, starting with Babylon, Satan has repeatedly reared his head in seven (sub)kingdoms to destroy Israel. If we count the world empires or fragments of empires from the Babylonian exile onward, there are indeed seven: Babylon (1) – Media and Persia (2) (two empires in one) – the Ptolemies and the Seleucids (2) (two fragments of the Greek empire) – and Rome, which split into an Eastern and a Western Roman Empire (2).

 

However, Rome can also be divided into two parts in a second way: the old Roman Empire and the Roman Empire in its final form, a mighty nation that toward the end of the age would subdue the remains of the Roman empire in Europe. The ample similarities between Bible prophecy and the historic development of United States clearly show this military, technological, political and military powerhouse as the heir of the Roman empire.  The Roman world empire runs underneath European history and ultimately resurfaced in ten horns. They were Europe's nations at the time the USA started to rise. But the ten horns do not yet have crowns in Revelation 12. There are two reasons for this: (1) The dragon is depicted before he is cast out of heaven. The horns only receive their crowns afterward, as is shown in Revelation 13 and 17. (2) This is not about the kings of the kingdoms, but about the power behind them. That is the dragon. Satan is 'the power behind the throne,' the true ruler of all kingdoms, and therefore he wears the crowns. Like Satan said to Jesus: 'For it (this power and the glory of the kingdoms of the earth) has been delivered to me, and to whomever I wish I will give it.' In the depiction of the final world empire in Revelation 13, we therefore see no crowns on the seven heads, only on the ten horns.

 

The color for 'fire red' mentioned in Greek is 'pyrros,' which also appears as the color of the second horse of the apocalyptic horsemen in Revelation 6:4 and is very similar to 'pyrinos,' one of the colors in the armor of the horses and their riders of the sixth trumpet in Revelation 9:17. This color was a key symbol within the Roman Empire, in the legions. It is primarily in its manifestation through that final, Roman Empire, that we see the dragon appear here, also given the ten horns, which apply to the second and final phase of the Roman Empire, manifested in  the USA. It was the Roman Empire that, through a census, made the time when Mary was to give birth to Jesus a difficult time. It was Herod, the vassal of the Roman Empire, who sought the life of the baby Jesus and was responsible for the Massacre of the Innocents in Bethlehem. It was the temptations of the Roman Empire with which Jesus was tempted by the devil in the desert. It was the horrors of the Roman Empire, which were inflicted upon the Redeemer as an unimaginable form of suffering – scourging, mocking, crucifixion. All of this was to no avail for Satan. He did, indeed, bruise the heel of the woman's seed on the cross. (Possibly even literally; the nails were also driven through the heels). But the Redeemer of mankind has crushed Satan's head. "Through death he has destroyed him who had the power of death, and has delivered all those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lifetime."

 

Verse 4

A Third of the Stars

"And his tail drew a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth."

1. Does the third of the stars correspond to a third of the angels who followed Satan in his rebellion against God?

2. If not, what is meant by the third of the stars being cast to the earth?

3. What is meant by "the tail" of the dragon?

4. Where do we find this image in the Old Testament?

 

1. Does the third of the stars correspond to a third of the angels who followed Satan in his rebellion against God?

It is astonishing how many interpreters, based on this text, claim that a third of the angels followed Satan in his fall. He would like that. And he would like all Christians to believe this. However, such a claim cannot be derived from a single verse. It would have to be confirmed from other parts of Scripture. But that never happens. This is the only text they have for this assertion. And their interpretation given of this text is, to say the least, very shaky.

 

However, let us examine more closely the proposition that a third of God's angelic power followed Satan in his fall. Does this align with other parts of Scripture? The Lord Jesus says in the Garden of Gethsemane that the Father can place at His disposal more than twelve legions of angels. If He says this, then twelve legions of angels are sufficient to keep Him out of the hands of all those who seek His life and thus free Him from the entire angelic power of Satan. Satan's angelic power is therefore less than twelve legions of angels, which is 12 times 6,000 = 72,000 angels. That is approximately seven myriads. And how many angels surround God's throne? John testifies: “And I saw, and I heard the voice of many angels around the throne, and the living creatures and the elders; their number was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands.” Therefore, it can be concluded that only a very small fraction of the angels followed Satan in his rebellion against the Most High.

 

Had it been solely about power, Jesus would have had twelve legions of angels more than enough to defeat all the hostile forces. Not only Rome and the Sanhedrin, but also the powers behind them. Historically, however, it was not a matter of strength or power, but of right, which Satan knows that God Himself adheres to. And that divine right was what gave Satan his ascendancy. It was the principles of God Himself that Satan used as leverage to expand his power on earth, and he essentially continues to do so. Without God’s enormous forbearance, Satan would not have had the time to build the stronghold of power we are witnessing in the twenty-first century.

This does not mean we should think lightly of Satan's power. The Lord Jesus Himself calls Satan "the mighty one" when He says: Luke 11:20, "But if I cast out demons by the finger of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. When a mighty man armed guards his house, all he has is safe. But if someone stronger than he comes and overcomes him, he strips him of all his armor in which he trusted and divides his spoil."

Therefore, Satan has great power. Satan is much stronger and especially much smarter than humans. But God has infinitely more power and infinitely more wisdom. God only has to lift His finger and the demons fly away. This difference in power also applies to the number of angels on either side.

 

Explorers believe they find support for the interpretation of a third of the stars as angels of heaven in the verses that follow (Revelation 12:7-9). There we read of a war in heaven: “Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon fought and his angels, and he was not strong enough, neither was their place found in heaven any more. And the great dragon was thrown down...and his angels were thrown down with him.”

There are four reasons why this war in heaven in verses 7-9 is about something completely different than the stars in verse 4, which are dragged down and thrown to earth.

 

(1) The stars in verse 4 are dragged down from heaven by the dragon and thrown to earth. According to verses 7-9, the angels of Satan are thrown down to earth by Michael “together with the dragon.”

 

(2) Satan has no interest in throwing down to earth the angels who followed him in his rebellion against God. On the contrary. He wants to maintain access to heaven as much and as long as possible, along with all his minions. He is the “prince of the power of the air.” He is the leader of "the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places."

 

(3) The stars of verse 4 would have followed Satan at the beginning of his rebellion against God, sometime before or at the beginning of creation. That is at least about 6,000 years ago. But the war in heaven of verses 7-9 begins shortly before the start of the Endtime. This is indicated by (a) the remark "that he knows he has a short time." This refers to the dragon that has just been cast out of heaven, and (b) the statement that the woman, who has been persecuted by the dragon since its fall from earth, is being nourished for a time, times, and half a time in her place in the wilderness. This means that Satan's fall must have occurred shortly before that "time, times, and half a time," which starts halfway through Daniel's last week of years. The "star that had fallen from heaven to earth" of Revelation 9:1 corresponds to "the dragon that Michael casts down to the earth." Revelation 9 shows his actions after the blowing of the fifth trumpet.

 

(4) Nowhere in the book of Revelation are angels called "stars." Throughout the book, "angels" are simply called "angels," and there's no reason why John would suddenly want to symbolize angels with stars in 12:4. Interpreters connect this with Job 38:7, where angels are indeed called morning stars. However, the immediate context of a text is far more important than the much broader context of the entire Bible. Looking at the context of the Book of Revelation, the plural "stars" always means either literal stars (8:12), falling stars (6:13), or people ("angels" of the seven churches, 1:20). Nowhere does "stars" (plural) mean "angels." A strong singular word does refer to a heavenly being, namely in 9:1 (Satan) and 22:16 (Jesus).

 

(2) If not, what is meant by the third of the stars being cast to the earth?

If the stars, which are taken from heaven and cast to earth, do not refer to angels, what does this image mean? To understand this, we must simply stick to the context already given. The dragon is Satan, who, through seven (partial) kingdoms, tries to prevent the birth of the seed of the woman, God's Redeemer of humanity, the One who will crush his head. The woman is the people of Israel, the channel through which God brings in the Messiah. Throughout its history, during which it has been subjected to the seven world kingdoms, that people has experienced "pain" in giving birth. This is largely the period of the seventy weeks of years, of which it is written: "For sixty-two weeks it (the city of Jerusalem) will be rebuilt with streets and moats, but in the strait of time. And after the sixty-two weeks, Messiah will be cut off, and there will be no one against him…." Until the coming of the Messiah, Israel is in a certain degree of distress.

