THE MEANING OF REVELATION 12 PART 2

THE MEANING OF REVELATION 12 (Part 2)

                At the outset of part 2 I would like to reemphasize the fact that I am not making predictions or setting dates. I am only dealing here (As Kevin suggested) with the “What ifs and each of us must decide for ourselves what the signs may mean and whether or not to take them seriously.

                In part one we gave biblical support for these signs actually occurring in the heavens rather than being allegorical. After all, God said right from the beginning that He created the sun, moon and stars for signs and for Moedim ( appointed times)  Gen. 1:14 and then He gave Israel the Feast Days also known as Moedim so that when these signs fall upon these Moedim they tell both Israel and the world something important.

                Now we are going to deal with the man child that is born of the woman. Here we get into complex territory because the woman appears to be God’s Remnant people described in Revelation 12:17 and Revelation 14:12 as keeping the commandments of God and holding to the testimony of Jesus. So these being the faithful children of God that have given birth to the man child then who is the man child that has been caught up to God?

                I believe Paul talks about them in romans 8:19,22 where he says: “For the anxious longing of creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God… for we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now.”

                In Israel there were three different harvests that were celebrated during the year. There was the harvest of the Barley which came first in the year and represented the first fruits. And every year, Jews and Messianic Jews celebrate the waving up and down of the Barley sheaf. It represented the resurrection of Yeshua and His presenting of Himself to the Father as the first fruits of the harvest.

                The next harvest was the wheat harvest that came at the time of Pentecost and strangely enough, this feast was celebrated with leavened bread. This represents the church age that has been a mixture of wheat and tares, sheep and goats, wise and foolish virgins. These have been allowed to grow together until the harvest at the end of the age. But a time of separation is coming when the two groups will be separated and this is the reason for the tribulation. It is a time of separating the wheat from the tares and from the chaff.

                Choices will be forced upon people during the tribulation and so we have things like persecution and the Mark of the Beast during which everyone in this world will choose either Jesus Christ or the antichrist.

                But then we have to ask ourselves this question. What about those people throughout history that have devoted their lives to Jesus Christ in what could be described as a marriage type relationship? They have already made their choice to walk in faithfulness and obedience. They have already allowed the Lord to judge them and correct and discipline them. Do they really need to go through tribulation? Do they really need to be separated from their chaff if they have already dealt with that through the blood of Jesus and through obedience to His Word?

                We are all acquainted with the Gospel theme. We are all judged worthy of death, but Yeshua stepped in and died in our place. He took our judgment so that we could go free. Well, there are millions of people in the world who have received that free gift and they are saved. But Jesus talks about wise and foolish virgins. All ten were believers. All ten were waiting for the Lord’s return. All ten fell asleep. But when the wakeup call came only half of them had oil. Only half of them were able to go into the marriage feast.

                Is it possible that the wise virgins, the Barley company… those who have lived in a marriage type relationship of faithfulness with Jesus Christ will go to the marriage feast and that these are what the Bible identifies as the man child that is caught up and out of reach of the dragon?

                Barley is harvested and separated from the chaff by winnowing. It is merely waved in the air and the breeze takes the chaff away. Likewise there are those for whom the breeze of the Holy Spirit has been enough to separate them from the world and from their sin. They have allowed this process to take place in their lives. And when Jesus said that those who would be His disciples must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow after Him, they really did so. And perhaps, because they but will pass from death unto life. They allowed Yeshua and His Word to judge them all along. They received of the Holy Spirit. They produced the fruit of the Spirit and they received the gifts of the Spirit. They are ready for the marriage of the Lamb.  This is the Barley Company that may just be caught up before the great day of the Lord comes to test those who dwell on the earth.

                Let’s face it honestly folks. There is a huge wheat company making up the church today. They fall across a wide spectrum, but in short they have never denied themselves and taken up their cross and followed Jesus. They “Got saved” and then continued to do their own thing. They had been bought with a price, but they went on acting as if they owned themselves and they could pursue their own goals and agendas as if Yeshua didn’t buy them with His blood at all. They have never truly been betrothed. She has never prepared herself as a Bride adorned for her husband.

                The harvesting of wheat is a much more violent process. Wheat must be threshed violently to separate the wheat from the chaff. Likewise the tribulation will force them either to separate from the chaff or to cling to the chaff and to side with the antichrist. Here we see the great grace and patience and love of God who is not willing that any should perish. Even though they have never had eyes only for Him, HE will give them one last chance to come out of the world and to serve Him. But it will come in a time of intense pressure and heat.

                There is a third harvest in the fall known as the grape harvest. We see this in Revelation 14:18-20 where the second angel put in his sickle and reaped the grapes that were then cast into the winepress of God’s wrath. But the first angel in this story put in his sickle and harvested a group that went up as well. We see them in Revelation 15:1-3 standing on the sea of glass and singing the song of Moses and the Lamb.

                But as for the second grape harvest, these were cast into the winepress of God’s wrath and then we see that wrath beginning in Revelation chapter 16. The wrath of God is made up of the seven last plagues called either the bowl judgments or the vial judgments.

                Then chapter 17 deals with the judgment of the great whore, the woman who rides the Beast and then chapter 18 deals with the judgment of the Beast. Then Revelation 19 shows the Bride returning with Jesus from the marriage supper of the Lamb and riding on white horses to the Battle of Armageddon. This is the second coming and His Bride comes back with Him. Rev. 19:5-16, Zech. 14:5b.

