"Number seven", or... the next world ruler is not antichrist
There is a new world order in the works. Angelic forces fight for it. When all is said and done, the world will look exactly as God saw it when He revealed it to us in the first century, not to mention Daniel’s century.
Revelation 17 speaks of seven mountains. World Kingdoms. World Rulers. In John’s day, five had already passed off the scene. One existed. One was yet to come, and it/he has not yet come in our own day.
Matching Daniel’s “statue” vision, his “animal” vision, and John’s comments here and in chapter 13, it becomes clear that Rome was the kingdom that “now is” in John’s day, and that that same kingdom was seen by Daniel as the last, but not the last. For out of that kingdom, in its extremities, as toes on a body, was to come another kingdom. Here in Revelation 17, the statement is simply made that a seventh kingdom will arise, then an eighth.
The seventh ruler will mount the throne of the seventh Empire. This will be an Empire formed around the Mediterranean Sea, Revived Rome. It would seem now that this ten-nation conglomeration will be made up of both kingdoms and democracies, pseudo-Christian and Muslim. It will be a force unparalleled, headquartered in Rome, dominating all.
I believe its original charter will include a solution to “the Jewish problem.” In a masterful stroke of diplomacy, the “Emperor” will allow Jews to have their Temple worship, complete with sacrifice and offering, at the top of their precious Temple mount. Judaism will thus defy the provision God has already made for sin.
Though this man is wise and popular and powerful, he is not the last ruler. For John talks of a man who arises during his reign to become the “eighth”. He says that number seven will only rule a short while.
Yet number eight, says John, is one of the seven. This is a resurrection. This is a miracle man. This is the man of sin, the antichrist of all antichrists, Satan’s final creation. He will easily be able to overpower kingdoms and take the Empire to himself. But he will have an agenda far different from number seven.
One obvious goal will be the annihilation of Israel. Though Bible prophecy kicks in with number seven and his treaty with Israel (see Daniel 9), a flood of prophecies are fulfilled when he breaks said treaty, takes away sacrifice and offering, surrounds Jerusalem with an army, and thereby initiates three and one half years of hell on earth.
Which of the seven will be resurrected? Whoever he is, he “was” and “is not” in John’s day. Therefore, he must be one of the five already fallen. Daniel 10-12 fairly screams the answer to this mystery, but that is the subject of another essay. (Read my book Who is the Antichrist. )
My point here is to warn the gullible, who form conclusions on half-baked ideas, that the rise of a world leader does not signal that antichrist is on the way immediately. First the seventh world ruler, then the usurper comes and sets in motion the final events of pre-millennial history.
My apologies to those for whom absolute literal interpretation is anathema. It’s the only way I know…
Jesus is coming soon
Jesus is coming soon?
You hear it in a lot of churches. And not to say "amen" is akin to blasphemy in some minds. Jesus is coming soon! I've said it a lot through the years, and although I believe He may be coming for me pretty soon, I feel it's important that I be a part of correcting pop theology, so here goes.
In the English Bibles with which I am familiar, Jesus is never quoted as saying, "I am coming soon." Instead, it is usually, "I am coming quickly." That's a different idea. In the Greek original, the word is tachu. And yes, both ideas can be conveyed by the word. One can be talking about "when" or "in what manner" with that same word. We're left with a need to interpret.
Here is how I interpret all this.
First, Jesus cannot lie. He is the Truth. "Soon" to us means within the next few minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, or to stretch it to its max, a few years. 2,000 years could not be considered "soon" by any mortal. And it was to mortals He said these words. Believers in the "soon" doctrine will be ridiculed for no reason. In fact that very thing has happened and was prophesied by Peter (I Peter 3). We have been saying in every generation, "Jesus is coming SOON." And He didn't come. Now they mock the whole idea of His coming at all, just as Peter said.
Second, these individual statements about "coming quickly" are not the only way Jesus expressed the thought. He said in Matthew 24 that He will come as the lightning. Suddenly. Quickly. Tachu. The sun sets gradually. That is not tachu. A man returns from a trip gradually. You see his plane, then him as a dot, then a man, then face to face. That is not tachu.