The woman, Israel, was seen in 12:1 wearing a crown of twelve stars. In 12:4, the dragon drags off a third of the stars of heaven and throws them to the earth. These are the stars with which the woman was adorned. They are believers from the people of Israel, who spread God's light, and who are attacked by the dragon, specifically "with its tail."

 

(3) What is meant by "the dragon's tail"?

The dragon can devour with its heads, but it can also inflict harm with its tail. The question is what that tail represents. We must first look at the context of Revelation itself.

Before Revelation 12, tails are mentioned in case of the locusts of Revelation 9:10 and of the horses of Revelation 9:19. In both cases, it is stated that "harm" is caused with the tails. In all likelihood, this refers to damage to human DNA, or at least to human health and immunity. Under the guise of the greatest lie in history, humanity has already been under attack from a bio-weapon, in which genetic disinformation is injected into the human body under the name "vaccine," causing great damage in the short or long term.

 

The tail is the vehicle for disseminating disinformation. Due to the enormous development in science and technology, disinformation is now available at the cellular level and can involve biological disinformation for the body. But to spread this disinformation at the micro level, disinformation at the macro level is also necessary. We have seen this happening through the government and the media, with the declaration of a false pandemic. In ancient Israel, the spreading of disinformation was done by false prophets. Isaiah 9:13 tells us about them: "Therefore the LORD will cut off from Israel head and tail, branch and reed, in one day. The oldest and most honorable are the head, and the prophet who teaches lies is the tail.

 

One could say that, from the shift in authority on earth from Israel's elders to the kings of the world empires, the following applies: 'the king and the emperor are the head, and the prophet who teaches lies is the tail.' This prophet still concerns Israel, only this time a part of Israel that has fallen into the whiles of the devil and has become his instrument, much like Judas was in his betrayal of the Lord. In the next chapter, Revelation 13, we encounter this false Israel in 'the beast out of the earth', which later on is called 'the false prophet' (Revelation 16:13, 19:20, 20:10).

 

(4) Where do we find this image in the Old Testament?

There is a parallel passage in the book of Daniel that can be placed directly alongside Revelation 12:4 and that supports this interpretation:

Daniel 8:10 “He became great, even to the army of heaven. Of the army of the stars, he caused some to fall to the ground and trampled them.”

In the angel Gabriel’s explanation of Daniel 8, the “he who became great” is a ruler of one of the four fragments of the Greek world empire. Gabriel indicates: “He became great, even to the army of heaven. Of the army of the stars, he caused some to fall to the ground and trampled them.”

 

The stars are the faithful among the people of Israel in the time of the Greek empire. They have a dispute with their fellow countrymen, who had been Hellenized (had adopted elements of the Greek religion). When a Greek ruler of the Seleucid Empire, Antiochus IV, placed a statue of Zeus in the temple in 168 BC and attempted to offer sacrifices to it, the faithful rebelled. Their Hellenistic compatriots were supported by Aniochus IV, and the faithful were forced to flee. Thousands of them were severely persecuted and killed. A significant aspect of this is that the faithful among the people suffered not only from the head of the empire but also from their own people. The dragon used its seven "heads," the empires and their kings, but also its "tail," the treacherous elements among the people of Israel, who belonged not to the woman—faithful Israel—but to the dragon, the enemy of faithful Israel and of God.

 

There are estimates that tens of thousands of Jews died in the persecution that arose after the defilement of the temple. This could indeed amount to "a third of the stars." There's a second way "a third" of the stars can be explained, again in relation to the Jewish people, and that concerns the period in Jewish history to which the image of the woman and the dragon refers. Matthew 1 shows the lineage from Abraham to Jesus. It is the complete birth canal of "the woman," God's chosen people, up to the Messiah. In total, it represents forty-two generations. These forty-two generations are divided into three sets of fourteen generations: fourteen from Abraham to David, fourteen from David until the exile to Babylon, and fourteen from the exile to Babylon until Christ.

The "ark of the covenant in the heavenly temple," of Revelation 11:19 indicates that the image of Revelation 12 refers to Israel's history from the Babylonian exile onward. It concerns the last fourteen of the total forty-two generations. This is "a third of the stars," which had to live under the sway of the world's empires.

 

Verses 4b – 6

The Man Child

And the dragon stood before the woman who was about to give birth, so that as soon as she gave birth he might devour her child. And she gave birth to a Son, a male Child, who is to rule all nations with a rod of iron; and her Child was caught up to God and to his throne. So the woman fled into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God, where they may nurse her for one thousand two hundred and sixty days.

 

(1) Who is the Son, the male Child, who will rule all nations with a rod of iron?

(2) What does the child's being "caught up" to God and to his throne mean?

(3) What is meant by the wilderness into which the woman flees?

 

(1) Who is the Son, the male Child, who will rule all nations with a rod of iron?

The woman, the dragon, and the Child are the three great themes of world history, established by God immediately after the Fall, when He says to the serpent:

“I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring. He will bruise your head, and you will bruise his heel.” (Genesis 3:15)

The Child of Revelation 12 is the seed of the woman, who will bruise “the serpent’s” head. It is Jesus Christ. “But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, born of a virgin, born under the law.” (Galatians 4:4)

 

He is the one who “through death destroyed him who had the power of death, so that He might free all those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives.” (Hebrews 2:14,15)

Through death. It cost Him everything. His heel was crushed. Literally. On the cross. He is the one who took the devil’s power over death. “See, I was dead, and I am alive forever and ever, and I have the keys of death and Hades.” (Revelation 1:18)

He is the one who will rule all nations with a rod of iron. Indeed, Jesus says to the overcomers of Thyatira in Revelation 2:26,27:

"And whoever overcomes and whoever keeps My works for the end, I will give authority over the nations. And he will rule them with a rod of iron…' But then follows: 'as I also have received authority from my Father.' This refers to delegated power, which was initially given to Christ, as we also read in Revelation 19:15: 'Out of his mouth went a sharp sword, that with it he should strike the nations. And he will rule them with a rod of iron…'

 

(2) What does the Child's being 'caught away' to God and to his throne mean?

If the male child refers to Jesus Christ, then the 'caught away' can only be understood as everything that happened to Jesus from his birth, culminating in his ascension. This is briefly presented here as 'caught away.' This word refers to the enormous violence to which his life was exposed and the tremendous speed with which he completed the work to the end. We read something similar in the often repeated " immediately" of Mark's Gospel. The pressure to which the life of Jesus Christ was exposed cannot be overstated. Here, after 4,000 years of world history and the constant failure of all humanity, in which God had to start something new each time, was finally the Savior, who would bring everything to a good end by eliminating the great power behind all the scenes.

 

We can imagine how that power behind the scenes, which had gained increasing influence throughout world history, mobilized everything to oppose Him. But in those four thousand years of infiltration, the enemy failed to develop an instrument capable of turning the Savior from the path of salvation and stopping Him in His work of redemption. All the horrors of legalistic Israel and all-powerful Rome, the most horrific instruments of torture—the scourging and the cross—and even the sins of those He came to redeem, were unable to make Him flinch.

 

His life was under constant pressure. Even when Mary was pregnant with Him, she was forced to make a tremendous journey on foot to Bethlehem. He had to be born in the open air. The young family was forced to flee to Egypt due to Herod's murderous plans. After Joseph's death, the care of the family fell partly on Jesus' shoulders, and He carried out His ministry in Nazareth. Judging by Nathanael's comments, that was not an easy environment. Forty days of temptation in the desert could not break Him.

 

During His three years of ministry, He was endlessly tempted by the religious leaders of His day—the Pharisees, the scribes, the elders, the priests. All that time, He was in the presence of a traitor, while the other disciples often displayed a great deal of incomprehension. In Gethsemane, their empathy was lacking. Completely alone, He faced that incredibly difficult task. He endured it to the bitter end, and forty days after His resurrection, He ascended to heaven, to God and His throne, the right hand of the Father. As He Himself had testified before the Sanhedrin: “From now on you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Power and coming with the clouds of heaven.”

 

The word for “being caught away” in the original text is “Harpazo,” and because this also occurs in 1 Thessalonians 4:13-17, where it concerns the rapture of the church (usually called the “rapture of the church”), many think that here too, in Revelation 12:5, it refers to the church. However, there are several arguments to reject this interpretation.

(1) The church is not “a male child.” The church is referred to throughout the Bible as “female,” the bride or wife of the Lamb, a pure virgin.