                Honestly, it is hard to sort out every detail. It requires an in depth understanding of the Feasts along with all of the prophetic signs. It does seem to me that the bulk of the church being the wheat company will go through the tribulation and will be caught up to meet the Lord in the air at the second coming of Christ. But it is just as certain that there will be a Bride that is ready to be caught up prior to the second coming for she returns with Christ. And this Bride includes saints from past ages as well for it says in 1 Thess. 4:14 that Jesus will bring WITH HIM those who have fallen asleep in Jesus. So, the first resurrection, that we call the “Rapture” takes place prior to the second coming and is most likely represented by the wise virgins that were ready for the marriage. These are the Bride while the rest are known as “Friends of the Bridegroom.”

       So, in conjunction with the Revelation 12 sign now upon us, some say that the rapture will happen and some say that the tribulation will begin while some think that it all means nothing.

                I do not know exactly what it means, but in my heart of hearts I also believe that we would ignore these signs at our own peril and that we should by all means use this time to repent and to turn to God with all of our hearts. The total eclipse, happening as it did on the very 1^st day of Elul and marking for us a time of repentance leading up to the Day of Atonement surely must be a sign from God.

                The fact that it blazed a trail of darkness across America means that God is about to judge the nations and He will start first with us uponwhom the most light and blessing has shone. He called us to be a light to the world and we started out that way, but in recent years we have rejected God, kicking Him out of our schools, our public places and our government buildings. We have blown smoke in His face by replacing His authority as Creator with a sick and unproven theory of evolution. Instead of the light of the world, America has become the smut capital and sin capital of the world. Judgement will begin here.

                Did you realize that this hurricane across the south could by itself propel us into the tribulation? The New World Order has been looking for an excuse… any excuse to take over global control of the world without it pointing back at them as the culprit. They have been trying to make Trump a scapegoat. They have been goading Kim Jung Un to start something so they can blame it on him. They have been trying everything in their means to get the global ball rolling while appearing to be the world’s saviors rather than its destroyers… and now it has been handed to them on a silver platter.

                They could use this disaster to crash the economy, to institute martial law and to overtake our government. Let’s watch to see what happens over the next few weeks as prices of fuel go up follow by raising prices in every commodity. Watch trucking grind to a standstill for lack of fuel and then watch the rioting in the streets of America as the system begins to fall apart.

                Will this be the time when all of these things happen? Will there be a rapture of the Bride as the Dragon waits to devour her? Will the Wheat Company, the church, then flee into the wilderness of the tribulation as the dragon pursues her? Will she be refined and purified by persecution? Will we see a great falling away from the faith as millions become disillusioned by not having gone up in the rapture? Will there then be a great harvest of souls as people, realizing that what the Bible said was true come to the Lord? Will the woman who gave birth to the man child, now take the final message to the world along with the 144,000 (soon to become) Messianic Jews?

                These are questions we must ask ourselves as this information is filtered through our various beliefs, but one thing is certain and it is simple. Now is the time for repentance and putting away sin, for denying self and taking up our cross to follow Jesus. This much I believe I can say without equivocation.

                We see the signs of His coming in the sky and on the earth. We see it in the uproar of the nations. We see it in nature gone wild. We see it reflected in countless Bible prophecies concerning this time in history. We are the last generation. Israel is about to turn 70. We have seen signs in the sun, moon and stars. They will not happen again for 100 to 500 years and some of them never again.

                When it comes to Trump coming into office rather than Hillary, just picture God as carefully managing the affairs of nations so that everything will come out perfectly according to His appointed times. Maybe with Trump, God just needed a short delay in time. He wanted to offer America one more chance to repent before He pulls the plug. Both the world and the church judge Trump requiring a perfect man to lead a very imperfect nation and a fully committed Christian president to lead a half committed church. What hypocrites we all are.

                So for whatever all of these things mean I believe the jig is up and I believe that the end is upon us and it is time to repent and to make our peace with God. The good news is as Jesus said, “When you see all of these things happening, lift up your heads for your redemption draws nigh.”

                Jesus said in Mt. 24:34, “Truly I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place.” What generation? Did Jesus really think that He was going to return during the life of His disciples? No, he was referring to the generation that would see the fig tree blossom spoken of in the preceding verse. Jesus cursed the fig tree and it withered and died for about 1900 years. But then in 1948 those dry bones came together and life was breathed into them and a nation was born in a day.

                So, as Paul explains in Romans 11:25, a partial blindness or hardening has happened to the Jews until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in Rom. 11:25. The nation of Israel was brought back to life in 1948 and that signals this as being the end of the age. And now we are looking at the end of the times of the Gentiles and the beginning of the time of Jacob’s Trouble. We, the church would need not share this time with the Jews for the tribulation is designed to bring them back to their Messiah. The only reason that many Christians will have to go through the Tribulation is because they never truly entered by faith into Christ’s death and they were never truly born again by the power of His resurrection. They will have to be purified as through fire.

                If your head is spinning, then remember that at its core it is all very simple. Give your life fully to Jesus. Repent and turn from your sins. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. Die to your own self-will and ask Him to lead you. No more playing church. No more trusting in an institution to save you. You must now enter into the real thing and you must overcome by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of your testimony.

                Marriage is never half way. It changes everything. You give up your name and you take on His name. Two lives become one. That union produces fruit. Two people either grow more and more together or more and more apart.  Marriage can be heaven and it can be hell depending upon what both people put into it.

                Well, Jesus has put everything into it. He came into a covenant marriage with you in which He signed it with His own blood. He paid the ransom. He called you unto Himself. He promised never to leave you or forsake you. All He ever wanted was a Bride who loved Him in return. Come to Him today and seal your relationship with Him by receiving His Holy Spirit. You can be His temple. You can be His Bride.