And Jesus is not coming that way, as many even in our generation have speculated, that one day we will realize that Jesus is here, that he slowly has made His Presence felt. No, that is not "tachu". Jesus says, "When I do come, I will come without announcement, without delay, as the lightning, as the vultures on a piece of dead meat." That's tachu.
Jesus is near. He is at hand. That's why when He appears, it
is suddenly. Jesus did not tell His disciples, I'm coming back in a few days or months. Instead He gave them clear-cut signs (Matthew 24) to identify the world scene at the time of His coming. Then He told them He had no clue when He would return. That is, the Father had not revealed to Him the time of Earth's history when the signs would all be fulfilled. But the generation that lives at that time will know...
Both Paul and Jesus (II Thessalonians 2 and Matthew 24) are clear: Don't let anyone deceive you. I'm not coming back until... (We'll talk about the signs some other time). But when He does come, it will be quickly. And remember that Jesus told them about signs when they asked when He would be returning.
Why such a teaching? Why tell us several times He is coming quickly? So that believers through the years will not be led astray into following false Messiahs who will appear here and there, take out ads in newspapers, start communities, all the while trying to convince people they are God's promised One.
No, when Jesus comes, it is tachu. There'll be no questions
asked or answers needed. The "when" of His coming we must discuss sometime. But the "how" is certainly "quickly."
The third Temple cometh!
Don't tell an Orthodox Jew you don't believe a literal Temple is coming to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. The plans have been laid for years, and only politics, angel-restrained politics, hinder its rise. Listen:
"As our forefathers in the biblical times did when they made the pilgrimage on the Feast of Succoth (the Feast of Tabernacles), the Temple Mount and Land of Israel Faithful Movement made an exciting pilgrimage to the Temple Mount, the location of the First and the Second Temples and the location of the Third Temple which is soon to be rebuilt, on the 17th of Tishrei 5767 (October 9, 2006).
"This major event was an important part of the historical campaign of the Temple Mount Faithful Movement and her mission to build the Third Temple on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem in our lifetime. It was another important step in the intensive activities of the Movement. The Faithful Movement marched to the Temple Mount with a large model of the Temple and other vessels reconstructed to be used in the Third Temple which attracted a lot of attention from thousands of Israelis who came to be blessed . . . "
That's from the "Temple Mount Faithful" web page. OK, they've missed the date again, but there's a date circled on the Heavenly calendar that will not be missed.
Are you asking, "Why is it the 'third' and not the fourth?" I mean, there was Solomon's (I Kings), and Zerubbabel's (Ezra), Herod's ...not so fast, not so fast. Herod's was merely a major renovation of Zerubbabel's, not a third Temple.
But the Third is on the way. Regularly a cornerstone is carried in procession toward the Mount, and regularly it is stopped by Muslims who believe the Mount is theirs.
I believe that part of the treaty that antichrist will sign with the government of Israel will involve Muslims relinquishing their rights to the "Dome of the Rock", and perhaps forcing Jews to internationalize Jerusalem.
Revelation 11:2 tells us that in the final 3 and 1/2 years of history, Jerusalem will be "trodden down" by the Gentiles. Yet we know there is a Temple in Jerusalem during that time also, because Paul (II Thessalonians 2) says that antichrist, the man of sin, will go to that Temple and be the last and worst abomination the world will ever have to endure: he will claim to be God and demand worship from that very edifice.
A Gentile-trodden city with a Temple for Jews. Incredible days are coming.
God and His words are in the news regularly. The Jewish conflict... a continuation of Genesis. The rise of Europe and Islam... Daniel. The Temple ... also Daniel, along with Paul and John.
And after the Third Temple, and after the impostor who sits there, and after the world has all but forgotten the grace and power of God, Jesus Himself returns.
Watch! Watch! Watch!