 

(2) The church did not originate from Israel. The church originates from God Himself. Whoever accepts the Lord Jesus is “born of God” or “born of imperishable seed,” God’s Word, at most born through the word of an apostle, as Paul indicates: “My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you…" (Gal.4:19) When it comes to God’s testimony on earth, the nation of Israel has been expanded with believers from the nations, like wild branches grafted onto an olive tree. But that happened through birth from God, not through natural descent from Israel. Nowhere in the Bible do we read that Israel is “the mother” of the church.

 

(3) The church is not what is primarily under attack from Satan. It is Christ who is the primary target. He is being attacked, and because the church belongs to Him, it is also being attacked. “If the world hates you, know that it hated Me before it hated you… because I chose you out of the world, that is why the world hates you.” (John 15:18).

 

(4) The church is primarily being snatched away “to Christ,” not to God and his throne. The promise of the winners in Laodicea is to “sit with Him in His throne, as He is seated in the throne of His Father.” The church does not come to sit in the throne of God or of the Father, but in the throne of Christ to reign with Him.'

 

(5) The church is not the primary heir of the world who will rule all nations with a rod of iron. That is Christ, and the church is only heir through Him and reigns with Him.

 

(3) What is meant by the wilderness into which the woman flees?

Twice Revelation 12 mentions a flight of the woman. The chapter is symmetrical as the whole book of Revelation is. At the center is Revelation 12:11, the blood of the Lamb. That is enclosed by 'the casting or coming down of the dragon', which itself is enclosed by the dual flight of the woman. The first flight of the woman is directly after the Child is caught up to God and before the war in heaven and the casting down of the dragon. The second flight is after the coming down of the dragon. The first flight was a flight to Pella in present day Jordan, where Christians fled around the year 66 AD when the city of Jerusalem began to be surrounded by Roman legions, and they obeyed the word of Jesus, which we read in Luke 21:20-24. Pella is located approximately 20 kilometers north of the Brook Kerith. There Elia once fled, where he also was fed for 3.5 years (1 Kings 17:1-6). The siege of Jerusalem by the Roman legions also took about 3.5 years, from 66 AD until 70 AD.

 

There is a strange transition in the passage. It begins with the woman as a "great sign in heaven." Then follows another sign, still in heaven, the great dragon, who wants to devour the child with which the woman is pregnant. The woman gives birth to her child, who is caught up to God and his throne. We have concluded that all of this refers to what happened approximately 2,000 years ago, the ascension of the Lord Jesus after the finished work on Golgotha. And then suddenly the woman flees into the desert. Suddenly, she is no longer the "great sign in heaven" but is on earth and must flee from the dragon.

 

This shows that the broad outlines of God's plan of salvation in history are being fulfilled by Him on earth with very specific people of flesh and blood, who face very specific threats from very specific enemies. The woman is a great sign in heaven, but she is also the Virgin Mary, who, together with Joseph and Jesus had to flee to Egypt when Herod chased the Child in order to murder it. The great sign in heaven is also the group of faithful Christian Israelites who fled at Jesus' word around the year 66 when Roman legions began to surround Jerusalem. They returned around the year 70, after Jerusalem had fallen, and were therefore "in the desert" for approximately three and a half years.

 

In the symmetric tale of Revelation 12, the flight of Jewish Christians to Pella mirrors into the flight of God's people in the Endtime, the second half of Daniel's last week of the 70-weeks-prophecy. We will come to that with our explanation on verses 13-17. Here we want to remark that the great sign of the woman is fulfilled (1) in Mary, (2) in the Jewish Christians of the first century, and (3) in the faithful Israelites of the end times.

 

Verses 7-9

War in Heaven

And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought, and he was not strong enough, neither was their place found in heaven any more. Then the great dragon was thrown down, that serpent of old, called the Devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world; he was thrown down, and his angels were thrown down with him.

 

(1) Why is war necessary in heaven, since God is the Almighty?

(2) What is the reason for the war, and who starts it?

(3) When does this war begin and how long will it last?

(4) What is Jesus Christ's place in this war? Why is He not mentioned?

(5) What is meant by "the whole world"?

(6) Who are meant by the angels of the dragon?

 

(1) Why is war necessary in heaven, since God is the Almighty?

Heaven as a place of perfect harmony does not originate from the Bible, but from Platonic Greek concepts. In several places, the Bible shows that evil has also penetrated heaven.

(1) Purification of heavenly things was necessary: ​​"It was necessary, then, that the symbols of the things in the heavens should be purified by these, but the heavenly things themselves by better sacrifices than these."

 

(2) The devil still had access to heaven. This was already the case in the time of Job: “There was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came among them…” In the time of Zechariah, the prophet saw the high priest of his day standing before the Angel of the Lord, while Satan stood at his right hand to accuse him. The Lord then said to Satan, “The Lord rebuke you…” The New Testament also indicates that “we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers of this present darkness, against the principalities and the powers, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.”

 

An important question that can be asked is why the Lord does not immediately rebuke and send Satan away. This has to do with the holiness of his throne. “Holy, holy, holy,” the four living creatures cry out day and night. Everything God does must correspond to the holiness of his being. All his ways must be in perfect harmony with it. God, in exercising his omnipotence, is bound by his holiness.

 

Mankind's disobedience had presented Satan with a tremendous opportunity to significantly encroach on God's power. The LORD had subjected the earth to human authority. But mankind had voluntarily relinquished that authority to Satan by listening to him and following him. This began very small in the Garden of Eden but has grown ever larger. Throughout history, more and more angels have followed Satan's wrong example by engaging with humanity in a wrong way, thus seizing "power" for themselves.

 

A widely held view in Christianity is that Satan rebelled sometime "in the beginning" (the exact moment is never made clear), before humanity was created, and in that rebellion, "dragged" down a third of all the angels in heaven. We have already discussed the only text on which this is based: the dragon who drags down a third of the stars of heaven with his tail and casts them to the earth. This is a completely erroneous interpretation of this text. We have given the arguments for this above. Moreover, this idea is not supported by any other passage in the Bible. When there is an arbitrary interpretation that contradicts the sound teaching of the Bible, then it is a false doctrine.

 

Errors often start small and grow larger over time. Only at the end of history does the extent of the damage become clear. The end of history culminates in the Revelation of Jesus Christ. It simultaneously reveals the horror of demonic evil and the splendor of the good God. But that evil began small. David writes in Psalm 19:13: "Errors—who can discern them? Speak to me from the hidden." This is how it went with humanity...and with Satan. It started small and grew larger and larger. More and more angels followed Satan's example. The sons of God in Genesis 6, the sons of God in Psalm 82. Throughout history, the devil has been busy working his deceptive works, not only in the hearts of people but also in the invisible world of the "gods" or angels. Thus, Satan built his successive world empires, all aimed at destroying the "seed of the woman." The ultimate unfolding of evil we find in the final phase of the Roman Empire, which is still future and which we are about to enter - the last phase of the USA.

 

Our passage speaks of "the old serpent." That is the serpent of Eden, who deceived Eve. "Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made…" It doesn't say that the serpent was evil or hostile or corrupt or anything like that. It was crafty. But the serpent used its craftiness to its own advantage, and the very first lie in history became a reality: "Did God really say, 'You shall not eat from any tree of the garden?'" Jesus says, "When he tells a lie, he speaks from his own, because he is a liar and the father of it." Since then, the lies in history have been piling up.

 

Time and again, man refused to listen to God, and the devil's strategy seemed a better plan, as we read in connection with the first fratricide: "And the LORD said to Cain, 'Why are you angry? Why is your countenance fallen? Should you not be able to remove it, if you do well? But if you do not do well, sin lies at the door, its desire being for you, but over whom you must rule.'" Through his word, God wanted to lead mankind in the way of truth. However, in most cases, man chose the path of lies. Because of the autonomy God has given mankind, God does not oppose this. Only through his word does God warn and instruct mankind again and again. But it is up to man to obey.

 

Why doesn't God put an end to evil immediately? We read in several places in the Bible that God has set a "measure" for all things. The devil knows this and tries to make the most of the freedom of action this measure gives him. Until the measure is full, God will not act. That is why the number seven keeps recurring in Revelation. Seven is the fullness of God's measure. That's why Peter asked Jesus, "Lord, how many times shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Up to seven times?" When it comes to forgiveness, God's measure is even greater, because Jesus' answer is, "Not seven times, but seventy times seven."

