Deadworm
Well-Known Member
Revelation 12:6
The woman represents the congregation of Israel, started with Old Testament Israel and end with the New Testament Israel. The 1260 days the woman is fed in the wilderness is symbolically and is pointing us to the skia or shadow how the Old Testament nation of Israel had to survive in the wilderness nourished of God before they entered the promised land. So the New Testament Church has to follow that exact same path. After this woman (the congregation of Israel) was persecuted by Satan and brought forth Christ who was caught up to the throne to reign, she fled from the Judaizers into the wilderness (wasteland, Desert or desolate Place), which is a portrait of the barrenness of the Nations/Gentiles. This because they don't know God, and not part of the commonwealth of Israel, and are a people without spiritual bread and water. It is WHERE God had prepared a safe place for the congregation of Israel because it was His will that the wilderness or desert bring forth abundantly, just as Israel once did. God had made a place in this wilderness or desert that would be fruitful for the woman.
- "And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she hath a place prepared of God, that they should feed her there a thousand two hundred and threescore days."
John 6:31
That word translated "desert" means a barren place without water or food. In other word, the world was once without Gospel. And God had to miraculously feed His children bread from heaven and Water from a rock, signifying Salvation. As I said, all God's miracles are signs signifying some Spiritual truth. This word translated "desert" is the exact same word translated "wilderness" in Revelation chapter 12. It signifies a barren place void of the bread and water of Christ, which the Gentiles/Nations were.
- "Our fathers did eat manna in the desert; as it is written, He gave them bread from heaven to eat."
Revelation 12:14
Again, not a literal woman in literal heaven given literal wings, not Virgin Mary, and not Nation Israel, but signifying the people of God representing the congregation of Israel and the are protected by God (Exodus 19:4; Isaiah 40:31) in this Desert place in the wilderness, and is there nourished of God. God prepared a place for her away from the face of the Serpent Satan (Satan was ast down and bound), which indicates God assured it was there the congregation of Israel could not be hurt, and receive power of God (Holy Spirit) to bring the elect Gentiles/Nations out of the darkness wherein Satan held them in strong delusion.
- "And to the woman were given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness, into her place, where she is nourished for a time, and times, and half a time, from the face of the serpent."
Revelation 20:3
Satan was cast down and was bound, but not from literal heaven and not with literal chains, but with spiritual chains. Spiritually, Satan was restrained from deceiving the world so that Christ could spoil the people from the world through the Church. God is using this woman, the New Covenant Congregation of Israel, to reach the Nations/Gentiles in the wilderness (world) during this millennial period that they are not deceived, but instead made fellow heirs of the commonwealth of Israel.
- "And cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled: and after that he must be loosed a little season."
Ephesians 2:11-12
For example, it was for THIS reason that Satan had to bound FIRST in order for this millennial period reign (1000 years) of Christ to be established and went forth into the world, so that the elect of these Nations/Gentiles in the wilderness would be set free of their deceiving. The words translated Nations and Gentiles are the exact same word! God was not talking about political nations here!
- "Wherefore remember, that ye being in time past Gentiles in the flesh, who are called Uncircumcision by that which is called the Circumcision in the flesh made by hands;
- That at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world:"
The preparation of this place is synonymous with Christ giving power to the apostles that they couldn't be hurt by Serpents and Scorpions in the wilderness. In other words, during this period, Satan is bound from preventing the church from going forth as two witnesses evangelizing the nations that they are not deceived. Yet God warned that AFTER this millennial reign of the church in the wilderness, when all the Israel of God are sealed, Satan would be then loosed and the Nations will be deceived once again (Revelation 20:7-8) ushering in the great tribulation period for the woman for a short season prior to Second Coming.
That is basically what Revelation 12 is all about.
The OP is a prime illustration of the danger of reading the Bible as a newspaper of events in our future without asking what the imagery meant to John and the persecuted Christians under imperial Rome in John's day. In the 60s AD a prophetic oracle in the Jerusalem church commanded believers to flee to Pella near the wilderness in what is modern Jordan. There are various early Christian descriptions of this Flight to Pella. Pella is 1 of 10 cities of the Greek Decapolis, the region in which Jesus' mission was initially greeted with the greatest success. So the Jerusalem church went there because of the anticipated support of many converts there.
The pregnant Woman is Jesus' mother, either Mary or spiritual Israel, which gave birth to the Messiah. The early church recognized the Beast as Nero redivivus. Indeed, the letters of "emperor Nero" in Hebrew also represent numbers, which add up to 666.
When Nero was forced to flee to Asia Minor, he apparently committed suicide. But Roman historian record rumors that he would rise and try to regain his throne and the Christian belief that Satan would resurrect him from his mortal wounds is reflected in Revelation 13:1. Indeed, they were terrified by no less than 3 Nero impersonators who appeared from Asia Minor. "Babylon" was a standard circumlocution for Rome in early Judeo-Christian apocalyptic, not a reference to the latter-day Roman Catholic church nor some other endtime entity. Posters would profit by reading academic commentaries on the Book of Revelation which support these points.
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