Antichrist clues
Here are some Biblical facts about antichrist, called by Paul "the man of sin" and by John the "beast". We may not get the full illumination of Scripture into our hearts until the time is upon us, but let's use the obvious knowledge we have now to lay a foundation of understanding. Those who do not know what the Word says are candidates for deception.
Warning: the following information is not in trendy "end-times" literature and movies, but it is in your Bible!
1. He is the 8th in a series of world-class emperors/kings. (Revelation 17:9-11)
2. Though he is the eighth, he is also one of the first seven. (Revelation 17:9-11)
3. Therefore, unless he is the seventh one, and I believe facts point otherwise, he has already lived on the planet.
4. As a resurrected emperor, he will not be born and raised all over again! All attempts to locate him on the planet now or at any time are therefore futile. Especially because,
5. (Revelation 17:8) "...he will ascend out of the bottomless pit..." This gels perfectly with Paul's words in II Thessalonians 2:9-10. Here Paul tells us that the coming of antichrist will be Satan-powered, deceptive, miraculous. Perhaps he will try to mimic the second coming of Christ, and deceive many. White horse? Signs in the heavens?
6. So that there is no mistake in his identity, Daniel goes into great detail in his book (ch. 11) to pinpoint the man who is transformed into antichrist. He originally lived in the Middle East, and he has some unfinished business with the Jews. I'll let you dig for the rest of his i.d.
7. He will commit the ultimate "abomination of desolation" (Matthew 24:15). We know that that phrase has been thought to refer to the defiling of the Temple by idols and pigs. Those events were only previews of the real thing. Paul says in II Thessalonians 2 that this man will himself enter the (newly constructed third) Temple and declare that He is God. A living abomination that will be the signal for chaos on the planet.
If any of this sounds new or bizarre to believers reading, may I suggest that God's people lay aside the novels and speculations and pop theology and just read what God has told us!
Of Wormwood
On this Thanksgiving Day 2006 I read in the news that a 25-million ton asteroid is hurtling through space at this very minute, and is scheduled to pass uncomfortably close to Earth in 2029. The call is going out from NASA for a hero who will, Hollywood-style, find a way to avert this disaster.
No, really, that's in the news!
And I read in my Bible that a great star-like mass "burning like a torch" is scheduled to arrive here one day, affecting one-third of our water supply in such a way as to poison "many." Is there a match here? There was a time when the Book of Revelation seemed so "far out", but now we begin to see God meant exactly what He said.
One thing is certain. When God sends "Wormwood", the poison star of Revelation 8:10-11, there will be no rescue by mankind. Mankind, minus the remnant and the Kingdom, will be finished! When the rain of judgment begins to fall here, it will not stop pouring until God has completed the task with a fiery deluge far surpassing the watery one of 4,500 years ago.
Have a happy Thanksgiving . This judgment is not for true believers. We give thanks to God for His creation and His new creation (that's us!), and the coming renewal of the creation, the new heavens and the new earth. We've only just begun and there's all of eternity to be thankful for.
It was a unique blessing that America had the foresight to set aside a day for such a worthy cause as giving thanks. Oh that more of His people will turn from football and feasting today, and turn to thanking God for His great store of blessings.
Christ is at hand
Jesus would never deceive His people. Never mislead them. What He says is always perfectly true. But surface skimmers will never discover this. They will take a look, decide it is unbelievable and either concoct an even more unbelievable explanation or walk away from faith altogether.
Have you never cringed a bit when preachers say Jesus is definitely coming and coming soon? I have. Because I don't want God's truth to be ridiculed or ignored. So why the title of this article? Why do I carry on with a line of thinking that will cause some to lose faith?
Read again. My title dos not promise a soon coming, though it may be relatively soon. Jesus never promised this. He promised that when He came He would come quickly. Swiftly. In the twinkling of an eye. No evolution. No warm up. Signs beforehand, yes. But the actual appearance immediate.