 

However, this concerns the proliferation of evil. We see the seven in the seven heads of the dragon. Evil has reached its full potential, and God will act. God says to Abraham, Genesis 15:16,

"The fourth generation will return here, because the iniquity of the Amorites has not yet reached its full limit."

To the Pharisees of his day, Jesus says: Matthew 23:32,

“You also fill up the measure of your fathers!”

Paul writes of the Jews of his day: 1 Thessalonians 2:16,

“They forbid us to speak to the Gentiles so that they may be saved. So they fill up the measure of their sins forever. And wrath has come upon them to the end.”

We read of great Babylon:

"You who dwell by great waters, who are rich in treasure, your end has come, the measure of your gain.”

We read of the world leaders in Daniel 8:23:

“And in the latter part of their kingdom, when the wicked have filled up the measure…”

 

(2) What is the cause of the war, and who starts it?

To begin with the last point, the “who”: the antagonist in the Bible to Satan is not God. No one can be compared to God. He is far exalted above all his creatures. Satan's opponent is Michael, the prince of the people of Israel. To Daniel, he is called "your prince, Michael." Michael corresponds with "the woman" of the great sign in heaven in verses 1-2, before whom the dragon stood to devour her child as soon as she was about to give birth. This is not the first time that Satan and Michael have confronted each other. Previously, there was a dispute between them over the body of Moses. Jude 1:9, "But Michael the archangel, when he disputed with the devil and disputed about the body of Moses, did not dare to bring a blasphemous accusation against him, but said, 'The Lord rebuke you!'" It is speculative, but it is suggested that Satan wanted to use the body of Moses to seduce the people into idolatry. God Himself buried the body of Moses. Deuteronomy 34:6 “And he buried him in a valley in the land of Moab, opposite Beth-peor. And no one knows where his grave is to this day.”

 

Then there was a battle between Satan and Michael because of the influence of the empire, which was used in the episode of the Persians to once again bring Israel into distress. The angel who brought Daniel the message from God was stopped by the angelic prince of the Persians while Michael stood by him (Daniel 10:13,21).

 

The final battle between Michael and Satan awaits the end times: Daniel 12:1 “At that time Michael will stand up, the great prince who stands by the people of your land. There will be a time of trouble, such as has not occurred since there has been a nation until that time." This 'standing up by Michael' in defense of Daniel's people, the true Jewish people, starts with the war in heaven. "The cup is full." Evil has reached its ultimate climax. This is already implied in the number of "seven heads." During the coming of the Lord Jesus, the world, which had completely fallen under the power of Satan through Israel's disobedience since the fall of Babylon, had only six heads left: (1) Babylon, (2) Media, (3) Persia, (4) the Seleucids, (5) the Ptolemies (two fragments of the Greek empire, the king of the North and the South, who were harassing Israel), and (6) Rome.

The number six is ​​also significant for this reason. It is the sixth day of creation, on which humanity was created. Human power approaches its zenith in the sixth world empire, the Roman Empire. The Roman Empire is the sixth empire of mankind, which has rejected and crucified the Lord of glory. But only with the seventh head does evil reach its zenith. Only then is the cup full. The seventh head is the final phase of the resurrected Roman Empire. In this, it imitates Christ. It is the phase of the ten toes and ten horns, from which an eleventh horn rises, the USA, which has come to dominate everything and everyone and the leader of which will be worshiped as the Antichrist. The war in heaven breaks out as soon as the seventh head, with the ten horns, rises from history.

 

The war in heaven and the forces deployed in it are primarily legal in nature. With the installation of the seventh world empire, the resurrected Rome, the devil has filled the measure of his rebellion against God. With this final world empire, he has gained control of the entire world and thus closes heaven to himself. In the time of Job, God could still ask the devil where he came from. He said he had wandered the earth and crisscrossed it. With the completion of the seventh kingdom, such a wandering is no longer necessary. The technology available to this kingdom can be seen as Satan's attempt to approach God's omniscience. He is therefore called "the god of this age." But if he possesses all the information in the world, his approach to the Most High is no longer necessary.

 

Previously, God could still inform Satan of something: "Have you considered my servant Job? For there is none like him on earth, a blameless and upright man, one who fears God and shuns evil" (Job 1:8). But now that Satan wants to manifest himself as the omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent being of the world in his seventh kingdom. So let him dedicate himself to that, and let his scope be limited to it. He has no further business in heaven. And so, on legal grounds, he is denied access to heaven. The execution of the judgment is carried out by Michael, the prince of the people who became the channel of the woman's seed. After all, it was his people who were afflicted by the dragon. God's ways are very precise. Everything must proceed according to the standards of holiness and righteousness.

 

(3) When does this war begin and how long does it last?

After being cast out of heaven, the dragon persecutes the woman who gave birth to the male child. For this reason, she must flee into the wilderness, where she receives divine help and nourishment for twelve hundred and sixty days. This means that Satan's fall from heaven occurs before the last half of Daniel's final week of 7 years. There are multiple indications that the war in heaven and the casting out of the devil to the earth have already taken place.

 

(1) During the first half of the 70th and last week of Daniel, the people of the most High would already be severely attacked, as foretold in Daniel 9:27: 'And he shall strengthen the covenant for many for one week...' The prophecy of the 70 weeks concerns the people of Daniel so 'the many' for whom the covenant is strengthened are true Jewish people - the Palestinians. The covenant is the Balfour Declaration - promising the land to those who had zere right to it because they didn't live there and because their relation to old Israel is much more shaky that that of the people that actually lived there, the Palestinians. Zionism was the devil's trick that lured the whole world into believing that somehow East Europeans had more right to the land than the original inhabitants. It worked so well because those that cooked up this trick had the world's monetary system in their pocket and could bribe everyone to do their bidding. Money, the root of all evil, the unrighteous mammon is the beloved tool of the devil that the wold continually falls for, including the so called christian world. Since the 1948-Nakba, the situation of the Palestinian people was already turned into horror. However since December 29, 2022 - the start of the last Netanyahu cabinet - their situation has deteriorated in an extremely rapid pace, with life expectancy in Gaza dropping with 35 years on average - much more than in case of any other great conflict.  This also might have triggered the war in heaven - the cup of evil being completely filled. Satan would be thrown to earth in order to there organize his last resistance to God before the return of Jesus Christ.

 

(2) Since October 2023! comet 12p/Pons-Brooks, that since July 2022 had been called 'the devil's comet' because of its eerie angelic shape, fell from 'Draco', the dragon through the neck of the Lamb, the hoofs of Taurus to the realm of death and lower to the utter south of the heavenly sphere. This could have been the comet that Jesus meant, when He said: 'I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven' (Luke 10:18) for in the three years of his ministry, this comet also 'fell' from the North to the South as it does every 71 years. To us, this illustrates the reason for the war in heaven and the devil's fall: his constant attack from 1917 (Balfour Declaration) on the Palestinian people, the people of the most High, that will finally be rescued from total annihilation. How very close we are to the coming of Christ, in August 2025.

 

(4) What is Jesus Christ's place in this war? Why is He not mentioned?

It seems as if the Lord Jesus Christ plays no significant role in this war. But appearances are deceptive. It is Michael, as a kind of "messenger," who denies Satan access to heaven and carries this out with his angels. But Michael cannot do anything on his own. He must have the right "documents," the judgment of the Most High. And that judgment could only be passed on the basis of the completed work of the Lord Jesus on Golgotha. That is why, right at the beginning of his ministry, when he first met his disciples, Jesus said to Nathanael: “You will see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.” All angelic activity is grounded in “the Son of Man,” including the activity of this war by Michael and his angels.

Halfway through his ministry, Jesus looked ahead to the moment in Revelation 12:9, when he said: “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.” The occasion on which he said this is significant: the seventy disciples came with joy and reported: “Lord, even the demons are subject to us in your name.” The demons are the angels of Satan. They would be cast out of heaven with Satan. Jesus also refers here to a well-known text from Isaiah: “How you are fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How you are cut down to the ground, you who conquered the nations!’ Isaiah 14 connects Revelation 12:9 with Revelation 9:1, where we see 'a star, fallen on earth' (something that happened some time before the events of Revelation 9.