I say what He said, that His coming is near. That's not only a chronological word, it's a geographical one. The Greek, pronounced engus, means "at hand." See Luke 21:8 , where the time is said to be engus. But then in the next chapter, Judas draws engus to Christ to kiss Him.
We earth-bounds think that near means soon. But another think or so reminds us of the times we almost won the maiden's heart, or almost got the prize, or almost fell down the steps. A miss can sometimes be as good as a mile, but near is almost, not altogether.
I enjoy taking a radical approach to Scripture. That is, believing it as it is. John in Revelation 1:3 says that His coming is eggus. John and all the early believers believed it would be soon. They were wrong. But the word they used was correct. It was at hand. It was very close. And it still is.
Some say, Well if it was so close back then, it must be very much closer now. No, we cannot run away with the text. The time is still at hand, eggus. We are still very near, just as we always were. He hovers, waits, while the Gospel seeks out every nook and cranny on earth, hopeful of one more who will be saved.
When antichrist comes and is given His permission to do His worst, the church's ranks will thin out. The salt will be removed, not by rapture, but by destruction. When salt is removed, the Creator's taste for the planet will be lessened until finally that which is hovering will be landed.
The best example I could think of is the helicopter. It can stay in one place for long periods of time. It can be very near, at hand, without being at its final destination. So the Lord is not far from each of us. We need not yell our prayers. His Spirit is within us and His body hovers over the planet, seeking and saving and soon wrapping up His program for mankind.
Let's not grow weary waiting. This word is especially meaningful to folks like our North Korean friends suffering in prison camps for their faith. Hang on.
Above all, let us not corrupt and change His Word because we thought that maybe a mistake was made. It's still true. I can hear the wings whooshing above us right now. And you?
Of seals and horsemen
If I understand the first few chapters of Revelation correctly, a man and a situation are coming to this planet that, it seems to me, few have anticipated and for which even fewer have prepared. So many have not even heard the Voice of Scripture. Of those who have heard, few have understood. Fewer still have believed. And of that handful, I wonder how many would be prepared, as, say, the North Koreans are already prepared, for this disaster?
Say what you will about Kim and his nation, the Christians there who have braced themselves for torture and loss will be able to face with confidence the coming onslaught. This is one reason the true church, far from pitying our wonderful brothers, honors them and looks to them for guidance about carrying the cross. Yes, what book, what fine author is there who can tell us more about the suffering of Jesus today than the North Korean believers who live it out hour by painful hour?
What is coming? One who once lived on the planet, who is being hidden from view now, will suddenly return as the world's messiah, and deceive the nations by many signs and wonders. Our media-driven and media-crazed world will have no trouble giving their allegiance to this superman. In these early efforts he will be mimicking the real Christ who was and is (though now also is hidden from view) and is to come.
The first of the seals of chapter 6 reveals that, as Hitler and others before him, this newly crowned saviour will march into countries as conqueror, and no one will fire a shot. He will mesmerize and intimidate. No one will dare to speak against him. He will seem to have the answer to world peace.
Eventually, says seal 2, there will be a reaction. A bloodbath will ensue. World War III, so long talked about and feared, yet denied, will occur. Truly a war to end all wars. Seal 3, poverty, and 4, death by many other means, will follow quickly.
These four seals are seen as horsemen, the quickest form of transportation in the days when this vision was given. These things will not be spread out over centuries, but over just a few years. In that short time, one fourth of the humans living will be killed. In many places the human population will be so scarce that animals will once more become a threat to man's safety.
Throughout this period, the church of Jesus Christ, called the "saints" in Revelation, will suffer greatly, and will be victims of a concerted effort for extinction. They will die in many ways, but they will die. They will visibly be defeated, but will by God's standards thus be overcomers. We have forgotten that losing one's life for Christ is winning it eternally. And that those who hold on to their lives here are the ultimate losers. Where did that teaching go?
As this relatively short era winds down, natural wonders will herald the immediate return of the true Messiah, an angry God whose stored-up wrath will now decimate the nations opposed to Him. And then will come to pass the Scripture we have sung and heard so often, "And He shall reign forever and ever."
I challenge my fellow comfortable saints to heed the warnings, and to look to the suffering church for a way to be ready for what surely will come.
No saint left behind
How strange is the new doctrine that states that those saints who arrive in Heaven during the last years of Earth as we know it are not really the church. These believers, living as they do through earth's greatest trouble time are, in the modern teaching, Tribulation Saints. They got left behind because of their backslidden condition. Jesus took His real church to Heaven for banquets and parties and allowed these dregs of Christian society to fend for themselves and get to glory only by death at the hands of the antichrist.
Let that sink in awhile. The true church is Up There enjoying all that life can give to a believer, when suddenly a Tribulation Saint dies, is funneled upwards, and, and what? Crashes the party? Is kept in a back room for even more shame? Oh my. I think modern theology is just as shallow as it is widespread.
My Bible shows a different picture altogether. Revelation 7, verses 9-17, paints an unforgettable image of these Tribulation Saints. First, it agrees with the title being attached to them today, they are the saints of the tribulation period. But it does not suggest by any rule of logic or communication that these saints are different in species from the saints who walk the earth in our non-tribulation but very troubled world.
No, they look very familiar. They are from every nation, as the church today is. They are clothed in white, as Jesus had promised to all overcomers a few chapters earlier. They are crying out praises to their Saviour. That's what church folks do, you know. The Lamb receives them, wipes away their tears, welcomes them tenderly into the joys of their Lord. Oh, this is the Body of Christ, the Church. And they did not get there through an escape route. They walked straight into the mouth of the lion and found in his interior eternal life. No rebuke. No hardness. Jesus is so happy that they have arrived. And the party will not start until the last saint is home!
Now I readily confess that this group, upon whom the evils of an antichrist are thrust, are a breed apart. They are akin to saints suffering even now in North Korea and many other places on the planet. This is why we in the West may have trouble recognizing them. This is why we have assigned to them only this horrible tormenting, this lowly backslidden unworthiness, this implication that persecution is really punishment upon those who have earned Christ's frown. Surely, we say, He smiles only at the prosperous on Earth, who have made something of their lives.
Oh how God's people need to be reminded that the cross of Christ is not a spanking at all. That, in every generation and in every life, the cross is a personal daily choice. It's not your sore toe or your rheumatism or the boss's displeasure of your ways. It's not your lowly house or slow car or your location in town or your skin color. It's Christ in you, working visibly through you, and causing rejection of you. It's a pathway to death. But a death that leads to the arms of Jesus.
"Jesus...suffered outside the gate. Therefore let us go forth to Him, outside the camp, bearing His reproach." (Hebrews 13:12-13)
When the trumpet of the Lord shall sound
It was one of our favorite songs.
"When the trumpet of the Lord shall sound,
and time shall be no more..."
Back in the days when I first heard and sang that great hymn of the faith, I had never seen the Biblical status of the trumpet, the Hebrew shofar. A quick study reveals this dynamic instrument, the horn of a ram, in battles, in praise to God, as an instrument of warning. But for us in this later generation, perhaps its most compelling usage is as the signal of the end.
Sounding much like the Spirit's words to the prophet Daniel, the New Testament Seer John is shown a mighty angel (Revelation 10) with a mighty announcement. He plants feet on land and sea and cries out like a lion, lifting his holy hand to Heaven, and swears that time shall be no more. Just like the song said.
He goes on to tell the exact moment of that ending. It will be signaled by the sounding of the last of a series of seven trumpet blasts. Mere poetry? In the next chapter that very trumpet, the seventh, sounds off. Immediately the kingdoms of this world fall to Christ Jesus! His wrath falls on the planet. There are judgments and resurrections. Time as we know it has ended.
Knowing that the seventh trumpet is the last trumpet before the very end helps clear up a mystery that modern pop theologians have introduced in these modern days about the timing of the second coming. For John is not the only one who mentions a trumpet at the end. Jesus and Paul do too.