 

Impressively, Isaiah 14 goes even further than Revelation 12: ‘…but you shall be brought down to Sheol, to the lowest depths of the pit.’ Through his wiles, Satan had gained the power over death. But through his death, Jesus took that power away from him. ‘…that through death He might destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and might free all who through death were subject to slavery all their lifetime.’ He holds ‘the keys of death and Hades.’ Jesus Christ is the One by whose power Satan will one day sink even deeper, into the abyss and the realm of the dead of ‘the second death’ - the lake of fire.

The fact that Jesus Christ remains unmentioned in this war shows how great He is. He leaves the casting out of Satan from heaven to his servants among the angels. We see the Lord Jesus acting as soon as He puts a definitive end to all the world empires (Rev.19:11), which culminated in the final worldwide empire of the Antichrist, in which Satan has also enveloped himself. But even then, it is an angel who locks Satan in his prison.

 

(5) What is meant by deception of "the whole world"?

The whole world is the world empire in the form of the USA, that is moving toward its last phase of worldwide dominance, the partakers of which are seduced and deceived by the devil. The people who are part of this world empire and follow the devil's lies will ultimately share in his fate. Above, we saw that the seven heads of the dragon represent the seven phases of the world empire: (1) Babylon, (2) Media, (3) Persia, (4) the Seleucids, (5) the Ptolemies (two fragments of the Greek empire, the king of the North and the South, who were harassing Israel), and (6) Rome. The Roman Empire was presented to Jesus during the temptation in the wilderness: '...and showed him all the kingdoms of the earth - “oikoumene”…' The last stage of the world empire is the USA, which gained worldwide influence during the 20th century, to which it is clinging in the first decades of the 21st century. While posing as a christian nation under God, its actions have brought total secularization and brought about the Endtime society Paul warned about. But its power is slowly slipping away, making it a grave danger to the whole world, culminating in WWIII. That will be one of the final tricks: to get the whole world up into arms against each other - the red horse of the second seal of Revelation 6, starting with the abomination of desolation.

 

Satan will grant his evil US-empire the total victory, which is part of his scheme. The whole earth will come under full control of US-hegemony. This will lead up to world tyranny, the sword given to 'the rider of the red horse. It will end in the digital prison, the image of the beast, with the mark of the beast as the prison door. In our present estimation this totalitarian nightmare will last for about one and a half years, until the return of Jesus.

 

(6) Who are meant by the dragon's angels?

To those who did nothing to help God's witnesses during 'the hour of temptation of the whole world',  Jesus says upon his return: “Depart from Me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.” This is the only other text in the entire Bible where the expression “devil and his angels” appears. It shows their final destiny. Meanwhile, the devil (probably with his angels—but that's not mentioned) will be imprisoned in the Abyss for a thousand years.

 

Above, we already considered the notion that the devil fell into the same act of disobedience he tempted Eve to commit. It began small and ended grandly, with worldwide deception and idolatry. The core is always the same: sowing doubt in the hearts of people about Who God is. "Surely God has said..." In Freemasonry, God is presented as the enemy and Lucifer as the enlightened spirit who would free humanity from the prison of ignorance, the one who would make humanity "free" from God. Moreover, Freemasonry is closely linked to apostate Judaism. Already, unbelieving Israel, which was also founded on the same masonic principles as the USA, fully aligns itself with the restored Rome. It is willing to honor the president of the USA in every possible way as long as US finance, weapons and legal protection keep flowing. As a false prophet, apostate Israel will lead the way into worldwide idolatry, the situation Jesus warned the people about in Matthew 12.

 

Everything is turned upside down, as Isaiah cries: “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil; who put darkness for light and light for darkness; who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.” So too, the final phase of the kingdom, in which all of humanity is completely degraded to slaves of the system, will be called the “liberation” of humanity, while humanity, under Satan’s leadership, enforces totalitarian tyranny worldwide, must be worshiped as God. Freedom is presented as slavery and vice versa.

 

Throughout history, other angels have joined the devil. But which angels are “the angels of the dragon”? They are not the angels who sinned before the flood by “having adultery” with the daughters of men. Jude 1:6 says of these: “And the angels who did not keep their original position, but left their proper habitation, He has reserved in everlasting chains under darkness for the judgment of the great day.” That great day of judgment, according to Revelation 14:7, as we will see, will arrive about two years into Daniel's last half-week. Revelation 9:1, 11:5, 13:7, and 14:7 all have the same starting point, one and a half year before the return of our Lord. The great day of judgment has arrived, and the angels of the past are released. Therefore, Satan, who falls from heaven to earth after his defeat by Michael, receives the key to the bottomless pit, from which these angels are released to once again corrupt the human gene, as we saw with the fifth trumpet sound of Revelation 9. However, if these angels from the past will only be released after Satan's fall, then they are not among the "angels of Satan" who—prior to that fall—fought against Michael and his angels.

 

Great angels of Satan are also found at the sixth trumpet of Revelation 9, the four angels of the four world empires who were taken captive and bound at the Euphrates—Babel, Medo-Persia, Greece, and Rome. But these are only released thirteen months before the return of Jesus, five months after the opening of the bottomless pit. Therefore, they too cannot be counted among the "angels of Satan" with whom he fights against Michael.

 

The New Testament speaks in several places of spiritual powers with which the church is involved. Paul writes: "so that now to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places the manifold wisdom of God might be made known through the church." He speaks of a "prince of the power of the air, who now works in the sons of disobedience" and that our battle is not against blood and flesh, but "against the principalities, against the powers, against the world rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places." They are all creatures of Christ: “For in Him all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers: all things were created through Him and for Him.” There are three prepositions here: in Him (He is the fundamental condition of their existence) – through Him (He is the initiative for their existence) – to Him (He is the purpose of their existence). This also applies to hostile powers. We are talking here about the “Revelation of Jesus Christ.” His dealings with the evil powers are part of His Revelation. Proverbs 16:4, “The LORD has made all things for His own sake, even the wicked for the day of disaster.” As He says of Pharaoh: Exodus 9:16, “But for this very purpose I have let you exist, to show My power in you, that My name might be declared throughout the whole earth.”

 

All the spiritual powers, of light and darkness, saw on Golgotha ​​what the Creator accomplished. They all know what the ultimate consequences are. God has been glorified in an unsurpassable way in the visible, but especially in the invisible, world through His Son, Jesus Christ, and all the devil’s legal weapons have been cut out of His hands. “He has disarmed the principalities and powers, making a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross” (Colossians 2:15).

This means that there are angelic powers who conspire with Satan against God and humanity. How many there are is unknown and cannot be derived from any biblical data. As we have seen above, their number is most likely much smaller than a third of the total number of angels.

 

Verses 10

The Accuser

'And I heard a loud voice in heaven saying, “Now salvation has come, and the power, and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Christ! For the accuser of our brothers has been cast down, who accused them day and night before our God.'

 

(1) Who are “our brothers”?

(2) Whose is the loud voice?

(3) How should we understand the accuser's "accusation"?

(4) How could salvation, power, the kingdom of God, and the authority of Christ have come when the darkest period in world history is about to begin?

 

(1) Who are "our brothers"?

The expression "our brothers" is a key word in this passage. Therefore, we will address it first. After his resurrection, the Lord Jesus called his disciples "his brothers." The first time was to Mary Magdalene in John 20:17. Nowhere in the Bible are angels called "brothers." They are called servants, sent out to minister to those who will inherit salvation (the brothers – Hebrews 2:14). “He did not subject the world to angels…” (Hebrews 2:5) and “Indeed, He did not take on Him angels, but he took on Him the seed of Abraham” (Hebrews 2:16). And: “Therefore He is not ashamed to call them brothers, saying, ‘I will declare your name to my brothers, and in the midst of the church I will sing praise to You’” (Hebrews 2:11, 12). If we consider Hebrews and Revelation together, we must conclude that the brothers are people on earth who are being attacked by the devil in some way. After all, the voice comes from heaven. The brothers who are presented here as overcomers are therefore not in heaven themselves, but on earth, and the voice from heaven expresses solidarity as ‘brothers’ with these believers in persecution. This concerns all believers that remain faithful to the Lord Jesus during the immense tribulation of Daniel's final week of 7 years, described in Revelation 6-19. "He takes the seed of Abraham." Based on Romans 2:28,29, Romans 9:8, and Galatians 3:29, we can conclude that this refers to all believers in the tribulation, from Israel and from the nations of the earth.