Jesus says (Matthew 24) that after the tribulation period, nature will give out, Jesus will appear, and at the sound of a trumpet, He'll gather His own to Himself. We call this gathering the rapture today. That word has scared a lot of people away, but all it means is that we go from where we are to where He is.
Paul, in I Corinthians 15 says that one day we will all be changed from these vile bodies. It will happen in an instant. And that instant, he says, is the last trumpet. "For the trumpet will sound and the dead will be raised incorruptible. And we shall be changed."
The message is clear and consistent. World chaos. World war. World dictator. Then suddenly in the air Jesus appears. The angel sounds the shofar, and off we go forever to be with the Lord. Great words of comfort. Great words of hope.
When God foretold television
God let readers in 90 A.D. know that one day all the world would see an event happening in Jerusalem, Israel. The whole visual media explosion we have experienced in the last 70 years is no surprise to Heaven.
What was the event foretold? It's the death of two men. Two men the world will hate. Prophets. They are foretold by another prophet, Zechariah, in the 4th chapter of his book: "These [two olive trees seen in Zechariah's vision] are the two anointed ones who stand beside the Lord of the whole earth." That's where they stand now, anyway. One day they will come to earth as God's witnesses (Revelation 11:3). In verse 4 the Lord through John ties them to Zechariah's prophecy by calling them "two olive trees...standing before the God of the earth."
Are they alive today? Will they be born and raised in a good Jewish home, come to Christ and go to the wilderness like John the Baptist? No, Zechariah is clear. These two men are in Heaven as I write these words. Their entrance to earth will be a miraculous visitation, as will the antichrist's...
Speculation abounds as to their identity. We probably know them. They are men who never died and so must come and keep their appointment with death, as all men must. Two Old Testament men never died. One's burial place is disputed. You can take it from there. It's not the point of this article.
From the heavenlies these men come and preach God's final warning to a sick planet ruled by a sickening dictator. They will have miraculous powers, as prophets of old had. Whoever can believe the Old Testament can believe what I am writing. Those who have trouble with extra-ordinary events are in for some surprises.
Their fellow extra-terrestrial will be given power over them when God is certain that He has said all that needs to be said to corrupted humanity. Christians too will be called home via the genocide of the people of God. Their testimony will be sealed, their life's purpose will have been fulfilled.
The in-human race will have a true field day when the prophets are killed. To shame them before the world, they will allow their dead bodies to be viewed on prime-time TV as a monument to the power of the Great Leader. But as they watch-and here by the way is the reason television was invented-as they watch, these two men will slowly awaken, stand, and be caught up to Heaven. And "all flesh will see it together", the glory of the Lord. (Isaiah 40:5)
Those who glibly talk about a pre-tribulation rapture are faced with a dilemma here. In chapter 4, when John is told "Come up here," he is in the Spirit, with the Lord, and our pop theologians declare, "See! That's the time when the entire church is caught up to Heaven, just before all the trouble breaks out!"
No. That's just when John is caught up. And here in chapter 11, the same words come to these two men. "Come up here." If ever there were a model for the rapture it is these two. Their entire body and soul is unquestionably raised, as our (new) body and soul will be caught up. But no, this is not the rapture either. The rapture is when we all hear the voice of God, when Jesus returns in judgment, a judgment which His church will never bear. The Tribulation is not the Judgment.
What horrendous days will come to us, perhaps soon. Weary ones, no time for letting up or letting down. Keep the lamps burning. And you who are free, will you go in Spirit to the prisons of earth tonight where God's people languish, and intercede for them? Will you pray for citizens of brainwashed nations like North Korea, who know how to suffer, but who do not yet know why and for whom suffering is a great honor? Pray that the light of God's Word will be shed upon them that they not enter this darkest road of Earth's history without a road map
The woman, the children, and the dragon
The Book of Revelation, product of the Spirit working in the apostle called John, is more manageable than you might think, once you get serious about deciphering its codes.