The accusation of the brothers echos Zechariah 3, where satan is seen while accusing the high priest Joshua, being the representative of God's people, Israel. These accusations of satan are met with reproach by the Lord, stating the following: 'And the Lord said unto Satan, The Lord rebuke thee, O Satan; even the Lord that has chosen Jerusalem rebuke thee: is not this a brand plucked out of the fire?' While this discussion between satan and the Lord passes, Joshua is clothed in filthy clothes and then the Lord says: 'Take away the filthy garments from him. And unto him he said, Behold, I have caused thine iniquity to pass from thee, and I will clothe thee with change of raiment.' We know where the lifting of iniquity from the people is based upon: the blood of the Lamb. The blood of the Lamb directly follows the naming of the brothers:

'...for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night. And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death.' (Rev.12:10,11)

What follows 'the blood of the Lamb' - 'and they loved not their lives unto the death' - makes us think that 'the brethren' especially signify the people of the most High that are being fought to the teeth by the beast, the US-empire. That is what has been happening from the start of the 70th week of Daniel - which we think has started with the present Netanyahu regime on December 29, 2022. There is a horrible genocide going on in Gaza. 

 

(2) Whose is the loud voice?

Only brothers can call each other brothers. If the voice in heaven calls believers on earth "our brothers," then this voice itself belongs to the brothers, and given the "ours," there are several others in heaven. Based on this, one cannot help but conclude that there are people, brothers, in heaven shortly before the tribulation of Daniel's final half week of 3.5 years. Besides all the evidence for a pre-tribulation rapture of the church, this verse is another strong indication that the rapture will definitely take place before the last half of the week of years. Since we find no indication of a Rapture in Revelation other than in Revelation 4:1—before the start of the tribulation—it must have occurred prior to the downfall of the dragon and the following 3.5 year tribulation. But whose is the loud voice? From whom else than from the Lord Himself can this voice originate'. He calls his faithful 'brothers' (Math. 12:50, John 20:17, Heb.2:11,12). And look at what it says: 'Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ...' This reminds us of the words spoken from the cross: 'It is finished' and the words at the end of all judgments 'It is done' (Rev.16:17) and the words at the end of creation: 'It is done' (Rev.21:6). The fall of the dragon to the earth is the first step on the 5.5-year path toward the establishment of God's kingdom. We see the fall of the dragon in the fall of the devil comet, most clearly in april 2024. We estimate Jesus will return november 2029 - looking at signs in Libra and Sagittarius - that is 5.5 years.

 

(3) How should we understand the "accusation" by the accuser?

Here we see a fourth designation for the devil. Besides "old serpent," "devil," "Satan," and the "deceiver," he is also "accuser." We saw above that this is primarily a legal battle. This is also the case in the world of politics. War very often involves moral arguments, which are necessary before any war can be resorted to. First, the "opponent" must have gone so far and violated so many civil rights (actual, fictional, or—even worse—imitated) that, in the eyes of the general public, war has become unavoidable. We saw above that God has a "measure of wickedness," figuratively represented by the seven heads of the dragon, which must be filled before God, according to his own holy Being, "has a case" and can deny him entry into heaven. That point had been reached, and therefore Michael and his angels could act, waging war against the dragon and his angels and casting them down to the earth.

 

Prior to that battle, there was also a legal battle, but in that battle, it was not the devil who was under attack, but "our brothers," the believers. Since believers in heaven are perfect (Rom. 8:29, 1 Cor. 15:42-44, 1 Cor. 13:10, 1 John 3:2), they can never, ever be accused by the devil. This, too, is an important reason to think of believers who are under oppression on earth. The devil is both deceiver and accuser. He tries to lead people astray and then accuses them before God. Incidentally, in most cases, a person will fall through his own desires, not through deception by the devil (James 1:14). He does his work as an accuser of the brothers "before our God." God is the judge. The devil is the accuser. The Lord Jesus is the Advocate, and the Holy Spirit is the Advocate. We read of both Jesus and the Spirit that He intercedes for us (Romans 8:34, 26). Jesus is called "our advocate with the Father" when we sin (1 John 2:1).

 

We encounter the devil as an accuser in several places in the Bible. In Job 1, he is intent on bringing Job down. For this reason, he asks God to tempt Job, to see if Job will then renounce the Lord, which God permits within certain limits. In Zechariah 3, we see Satan as an accuser standing alongside Joshua, the high priest of the people of Israel at that time, before "the Angel of the Lord to accuse the high priest and the people." However, the Lord intervenes for Joshua and the people. There we already see the image of the Lord Jesus as an advocate emerging.

 

With tactics like this, like being an accuser, constantly vilifying believers before God's throne, Satan is constantly at work. It says he accuses the brothers "day and night" before our God. We also encountered the expression "day and night" in Revelation 4. But there it was the four living creatures that had no rest "day and night," crying out, "Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come." Perhaps there is a connection between the constant "accusation" and the continual cries of "holy, holy, holy" connection. The filth of believers that Satan brings up is counterbalanced by God's holiness. These two can only be reconciled through the great work of redemption that Jesus accomplished on the cross.

 

An important follow-up question that one can ask is what Satan actually thinks he is achieving with this. We must not underestimate the enormous power the devil wields as an accuser. His function as accuser could well be the spearhead of all his activities. After all, with his temptation of Eve, he clearly began by an effort at shaking the throne of God in order to ascend higher himself. Positions are always relative. The devil, as the morning star, already held a very high position and could only ascend even higher by bringing God Himself down. That is the entire purpose of all his accusations. This is how God seems to get "in trouble." The devil knows that his holiness and his righteousness demand the condemnation and damnation of people. While, on the other hand, God's love and grace demand the efficacy of His forgiveness.

 

Without descending Himself, becoming Man, and paying for people with His blood, this was an insoluble problem for God. The cross was the only solution. What an enormous weight of responsibility lay on the shoulders of our Lord Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane! He saw that awesome weight of divine judgment descend upon Him for all those sins, for which He would later have to plead for acquittal before the throne of God, hearing all the accusations. It was an unimaginably difficult task that He faced on that night of the fourteenth of Nissan.

 

Just like all of Satan's temptations in the wilderness, all accusations against "the brothers" also fall on the perfect character, the perfect work, and the perfect Person of the Lord Jesus, and Satan is left in the dust. The only thing Satan has accomplished after 6,000 years of world history is to help the glory of God's holiness, his righteousness, and his love be brought to light even more than was ever possible in any other way.

 

(4) How could salvation, power, the kingdom of God, and the authority of Christ have come when the darkest period in world history is just around the corner?

With the answer to the previous question, this question is easily answered. The cup is full, the cup of all that Satan has done in tempting, overthrowing, and accusing believers to test God's perfect attributes. It is over, and God and his Christ have triumphed gloriously. 6,000 years of accusing believers day and night before God's throne have come to an end. All accusations could be dismissed on divine and legal grounds. Therefore, salvation has come. Legally, there is no longer any way to stop that salvation, and with it the power and kingdom of God and the authority of Christ will come, even though Satan is still given three and a half years to exert his final influence on earth. It is comparable to a game of chess, where the winner has long been clear, yet it is still played out down to the final move. However, those final moves take place on earth, where it all began. Temptation began with humanity's desire to be equal with God and must also end with it. That is the meaning of the number 666, which we will encounter again in Revelation 13. Revelation 13 is the full implementation, after 6,000 years of world history, of the decisions made in Genesis 3.

The terms "power" and "authority" are of great significance. Even after his resurrection, Jesus could say, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me." However, that power is gradually rolled out. First, within His church, where He is Lord and has been recognized and worshiped as such for 2,000 years, entirely of His own free will and based on faith—trust, which is so important in every marriage. That is why it is a marriage, in voluntary love. That faith and love could only be awakened in His absence. Hence, 2,000 years of church history. But that is almost over. The moment comes when the bride is taken home, and then begins the next phase in the roll out of God's power in Jesus. The scroll is accepted from God's hand. The kickoff for the final years lies, phase by phase, with the Lamb. In some of these phases, the devil still needs to be given space to complete certain historical lines on earth: the seals three-five, trumpets five and six. But after that, it is over. In between, the Lamb already shows the teeth of the Lion of the tribe of Judah in seals one and six and in the first four trumpets. But the greatest display of power waits until the last, in the scale judgments, where the kingdom of the beast is completely ruined.

 

Verses 11, 12

Overcomers

'And they themselves overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives to the death. Therefore, rejoice, heavens, and you who dwell in them! Woe to the earth and the sea! For the devil has come down to you with great wrath, because he knows that his time is short.'

 

(1) How are these “brothers” attacked, and how can they overcome the mighty dragon?

(2) How can the heavens rejoice while the sea and the earth face so much trouble and suffering?

 

(1) How are these “brothers” attacked, and how can they overcome the mighty dragon?

The attack on “our brothers,” the believers during the Great Tribulation on earth, takes place according to a fixed attack strategy, in which Satan tries to drive a wedge between the believers and God. He does this by placing them, like Job in ancient times, in difficult situations where their trust in God is tested. Job 1:11, "Stretch out your hand now, and strike all that he has, and he will surely curse you to your face," Satan says to God about Job.

In the Great Tribulation, these situations will take on very extreme forms. The Lord Jesus says of those last days: because of the increase of lawlessness, the love of many will grow cold. "Lawlessness" does not mean that there are no laws at all. On the contrary. The period in history with the greatest lawlessness will be teeming with laws or "mandates." It will only be wrong legislation. Legislation that contradicts the laws that God established for his creation. What the Lord Jesus reproached the Pharisees in his day will then characterize legislation by governments worldwide. Matthew 15:3, "But he answered and said to them, Why do you also transgress the commandment of God by your tradition? And thus you have made the commandment of God of no effect by your tradition.' Through false regulations, good and evil are reversed. Isaiah 5:20, 'Woe to those who call evil good and good evil; who put darkness for light and light for darkness; who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!'

This is lawlessness that leads to divisions in society. People are pitted against each other: on the one hand, those who see through it and follow their conscience, refusing to obey wrong laws, and on the other, those who insist on complying with the law in order to remain part of it. In such difficult circumstances, believers could lose their trust in God, which would then give Satan grounds for accusations. But they overcome 'by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives to the death.'

Here are three things: the first in relation to God, the second in relation to their neighbor, and the third in relation to themselves. First comes the relationship with God. The blood of the Lamb is a beacon for their trust in God: the great love that God has revealed through the sacrifice of the Lamb. Moreover, on the basis of that blood, Jesus intercedes for them as their advocate with the Father. No accusation of the devil will stand. Although victory is entirely dependent on the blood of the Lamb, it is nevertheless attributed here to the believers on earth: "they themselves have overcome him." And what will soon apply to believers in the 3.5-year tribulation already applies now to the believers of the church. That is why Paul can write: "The God of peace will quickly crush Satan under your feet." And Isaiah writes: "He has brought down the inhabitants of the high place, the unreachable fortress. He humbles it, brings it low to the ground, brings it down to the dust. Feet will trample it underfoot, the feet of the poor, the steps of the lowly.’ The word ‘overcome’ does not appear in Revelation 12 in relation to Michael and his angels, but only in relation to ‘our brothers’ who are accused day and night.

The second element in the victory of ‘our brothers’ is the word of their testimony. If we remain within the legal context of Revelation 12, then this is their testimony, which they bear in a sense in the heavenly court. The accused themselves are also given the opportunity to bear witness. In this testimony, they undoubtedly speak of what the Lamb means to them and has accomplished for them. This expression of faith in Christ, made before whomever it is made, deprives Satan of all legal force in the heavenly realms of Satan’s accusations. By speaking to others about the power in the blood of the Lamb, the witnesses deprive Satan of any legal arguments he could use before God.

The third element by which "our brothers" overcome is that they do not love their lives to the death. It says that they have already "overcome" Satan. Past perfect tense. The "not loving their lives unto death" therefore already applied to the first half of the final week of years. It doesn't say that they "did not love their lives until the rapture." There is no rapture during Daniel's final half-week of years. That rapture has already occurred prior to that final week of years. The only thing remaining is either entering the kingdom of peace "or death."

"Loving their lives" doesn't seem so difficult considering the time of tribulation our brothers are experiencing. What should we imagine "their lives" to be? Do they even have a "life" anymore? "Life" is effectively made impossible for them by the established order. In the sixth seal, we saw under the altar the souls of "those who were killed for the word of God and for the testimony they held." A manhunt is underway for all who belong to God and the Lamb. The great earthquake and the first four trumpets can be seen as God's intervention. The infrastructure of their pursuers is paralyzed, and they can escape into nature. It is precisely in such a situation of "survival" that people have a natural tendency to cling strongly to "their lives," especially because of the wonderful prospect of Jesus' coming in great power and glory after the tribulations are over.

However, when it comes down to it, "our brothers" do not love their lives to the death. They do not cling to their earthly lives but find in faith the strength to "surrender" them, like the believers described in Hebrews 11: "And others were tried, having been mocked and flogged, and even put to chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, sawn asunder, murdered with the sword, they walked about in sheepskins, in goatskins, they suffered want, they were oppressed, they were mistreated—the world was not worthy of them—they wandered about in deserts, in mountains, in dens, and in caves of the earth. These conditions, of being hunted down and driven out of cultivated society and being completely dependent on the elements, will also characterize the lives of “our brothers” in the last days before Christ’s coming. However, they will emerge victorious. The words of Paul in Romans 8:38, 39 will be of great comfort to them: “For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

 

(2) How can the heavens rejoice when the earth and the sea face such trouble and suffering?

This passage ties in nicely with Luke 10:17-20 – “The seventy-two returned with joy, saying, ‘Lord, even the demons are subject to us in your name.’ He said to them, ‘I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. See, I have given you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means hurt you. However, do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.” There are at least three connections between this passage and Revelation.

(1) The fall of Satan from heaven. 2,000 years ago, the Lord Jesus already foresaw the moment when Satan would be cast out of heaven “like lightning.” The parallels between Satan and Jesus are characteristic. Jesus, too, comes “like lightning that shines from one end of heaven to the other.” With Satan, however, there is a "fall" like lightning. Both are called the morning star: Satan in Isaiah 14:12, Jesus in Revelation 22:16. Both are depicted with precious stones: Satan with three rows of three (Ezekiel 28:13), Jesus with four rows of three, in the breastplate of the high priest (Exodus 28:17-20). Satan is the "occupier," who has deviously dethroned humanity and thereby wants to oust God to the throne. In Jesus, humanity regains its rightful place as head of creation. In Jesus, righteousness and justice are the foundation of God's throne.

We have already seen that the elimination of the occupying power occurred in several phases. The casting of Satan out of heaven is a very important phase because it marks the end of the legal battle for God's throne. The case is settled. The rest follows automatically. In essence, the matter had already been settled on the cross of Golgotha ​​with the cry, "It is finished." But in the 2,000 years of judgment before his throne, God demonstrates how perfect the work of his Son was, that all the accusers' charges can be dismissed on the basis of the blood of the Lamb. With the seventh head of the dragon, he has exhausted all opportunities to bring charges and has put an end to all litigation.

(2) A second connection with Luke 10 is the reason for joy. Jesus says that the disciples should not rejoice over the submission of demons, but over their names, which are written in heaven. In Revelation 12, we read that there is a call to rejoice because of those same heavens. The "writing of their names in heaven" corresponds to the victory of "our brothers" over Satan, whereby their case in heaven has been settled by the Lamb. But not only their victory is cause for rejoicing. Also the fact that the voice of the accuser has been silenced forever. Day and night, his accusations were heard like a discord in the heavenly glory. And although the blood of the Lamb continually spoke in favor of the accused and acquitted them of all charges, it was still a stain on the heavenly glory. With the casting out of Satan from heaven, this has come to an end forever.

(3) A third connection is found in the power to tread on serpents and scorpions, which can do no harm. This refers to Revelation 9, where we see "harm" inflicted by locusts with tails like "scorpions" and by horses with tails like "serpents." This is still future at the moment of Satan's cast out of heaven, as we saw in the discussion of Revelation 9. From that moment on, evil on earth is fully revealed in the dominion of the beast and the false prophet and the compulsion to accept the mark of the beast on one's body. This placing of the mark of the beast is depicted in Revelation as the infliction of harm by the scorpion and the serpent. It means that God continually gives "our brothers" the opportunity to flee from the dragon's power, as we see happening in the verses that follow in the rest of Revelation 12.