In the midst of all the serial action, the series of seals, the series of trumpets, the series of bowls, there are snapshots of characters and situations that the Spirit wants you to see. One of the most memorable pictures is in the 12th chapter. There one finds a woman, a child, then more children, all of which are threatened by a 7-headed dragon. I'm usually a literalist, but the Spirit Himself (in the Word) tells me not to be in this chapter, and even gives me identities of most characters.
The woman (1-2) at first glance seems to be Mary. Who else could have given birth to a male child that would rule all nations (5)? Hold that question until you read verse 6 and verses 13-17. There, the very same woman is airlifted to a secret destination where she is protected from the dragon's wrath for three and one half years.
The three and a half years in Revelation is the time of tribulation. Sometimes the number is 42 months. Sometimes "a time, times, and half a time." Sometimes 1260 days. But the time period is the same. I personally believe that the entire story of earth's destruction bit by bit , Revelation 4-19, takes place in three and one half years. Seals, trumpets, bowls, everything.
Well, Jesus' mother was not whisked away into a wilderness. That picture is reserved for another entity of Scripture. God promises Israel in Hosea 2 that He will "allure her into the wilderness, and speak comfort to her..." I believe that it is at this juncture of history, the Tribulation, that God calls a remnant of Jews, 144,000 to be exact, and personally appears to them and saves and forgives them.
Israel goes to the wilderness, therefore Israel must be the woman who brings forth the child Jesus into the world. Yes, a woman that is sun and moon and 12 stars can only be the same thing Joseph of Genesis saw in his dream: the people of God.
The woman has other children. The nation of Israel, approached by the Son of God in the first century, by and large rejected the message. But the first disciples and the first churches and the Scriptures and the Messiah Himself: all Jewish. All Israel. Truly, "Father Abraham had many sons..."
So a woman has some children. One is caught up to Heaven. The others are chased by the dragon. And the woman herself is protected from further harm. The only unidentified creature now is the dragon himself. But that one is taken care of by the text. He is identified as the old serpent, as in the Garden, the Devil or evil one, and Satan or the enemy.
Yet even here, in dragon form, we know he does his work through humans. That Devil-filled king called Herod is alluded to as the one who sought to devour Jesus as soon as He was born. Later in the text the same dragon will be using, we know from other texts, the antichrist.
The context of the chapter is war in Heaven. This is a war that Satan loses. He is stripped of his heavenly credentials and dumped on Earth, angry as anyone has ever been. At this very juncture, the similarly angry man of sin who has been waiting all these centuries to be released, leaves the pit. The restrainer lets go. The captive rises and is inhabited by the fallen angel himself.
He is especially violent against the woman and any of her seed, as they represent the thwarting of his attempt to gain again world domination. He has lived in anger during the centuries as he was stopped in his quest and humiliated before Heaven. No more of this. He knows his time is short, and he begins conquering immediately. All Christians must go. Jews he pursues first, but the elect are carried away from his reach, as we saw earlier.
One intriguing bit of information is hidden in verses 15 and 16. The enemy will somehow unleash a flood to destroy the hiding Jews. But a natural phenomenon will keep the flood from having any effect.
Some have said this is a flood of lies or a flood of people as in Jeremiah. But there is a sense of factual truth to it. For John is not alone in predicting a flood. Daniel says (9:26) that one of the end marks of the destruction of Israel in the last days shall be a flood. Amos 8:8 and 9:5 predict a time when flooding as in the Nile River will affect God's people. The place of hiding hinted at by one prophet is the Valley of Achor, surely a geographical spot prone to flooding.
So we have the final condition of Israel and the Church. Some of it is no different than today. Israel is hated worldwide. True Christians - the ones who preach sin, and judgment, Christ the only Way, Truth and Life - those kinds of Christians, are also despised. Those who despise them are exposed as Satan-inspired in Revelation 12.
Can you imagine a world where knowing Christ will bring instant death? To see it in your mind's eye, a quick look at places like North Korea today will help bring things into focus. God have mercy on His people. Their greatest trials and their greatest victories are still ahead.