Satan's cast out of heaven means that he can concentrate fully on the earth. This concentration applies to both space (only the earth) and time (only 3.5 years). This extremely limited playing field makes Satan a terrifying monster: “The devil has come down to you, having great wrath, because he knows that his time is short.” This means joy for heaven but “woe” for earth. The “woe” of Revelation 12 coincides with the first “woe” of Revelation 9 (Revelation 8:13 and 9:12). The terrors of the demon world are broken open. The key to the bottomless pit is given to Satan after he falls from heaven. Evil must fully unfold before it can be finally destroyed by God. “It is necessary that offenses come,” Jesus said in Matthew 18:7. For all final judgments against evil, God must have a legitimate basis. That is why evil can proliferate so long and so far. “So that sin would be found exceedingly sinful” (Romans 7:13).

The “woe to the earth and to the sea, and to you who dwell in them” has three meanings. (1) “Woe” for believers, for whom the tribulation will transition into “the great tribulation” of the final 3.5 years. (2) “Woe” for unbelievers, who will be subjected to a terrible tyranny of the beast, under the direct direction of Satan – the consequences are terrible torment (fifth trumpet) or death (sixth trumpet). (3) “Woe” for those who carry out the 3.5-year tyranny. They will face the most terrible judgments before the throne of God. It is an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, as we will see in Revelation 13:10. The Lord Jesus said, “Woe to the world because of offenses! for it must needs be that offenses come: but woe to that man by whom the offense comes!” (Matthew 18:7).

 

Verses 13-14

The Flight

“And when the dragon saw that he had been cast to the earth, he persecuted the woman who had given birth to the male child. And to the woman were given the two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness to her place, where she is nourished for a time, times, and half a time, from the presence of the serpent.”

 

(1) Why does the dragon persecute the woman?

(2) When will this flight take place?

(3) What should we imagine with “the two great wings” of the great eagle?

(4) Where is the wilderness where the woman is nourished for a time, times, and half a time?

(5) By whom is the woman nourished for a time, times, and half a time?

 

(1) Why does the dragon persecute the woman?

This passage is both difficult to understand, but if understood, it provides much insight into the relationships within invisible reality and the way God directs world history. First of all, the stakes must be clear. What interest does the dragon have in persecuting the woman, now that the child has been brought to safety on God's throne?

Central to all of Satan's deliberations is the seed of the woman, which would crush his head. He has been unable to gain control of that seed, Christ. But he knows that the return of Christ must take place among the people of Israel, the woman from whom Christ emerged. If Satan were to succeed in completely eliminating the woman, the people of Israel, then Christ would no longer have a people to return to, and that would make his return according to God's decrees impossible . The prophets indicate in countless places that Christ will appear among his people and redeem them. With the extermination of that people, the rest of all prophecy, including the elimination of Satan, would also be thrown into doubt.

The legal battle before God's throne is over. Satan can no longer accuse the people. He had every basis for accusation. They had rejected their Messiah. They had rejected the witness of the Holy Spirit by stoning Stephen. They had plotted murder against Paul, and their enmity was the cause of his continued imprisonment and eventual beheading. But Jesus had already prayed for their forgiveness on the cross. Paul had wished to be separated from Christ by a curse for the sake of his relatives according to the flesh. Jesus' plea for the "Israel of God" before the throne continued for 2,000 years, alongside his prayers for the church.

A few years before Jesus' return, Satan was cast out of the heavenly court. All that remains for him now is utter violence: to rage like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour: to wipe out the people of Israel completely.

 

(2) When does this flight take place?

In our explanation on the war in heaven, which ended in the casting down of the dragon, we related this to the attack on the Palestinian people, that started with the Balfour declaration of 1917 and that was turned in wholesale theft of their land, through the machinations of the Luciferian organization, called the United Nations. Since six-day war of 1967, the land-theft intensified with support of the US-empire and turned into an oppressing and brutal apartheid regime. Since the start of the last Netanyahu regime, the apartheid regime has turned into a genocide. There is no way out for the Palestinians in former Palestine. All so called humanitarian institutions have proven powerless. All roads to the outside world are completely closed by military means. They are imprisoned on totally bombarded and devastated territories where they are still allowed, which become smaller by the day. The only way out is the sky.

In our estimation, the casting down of the dragon coincided with the start of the genocide. It was seen in 'the devil comet', 12P/Pons-Brooks, which descends every 71 years from North to South, which also happened in the days of our Lord, around the years 27 - 30 AD. This could relate to his remark on satan, falling from heaven like a lightning (Luke 10:18). The comet was closest to earth at the end of April 2024, shortly after the eclipse of April 8.

The rescue of the woman and her flight to the wilderness could also coincide with the crowning of the white horse at the first seal of Revelation 6, which sets in motion 'the conquest'. This could very well be the retaking of the land by the Palestinian people, those who are in the most direct line to ancient Israel. The crowning of the white horse is clearly seen in the sky of December 31, 2025, where both the sun and Venus cover the head of Sagittarius, 'the White Horse', complete with bow and crown at his legs. If so, then God's rescue operation would start on the last day of 2025.

 

(3) What are we to imagine by "the two great wings" of the great eagle?

A flight of the woman in the wilderness was already mentioned in Revelation 12:6. However that was shortly after the events around Jesus' death, resurrection and ascension in Jerusalem. It was in the years 66-70 AD, that the Christian Jews fled over the river Jordan to the mountainous desert of present-day Jordan. Revelation 12 is 'the mirror' of the book, with central 'the blood of the Lamb' and directly before and thereafter the twice mentioning of the woman's flight. We read of the following things in both verse 6 and verse 14: wilderness, its location, the duration (one thousand two hundred and sixty days—time, times, and half a time), and that she was fed during that time. In verse 14, two things are added: "the woman was given two wings of a great eagle" and her place was "from the face of the serpent."

 

The flight takes place as soon as the inhabitants of Judea see "the abomination of desolation standing in the holy place," following the instructions Jesus had already given 2,000 years earlier in Matthew 24:15-21. This "abomination of desolation" means that a person will be worshiped as God in the temple in Jerusalem. This event coincides with the fall of Satan from heaven. We know this from Daniel 9:27: "...and in the middle of the week he will cause sacrifice and offering to cease, and he will set up the abomination of desolation." It is, according to Daniel 9:26, the emperor of the Roman Empire, which will by now have been restored, who will introduce this idolatry, along with the leader of Israel. We encounter both of them again in Revelation 13 as the beast from the sea and the beast from the earth.

The people's flight from the dragon's power will have to take place with great haste and speed, and God will support them in this, as He did during the very first flight of the people of Israel from the land of Egypt: "...you have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles' wings and brought you to myself" (Exodus 19:4). Here, God portrays the crossing of the Red Sea as "the people being carried on eagles' wings." God's actions at such critical moments in history are always accompanied by great speed. Perhaps we should also imagine those eagles' wings in Revelation 12. God comes to the aid of His people in a supernatural way and with great speed so that in no time they will find their place of safety.

There is an important parallel between the flight of the woman 

There is an important parallel with Matthew 24, where the Lord Jesus warns believers who will live in the final week of the year: Matthew 24:15-21 “When you see the abomination of desolation, spoken of through Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place”—let the reader understand—“then let those in Judea flee to the mountains. Let him who is on the housetop not go down to take anything out of his house, and let him who is in the field not go back to get his clothes. But woe to those who are pregnant and to those who are nursing babies in those days! And pray that your flight may not be in the winter, nor on the Sabbath, for then there will be great tribulation, such as has not occurred since the beginning of the world until this time, nor ever will be.”

It speaks of “a flight to the mountains.” This could be the mountains of Judea, where David also fled from Saul and which are full of caves. But a more plausible route is the direction of the Brook Cherith, where Elijah fled from Ahab and where he, like the woman in our passage, hid for three and a half years, while during that entire time, at his prayer, it did not rain in Israel. Similar judgments also came upon the world during the time of the woman's flight, according to the word of the witnesses, according to Revelation 11:6. History repeats itself. The Brook Cherith is also located in a mountainous area on the east side of the Jordan River, in present-day Jordan.

But perhaps most plausibly, it concerns a place whose location we cannot yet pinpoint because it must remain secret from the woman's enemies until after the Great Tribulation. It concerns a place that will only be revealed to her when the time for her flight has come. Mountainous deserts abound in the Middle East.

The great sign in the heavens is also the group of Israelites in Daniel's final week, clinging to God's promises, awaiting the coming of their Messiah, and fleeing the terrible dictates of the very last tyrant in history. Just like the Christians of the first century, they flee Jerusalem. This time for exactly 3.5 years, or 1,260 days.